Buck v.
Bell: Police Power
1. Facts.
This is a writ of error to review a judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of Virginia
affirming a judgment of the Circuit Court of Amherst County by which the defendant in error, the
superintendent of the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble Minded, was ordered to perform the
operation of salpingectomy upon Carrie Buck, the plaintiff in error, for the purpose of making her sterile.
143 Va. 310. The case comes here upon the contention that the statute authorizing the judgment is void
under the Fourteenth Amendment as denying to the plaintiff in error due process of law and the equal
protection of the laws.
Carrie Buck is a feeble minded white woman who was committed to the State Colony above mentioned
in due form. She is the daughter of a feeble minded mother in the same institution, and the mother of
an illegitimate feeble minded child. She was eighteen years old at the time of the trial of her case in the
Circuit Court, in the latter part of 1924. An Act of Virginia, approved March 20, 1924, recites that the
health of the patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of
mental defectives, under careful safeguard, &c.; that the sterilization may be effected in males by
vasectomy and in females by salpingectomy, without serious pain or substantial danger to life; that the
Commonwealth is supporting in various institutions many defective persons who, if now discharged,
would become a menace, but, if incapable of procreating, might be discharged with safety and become
self-supporting with benefit to themselves and to society, and that experience has shown that heredity
plays an important part in the transmission of insanity, imbecility, &c. The statute then enacts that,
whenever the superintendent of certain institutions, including the above-named State Colony, shall be
of opinion that it is for the best interests of the patients and of society that an inmate under his care
should be sexually sterilized, he may have the operation performed upon any patient afflicted with
hereditary forms of insanity, imbecility, &c., on complying with the very careful provisions by which the
act protects the patients from possible abuse.
Issue:
Whether the statute providing for sexual sterilization is within the power of the state within the 14th
amendment and not violative of due process and equal protection clause.
Ruling:
The Virginia statute providing for the sexual sterilization of inmates of institutions supported by the
State who shall be found to be afflicted with an hereditary form of insanity or imbecility, is within the
power of the State under the Fourteenth Amendment. P. 274 U. S. 207. Failure to extend the provision
to persons outside the institutions named does not render it obnoxious to the Equal Protection Clause
The judgment finds the facts that have been recited, and that Carrie Buck "is the probable potential
parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted, that she may be sexually sterilized without
detriment to her general health, and that her welfare and that of society will be promoted by her
sterilization," and thereupon makes the order. In view of the general declarations of the legislature and
the specific findings of the Court, obviously we cannot say as matter of law that the grounds do not
exist, and, if they exist, they justify the result. We have seen more than once that the public welfare may
call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already
sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in
order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world if, instead of
waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can
prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains
compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts,
197 U. S. 11. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
But, it is said, however it might be if this reasoning were applied generally, it fails when it is confined to
the small number who are in the institutions named and is not applied to the multitudes outside. It is
the usual last resort of constitutional arguments to point out shortcomings of this sort. But the answer is
that the law does all that is needed when it does all that it can, indicates a policy, applies it to all within
the lines, and seeks to bring within the lines all similarly situated so far and so fast as its means allow. Of
course, so far as the operations enable those who otherwise must be kept confined to be returned to
the world, and thus open the asylum to others, the equality aimed at will be more nearly reached.
