Poe v. Lynchburg Training School & Hospital

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In 1980, the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project filed Poe v. Lynchburg Training School on behalf of 8,000 women who had been involuntarily sterilized by a state mental institution in Virginia. The case was an individual and class action suit brought before the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Virginia. The court ruled that the involuntary sterilization of a number of men and women years ago under a Virginia statute did not violate constitutional rights. Although the state statute on involuntary sterilization of "mental defectives" had since been repealed, it had previously been upheld as constitutional, so the sterilizations did not violate the patients' rights. However, the fact that state officials did not notify or provide subsequent medical services to the sterilized individuals was found to merit further consideration by the court. In a settlement reached in 1985, the state agreed to inform the women about what had been done to them and to help them get counseling and medical treatment.

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