Thesis

It is apparent to me that the thesis of this essay was the speech given by the Governor of Virginia Mark Warner about learning from the past to prevent future mistakes.

1. Eugenics- this paragraph gives a brief description about what Eugenics is. It talks about negative and positive Eugenics and laws supporting Eugenics. In the 1920's and 30's the Eugenics movement was widespread and gaining support. 

2. Father of Eugenics- Francis Galton is known as the father of Eugenics and was among the elite men known as the Anglo-Saxons who were the main proprietors of the eugenics movement. They argued nature had far more effect than nurture.

3. Charles Darwin- promoted eugenics before the movement even came about. He said "it was injurious to the race of men... to allow the sick to procreate". The eugenics movement used Mendel's pea plant study of cross pollination to support their scientific findings about the human race.

 4. In 1895 laws were proposed forbidding marriages of the disabled that were of childrearing age. Most people thought the law was not strict enough and would be broken still so they fought to enforce sterilization. The only sterilization known at the time was mutilation and would lead to hormonal imbalances that at the time they could not replace with synthetic hormones. This brought about the discovery of vasectomies and salpingectomies as a more "humane" form of sterilization.

 5. Organizations like the American Breed Association and the American Eugenics Society tried to convince the public it was their moral obligation to support eugenics. Unfortunately they were successful in their efforts.

 6. Fitter Family contests took place at state fairs; families brought their children out to be scrutinized, judge, and sent through testing; all for the chance to win a medal of genetically superior. Eugenics was crammed down the throats of Americans between High School students studying eugenics at school, sermons on Sunday, movies, to college courses. The message was loud and clear disabled persons were unfit to procreate.

 7. Physicians were performing sterilizations before it was legal to do so. In 1924 Carrie Buck was the first person to be legally sterilized, based on factors of promiscuity, family history of mental health, and the fact she already had a child at age 17.

8. In the case Buck vs. Bell the Supreme Court said it was constitutional to forcibly sterilize citizens, this led to over 60,000 sterilizations all thanks to Oliver Wendell Holms.

 9. Sterilization was legal from 1924- 1976, even the Nazi's adopted our laws and sterilized over 350,000 people in 1933. The eugenics movement came to an end when it was found that Carrie Buck was misdiagnosed, her lawyer corrupt, her daughter a product of rape and grew up to be intelligent.

  

MLA corrections: 

Heading- Name, Class, and Date (left orientation)

Title should be centered and below heading 

Page number and last name should be in the upper right hand corner 

The lines should be double spaced. 

Characters should be in Times New Roman and 12 pt. font 

She misspelled (Rilly 69) in paragraph 7

Word count 512