''Buck v. Bell'', 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a decision of the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
, written by Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist and legal scholar who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932.Holmes was Acting Chief Justice of the Un ...
, in which the Court ruled that a
state statute permitting
compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
of the unfit, including the
intellectually disabled
Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation, Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signifi ...
, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the
Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Despite the changing attitudes in the coming decades regarding sterilization, the Supreme Court has never expressly overturned ''Buck v. Bell''. It is widely believed to have been weakened by ''
Skinner v. Oklahoma'', 316 U.S. 535 (1942), which involved compulsory sterilization of male habitual criminals (and came to a contrary result).
Legal scholar and Holmes biographer
G. Edward White, in fact, wrote, "the Supreme Court has distinguished the case
'Buck v. Bell''out of existence". In addition, federal statutes, including the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 () is a United States federal law, codified at et seq. The principal sponsor of the bill was Rep. John Brademas (D-IN-3). The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 replaces preexisting laws (collectively referred to as the V ...
and the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ...
, provide protections for people with disabilities, defined as both physical and mental impairments.
''Buck v. Bell'' is often cited as one of the worst Supreme Court rulings.
Background
The concept of
eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...
was propounded in 1883 by
Francis Galton, who also coined the name. The idea first became popular in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and had found proponents in Europe by the start of the 20th century; 42 of the 58 research papers presented at the First International Congress of Eugenics, held in London in 1912, were from American scientists.
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
passed the first eugenics sterilization statute in 1907, but it was legally flawed. To remedy that situation,
Harry Laughlin
Harry Hamilton Laughlin (March 11, 1880 – January 26, 1943) was an American educator and eugenicist. He served as the superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office from its inception in 1910 to its closure in 1939, and was among the most a ...
, of the
Eugenics Record Office
The Eugenics Record Office (ERO), located in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States, was a research institute that gathered biological and social information about the American population, serving as a center for eugenics and human heredity ...
(ERO) at the
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, and quantitative biology.
It is one of 68 institutions supported by the Cancer Centers ...
, designed a model eugenic law that was reviewed by legal experts. In 1924, the Commonwealth of
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
adopted a statute authorizing the
compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
of the
intellectually disabled
Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation, Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signifi ...
for the purpose of eugenics, a statute closely based on Laughlin's model.
![Carrie and Emma Buck, 1924](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Carrie_and_Emma_Buck%2C_1924.jpg)
Looking to determine if the new law would survive a legal challenge, on September 10, 1924,
Albert Sidney Priddy, superintendent of the
Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded
The Virginia State Colony for the Epileptics and Feeble Minded was a state run institution for those considered to be “ Feeble minded” or those with severe mental impairment. The colony opened in 1910 near Lynchburg, Virginia in Madison Heig ...
, filed a petition with his board of directors to sterilize
Carrie Buck. She was an 18-year-old patient at his institution who he claimed had a mental age of 9. Priddy maintained that Buck represented a genetic threat to society. According to him, Buck's 52-year-old mother possessed a mental age of 8, had a record of
prostitution and
immorality
Immorality is the violation of moral laws, norms or standards. It refers to an agent doing or thinking something they know or believe to be wrong. Immorality is normally applied to people or actions, or in a broader sense, it can be applied to ...
, and had three children without good knowledge of their paternity. Buck, one of those children, had been adopted and attended school for five years, reaching the level of sixth grade. However, according to Priddy, Buck eventually proved to be "incorrigible" and gave birth to an illegitimate child. Her adoptive family had her committed to the State Colony as "
feeble-minded
The term feeble-minded was used from the late 19th century in Europe, the United States and Australasia for disorders later referred to as illnesses or deficiencies of the mind.
At the time, ''mental deficiency'' encompassed all degrees of educa ...
", feeling they were no longer capable of caring for her. It was later discovered that Buck's pregnancy was not caused by any "immorality" on her own part. In the summer of 1923, while her adoptive mother was away "on account of some illness," her adoptive mother's nephew had raped Buck, and her later commitment has been seen as an attempt by the family to save their reputation.
[Alt URL]
*
Case
While the litigation was making its way through the court system, Priddy died and his successor, John Hendren Bell, took up the case. The board of directors issued an order for the sterilization of Buck, and her guardian appealed the case to the
Circuit Court of Amherst County, which sustained the decision of the Board. The case then moved to the
Supreme Court of Appeals
The Supreme Court of Virginia is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It primarily hears direct appeals in civil cases from the trial-level city and county circuit courts, as well as the criminal law, family law and administrative ...
of Virginia.
The appellate court sustained the sterilization law as compliant with both the state and federal constitutions, and it then went to the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
. Buck and her guardian contended that the due process clause guarantees all adults the right to procreate which was being violated. They also made the argument that the Equal Protection Clause in the
14th Amendment was being violated since not all similarly situated people were being treated the same. The sterilization law was only for the "feeble-minded" at certain state institutions and made no mention of other state institutions or those who were not in an institution.
On May 2, 1927, in an 8–1 decision, the Court accepted that Buck, her mother and her daughter were "feeble-minded" and "promiscuous," and that it was in the state's interest to have her sterilized. The ruling legitimized Virginia's sterilization procedures until they were repealed in 1974.
![Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1902](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes%2C_1902.jpg)
The ruling was written by
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist and legal scholar who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932.Holmes was Acting Chief Justice of the Un ...
In support of his argument that the interest of "public welfare" outweighed the interest of individuals in their bodily integrity, he argued:
Holmes concluded his argument by citing ''
Jacobson v. Massachusetts'' as a
precedent
A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great valu ...
for the decision, stating "Three generations of
imbeciles
The term ''imbecile'' was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal.Fernald, Walter E. (1912). ''The imbecile with criminal instincts.'' Fourth editi ...
are enough".
[ The sole dissenter in the court, Justice ]Pierce Butler Pierce or Piers Butler may refer to:
*Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond (c. 1467 – 26 August 1539), Anglo-Irish nobleman in the Peerage of Ireland
*Piers Butler, 3rd Viscount Galmoye (1652–1740), Anglo-Irish nobleman in the Peerage of Ireland
* P ...
, a devout Catholic, did not write a dissenting opinion
A dissenting opinion (or dissent) is an opinion in a legal case in certain legal systems written by one or more judges expressing disagreement with the majority opinion of the court which gives rise to its judgment.
Dissenting opinions are norm ...
.
Carrie Buck was operated upon, receiving a compulsory salpingectomy
Salpingectomy refers to the surgical removal of a Fallopian tube. This may be done to treat an ectopic pregnancy or cancer, to prevent cancer, or as a form of contraception.
This procedure is now sometimes preferred over its ovarian tube-sparin ...
(a form of tubal ligation
Tubal ligation (commonly known as having one's "tubes tied") is a surgical procedure for female sterilization in which the fallopian tubes are permanently blocked, clipped or removed. This prevents the fertilization of eggs by sperm and thus the ...
). She was later paroled from the institution as a domestic worker to a family in Bland, Virginia. She was an avid reader until her death in 1983. Her daughter Vivian had been pronounced "feeble minded" after a cursory examination by ERO field worker Dr. Arthur Estabrook.[ According to his report, Vivian "showed backwardness",][ thus the "three generations" of the majority opinion. It is worth noting that the child did very well in school for the two years that she attended (she died of complications from measles in 1932), even being listed on her school's honor roll in April 1931.][
Historian Paul A. Lombardo argued in 1985 that Buck was not "feeble-minded" at all, but that she had been put away to hide her rape, perpetrated by the nephew of her adoptive mother.] He also asserted that Buck's lawyer, Irving Whitehead, poorly argued her case, failed to call important witnesses, and was remarked by commentators to often not know what side he was on. It is now thought that this was not because of incompetence, but deliberate. Whitehead had close connections to the counsel for the institution and to Priddy. Whitehead was a member of the governing board of the state institution in which Buck resided, had personally authorized Priddy's sterilization requests, and was a strong supporter of eugenic sterilization.
Effect of the ruling
The effect of ''Buck v. Bell'' was to legitimize eugenic sterilization
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to Involuntary treatment, involuntarily Sterilization (medicine), sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's ca ...
laws in the United States as a whole. While many states already had sterilization laws on their books, their use was erratic and effects practically non-existent in every state except for California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. After ''Buck v. Bell'', dozens of states added new sterilization statutes, or updated their constitutionally non-functional ones already enacted, with statutes which more closely mirrored the Virginia statute upheld by the Court.
The Virginia statute that ''Buck v. Bell'' upheld was designed in part by the eugenicist Harry H. Laughlin, superintendent of Charles Benedict Davenport's Eugenics Record Office
The Eugenics Record Office (ERO), located in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States, was a research institute that gathered biological and social information about the American population, serving as a center for eugenics and human heredity ...
in Cold Spring Harbor, New York
Cold Spring Harbor is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Huntington, in Suffolk County, on the North Shore of Long Island in New York. As of the 2010 United States census, the CDP population was 5,070.
History
Cold Spri ...
. Laughlin had, a few years previously, conducted studies on the enforcement of sterilization legislation throughout the country and had concluded that the reason for their lack of use was primarily that the physicians who would order the sterilizations were afraid of prosecution by patients upon whom they operated. Laughlin saw the need to create a "Model Law" that could withstand constitutional scrutiny, clearing the way for future sterilization operations. The Nazi jurists designing the German Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring based it largely on Laughlin's "Model Law", although development of that law preceded Laughlin's. Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
held Laughlin in such high regard that they arranged for him to receive an honorary doctorate from Heidelberg University
}
Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, B ...
in 1936. At the Subsequent Nuremberg trials after World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, counsel for ''SS'' functionary Otto Hofmann
Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', '' Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity".
The name is recorded ...
explicitly cited Holmes's opinion in ''Buck v. Bell'' in his defense.
Sterilization rates under eugenic laws in the United States climbed from 1927 until '' Skinner v. Oklahoma'', 316 U.S. 535 (1942). While ''Skinner v. Oklahoma'' did not specifically overturn ''Buck v. Bell'', it created enough of a legal quandary to discourage many sterilizations. By 1963, sterilization laws were almost wholly out of use, though some remained officially on the books for many years. Language referring to eugenics was removed from Virginia's sterilization law, and the current law, passed in 1988 and amended in 2013, authorizes only the voluntary sterilization of those 18 and older, after the patient has given written consent and the doctor has informed the patient of the consequences as well as alternative methods of contraception.
The story of Carrie Buck's sterilization and the court case was made into a television drama in 1994, '' Against Her Will: The Carrie Buck Story''. It was also referred to in 1934's sensational film ''Tomorrow's Children
''Tomorrow's Children'', also known as ''The Unborn'' in the United Kingdom, is a 1934 American drama film written by Wallace Thurman and directed by Crane Wilbur. The film partially criticizes the eugenic policies in practice in the United States ...
'', and was covered in the October 2018 ''American Experience
''American Experience'' is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and people in American his ...
'' documentary "The Eugenics Crusade".
Although this opinion and eugenics remain widely condemned, the decision in the case has not been formally overturned. ''Buck v. Bell'' was cited as a precedent by the opinion of the court (part VIII) in ''Roe v. Wade
''Roe v. Wade'', 410 U.S. 113 (1973),. was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and s ...
'', but not in support of abortion rights. To the contrary, Justice Blackmun
Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 – March 4, 1999) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. Appointed by Republican President Richard Nixon, Blac ...
quoted it to justify that the constitutional right to abortion is not unlimited. Blackmun claimed that the right to privacy was strong enough to prevent the state from protecting unborn life in the womb, but not strong enough to prevent a woman being sterilized against her will.
In the 1996 case of ''Fieger v. Thomas'', the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (in case citations, 6th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:
* Eastern District of Kentucky
* Western District of ...
both recognized and criticized ''Buck v. Bell'' by writing, "as Justice Holmes pointed out in the only part of ''Buck v. Bell'' that remains unrepudiated, a claim of a violation of the Equal Protection Clause based upon selective enforcement 'is the usual last resort of constitutional arguments. In 2001, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (in case citations, 8th Cir.) is a United States federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States district courts:
* Eastern District of Arkansas
* Western Dist ...
cited ''Buck v. Bell'' to protect the constitutional rights of a woman coerced into sterilization without procedural due process. The court stated that error and abuse will result if the state does not follow the procedural requirements, established by ''Buck v. Bell'', for performing an involuntary sterilization.
Derek Warden has shown how the decision in ''Buck v. Bell'' has been affected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
See also
*Eugenics in the United States
Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the Genetics, genetic quality of the human population, played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States from the late 19th century into the mid-20th c ...
*Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924
The Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 was a U.S. state law in Virginia for the sterilization of institutionalized persons "afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy”. It ...
*Racial Integrity Act of 1924
In 1924, the Virginia General Assembly enacted the Racial Integrity Act. The act reinforced racial segregation by prohibiting interracial marriage and classifying as "white" a person "who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasia ...
*''Stump v. Sparkman
''Stump v. Sparkman'', 435 U.S. 349 (1978), is the leading United States Supreme Court decision on judicial immunity. It involved an Indiana judge who was sued by a young woman who had been sterilized without her knowledge as a minor in accorda ...
'' (1978)
*'' Poe v. Lynchburg Training School and Hospital'' (1981)
* Sex-related court cases in the United States
* List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 274
This is a list of cases reported in volume 274 of ''United States Reports'', decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1927.
Justices of the Supreme Court at the time of volume 274 U.S.
The Supreme Court is established by Ar ...
*Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ...
References
Notes
Citations
Further reading
*.
* Cullen-DuPont, Kathryn. ''Encyclopedia of Women's History in America'' (Infobase Publishing, 2009) pp 37–38
*
*
*.
*
* Smith, J. David. ''The Sterilization of Carrie Buck'' (New Horizon Press, 1989)
External links
*
An account of the case from the Dolan DNA Learning Center
Buck v. Bell (Case File #31681)
''archives.gov''
"Eugenics."
Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
"Buck v. Bell (1927)" by N. Antonios and C. Raup at the Embryo Project Encyclopedia
Buck v. Bell
at Encyclopedia Virginia Virginia Humanities (VH), formerly the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is a humanities council whose stated mission is to develop the civic, cultural, and intellectual life of the Commonwealth of Virginia by creating learning opportunities f ...
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buck v. Bell
Eugenics in the United States
Intellectual disability
Mental health law in the United States
Psychiatry controversies
United States disability case law
United States Supreme Court cases
United States Supreme Court cases of the Taft Court
United States substantive due process case law
United States equal protection case law
United States reproductive rights case law
Science and law
1927 in United States case law
Sterilization (medicine)
Amherst County, Virginia
Healthcare in Virginia
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Compulsory sterilization