Interviewee: Paul Lombardo. Carrie Buck, who was stripped of her right to reproduce, was born only blocks away from Jefferson's rotunda at the University of Virginia, a symbol of American freedom. (DNAi Location: Chronicle > Trial of Carrie Buck > Prologue > Fragility of American freedoms)

I'm standing at the rotunda of the University of Virginia, designed by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson's monument is widely considered a symbol of freedom, and the American dream for human rights. Only a few blocks from here, Carrie Buck was born and eventually taken away to the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and the Feebleminded, and then sterilized. Putting Jefferson's rotunda alongside the story of Carrie Buck, reminds us of how fragile our freedoms are, and how the uses of science can sometimes take us down dark paths.

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