Forced Sterilization, Imprisonment and American Eugenics

The American Eugenics movement of the 1920s profoundly influenced Nazi ideology. In Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, author and former New York Times editor Adam Cohen investigated the horrifying 1927 Supreme Court decision Buck v. Bell which authorized the forced sterilization of American citizens who were declared “imbeciles.” The court ruled against Carrie Buck, the plaintiff who was sterilized and forced to live in the “Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded.”