Genetics journal reveals dark past - USATODAY.com: ' Three generations of imbeciles is enough,' thundered Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., in the 1927 Buck vs. Bellcourt decision, legalizing forced sterilizations nationwide.
A triumph of the 'eugenics' movement, which aimed at breeding 'better' humans, the decision was embraced by dozens of states, from Virginia to California, leading to more than 60,000 forced sterilizations by the 1960's. The sterilizations were aimed at ensuring no offspring for poor people exhibiting 'feeblemindedness, epilepsy, criminality, insanity, (and) alcoholism,' among other 'unfit human traits,' in the words of Yale historian Daniel Kevles.
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