A Review of Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell
| Publication year | 2010 |
Georgia State University Law Review
3-21-2012
A Review of Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell
Kevin E. Grady
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Recommended Citation
Grady, Kevin E. (2009) "A Review of Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell," Georgia State
University Law Review: Vol. 26: Iss. 4, Article 6.
Available at: http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/gsulr/vol26/iss4/6
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A REVIEW OF THREE GENERATIONS, NO IMBECILES: EUGENICS, THE SUPREME COURT, AND BUCK V. BELL
Kevin E. Grady*
Professor Paul Lombardo has been a man on a mission since 1980, and he has culminated his quest by writing a wonderfully insightful book that should be required reading for any attorney practicing healthcare law or any attorney interested in reproductive freedom.1 Most of us have probably not thought much about the Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell2 since our first year Constitutional Law class when we read Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous quotation: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."3 In that case, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Virginia's law that allowed forced sterilization of inmates or patients at mental institutions who were found to be "insane, idiotic, imbecile, feebleminded or epileptic, and by the laws of heredity is the probably potential parent of socially inadequate offspring likewise afflicted
Paul Lombardo came across the case as a graduate student in history at the University of Virginia in 1980, and has doggedly pursued the historical facts behind the decision and the significance of the case since that time.51 am probably like a lot of lawyers who considered the Buck case long overruled by other Supreme Court decisions or relegated to irrelevancy by the historical reality that found Nazi eugenics so repulsive. Lombardo's book is an insightful
* Kevin E. Grady, retired partner, Alston & Bird, Atlanta. Mr. Grady previously served as Chair of the Section of Antitrust Law of the American Bar Association, Chair of the Health Care Committee of the State Bar of Georgia, and President of the Georgia Academy of Health Care Attorneys. He has a B.A. from Vanderbilt University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
1. See Paul A. Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, The Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell (2008).
2. Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927).
3. Id. at 207.
4. 1924 Va. Acts 570; see Buck, 274 U.S. at 207. Buck v. Bell involved a challenge to the constitutionality of a Virginia statute allowing for sterilization. Id.
5. Lombardo, supra note 1, at ix-xiv.
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wake-up call that reminds all of us that the Buck case has never been overruled by the Supreme Court and that it stands as a dangerous precedent to the power of the government to interfere with reproductive rights of all Americans. Lombardo also reminds us that those who would want to reverse or substantially interfere with the reproductive freedom or privacy rights in Roe v. Wade6 may look to Buck as precedent for the government's ability to limit citizens' personal reproductive freedom.
Lombardo's scholarship and writing ability in this book have been recently recognized by the Georgia Writers Association, which named Lombardo the 2009 Author of the Year in its history category. The book is carefully researched, but unlike many scholarly works, Lombardo's style is not dry or passive. He tells a compelling story of how Carrie Buck became a victim of the zealotry of a small group of eugenicists who wanted to make her a "test case" for the constitutionality of compulsory sterilizations for those who might produce "socially inadequate offspring."7
The Relationship Between Eugenics and Progressives
Lombardo introduces us to the faux science of eugenics, which many leading individuals at the turn of the twentieth century considered to be the "science of good breeding."8 Indeed, the eugenics movement was the dark underside of the Progressive Movement with its desire to apply principles of efficiency to the management of government and to delegate control of social welfare programs to a professionally trained class of experts. As Lombardo explains, Gregor Mendel's 1865 work on the inherited characteristics of sweet peas formed the foundation for the study of genetics, and this work was basically rediscovered in 1900 in Europe and America to provide a scientific basis for the "laws of heredity."9 Many leading figures in the U.S. in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth
6. Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
7. Lombardo, supra note 1, at ix-xiv.
8. /rf.atxi.
9. Id. at 30.
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century were strong proponents of the idea that criminality, sexual promiscuity, and mental health problems were inherited traits.10 Lombardo points out that such prominent figures as Dr. Oliver...
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