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Friday, March 29, 2013
Buck v Bell=Dystopian Future?
I haven't gotten too far into the Lombardo book yet, but I can already tell that it is already going to be interesting. Before I started it, I only knew a VERY small amount about the eugenics movement in the United States: basically, all I knew was that it happened. However, when I got to thinking about it, and as I got to reading the Lombardo's book, the whole situation really reminded me a LOT of Dystopian literature (I'm a big fan of Dystopian lit, ever since I took a class in undergrad), especially books like Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, where social engineering, which is just a synonym for the word 'eugenics,' becomes the norm. Even though the Supreme Court probably thought they were doing the right thing in Buck v Bell, who are WE, as humans, to determine whether or not other people should be forced to undergo sterilization? Who are we to define 'socially inadequate'? This leads to another problem: people will have different ideas of what is socially inadequate. It's really a slippery slope, and really pretty terrifying to think that happened, and not even all that long ago.
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I agree, the control over people's bodies is astounding,especially the conrol over women's bodies. That argument is yet going on today on Roe v Wade. If the eugenics supporters had their way, many of us would not have been born.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found ironic was some of the men who actively supported forced sterilization qualified for it themselves.
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