Page 40 of Counting Backwards

When I heard Mr. Laderdale mention breeding cattle, the words caught in my ear and brought me back from my musings. It seemed awfully odd for them to be discussing animal husbandry. With his crisp collar and polished cuff links, Mr. Laderdale hardly looked like the type of man who’d know a lick about farming.

“Farmers do not breed the runts,” he was saying. “It even bears out with crops. Agriculturalists always replant with the best seed. The human race is the only one remaining that has not tried to weed out the unfit before allowing the weaklings—the duds, if you will—to create additional inferior beings.”

“I see, I see,” Mr. Strode responded, nodding along. “And what is the reason you are so invested in this process?”

“It’s my life’s mission to create a superior human race,” Mr. Laderdale answered solemnly. “Think what we could do for American society if we could cleanse it of deviance, defect, and anomaly. Not just physically abnormal like cripples and dwarves and such, but all forms of undesirables could gradually be bred out. From vagrants to epileptics, even loose women and sodomites. The standard of intelligence throughout the country would increase,” he continued. “Crime would be reduced, and taxpayer money would be saved in myriad ways. This is why I’ve written the model sterilization law, on which Virginia has based its new statute.”

“Ah!” said the lawyer, as if Mr. Laderdale had said something of great importance. “Can you tell us: What is the purpose of this model sterilization law?”

Mr. Laderdale smiled wide, looking quite pleased to get to explain another thing. “Well, the law provides for the sexual sterilization of the feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf, deformed, and dependent, which also includes orphans, tramps, and paupers.”

They talked at length then about the words of the law and how it was meant to work. When Mr. Strode finally finished, my lawyer stood again. Mr. Whitmore objected that the man had talked too much about laws, which were outside of his expertise.

After his objection was noted, my lawyer said, “Let’s now move back to the plaintiff.” Was he finally,finallygoing to fight back for me?

“Let us say, just for the sake of argument, Mr. Laderdale, that everything said here today about Carrie Buck and why she ought to be sexually sterilized is correct—that she is morally degenerate, feebleminded, of limited capabilities, and all the rest. Let’s imagine she is sterilized and released from the Colony. Perhaps she will even be taught to be passably productive in some useful occupation before she is let out. Once she is on the outside, will she not resume her promiscuous behavior? Is she not likely to pick up venereal disease and then spread it? Haven’t we heard today that such conditions can be so easily caught by women like her? How would letting her go around giving men syphilis be of any benefit to society?”

I stood and shouted before I could stop myself.

“I don’t have syphilis!”

The two orderlies who had come with us from the Colony were instantly upon me, pushing me back into my seat.

“Please forgive the interruption, Your Honor.” Mr. Whitmore turned his back toward me again, as if I didn’t matter at all. “Your answer, Mr. Laderdale?”

“Well, I’d say those men would likely be getting what they deserved,” the witness scoffed. “Promiscuous women can spread such diseases whether they’re sterilized or not.”

“Fine. Then tell me more about the procedure you espouse. Doesn’t the law prohibit removing organs from the body unnecessarily?” Mr. Whitmore asked.

“Nothing is taken out. Only a cut is made,” the scientist answered.

“And then the organ is destroyed?” Mr. Whitmore asked.

“No.” Mr. Laderdale looked up at the judge. “The nip simply removes a pathway for the egg to reach its destination. It only prevents reproduction.”

“Can you tell us then,” said Mr. Whitmore, “why Dr. Preston has chosen Miss Carrie Buck for sterilization?”

“Well, she’s the perfect candidate, you see. She’s eighteen years old, which means she could continue reproducing for decades yet. To prevent such a thing, she would need to remain in state custody for all that time, costing the state nearly two hundred dollars a year in the meanwhile. Conversely, with the salpingectomy surgery, we’d remove that possibility. She’d heal up in no time, could reenter society, and have her liberty restored, such as it would be for a person like her. She can be sterilized without any detriment to her general health, and with great benefit to her future and society overall.”

Mr. Whitmore began to ask another question but was interrupted because the witness had more to say.

“Miss Buck has borne already one mentally defective child. She has a chronological age of eighteen, but mentally, she displays the age of a child of only nine years. Is this what we want? Nine-year-olds having babies that become wards of the state, only to repeat the cycle generation after generation? Perhaps it’s time we all agree that three generations of imbeciles is enough.”

“And then what?” Mr. Whitmore asked. “After the operation.”

“I’ve seen this procedure performed on more than eighty women nationwide. Now, near sixty of those same patients are out in the world, working for upstanding folk, engaging in occupations as seamstresses, hotel workers, and such. Without the operation, such inmates must remain locked up, draining resources that could be put to better use. Listen,” he said, sounding frustrated that he had to keep explaining something that was so obvious to him. “These people belong to an ignorant, unindustrious, useless class of contaminated whites. There is no reason to allow them to replicate themselves when we have the means to stop it.”

I wanted to argue about so much. The way that man had said I had the brain of a nine-year-old, that I belonged to a lesser class ofpeople. But hearing him say I didn’t deserve to make more babies, it just made me feel so hopeless. I was beginning to understand that there wouldn’t be any point to me arguing, so I just sat there waiting for it all to be over.

When they finally wound down their conversation, the judge said Mr. Whitmore could bring in witnesses of his own to talk against the sterilization. But Mr. Whitmore said he didn’t have anyone to bring up, that we were finished. I was tired from the long day of listening to people drone on, so I was relieved to hear it. I stood and stretched my back. As I twisted and turned my gaze over my shoulder, my eye caught sight of Mr. Laderdale over near the exit. He was shaking hands with another fellow, smiling and chatting away. He must have felt someone watching, because his eyes suddenly landed right on me, and our gazes met from across the room. It was the first moment he’d looked me in the eye all that day, I realized, and I recoiled at the connection. He didn’t keep focus long, but turned right back to the men crowding round him—as if I could have been any other person in the crowd, someone he didn’t know from Adam. I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the din of voices, but I could still see him plain as day as he threw back his head and bellowed with laughter. His shoulders shook so hard from mirth, it almost looked like he was having a seizure. For all his complaints about my mental stability, he looked like the true lunatic among us.

15

Jessa

March 2022

I slammed my laptop shut and fought to catch my breath. Nothing Gram told me had been true.