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Violations In Imbeciles

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Violations of human rights seem to occur regardless of the foundations put in place to help prevent such acts due to self-indulgence. In Imbeciles, a novel written by Adam Cohen, the 1927 court case of Carrie Buck, the events preceding and following were further analyzed. Eugenics, itself, on the surface appears in present day to be an obvious violation of human rights; however, Buck's case was much more complex. Not only was sterilization violating her right of a family, but also violating her right of consent as well as the right to a fair trial. Though unaware what was occurring, Buck, under false evidence, was labeled feeble-minded and made the guinea pig for the government to legally be able to continue carrying out violations of human …show more content…

Born out of wedlock of a seventeen-year-old to a woman, Emma Buck, who was labeled feebleminded, Carrie Buck became the perfect candidate for the state of Virgina's fight for eugenics (7). Being the child of a woman in Virginia's Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, would not have been enough to put her in the spotlight. However, after having been adopted by John and Alice Dobbs that merely looked at Buck as someone to complete the household chores, she became pregnant. Becoming pregnant out of wedlock, like her mother, could result in being placed in Virginia's Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded. Perhaps the bigger issue was that Buck did not just run of with some man and get pregnant; she was raped by Alice's nephew, Clarence Garland (24). Although she was raped, the embarrassment of having a child was too much for the Dobbs' and they sent a request to Charolette's Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court that she too be sent to the Colony (16). Therefore, there was no just cause for Carrie Buck to even be transferred to such an institution.
Although human rights doctrines, according to Jack Donnelly, were not formed until after World War II when the overlapping consensus of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was published, Buck's situation definitely violated human rights. These rights violations

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