Buck vs Bell AFS 1

The podcast discusses the history of a war on women in the United States. It highlights how minority women, immigrants, the physically ill, the mentally ill, and the poor were targeted by white men in power who believed in the concept of eugenics for population control. The case of Carrie Buck, who was forcibly sterilized without her consent, is mentioned as an example of the tragic consequences of this ideology. The Supreme Court's decision in Buck v. Bell, which legalized sterilization, is also discussed. After listening to this podcast, it is extremely evident that there's always been a war on women. It was quite upsetting, as a woman especially, to even hear that this was a part of our country's history. Targeting those at the quote-unquote bottom of the social ladder, such as minority women, immigrants, the physically ill, the mentally ill, the poor, white men in power decided to deem the idea of eugenics as the solution to population control. It was white doctors, in this case Dr. Priddy and Dr. Bell, who one day decided that these groups of women were deemed unfit and not necessary to society. Starting in the 1920s, specifically June 4th, 1924, a 17-year-old girl named Carrie Buck was admitted to an institution or colony in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Carrie was then deemed as feeble-minded, of the lowest grade, moron class, quote-unquote. It only took one white doctor to take this diagnosis and make a life-altering decision for Carrie, which was the tying of her tubes without her consent or knowledge, also called sterilization. Described as one of the most tragic social experiments in America, Carrie and her mother and daughter would be targets of the dangerous concept of eugenics. Carrie's story was taken to the Supreme Court, wherein the infamous case of Buck v. Bell, where the Supreme Court sided with a white man in power and deemed sterilization as legal.