"The...goal of the eugenics movement was to 'breed out' undesirable traits in order to create a society with a 'superior' genetic makeup, which essentially meant reducing the population of the non-white and the mentally ill...most states had federally funded eugenics boards, and state-ordered sterilization was a common occurrence. Sterilization was seen as one of the most effective ways to stem the growth of an 'undesirable' population, since ending a woman’s reproductive capabilities meant that she would no longer be able to contribute to the population."
"The SC case Buck v. Bell (1927) decided that a Virginia law authorizing the mandatory sterilization of inmates in mental institutions was constitutional...The Supreme Court found that the Virginia law was valuable and did not violate the Constitution, and would prevent the United States from 'being swamped with incompetence'…The Court has never explicitly overturned Buck v. Bell."
"California’s 'Asexualization Acts' in the 1910s and 1920s led to the sterilization of 20,000 disproportionately Black and Mexican people who were deemed to be mentally ill. Hitler and the Nazis were reportedly inspired by California’s laws when formulating their own genocidal eugenics policies in the 1930s...Hitler wrote, 'There is today one state in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States.'"
"Throughout the 20th century, nearly 70,0000 people (overwhelmingly working-class women of color) were sterilized in over 30 states. Black women, Latina women, and Native American women were specifically targeted. From the 1930s to the 1970s, nearly one-third of the women in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, were coerced into sterilization when government officials claimed that Puerto Rico’s economy would benefit from a reduced population. Sterilization was so common that it became known as 'La Operación (The Operation)' among Puerto Ricans."
"Black women were also disproportionately and forcibly sterilized and subjected to reproductive abuse. In North Carolina in the 1960s, Black women made up 65 percent of all sterilizations of women, although they were only 25 percent of the population. One Black woman who was subjected to a forced hysterectomy during this time was Fannie Lou Hamer, a renowned civil rights activist. Hamer described how nonconsensual sterilizations of working-class Black women in the South were so common that they were colloquially known as a 'Mississippi appendectomy'."
"Additionally, many Native American women were sterilized against their will. According to a report by historian Jane Lawrence, the Indian Health Service was accused of sterilizing nearly 25% of Indigenous women during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1973, the year that Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court, supposedly ensuring reproductive rights for all American women, the reproductive rights of thousands of Indigenous women were entirely ignored as they were forcibly sterilized."
"Forced sterilization, especially in exchange for a sentence reduction, occurs often in the criminal legal system today. Government-sanctioned efforts to prevent incarcerated people from reproducing were widespread in the 20th century, and still continue today. In 2017, a judge in Tennessee offered to reduce the jail sentences of convicted people who appeared before him in court if they 'volunteered' to undergo sterilization. In 2009, a 21-year-old woman in West Virginia convicted of marijuana possession underwent sterilization as part of her probation. In 2018, an Oklahoma woman convicted of cashing a counterfeit check received a reduced sentence after undergoing sterilization at the suggestion of the judge.
"According to a report by the Center for Investigative Reporting, almost 150 women considered likely to return to prison were sterilized in California prisons between 2004 and 2003. Although they had to sign 'consent' forms, the procedure, when posed as an incentive for a reduced sentence, generates an ongoing debate about whether or not consent actually exists in these situations."
"Forced sterilizations in the United States are unfortunately nothing new and nothing of the past, either. Yet, judging from the reactions to the recent allegations of involuntary hysterectomies performed at ICE detention facilities, many people are under the impression that these are unprecedented atrocities that are unique to the Trump administration. Of course, it is not any individual’s personal fault for being unaware of the United States’ history with eugenics and forced sterilization; rather, it is a reflection of our education system and the history we prioritize."
https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/11/04/americas-forgotten-history-of-forced-sterilization/
= new reply since forum marked as read
