Sterilization of Latinas

Sterilization of Latinas has been practiced in the United States on women of different Latin American identities, including those from Puerto Rico[1] and Mexico.[2] There is a significant history of such sterilization practices being conducted involuntarily,[3] in a coerced or forced manner,[4] as well as in more subtle forms such as that of constrained choice.[5] Some sources credit the practice to theories of racial eugenics.[6]

Eugenics and Neo-Eugenics involving Immigration

The movement of eugenics developed into the Neo-Eugenics movement. This Neo-Eugenics movement supports and studies the encouragement of people with more desirable traits to reproduce in order to positively influence the population's gene pool and the discouragement of people with undesirable traits to reproduce. This led to the practice of preventing people with undesirable traits to reproduce. Undesirable traits correlated with reproductive fitness which included race and ethnicity.[7] In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the immigration rates in the United States spiked along with the reproduction rates in immigrant families. This provoked a deeper fear from eugenicists that native born Americans and Americans with strong reproductive fitness would be outnumbered by immigrants who possess a low reproductive fitness.[7] This fear became ingrained into many Americans across the nation and became fuel for the sterilization of Latinas movements in the twentieth century.

In Women of Different Latina Identity

Puerto Rican women

Puerto Rican women in particular have served as test subjects for various contraceptive studies in the United States,[8] of which included involuntary sterilization. Many Puerto Rican women were sterilized from the 1930s to the 1970s in order to decrease poverty and population growth in Puerto Rico.[9] To decrease the population size of Puerto Ricans, a grant was given to the United States to provide free sterilizations at the workplaces of Puerto Rican women.[9] Though the sterilization was free, these women were often not given proper information about sterilization.[9]

Mexican women

In Los Angeles, between 1969–1973, Mexican and Chicana (Mexican-American) women were also disproportionately targeted by involuntary sterilizations. A number of these women would go on to join a class action lawsuit, Madrigal v. Quilligan, discussed below.

Many of these sterilizations were done involuntarily and without consent. Oftentimes, these women signed off on paperwork without being able to read the English language. This sterilization was seen as an unfortunate result of barriers experienced by Spanish speaking women.[7] Other times, they were told it was necessary in order to maintain their welfare benefits. It became common to sterilize women after giving birth whether by tubal ligation or hysterectomy. Hysterectomy referring to the complete removal of a woman's uterus. Even when the women did consent, it was often under false pretenses that the procedure could be reversed if they decided to have children again in the future.

In Different States

In California

Involuntary sterilization programs were in some instances supported and funded by the states. In California, the rationale for forced sterilization was primarily for eugenics purposes, although this later shifted to a fear of overpopulation and welfare dependency.[10]

California passed the third law in the United States that allowed state institutions to sterilize “unfit” and “feeble-minded” individuals. As eugenics gained credibility as a field in science, sterilization rates increased, especially after the 1927 Buck v. Bell U.S. Supreme Court decision, which upheld the constitutionality of sterilization laws in Virginia. See below. According to available data, California performed one third of all reported sterilization procedures in the United States between 1910 and 1960.

In Texas

Low-income minority women were more dependent on sterilization than other groups.[11] In a study conducted in El Paso, Tx groups of women were asked why they would choose sterilization; many of the top reasons included: not wanting any more children, their current age and health, plans of working or attending school or inability to afford another child.[11]

Related Court Cases

Buck v. Bell (1927)

Carrie Buck was raped by a nephew of her adopted parents in Virginia at the age of 17. In an attempt to cover up the assault, her family committed her to the Lynchburg State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. Soon later, the colony realized that Buck was pregnant with her assaulter's child. At the colony, Dr. Albert Sidney Priddy examined Buck and deemed her to be unfit due to her feeblemindedness. Priddy recommended her for sterilization. This was brought to the courts in order to sanctify the sterilization order. Buck's biological mother was labeled as feebleminded, so Buck was used as "proof" that feeblemindedness was hereditary and sterilization was necessary for the common good. The Supreme Court voted 8-1 stating that being feebleminded led to promiscuity and sterilization was justified. Buck was then sterilized under the Virginia 1924 compulsory sterilization statue.[12]

The Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell confirmed the constitutionality of sterilization of the feebleminded and "unfit." This case solidified that involuntary sterilization was not cruel or unusual punishment and it did not violate due process, but rather it helped the good of the country as a whole. Individual rights of reproduction were now able to be taken for the public good. Cases of involuntary sterilization rose significantly after this case in 1927.[12]

Madrigal v. Quilligan (1978)

In the 1970s a group of Chicana women brought up a federal class action lawsuit against a hospital in Los Angeles County regarding their sterilizations.[13] Women in the class were allegedly given false information regarding sterilization.[13] The titular plaintiff, Dolores Madrigal, a Latina woman, was allegedly told several times by a medical professional that sterilization could be reversed.[13] Other women involved in the case signed consent forms for their sterilizations because they were allegedly sedated or manipulated by doctors and medical staff.[13] A common reason for forcing the sterilizations of these women was apparently the burden that their future children would be to “taxpayers.”[13] Many of the women did not discover that they had been sterilized until they visited a doctor.[13]

The judge deciding Madrigal held that it was a part of a doctor’s practice to provide sterilizations to these women based upon their cultural backgrounds.[13] The judge, Judge Curtis, stated in his ruling that miscommunication between the doctors and the women, rather than malice, resulted in the sterilizations.[13] In the words of his final comment, the judge stated, “One can sympathize with them for their inability to communicate clearly, but one can hardly blame the doctors for relying on these indicia of consent which appeared to be unequivocal on their face and which are in constant use in the medical center.”[13]

Further implications

In 1979, the practice was abolished in California.[14] It is estimated that approximately 20,000 women were sterilized in total.[15] There have been talks in the California State Assembly to formally compensate the women who were involuntary sterilized.

See also

• Madrigal v. Quilligan
• No más bebés
• Sterilization law in the United States
• Eugenics in the United States
• Sterilization of Native American women

References

1. Briggs, Laura (2002). Reproducing Empire. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 142–161. ISBN 978-0-520-23258-7.
2. Gutirrez, Elena (2015). "The Fertility of Women of Mexican Origin: A Social Constructionist Approach". In Joffe, Carole (ed.). Reproduction and Society. New York: Routledge. pp. 32–42. ISBN 978-0-415-73103-4.
3. Novak, Nicole L.; Lira, Natalie; O’Connor, Kate E.; Harlow, Siobán D.; Kardia, Sharon L. R.; Stern, Alexandra Minna (May 2018). "Disproportionate Sterilization of Latinos Under California's Eugenic Sterilization Program, 1920–1945". American Journal of Public Health. 108 (5): 611–613. doi:10.2105/ajph.2018.304369. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 5888070. PMID 29565671.
4. CARASA (1979). Women Under Attack: Abortion, Sterilization Abuse, and Reproductive Freedom. New York: Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse. p. 70.
5. Lopez, iris (2008). Matters of Choice: Puerto Rican Women's Struggle for Reproductive Freedom. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press. p. 208. ISBN 978-0-8135-4373-4.
6. Novak, Nicole L.; Lira, Natalie; O’Connor, Kate E.; Harlow, Siobán D.; Kardia, Sharon L. R.; Stern, Alexandra Minna (May 2018). "Disproportionate Sterilization of Latinos Under California's Eugenic Sterilization Program, 1920–1945". American Journal of Public Health. 108 (5): 611–613. doi:10.2105/ajph.2018.304369. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 5888070. PMID 29565671.
7. Hunter, Gina Louise (December 2010). "Fit to Be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980. by Rebecca M. Kluchin". Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 24 (4): 566–567. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1387.2010.01130.x. ISSN 0745-5194.
8. O’Reilly, Andrea, ed. (2007). Maternal Theory: Essential Readings. Demeter Press. ISBN 978-1550144826. JSTOR stable/j.ctt1rrd94h.
9. Andrews, Katherine (October 30, 2017). "The Dark History of Forced Sterilization of Latina Women". Panoramas Scholarly Platform. Retrieved December 4, 2018.
10. Stern, Alexandra Minna (2005). "Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America". Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America (1 ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 9780520244436. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1pn5jp.
11. Potter, J., White, K., Hopkins, K., McKinnon, S., Shedlin, M., Amastae, J., & Grossman, D. (2012). Frustrated Demand for Sterilization Among Low‐Income Latinas in El Paso, Texas. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 44(4), 228–235.
12. Largent, Mark A. (2008). Breeding Contempt: The History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
13. Thompson, Sam. Madrigal v. Quilligan. (2006). 416–419.
14. Stern, Alexandra Minna (July 2005). "Sterilized in the Name of Public Health". American Journal of Public Health. 95 (7): 1128–1138. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2004.041608. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 1449330. PMID 15983269.
15. "California Eugenics". www.uvm.edu. Retrieved 2018-11-15.