The Effects of Eugenic Bias and Moral Emotions on Lay Legal Judgments in a Sterilization Case Involving Intellectual Disability

AbstractObjective: To examine public opinion on a medical procedure involving the non-consensual sterilization of individuals with intellectual disabilities.Method: A mock jury design was employed with 213 participants (148 female) who evaluated a vignette describing a surgeon performing a tubal ligation on an intellectually disabled patient. The vignette varied across five experimental conditions by manipulating the presence of intellectual disability, genetic risk, and a judicial decision to remove the child from parental custody after birth. We assessed how emotions, moral judgments, the surgeon’s stated rationale, and underlying attitudes, including potential eugenic dispositions, influenced participants’ sentencing recommendations.Results: Findings revealed three distinct participant profiles. One group (the rejecters) consistently deemed the procedure wholly unjustifiable, expressing strong moral condemnation regardless of the surgeon’s explanation. A second group (the apologists) was more inclined to justify the sterilization when the rationale involved disability or potential genetic transmission, exhibiting lower moral outrage and stronger eugenicist attitudes. The third group (the contextual evaluators) offered more nuanced judgments by taking situational factors, such as child risk or insufficient parental support, into account, thereby prioritizing caregiving considerations over disability status alone.Conclusions: The study demonstrates that sentencing recommendations are shaped by emotional and moral responses to perceived genetic and child welfare risks. These findings have important implications for juror education, public policy, and the protection of reproductive rights for individuals with intellectual disabilities.