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General Major 
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TITLE |
Against her Will, The Carrie Buck Story (1994) |
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DISABILITY |
General
Sterilization |
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DIRECTOR |
John David
Coles |
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NOTES |
Set in
Virginia, 1947
M.M. plays a young woman with a baby. She living in a large house with
others and when she sees another baby crying she breastfeeds. Well,
the consternation this creates you could imagine she'd been shaking
the baby to death. The official result is that her baby is taken away
from her and she is institutionalized.
Now it's an awful fact that you don't have to go back many years in
civilised countries like the U.S.A. or Britain conditions so appalling
you'd think the Nazis had won the war. In Britain of the late forties,
early fifties thousands of children from childrens' homes were packed
off to Australia. Here in this film we witness Virginia in 1947
wanting to sterilise most of the inmates in mental institutions. Those
who were mentally ill, had learning difficulties or conditions like
epilepsy. In 1947 when it should have been fresh in people's minds
that this was what the Nazis had promulgated and carried out.
The case of Carrie Buck is well documented and follows an interesting
twist. The authorities in charge of the mental institutions have been
sued for their policy of sterilisation now they want to be sued again,
and win, so they will have a free reign throughout the county and then
the country. With the courage of their convictions they also want to
include in the sterilisation process the feeble-minded, the shiftless,
the ignorant and the anti-social. Is there any of us left?
Carrie is put to work on a farm where her breasts hurt because of the
milk they're carrying and any woman will tell you what a senstive area
that is. But it demonstrates just how insensitive are the 'nurses and
doctors' in this hospital.
Carrie is chosen as a guinea pig for the court case because she has no
relatives. But she is noticed by a well-to-do young woman who just
happens to be the niece of the director of the hospital, is a trainee
lawyer and who is courting the lawyer chosen to represent Carrie.
At the first meeting of the hospital board Carrie is described as the
lowest grade moron who is incurably, congenitally defective. She has
already had an illegimate child and if she isn't sterilised the state
will have to support all her offspring.
It turns out that her defence lawyer is a set-up and Carrie is coached
to say what will condemn her from her own mouth.
Despite the efforts of the young woman Carrie Buck was sterilised.
A pity that this film dwelled so long on the romance between the two
lawyers. |
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Notes
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