"Three generations of imbeciles..."

From the Washington Post [May 20], an article by Andrew J. Imparato and Anne C. Sommers of the American Association of People With Disabilities [thanks to Francis Beckwith at Right Reason for the reference]:

This month marked the 80th anniversary of the disgraceful Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell, which upheld Virginia's involuntary sterilization laws. In his majority opinion, Holmes declared: "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.... Three generations of imbeciles is enough."

Although eugenics was eventually dismissed as "junk science," it didn't happen before states authorized more than 60,000 forcible sterilizations and segregated, institutionalized, and denied marriage and parental rights to those deemed "genetically unfit." ....

In January, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urged all women regardless of age to undergo prenatal screening for Down syndrome, aware of statistics that greater than 85 percent of pregnancies diagnosed with Down syndrome end in abortion.

Several states recognize life with a disability as an injury in "wrongful life" lawsuits, and certain judges who hear these cases agree that in some instances, selective abortions help answer a greater policy concern in curbing health-care expenditures. ....

And across the United States, "futile care" policies have required that the most vulnerable give up their hospital beds - and lives - for those with more "potential."

In stark contrast to words such as "defective," "burdensome" and "futile" are the words of civil rights laws that liberate and defend. ....

On this 80th anniversary of Buck, let's not foolishly believe that victims of eugenics are an artifact of history. So long as we speak in terms of good genes and bad genes, recognize a life with a disability as an injury, and allow health policies to value some lives over others, we continue to create human rights violations every day.

Source: Andrew J. Imparato and Anne C. Sommers - Haunting Echoes of Eugenics - washingtonpost.com