From Bell to Bell - Responsible Reproduction in the Twentieth Century
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RESPONSIBLE REPRODUCTION IN THE
TWENTIETH CENTURY
In 1927, the Supreme Court decided the case of Buck v. Bell.1
Carrie Buck, a Virginia resident who the state labeled feeble
minded,2 gave birth to an illegitimate daughter.3 Consequently,
the state committed Carrie to the State Colony for Epileptics
and the Feeble Minded, a state hospital in Lynchburg, where she
learned that she was to be sterilized4 pursuant to a state statute
allowing for involuntary sterilization of mentally retarded per-
sons contained in state institutions.5 Carrie, through her coun-
sel, contested the procedure and argued that the statute was
unconstitutional and violated both her substantive due process
and equal protection rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.6
Justice Holmes writing for the majority upheld the Virginia
statute.7 In his opinion, Holmes declared that Carrie, her
mother, and Carrie's illegitimate child were all feeble minded8.
Carrie's daughter was seven months old at the time this
1274 U.S. 200 (1927).
2 Feeble minded, according to geneticist Dorothy Nelkin, referred to everything from
mental inferiority to poor speech to sexual impropriety. Nelkin wrote that, [a] promis-
cuous female who violated social norms was by definition feeble-minded. Her sexual
behavior proved her to be flawed in body and mind, and women thus identified were
institutionalized not to be cared for, but to be prevented from further reproduction; at
menopause, they were commonly freed. DOROTHY NELKIN &_ SusAN LINDEE, THE DNA
MYSTIQUE: THE GENE AS CULTURAL ICON 24 (1995).
3Buck, 274 U.S. at 205.
4 Sterilizations of women occurred through a surgical process called salpingectomy,
whereby the abdominal cavity was opened and the Fallopian tubes cut. Id at 200.
5 Act of 1924 ch. 394, 1924 Va. Laws 569 (sterilization act). The Compulsory Steriliza-
tion Statutes of Virginia were enacted and approved on March 20, 1924 and provide
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 ster-
ilization may be effected in males by vasectomy and in females by salpingectomy without
serious pain or substantial danger to life.. . . Buck 274 U.S. at 205.
6Buck 274 U.S. at 200.
71d. at 208.
8 Interestingly, Holmes offers no support for this determination; instead, he simply de-
clares that, as a matter of fact, 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
Maryland Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues
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From Bell to Bell - Responsible Reproduction in the Twentieth Century
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