Bell 1927). The court case was an appeal by Carrie Buck asking for a reversal of her sterilization sentence handed down by a Virginia court. Carrie Buck was accused of being "feebleminded" because she had given birth to a child out of wedlock. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Homes declared that "three generations of imbeciles are enough" during the Buck v. Bell case, which upheld the Virginia court ruling (The Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement). Carrie's sterilization sentence was carried out. It was later determined that Carrie Buck was not mentally ill and her pregnancy was a result of rape. Her child Vivian was normal as well. .
Between 1907 and 1960 at least 60,000 people were sterilized without their consent due to these state laws. According to the DNA Learning Center:.
The Eugenics Record Office, in 1914, published a Model Eugenical Sterilization Law that proposed to authorize sterilization of the "socially inadequate" - people supported in institutions or "maintained wholly or in part by public expense." The law encompassed the "feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf; deformed; and dependent" - including "orphans, ne"er-do-wells, tramps, the homeless and paupers." (The Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement) .
It is obvious from reading the model law that many people had to have been misdiagnosed and thus, sterilized. Many eugenic societies sprang up during this time. The American Breeders Association, Race Betterment Foundation, Galton Society, and the American Eugenics Society had the same goal; their goal was to breed better humans. .
Fred Aslin is another victim of the American Eugenics Movement. He was also sterilized, allegedly because he was feebleminded. ABC News 20/20 investigator, Valerie Parker, reported:.
When Aslin was a boy in 1936, his father died, leaving his mother to bring up nine children.