The Black Stork

The Black Stork, also known as Are You Fit To Marry?, is a 1916 American feature film and dramatization of the Bollinger incident, a national scandal where a hospital chief of staff, Harry J. Haiselden, advised Anna Bollinger and her husband against a surgery that would have saved their deformed child on eugenic grounds. The film depicts Haiselden's fictionalized story of a woman who has a nightmare of a severely disabled child being a menace to society. Once awoken from the nightmare, she visits a doctor and realizes all was fine with her child. The film warns teenagers of the dangers of sexual promiscuity and race mixing, as these actions were believed to be the cause of disabilities in children at the time.

Haiselden's film garnered mixed reviews, and his actions earned him the criticism of Progressivist champions of the Social Gospel while emboldening more moderate eugenicists. At this point in history, when the word "disability" was brought up, all anyone thought of was a "disease" that could be spread. Through this way of thinking, a majority of people agreed with Haiselden's actions and enforced the idea that doctors have the right to decide whether a disabled child should live. However, there was also a number of people who protested Dr. Heiselden's actions, including the Roman Catholic Church. Despite the public backlash, The Black Stork was still shown nationwide as late as 1928. After 1918, the movie was renamed Are You Fit To Marry? and remained in theaters and traveling road shows as late as 1942.