...Beginning with
Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic,
imbecile or
feeble-minded" from marrying.[
citation needed]
The first state to introduce a compulsory sterilization bill was
Michigan, in 1897 but the proposed law failed to garner enough votes by legislators to be adopted. Eight years later
Pennsylvania's state legislators passed a sterilization bill that was vetoed by the governor.
Indiana became the first state to enact sterilization legislation in 1907,
[30] followed closely by
Washington and
California in 1909. Sterilization rates across the country were relatively low (California being the sole exception) until the 1927
Supreme Court case
Buck v. Bell which legitimized the forced sterilization of patients at a
Virginia home for the
mentally retarded. The number of sterilizations performed per year increased until another Supreme Court case,
Skinner v. Oklahoma, 1942, complicated the legal situation by ruling against sterilization of criminals if the equal protection clause of the constitution was violated. That is, if sterilization was to be performed, then it could not exempt
white-collar criminals.
[31] The state of
California was at the vanguard of the American eugenics movement, performing about 20,000 sterilizations or
one third of the 60,000 nationwide from 1909 up until the 1960s.[32]
...