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Forced sterilization has been a practice by US sanctioned forces both domestically and globally. Some additional examples beyond sterilizations in #PuertoRico:
-U.S. Indian Health Service forced sterilization of American Indian women in the 1960s& 70s
https://time.com/5737080/native-american-sterilization-history/
1/x https://twitter.com/lashnolen/status/1301217689797566466
-U.S. Indian Health Service forced sterilization of American Indian women in the 1960s& 70s
https://time.com/5737080/native-american-sterilization-history/
1/x https://twitter.com/lashnolen/status/1301217689797566466
A study in 1974 by Dr. Connie Pinkerton-Uri, a Chocktaw/Cherokee physician, found that at least one in four American Indian women had been forcibly sterilized. IHS targeted “full-blooded” American Indian women between ages 15 & 44. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/543.html 2/x
-California prisons forcibly sterilizing female inmates, mostly Black &Latina. CA did not ban forced sterilizations as means of birth control in prisons until 2014(!), thx to Kelli Dillon who was forcibly sterilized while incarcerated at age 24 & sued
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/30/california-prisons-forced-sterilizations-belly-beast
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/30/california-prisons-forced-sterilizations-belly-beast
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The film No Más Bebés follows the story of Mexican American women who were forcibly sterilized while giving birth at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in the 1960s and 1970s. https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/no-mas-bebes/
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But CA is not the only state carrying out forced sterilizations. For your state’s history, check out this disturbing repository of state-by-state sterilization policies, the number of victims, institutions where sterilizations were performed, etc. https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/
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Ever heard of a “Mississippi appendectomy”? Southern states used sterilization to control Black populations. “Mississippi appendectomies” referred to unnecessary hysterectomies performed on WOC as practice for med students at Southern hospitals. …https://blackwomenintheblackfreedomstruggle.voices.wooster.edu/2019/05/01/what-the-mississippi-appendectomy-says-about-the-regard-of-the-state-towards-the-agency-of-black-womens-bodies/. 6/x
In North Carolina, 65% of sterilization procedures were performed on Black women even though only 25% of the state’s female population is black.
This is a good article that links these practices to the Puerto Rican experience: https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/forced-sterilization/
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This is a good article that links these practices to the Puerto Rican experience: https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/forced-sterilization/
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Not an ex of forced sterilization, but the US funded syphilis inoculation experiment in Guatemala in the 1940s.
Tuskegee was never a one-off violation of #MedicalEthics but part of a larger pattern of sanctioned state violence against non-white people
8/x http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2017/02/guatemala_syphilis_experiments_worse_than_tuskegee.html
Tuskegee was never a one-off violation of #MedicalEthics but part of a larger pattern of sanctioned state violence against non-white people
8/x http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2017/02/guatemala_syphilis_experiments_worse_than_tuskegee.html
I first looked into this hx as a med student when a Spanish-speaking patient broke down in tears when I asked ab her surgical history. She told me she didn’t realize she had gotten a hysterectomy until after she woke up from surgery & finally got to speak with an interpreter 9/x
I have since thought about her and these stories often... but never more than when we discuss topics like “patient mistrust” which absolves us of this history. Loved the suggestion of considering “violated trust” instead
So much learning and WORK to be done to undo this damage https://twitter.com/altafsaadimd/status/1283830746054946816
So much learning and WORK to be done to undo this damage https://twitter.com/altafsaadimd/status/1283830746054946816
