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We are appalled at the recent story reporting forced hysterectomies at a privately owned ICE jail facility in Georgia. There is a long history of forced sterilization in the United States, specifically of Black, Indigenous and Latina women. https://theintercept.com/2020/09/15/hysterectomies-ice-irwin-whistleblower/
Did you know that Fannie Lou Hamer was given a hysterectomy without her consent? It was a widespread practice euphemistically called a "Mississippi appendectomy" at that time. It was a tool of race and gender intimidation. #CiteBlackWomen https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/fannie-lou-hamer
. @DorothyERoberts writes about the history of the forced sterilization of Black and Latina women in her book Killing the Black Body (1999). Scores of Puerto Rican women were given hysterectomies without their consent in the 1960's for example. #CiteBlackWomen
And of course we cannot forget the practice of forcible sterilizations in U.S. prisons, particularly California. https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/2013/07/cir-prison-investigation-opens-another-chapter-on-sterilization-of-women-in-u-s/
The bodies of BIPOC women have always been marked as violable by the state. We are not surprised but we are sickened that this continues to happen.
