"... It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson

"Carrie Buck is a feeble-minded white woman who is committed to the state colony above mentioned in due form. She is the daughter of a feeble-minded mother in the same institution, and the mother of an illegitimate feeble-minded child. She was 18 years old at the time of trial."

The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough

—condoning compulsory sterilization of the mentally deficient: "We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices... in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if …

Justice Holmes pronouncing, in a sterilization case, that "three generations of imbeciles are enough

And for half of that half, the Equal Protection Clause of the Amendment was largely moribund, so that, as late as 1927, Mr. Justice Holmes could sum up the importance of that Clause by remarking that it was the "last resort of constitutional arguments."

—it is better for all the world if… society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.

However, it was not until 1927 that the United States Supreme Court found compulsory sterilization to be constitutional.

It is the usual resort of constitutional arguments to point out shortcomings of this sort, but the answer to this lies in the following words of Mr. Justice HOLMES: "the law does all that is needed when it does all that it can, indicates a policy, applies it to all within the lines, and seeks to bring within the lines all similarly situated so far and so fast as its means allow

By the same token, the Supreme Court has never reconsidered its holding that compulsory sterilization can comport with the requirements of substantive due process—that the public interest may sometimes justify involuntary sterilization.