Thesis
The United States of America was founded on ideals of protecting individual rights. In the early 20th century, however, members of the American eugenics movement lobbied for laws that ordered the involuntary sterilization of over 60,000 victims whose rights were disregarded in the quest for “race betterment”. Eugenicists believed that the state had the responsibility to protect citizens from those “science” deemed unfit, and that the rights of sterilization victims were insignificant. The eugenics movement has revealed the tension between the state's dual responsibility to protect the public welfare and the individual rights of its citizens. It is essential to consider this fragile equilibrium in the future, when advances in genetic technology may cause the rebirth of eugenic theories and the destruction of human rights that accompany them.