Blog #17: It Took the Law to Safeguard the Humanity of People With Epilepsy

(This blog was originally posted on January 13, 2012)

 

On January 10, 2012, CNN carried a story of involuntary sterilizations that were legally authorized in the United States until the 1970s. Courts supported the procedures so as to minimize the population of those who were “unfit” to “succeed” in life, and who would not burden society.

Charles Darwin’s 19^th century nature observations convinced him that heredity is valid: nature favored species that were best prepared to deal with life’s struggles. During the early twentieth-century American and other Western societies popularized the concept of genetically fit human beings. Those who were fit would flourish in society, while those less fit, i.e., less able and thus less worthy, would fail. Eugenics—the effort to increase the stronger population by improving their genetic composition—was very popular and supported by prominent people at the time, but by mid-century it was discounted. This was when Nazi philosophy using the concept to control racial stock and their atrocities, came to light.

 Society considered those belonging to the less fit class to include the “feeble-minded,” the poor, criminals, prostitutes, and even the blind. People with epilepsy were included because seizure-related behaviors appeared strange and even threatening to observers. In addition, epilepsy sometimes accompanies illnesses causing mental deficiencies and psychiatric problems. These prejudices had existed since ancient times. People with epilepsy were believed to be possessed by evil demons, or chosen by gods as “special” anointed people who were afflicted with a “sacred disease.” But definitions of unfit were inexact; the labeling of any of these individuals followed no stringent formula. For example, IQ testing has been shown to be imprecise when cultural/educational backgrounds are not considered in arriving at the overall score.

American society formally tried to prevent these unfit individuals from reproducing children who would be just like them. Thirty-three states legalized surgical sterilizations, and this could be done without the person’s permission. Physicians, social workers and judges supported these cruel and oppressive procedures for the good of society. Even Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes endorsed aspects of eugenics. In the Buck v. Bell case tried before the Supreme Court of the United States, Holmes delivered the court’s opinion in 1927 that society should prevent persons manifestly unfit from continuing to reproduce their kind.

 

 

Lance Fogan, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. DINGS is his first novel.