August at Washington, the U. S. Supreme Court last week closed oral arguments until October.
Eugenists cheered, sentimentalists were vexed when Mr. Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough"; read a decision upholding the Virginia law for sterilization of mental defectives.
The guardian of one Carrie
Buck, 21, feeble-minded state asylum inmate, with a feeble-minded mother and a feeble-minded illegitimate child, protested sterilization proceedings against her. Counsel argued that sterilization was never justifiable, that Miss Buck was being discriminated against since many a feeble-minded woman not under state care was continuing to propagate the species without molestation. With only Justice Pierce Butler dissenting, the Supreme Court ruled that the principle sustaining compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. It affirmed the state's right to call upon defectives for "sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned"; said the operation involved no "serious" pain or "substantial" danger. Concerning "discrimination," the Supreme Court said that the law could not be criticized for failing to reach all defectives when it was seeking to include them "so far and so fast" as its means allowed. Fifteen other* have laws similar to the Virginia statute. Supreme Court decisions go into effect 40 days after having been arrived at.† Thus Miss Buck had 40 days left in which to be "the potential parent of socially inadequate offspring."**
*At the close of 1925, seven states had reported sterilization of mental defectives as follows: California, 4,500 ; Kansas, 335 ; Nebraska, 260; Oregon, 303; Wisconsin, 144 ; Indiana, 700 ; Michigan, 100.†40 days at present; 24 days in the future, by a ruling passed during the present sitting. **There are three main methods by which human beings may be prevented from propagating the species. In the case of Miss Buck, a surgeon will sever the Fallopian tubes, which function as passages from ovaries to womb. This surgical operation is known as salpingotomy. Surgical sterilization of men consists of cutting the spermatic cord, causing atrophy of the testicles. The third method, applicable to both men and women, is X-ray sterilization. As a result of X-ray treatment, organs of reproduction become atrophied. The X-ray process is expensive, complicated.