Virginia Votes Compensation for Victims of its Eugenic Sterilization Program

Lawmakers in Virginia have agreed to pay compensation to people who were forcibly sterilized between 1927 and the early 1970s. The decision makes Virginia the second state after North Carolina – out of more than 30 with eugenic programs during the twentieth century – to provide restitution to those sterilized by their state governments.

Virginia passed its Eugenical Sterilization Act in 1924. Almost immediately, the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and Feebleminded selected a test case that would allow other sterilizations to proceed: Carrie Buck, a 17-year-old young woman committed to the Colony by her foster parents after she gave birth to an illegitimate child conceived when she was raped by one of their relatives.

Buck’s court-appointed attorney called no witnesses to challenge the charges made about her mental health, or to question the science behind the eugenic theory espoused by so-called expert witnesses. The Amherst County Circuit Court quickly affirmed the sterilization law, as did the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The Buck v. Bell case then went before the United States Supreme Court, which upheld it by a vote of 8 to 1 on May 2, 1927. In his opinion, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. agreed with the “expert” witnesses at Buck’s original trial, asserting in a now infamous comment that “three generations of imbeciles are enough.”

A few months later, Carrie Buck became the first person in Virginia to be sterilized under the new law.  Over the next 50 years, another 8,000 persons were sterilized in six Virginia facilities. Two thirds were women, most of them poor or African American.

Some 63,000 people were subsequently sterilized in similar programs across the US, more than 20,000 in California alone. The Virginia state program is also considered to have provided a model for other nations, including Nazi Germany.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, eugenics was widely considered “good science” and “good religion,” and many US organizations and educated elites were strong advocates of eugenic laws. Today, few of these organizations have acknowledged or repented for their past support. Most Protestant denominations participated in the religion committee of the American Eugenic Society, but to my knowledge, only the United Methodist Church has formally apologized.

Virginia’s eugenic sterilization law was revoked in 1979. It has taken 35 years for the state to decide to provide financial reparations for its victims, each of whom will receive $25,000. Sadly, many have died since 1979; it is estimated that fewer than 20 may still be alive, and the whereabouts of only 11 are known.  

The compensation effort united liberals and conservatives in the state. The conservative Christian Law Institute was joined by the liberal United Methodist Church and by my organization, the International Center for Technology Assessment, in advocating for the payments. The compensation measure was sponsored by Delegate Ben Cline, a conservative Republican from Rockbridge County, and Patrick Hope, a liberal Democrat from Arlington County who happens to be my delegate.

The bill originally would have granted $50,000 to each person sterilized under Virginia’s program, the amount provided by North Carolina. But fiscal conservatives balked, and the sponsors agreed to the lower amount in order to get the bill passed now. In the past year, two more of those sterilized by the state’s program have died, so the $400,000 appropriated will likely be more than enough for all the surviving victims of this sad chapter in Virginia’s history.