A man with Huntington's chorea, if married and if he has children, will surely transmit the disease to some of these children, and they to their children. Vasectomy on him will prevent a propagation of his kind but will cure no disease. Moreover, he is not a criminal and not amenable to punishment. The bad effect, sterilization, must be perpetual in his case or it is foolish, but the sterilization is not a punishment, nor a means of saving the health of the patient. Whatever good comes of the act comes out of an evil cause. If such a man persists in marrying, his marriage might be prevented, but that is different from mutilating him. The State has no _direct dominion_ over the lives or members of its citizens, nor are citizens naturally mere instruments for the good of the government; on the contrary, the government exists solely for the good and utility of the citizen. The State may not take the life of an innocent person, nor mutilate him, unless these acts are necessary either (1) to protect the life or rights of individuals; or (2) to preserve the social life of the commonwealth. Now, neither of these two requisites is present when there is question of vasectomizing a man. The right or life of no individual is at stake. The rights of the possible children, yet unborn, are not injured, because, as these children are not in existence, they have no rights. Should they come into being, it is always better to be, even though diseased, than not to be. The methods of cattle-breeders in dealing with human beings is not a virtue in the State, but an outrage and a degradation of human nature. The rights of the wife are not injured, because she personally receives no injury; and if her possible children have chorea, for example, she either voluntarily took that risk when she married, or if she did not, through ignorance, there are other means to avoid the trouble than the evil of sterilization, which in itself would render the use of marriage onanistic. If the husband has syphilis, gonorrhea, leprosy, tuberculosis, or any other infectious disease, vasectomy is no protection for the wife. May a physician employed by the State in a prison, an institution for the feeble-minded, or a like place, do vasectomy at the command of the law? Certainly he may not, except in those rare cases where vasectomy is permissible as described above.