New book on Buck v. Bell

Image description: The cover of Lombardo's book shows sepia-toned photographs of two women and an infant. Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell by Paul Lombardo

A new book by legal historian Paul Lombardo explores, in depth, the 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously declared "three generations of imbeciles is enough." This was the case that legalized involuntary sterilization of the "feeble-minded" and gave great credibility to the American eugenics movement.

Lombardo details not only the needless cruelty of Holmes' statement, but also it's utter inaccuracy. As described by USA Today science columnist Dan Vergano:

The three generations in the case, Carrie Buck, her mother, Emma, and daughter, Vivian, it turns out weren't imbeciles; Carrie was an average student and Vivian, taken from her mother and placed in the home of the family whose nephew had fathered her, made the honor role once in her short life.

"Buck earns a place in the legal hall of shame not only because Holmes' opinion was unnecessarily callous but also because it was based on deceit and betrayal," writes legal historian Paul Lombardo of Georgia State University in Atlanta, in his just-released book, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Scientists and lawyers, including Carrie Buck's defense attorney, conspired against her, Lombardo finds in old records.

The inaccuracy wasn't an accident. Carrie Buck was used and betrayed at every turn:

In reality, Buck was at the [Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded] because she had been raped and impregnated by the nephew of her foster family the year before. The family sent her to the colony, where her mother resided, to escape scandal. [Physician superintendent of the colony, Albert] Priddy "quickly began collecting information to demonstrate the hereditary defects he was certain linked Emma and Carrie," writes Lombardo.

The Buck decision was popular in its time and as a public policy even encouraged the eugenic Nazi philosophies of racial health and purity. From Vergano again:

It wasn't until national publicity about sterilization abuse in the 1970s that the practice ended. In 1942, the Supreme Court struck down involuntary sterilization of inmates, but the Buck decision has never been repealed.

"Eugenics still fascinates today," says Lombardo, invoked in debates over genetics testing, abortion and the future of medicine. "The attitudes are still around that fostered eugenics. They aren't going away."