Conservatorship of Valerie N., 40 Cal.3d 143 (1985)

CASE: Parents seek to have a tubal ligation performed on their developmentally disabled daughter.

FACTS: Mother and stepfather of Valerie N., a developmentally disabled 29-year-old woman, seek to have a tubal ligation to make certain that she not be subjectec to what they believe would be a psychologically devasting pregnancy. Valerie is sexually agressive toward men, and her parents keep her from other males for that reason. They are looking to a time when they will not be there to make certain that she does not engage in sexual relations and believe tubal ligation is the only choice. As conservators of their daughter, the parents have the power to make her get an abortion if she did become pregnant, to make her take other kinds of birth control and to take from her any child she might bear. The probate court ruled that the parents could be conservators, but said it did not have the jurisdiction to approve the ligation. Under state law, neither the probabte court nor state hospital personnel were to retain authority to permit a nontherapuetic sterilization of a conservatee who is unable to personally consent to the procedure. The parents appealed the the Supreme Court.

PARENTS ARGUE: Valerie is sexually agressive toward men. This coupled with the fact that they (the parents) will not be around for the rest of her life to protect her from the consequuences of pregnancy, leads them to believe that a tubal ligation is the best choice. As conservators, they have substantial control over Valerie's reproductive rights and choices. Denying them this right is like denying Valerie the right to choose to have a tubal ligation and is therefore violative of due process and equal protection.

DEFENDANT ARGUES: The law is the law, and the legislative intent is to make such sterilizations illegal and to take from the probate court any authority it has in granting such sterilizations.

COURT SAYS: Judgment remanded without prejudice for more factfinding (a victory for the parents).

HOLDING: Law prohibiting conservators from obtaining court orders to sterlize developmentally disabled conservatees violates conservatees' privacy and liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and relevant provisions of the California state constitution. There was not, however, sufficient evidence to rule that the sterlization is necessary nor that Valerie can, in fact, become pregnant.

RATIONALE:

• Sterilization is encompassed in the right to privacy, protected as a liberty interest by the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.
• True protection of procreative choice can only be accomplished if the state permits the court-supervised substituted judgment of the conservator to be exercised on behalf of a conservatee who is unable to personally exercise that right.
• Denying mentally retarded women the choice to be sterilized denies them the same rights as would those women who are not mentally retarded enjoy.
• The state can point to no compelling state interest in restricting this right, nor a basis on which to conclude that the prohibition contained in the statute is necessary to achieve the identified purpose of furthering the incompetent's right not to be sterilized.

DISSENT: (Reynoso): There is not enough evidence here to conclude that she should have had the operation; the legislature declared that these official operations should come to an end (a prudent and constitutionally permitted legislative action).

(Bird): Because choice and consent are meaningless concepts when applied to incompetents, the majority's invocation of the theory of procreative choice and the fiction of substituted consent cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. The state has a compelling interest in protecting the fundamental right of its citizens to bear children, and the prohibition on sterilization of incompetent conservatees is necessary to effectuate that interest.

COMMENTARY: The Court is not at all clear about how it which provision of the Fourteenth Amendment this law violates. It speaks of both equal protection and due process, but also speaks of "liberty and privacy" interests. Of course, these are one in the same under the equal protection clause (privacy has been interpreted as a subset of liberty). Perhaps the Court speaks of a right to privacy in the California constitution. That said, the Court does seem to engage in a half-hearted strict scrutiny analysis when it notes that the respondent has demonstrated neither a "compelling state interest" in restricting this right, nor a basis on which to conclude that the prohibition is "necessary" to achieve the identified purpose of furthering the incompetent's right not to be sterilized.

T O P