Contest entry

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

I've been away for a few days and now must go back and read all the entries, but for your consideration:



Yes, that says "The Eugenic Photoplay".  One advertising slogan for this film was "Kill defectives, save the nation and see The Black Stork."  It's loosely based on incidents from the life of Harry J. Haiselden, a Chicago physician who refused to perform lifesaving surgeries on "defective" newborns on the grounds that he thought their lives not worth saving. 

NPR's summary:  "In the film, Haiselden actually plays himself, a wise doctor who attends the birth of a child born with congenital syphilis -- incurable at the time and a major cause of congenital disabilities. Two other doctors interfere, out of personal pride and misplaced benevolence, and try to convince the woman to save the child's life. The woman is forced to choose.

"She dreams a tormented dream of her child's probable future: He grows up physically, mentally, and morally deformed. He becomes a criminal, and fathers a brood of disabled children. He isn't allowed to enlist in the Army ("Uncle Sam won't take anybody who's not perfect"). Aware that he is entirely different from others, despised and angry, he returns to kill the doctors who performed the operation that saved his life.

"After this vision the woman decides to accept the doctor's advice and lets the infant die."

According to Martin S. Pernick, author of The Black Stork:  Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915:  "Haiselden and his supporters were torn between passionate expressions of sympathy and love, versus, in the next breath, expressing contempt, hatred, fear and loathing for those born with disabilities....  Progressive Americans were convinced that scientists, physicians, could make objective, technically valid determinations, of who should live, who should die. They believed, probably more strongly than any group of Americans before or since that science was capable of making objectively true judgements. And so they could, in the same breath, as Clarence Darrow said, 'chloroform unfit children, show them the same mercy that we show beasts that are no longer fit to live.' "

Comments

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

I am speechless and enraged.

[fuelng4thelight.livejournal.com]

This.

[moiracoon.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Are we voting on creepiest? If so...yes.

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

In his autobiographical book Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Oliver Sacks describes how his mother, a physician, told of drowning deformed infants "like kittens". (Sacks was born in 1933.)

As late as 1958, Robert Heinlein had his characters in the book version of Methuselah's Children matter-of-factly using "defective" as a noun to describe persons born with physical or mental disabilities: his Howard Families, being particularly susceptible to the hazards of inbreeding, have since their first few generations maintained "sanctuaries" for these "defectives".

[library-chair.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reminding me of Uncle Tungsten and that I have to buy it.

[thehappycat.livejournal.com]

This is horrifying. As a person who once worked with disabled people, and who is related to one, I can honestly say I'm enraged and saddened that this attitude once existed.

Yes.

[siddles.livejournal.com]

This is truly the most horrific thing I've ever seen in this community. It's one of the most horrific things I've seen on the internet... or anywhere.

yes

[pimpmytardis.livejournal.com]

Horrible, and most deserving of the "what?!" side of the challenge. So, so sad and terrible, I can't express it.

Yes

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

Oh look, it's Peter Singer's favourite movie.

Re: Yes

[fra-r.livejournal.com]

ah yes

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

This is spine-chilling! My mother was born with physical disabilities, my dad's sister was mentally disabled, and one of my children has autism. My son wasn't diagnosed until he was almost three so I have to wonder what would be the cut-off point for these people. Maybe none.

When doctors can turn my bottle of Dasani into a decent Merlot, I'll say they're qualified to make these decisions.

This is an interesting find, cactuswren, but to be honest, I never want to see it again so no "yes" from me.

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I thought this ad was racist at first. My first impression was that it was encouraging doctors not to treat black or mixed-raced babies. The words "state rights" gave me that impression, too. I was thinking this might be Klan propaganda.

[meezergal.livejournal.com]

I also thought it was racist. "Black Swan", and then eugenics so often touted as a way to control "inferior" (non-white) races. Whew! This ad, and the whole concept of the movie, is... I simply can't find words to describe it. "Horrifying" is a meager start.

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

You're right about that. Many followers of eugenics were extremely racist, especially when it came to miscegenation. It was the few times law enforcement and the medical community would turn a blind eye to abortion, especially if the woman was white and the man wasn't.

It's also how that whole Aryan race crap came to be.

[baron154.livejournal.com]

My first impression too. Dear God, it's just as dismal and depressing .. wow, I'm pretty dismayed by this ad and the story.

[ohsochewy.livejournal.com]

Aside from all of the other aspects of it (which, as someone who has several family members and friends with various "defects," I find appalling), I nearly snorted at the part where "Uncle Sam won't take anybody who's not perfect." Good lord; what would they say about today's predatory recruiting practices?

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Margaret Sanger would be proud.

"Margaret Sanger's beliefs about social works of charity are revealing: She criticized the success-- not failure-- of charity... She called for the halt to the medical care being given to slum mothers, and decried the expense to the taxpayers of monies being spent on the deaf, blind and dependent. She condemned foreign missionaries for reducing the infant mortality rates in developing countries, and declared charity to be more evil than for the assistance it provided to the poor and needy. Sanger's thinking moved to fascism in an elitist attitude that presumes to judge who is worthy to live and to die."

Just remember that next time you drive by a Planed Parenthood.

[cactuswren.livejournal.com]

Let's not.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

The source is an ancient web site run by evangelists (http://www.acts1711.com/sanger.htm). While there is some citation (http://www.spectacle.org/997/richmond.html), I am suspicious of the conclusion.

I prefer the light and happy way we bash the creepy pictures we find from the past. I don't want to be lectured, just as much as I don't want tomato aspic with slices of potted meat in it.

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that. *steps off soapbox*

My grandmother is a Holocaust survivor, so when I hear "eugenics" I get a bit twitchy.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Understood. That she survived, dyenu. That she prospered to have grandchildren is flawless victory.

[hannahsarah.livejournal.com]

OK, now I have that song stuck in my head.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! ;-P

(http://cheezburger.com/Rivkasmom/lolz/View/4530580480)

[purpleperil.livejournal.com]

It reminds of a family story I was told years ago. In the 30's one of my cousins had a baby that my grandmother said was likely born with downs syndrome, and that the doctor took the baby to "care for" it and did not tie of the cord and the baby of course died. I wonder if he was of the "no black stork" school of medicine.

[konsumterra.livejournal.com]

typecasting by ewen and ewen awesome book too