As Amended
SEC. 41-45-9. Board to act on petition.
The board of trustees of mental institutions may deny the prayer of the petition. If the board shall find that the inmate is insane, idiotic, imbecile or feeble-minded, and by the laws of heredity is the probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring likewise afflicted, that the said inmate may be sexually sterilized without detriment to his or her general health, and that the welfare of the inmate and of society will be promoted by such sterilization, the said board may order the director to perform or to have performed by some competent physician or surgeon to be named in such order upon the said inmate, after not less than thirty days from the date of said order, the operation of vasectomy, if a male, or salpingectomy, if a female. However, nothing in this chapter shall be construed to authorize the operation of castration or the removal of sound organs from the body.
SOURCES: Codes, 1930, Sec. 4604; 1942, Sec. 6959; Laws, 1928, ch. 294; 1984, ch. 472, Sec. 6, eff from and after July 1, 1984.