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TW: Genocide // Eugenics // Ableism // Racism // Classism // Forced sterilization
The US has a long and violent history in eugenics via forced sterilization. These laws and programs were rooted in ableism and started with disabled people. Then they started targeting poor people, BIPoC, incarcerated people, and now migrants in ICE detentions.
1927 through 1981- Around 60,000 people were sterilized due to sterilization programs and laws implemented in 32 states. “US eugenic laws and practices influenced larger National Socialist compulsory sterilization program, and was a stepping stone to the Holocaust.”
1927- Supreme Court upheld forced sterilization of a disabled woman in Buck v Bell, stating it did not not violate the 14th amendment. This paved way for 32 states to enforce similar law.
https://disabilityjustice.org/right-to-self-determination-freedom-from-involuntary-sterilization/
https://disabilityjustice.org/right-to-self-determination-freedom-from-involuntary-sterilization/
1929 through 1974: The state of North Carolina sterilized close to 7,600 poor men and women, including children as young as nine. By the late 1960s more than 60% were Black, and 99% were women. In 2014 NC paid $20,000 to 220 people in reparations. https://rewire.news/article/2017/01/30/state-eugenics-sheds-light-north-carolinas-sterilization-abuse/
While North Carolina didn’t sterilize the greatest number of people (CA sterilized 20,000), it was known for being the most aggressive in targeting poor people, disabled people, BIPoC, and even gay men and lesbians. Its program went on as others states slowed down after WW2.
1937- The Puerto Rican government passed Law 116 which legalized sterilization and made it free. Sterilization campaign that began shortly after WWI left 30% of the women there unable to have children by 1965. https://pasquines.us/2015/09/01/sterilization-the-untold-story-of-puerto-rico/
Worth mentioning- In 1955, clinical trials for birth control pill happened in Puerto Rico with poor women as test subjects. They were given strong formulation of the drug without being told it was a trial or about any risks. Three women died. https://www.history.com/news/birth-control-pill-history-puerto-rico-enovid
1970- Over the six-year period that followed the passage of the Family Planning Services and the Population Research Act of 1970, physicians sterilized 25% of Native American women, and evidence suggests numbers are actually higher. https://time.com/5737080/native-american-sterilization-history/
1975- Madrigal v Quilligan was filed against Los Angeles County-USC for involuntary sterilization on Mexican immigrant women over multiple decades. A judge ruled it a “miscommunication” between patients and doctors because they were Spanish speakers. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/magazine/when-doctors-took-family-planning-into-their-own-hands.html
In his ruling, Judge Jesse W. Curtis wrote that “their emotional distress at being sterilized was caused by their “cultural background” as immigrants from rural Mexico who believed that a woman’s worth is tied to her ability to raise a large family — not by their sterilizations.”
Civil Rights Activist, Fannie Lou Hamer, was also unknowingly sterilized in Mississippi. In a 1965 speech she stated that “six out of every 10 Black women were taken to the Sunflower City Hospital [in Mississippi] to be sterilized for no reason.”
![Civil Rights Activist, Fannie Lou Hamer, was also unknowingly sterilized in Mississippi. In a 1965 speech she stated that “six out of every 10 Black women were taken to the Sunflower City Hospital [in Mississippi] to be sterilized for no reason.”](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eh-cTFoWsAQSJh5.jpg "Civil Rights Activist, Fannie Lou Hamer, was also unknowingly sterilized in Mississippi. In a 1965 speech she stated that “six out of every 10 Black women were taken to the Sunflower City Hospital [in Mississippi] to be sterilized for no reason.”")
There are so many horrific cases and stories to even share. A lot of these survivors are still alive today. Even though eugenics programs “came to an end” in the 70s, involuntary sterilization still continued and still happens today.
2006 to 2010- Nearly 150 women were sterilized in California prisons without the state's approval. Another 100 cases taking place between 1997 and 2010. They paid surgeons a total of nearly $150,000 for conducting the procedure. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/07/09/200444613/californias-prison-sterilizations-reportedly-echoes-eugenics-era
2017- A judge in White County, Tennessee tried to coerce inmates into sterilization by offering 30 days off their sentence if they got a vasectomy/ went on four year birth control. After backlash he canceled program. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/07/20/us/white-county-inmate-vasectomy-trnd/index.html
The US also had a hand in sterilization campaign in Peru which led to sterilization of over 200,000 poor/Indigenous Peruvian women in late 1990s when the US's primary foreign "aid" agency took control of the Peruvian national health system. https://www.google.com/amp/s/fee.org/articles/the-us-government-led-a-program-that-forcibly-sterilized-thousands-of-peruvian-women/amp
