In the syllabus of the opinion Justice Garrison holds that the artificial regulation of the welfare of society by means of surgical operations for the prevention of procreation, being based upon the suppression of the personal liberty of individuals, must be accomplished, if at all, by a statute that does not deny to the persons thus injuriously affected the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States.
Commenting on this decision, the Springfield Republican says editorially:
It is constitutional to sterilize defectives and criminals in the State of Washington, but it is unconstitutional to sterilize them in New Jersey. The United States Supreme Court will have to settle the question finally. To the lay mind it would seem that, if the State has power to break a man’s neck by hanging, or to kill him by electricity, it would have the lesser power to subject him to a surgical operation, not in the least dangerous to life or limb, for the protection of society. The question of constitutionality aside, it is to be observed that sterilization involves various social questions whose seriousness should compel caution on the part of Legislatures in authorizing its practice in public institutions. It cannot be said that the problem has yet been completely thought out and all the consequences fully considered. A recent article in a medical journal by one of the foremost advocates of sterilization was notable for the physician’s frank admission that the objections to the operation, in their broadest significance, were very weighty. An operation that leaves the subject physically as fit as ever for the sex relationship, yet eliminates the danger of the conception of children, would have very deplorable moral and social results if it should become in the least common. It is a question that may easily involve large classes of people outside of prisons and asylums for the feeble-minded.
Farm Work in Minnesota.—From the near northwest comes the tale that twenty-five convicts are to be sent to the State lands near Walker, Minn., from the State penitentiary at Stillwater, to begin a system of intensive State farming and land reclamation, according to plans announced by the State Board of Control, which is compelled to find employment for more than two hundred men after January 1.
The new laws prevent the prison from taking contracts, and the shoe contract will accordingly be dropped.
The announcement of the new plan was made after the board had bought 160 acres adjoining the prison farm at Stillwater. This land will be farmed.
The board has other land adjoining State institutions and owns a large tract near the State sanatorium at Walker. The men prisoners will be sent there to clear the land and put in crops. Only the prisoners with best records will be sent to the farms. If the first detachment makes a success of the venture others will be sent out.