Skinner V. Oklahoma - The Effect of The Ruling

The Effect of The Ruling

Skinner v. Oklahoma is often erroneously credited with ending all compulsory sterilization in the United States. In reality, however, the only types of sterilization which the ruling immediately ended were punitive sterilizations—it did not directly comment on compulsory sterilization of the mentally disabled or mentally ill and was not a strict overturning of the Court's ruling in Buck v. Bell (1927). Furthermore, most of the over 64,000 sterilizations performed in the USA under the aegis of eugenics legislation were not in prison institutions or performed on convicted criminals; punitive sterilizations made up only negligible amounts of the total operations performed, as most states and prison officials were nervous about their legal status (which were not affirmed in Buck v. Bell specifically) as possible violations of the Eighth ("cruel and unusual punishment") or Fourteenth Amendments ("Due Process" and "Equal Protection Clauses"). Compulsory sterilizations of the mentally disabled and mentally ill continued in the USA in significant numbers until the early 1960s. Though many of their laws stayed on the books for many years longer, the last known forced sterilization in the United States occurred in 1981 in Oregon. Over one-third of all compulsory sterilizations in the United States (over 22,670) took place after Skinner v. Oklahoma.

The 1942 ruling did, however, create a nervous legal atmosphere regarding these other forms of sterilizations, and put a heavy damper on sterilization rates which had boomed since the Buck v. Bell ruling in 1927. After the discovery of the Nazi atrocities done in the name of eugenics—including the compulsory sterilization of 450,000 individuals in barely more than a decade under a sterilization law which drew heavy inspiration from American statutes—and the close association between eugenics and racism, eugenics as an ideology lost almost all public favor.

In Equal Protection analysis, Skinner applied the compelling state interest test to punitive sterilization, whereas Buck applied the less rigorous rational basis test to compulsory sterilization of the mentally disabled.