SOCIAL EUGENICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 103, 4 May 1927, Page 7

SOCIAL EUGENICS.

Important Supreme Court

Deris: m.

STERLISING FEEBLE-MINDED.

WASHINGTON, May 3.

A most important legal decision, as affecting the practice of social eugenics, was rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States yesterday. The judgment upholds the law of the State of Virginia, which provides for the sterilisation of the feeble-minded.

The case dealt with an order by the superintendent of the State colony of epileptics and feeble-minded for the operation of salpingotomy to be performed on a feeble-minded young woman, who was the mother of an illegitimate and feeble-minded child, and whose own mother was also feeble-minded.

The woman's guardian brought an action on the ground that the Virginian law was void, because it conflicted with the 14th amendment to the American Constitution, in that it denied to the plaintiff due process of law and equal protection under the laws. Mr. Justice 0. W. Holmes in his decision said that it would be better for all the world if society, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for some crime, or letting them starve because of their imbecility, would prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle which upholds compulsory vaccination is, said the judge, broad enough to cover the proposition of sterilisation.