What was Montgomery Clift's case about?
We had a storm and my DVR didn't record his testimony. What was his case about? Sterilization?
shareYes, that's essentially it - forced sterilization. It's too bad your DVR malfunctioned because that was unquestionably one of the best parts of the entire film - I kid you not.
shareThank you. The recording skipped from the beginning of his testimony to Tracy and Dietrich in the cafe. (Stupid thunderstorm!)
I'm curious about the US case cited as an example of eugenics, the one where Oliver Wendell Holmes was quoted, something about "three generations of imbeciles". We Americans always like to think "that could never happen here", but all we need to do is read our own history.
I was going to mention that earlier but wasn't sure if you'd missed that or not. The majority opinion in Buck v. Bell is pretty short and can be found at https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200 among others.
shareThanks again. What a travesty. This link -- http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/eugenics/5-epilogue/ -- says that 60,000 people in the US were sterilized under these kinds of laws.
shareYou're quite welcome. You may also find this interesting, at http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2000&context=facpub
My God - read a bit more about Carrie Buck and you just might find yourself extremely pissed. (There's a backstory, seldom heard, and it's not at all pleasant.)
Yep. Carrie Buck's Wiki says that she was pregnant after being raped by a nephew of her foster parents. And there was no "three generations of imbeciles" as cited in the Supreme Court case. They were talking about "inherited" insanity, inherited mental defects. WTF?
I'm trying to think of a good reason to sterilize someone against their will. I can't come up with one that isn't a slippery slope to what we fought against in WWII.
There was an assumption, suggestion or suspicion if I recall correctly that Carrie Buck's mother (an alleged prostitute) was also an untreated syphilitic. That's where the "3 generations of imbeciles" came into it - piggybacked essentially on the fact that untreated syphilis was known to cause extreme deterioration of a person's mental capacity.
I know exactly what you mean. The thought process is...it really does boggle the mind.
I watched this 20 years ago, if not longer. I think it was much longer. I put it on TCM on demand two minutes ago. I always have to watch things that are very good twice because I end up on IMDB reading about actors that I'm unfamiliar with, or to see who one is.
TCM has its available until tomorrow. I have busy day tomorrow & may not have option to watch a second time.
Thanks to those who added links. I have opened in new tabs to read tomorrow or some other day.