Buck v. Bell

1. 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. 207.

2. Failure to extend the provision to persons outside the institutions named does not render it obnoxious to the Equal Protection Clause. P. 208.

ERROR to a judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State of Virginia which affirmed a judgment ordering [p201] the Superintendent of the State Colony of Epileptics and Feeble Minded to perform the operation of salpingectomy on Carrie Buck, the plaintiff in error. [p205]