[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:03.20,0:00:09.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,At the turn of the 20th Century, rapid industrialization and urbanization led to a social upheaval,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:09.75,0:00:14.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,defined by goals for a civilization free of violence, disease, and mental ailments.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:14.62,0:00:19.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,However, the means by which this Utopian society would be attempted would include some of
Dialogue: 0,0:00:19.85,0:00:24.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the most profound ethical violations in the history of the United States.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:24.10,0:00:28.81,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:28.81,0:00:34.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The President was behind it, liberals were behind it, conservatives were behind it.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:34.04,0:00:38.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Even the Catholic Church at one point was behind it.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:38.27,0:00:43.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Intense growth of American industry, agricultural mechanization, and widespread immigration
Dialogue: 0,0:00:43.84,0:00:49.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,led to the first major migration away from the farms and into the city which was now expanding
Dialogue: 0,0:00:49.08,0:00:52.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,faster than adequate housing could be provided.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:52.29,0:00:56.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The solution to the modern problems of an industrialized society required increased
Dialogue: 0,0:00:56.96,0:01:02.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,government involvement in the social sphere, a philosophy known as progressivism.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:02.23,0:01:06.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The construct of scientific management offered a methodical means of social engineering.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:06.78,0:01:08.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:08.50,0:01:12.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Geneticists of the age could prove, through the use of human pedigrees and their knowledge
Dialogue: 0,0:01:12.26,0:01:17.23,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of plant and animal genetics, that degeneracy was an inheritable trait.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:17.23,0:01:21.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It seemed only right that if a society free of all mental and physical ailments,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:21.64,0:01:28.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,free of violence and crime, illiteracy and foolishness, it seemed only right to end the reproductive
Dialogue: 0,0:01:28.28,0:01:31.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,capabilities of people expressing these traits.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:31.35,0:01:36.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Eugenics was the result of an America unwilling to make social changes, an upper class
Dialogue: 0,0:01:36.32,0:01:38.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,fearful of its laboring counterparts.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:38.78,0:01:43.33,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Eugenics placed the blame of a social quandary on individual races and classes
Dialogue: 0,0:01:43.33,0:01:48.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and thus freed from culpability, the industrial, scientific, and political bearings of the time.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:48.67,0:01:54.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:54.03,0:01:58.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Cold Spring Harbor, New York, 1910.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:58.00,0:02:02.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Charles B. Davenport along with Harry H. Laughlin, both biologists and members of The
Dialogue: 0,0:02:02.32,0:02:07.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,American Breeders Association, found the Eugenics Record Office, with financial help
Dialogue: 0,0:02:07.48,0:02:09.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from the Carnegie Institution.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:09.43,0:02:13.28,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The ERO would be the headquarters of eugenic research in the United States for
Dialogue: 0,0:02:13.28,0:02:15.65,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the next 34 years.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:15.65,0:02:21.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Using various research methods including human pedigrees, hereditary questionnaires,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:21.18,0:02:25.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,interviewing groups of special interest such as circus performers, and collecting census data,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:25.87,0:02:30.98,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the ERO was able to justify the administration of eugenic laws nationwide
Dialogue: 0,0:02:30.98,0:02:36.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,including immigration and marriage restrictions, race segregation, and forced sterilization
Dialogue: 0,0:02:36.42,0:02:39.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of criminals and other undesirables.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:39.01,0:02:44.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The ERO, however, was not only able to justify the eugenics atrocities, but integrated them
Dialogue: 0,0:02:44.26,0:02:50.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,into popular culture to make eugenics and related terms, such as race hygiene, household words.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:50.53,0:02:55.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Popular literature published in the 20's, often donned eugenics in their subject matter
Dialogue: 0,0:02:55.36,0:02:59.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,such as these manuals on raising a healthy family.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:59.03,0:03:02.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Clergymen preached of the necessity for good marriages.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:02.74,0:03:07.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Perhaps even more disturbing were the contests held at many state fairs, where awards
Dialogue: 0,0:03:07.15,0:03:12.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,were given to the fittest family. Those with the purest pedigrees and undoubtedly the most
Dialogue: 0,0:03:12.53,0:03:17.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,attractive phenotypes would receive awards such as this medal with an inscription reading,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:17.93,0:03:20.39,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,'Yea, I have a goodly heritage.'
Dialogue: 0,0:03:20.39,0:03:27.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The eugenics movements spawned lots of people who were considered even in their own time,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:27.59,0:03:32.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,out on the fringe. Who even endorsed such things as euthanasia, but that was not a mainline
Dialogue: 0,0:03:32.37,0:03:37.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,part of the movement. It certainly became parts of the movement internationally,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:37.52,0:03:39.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but not so much here in America.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:39.80,0:03:47.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,On March 9, 1907, the Indiana State Senate in a vote of 28 to 16, made history by being the first
Dialogue: 0,0:03:47.56,0:03:52.76,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,jurisdiction in the world to force the sterilization of citizens it deemed unfit.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:52.76,0:03:56.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Unfit to exist, unfit to reproduce.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:56.38,0:03:58.42,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Connecticut was soon to follow.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:58.42,0:04:03.01,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,By the time Laughlin of the ERO, had published his suggestion on how to implement legislation
Dialogue: 0,0:04:03.01,0:04:08.87,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for forced human sterilization, 12 states had already put into place sterilization laws of their own.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:08.87,0:04:14.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,By 1924, 3000 socially inadequate people had been sterilized.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:14.07,0:04:19.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That same year based on Laughlin's model, Aubrey E. Strode, drafted Virginia's Eugenical
Dialogue: 0,0:04:19.26,0:04:24.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Sterilization Act in an attempt to rid the state of defective persons.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:24.10,0:04:27.68,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It passed in Virginia's General Assembly by a landslide.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:28.43,0:04:33.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Immediately, the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and Feeble-Minded, selected 17-year-old
Dialogue: 0,0:04:33.62,0:04:36.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Carrie Buck to be the first human sterilized under the act.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:36.46,0:04:42.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Carrie had a feeble-minded child, the result of a raping by one of her relatives, and was the
Dialogue: 0,0:04:42.30,0:04:46.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,daughter of a feeble-minded mother, Emma, already a resident on the Virginia colony.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:46.82,0:04:51.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Carrie, purportedly carrying the genetic traits of feeble-mindedness and sexual promiscuity,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:51.60,0:04:57.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was a fine candidate as the law stated those to be sterilized must be probable potential
Dialogue: 0,0:04:57.32,0:05:00.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,parents of socially inadequate offspring.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:00.05,0:05:05.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Carrie's feeble-mindedness was based on a mailed disposition by Laughlin who had never met Carrie
Dialogue: 0,0:05:05.47,0:05:10.04,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and her sexual promiscuity was based on the testimony of her school teacher,
Dialogue: 0,0:05:10.04,0:05:13.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that she sent flirtatious notes to school boys.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:13.14,0:05:17.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Carrie became the first person in Virginia to be sterilized under the new law
Dialogue: 0,0:05:17.56,0:05:20.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,on October 19, 1927.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:20.30,0:05:25.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, official deliverer of the opinion of the United States
Dialogue: 0,0:05:25.06,0:05:30.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Supreme Court in the case of Buck v. Bell, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to
Dialogue: 0,0:05:30.47,0:05:36.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent
Dialogue: 0,0:05:36.20,0:05:40.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:40.13,0:05:43.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
Dialogue: 0,0:05:43.14,0:05:48.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Vivian, Carrie's feeble-minded daughter, received B's on her first grade report card.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:48.48,0:05:53.13,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Buck v. Bell justified the sterilizations of over 8000 Virginians.
Dialogue: 0,0:05:53.13,0:05:58.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Over the history of the United States, 33 states have enacted statutes under which 60,000
Dialogue: 0,0:05:58.29,0:06:01.35,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Americans underwent compulsory sterilizations.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:01.35,0:06:04.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,To this day, Buck v. Bell has never been overruled.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:04.78,0:06:10.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Nazi Germany embraced the eugenics movement from the United States and just upped it in
Dialogue: 0,0:06:10.96,0:06:12.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,its efficiency."
Dialogue: 0,0:06:12.45,0:06:17.14,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It should now be apparent that Germany's racial theories did not take place in a vacuum.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:17.14,0:06:21.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Nor can the fundamental philosophies and beliefs that would eventually lead to the atrocities
Dialogue: 0,0:06:21.38,0:06:25.17,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the Nazi state be attributed solely to German authorities.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:25.17,0:06:29.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In fact, German scientists expressed a great affinity towards the US eugenic laws.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:30.56,0:06:34.53,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A young Adolph Hitler wrote positively of the US's immigration restrictions.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:34.53,0:06:40.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,More specifically, how the law refuses immigration on principle by simply excluding certain races
Dialogue: 0,0:06:40.00,0:06:43.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from naturalization, in his book, "Mein Kampf".
Dialogue: 0,0:06:43.10,0:06:47.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Shortly prior to mobilizing the most comprehensive eugenics legislation in modern history,
Dialogue: 0,0:06:47.51,0:06:51.92,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Gerhard Wagner, head of the National Socialist Physician League, stated that America's
Dialogue: 0,0:06:51.92,0:06:55.59,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,eugenic policies should be used as a model for Germany to follow.
Dialogue: 0,0:06:55.59,0:07:00.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Marie Kopp, of the American Committee on Maternal Health, proclaimed that the Nazi system
Dialogue: 0,0:07:00.15,0:07:05.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of seeking out those to be sterilized was administered in entire fairness and was
Dialogue: 0,0:07:05.02,0:07:09.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,formulated after careful study of the California Experiment which had been responsible
Dialogue: 0,0:07:09.80,0:07:15.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for 2500 of the 3000 involuntary sterilizations in the US prior to 1924.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:15.69,0:07:20.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The ERO boasted on how the German statute on race hygiene read almost identical to
Dialogue: 0,0:07:20.11,0:07:22.25,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Laughlin's Model Sterilization Law.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:22.25,0:07:27.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Laughlin had such a significant impact on Nazi racial legislature that he was awarded an honorary
Dialogue: 0,0:07:27.21,0:07:29.40,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,degree from the University of Heidelberg.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:29.40,0:07:34.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Laughlin thanked the university for reaffirming the common understanding of German and American
Dialogue: 0,0:07:34.46,0:07:37.20,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,scientists of the nature of eugenics.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:37.20,0:07:42.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,This common understanding would be translated into the law on preventing hereditarily ill progeny
Dialogue: 0,0:07:42.56,0:07:47.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which would be responsible for over 375,000 sterilizations in the Nazi state.
Dialogue: 0,0:07:47.94,0:07:51.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,A number so impressive, one American eugenics advocate complained:
Dialogue: 0,0:07:51.88,0:07:54.85,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,
Dialogue: 0,0:07:54.85,0:07:59.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The sterilization program of the Nazi state modeled after Laughlin's Law and other
Dialogue: 0,0:07:59.08,0:08:03.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,US eugenic theories, would be a gross prelude to the exterminations of the Holocaust.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:03.62,0:08:08.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But even before the gas chambers were open for the racist and anti-Semitic persecutions
Dialogue: 0,0:08:08.06,0:08:13.63,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we know all too well, they were opened in October 1939, for the systematic murder of the
Dialogue: 0,0:08:13.63,0:08:15.90,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,mentally ill citizens of Germany.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:15.90,0:08:20.60,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Sadly, this practice was not faced with nearly as much stigmatism within the states
Dialogue: 0,0:08:20.60,0:08:26.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,as euthanasia had long been discussed by American eugenicists as a solution for the feeble-minded.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:26.51,0:08:27.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,
Dialogue: 0,0:08:27.05,0:08:34.11,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"So, when people saw how eugenics can be easily be abused by the power of the state, they said
Dialogue: 0,0:08:34.11,0:08:40.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that's it, this is a monstrous idea that we should keep a distance from."
Dialogue: 0,0:08:40.47,0:08:44.58,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It is now the dawn of the 21st Century and advancements in technology and medicine
Dialogue: 0,0:08:44.58,0:08:47.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,have excelled beyond even the most ambitious of projections.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:47.88,0:08:52.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Science that eugenicists of the 20th Century could only have dreamed of appear in our news
Dialogue: 0,0:08:52.88,0:08:54.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,every single day.
Dialogue: 0,0:08:54.73,0:08:56.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"of stem cell research..."
Dialogue: 0,0:08:56.34,0:08:58.52,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"and picking the genes of our children..."
Dialogue: 0,0:08:58.52,0:09:01.21,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Cloning of embryos for the destruction..."
Dialogue: 0,0:09:01.21,0:09:03.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"discovered stem cells in a new place..."
Dialogue: 0,0:09:03.95,0:09:05.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"if the embryo has a genetic disease..."
Dialogue: 0,0:09:05.99,0:09:07.06,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"genetic tests..."
Dialogue: 0,0:09:07.06,0:09:12.08,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Is it a danger? It's always a danger when there are technologies that can be used and abused.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:12.08,0:09:18.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I think the history of the eugenics movement tells us when a technology actually exists,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:18.32,0:09:22.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,people will try to use it - sometimes for reasons it was never intended to be used.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:22.71,0:09:27.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,With the mapping of the human genome, prenatal testing, implantation genetic diagnosis,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:27.37,0:09:31.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,therapeutic cloning, and stem cell therapy we find ourselves entering a promising world
Dialogue: 0,0:09:31.80,0:09:36.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of genetic medicine. It is with this great power, however, that comes the need for even
Dialogue: 0,0:09:36.24,0:09:39.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,greater responsibility, sensitivity, and accountability.
Dialogue: 0,0:09:39.94,0:09:44.86,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Humanity truly does now possess a powerful tool for good. However, we must heed the warnings
Dialogue: 0,0:09:44.86,0:09:49.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,founded by the coercive legislation and beliefs of the eugenics movement before we may venture into
Dialogue: 0,0:09:49.49,0:09:54.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the frontier of modern genetic medicine. Tragedy may very well give way to triumph but
Dialogue: 0,0:09:54.71,0:09:57.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,how that will be recorded in the history books of tomorrow,
Dialogue: 0,0:09:57.10,0:09:59.97,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,will be determined by our actions today.