#HipHop4Her: Women Sterilization In The US

Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced sterilization, has been around for centuries and has taken place in different countries, even in the United States. Forced sterilization is the process of permanently ending someone’s ability to reproduce with his or her consent. Being that women are the ones who bear children, it is women who often suffer from this process. Forced sterilization is just one of the many issues that women have to face. The issue has continued all the way into 2015. There is no justification for forced sterilization but the reason it occurs is to manage population, or eliminate certain people from having children. The particular people include the mentally ill, and transgender. However, many of the forced sterilized situations have happened to women.

In other countries, forced sterilization often comes as an option when wanting to control population. This sterilization of women has occurred in Nazi Germany, Sweden, Japan, Finland and Australia. But it happening in the United States is where many people are shocked. In the land of the free, where people are supposed to exercise their rights. You would think that women have the right to have as many children as they would like. That there would no one labeled as “undesirables” that need to be sterilized.

Taken from BBC

It began in 1849, when the first bill was passed for sterilizations this was intended for the mentally ill and those whose genes were deemed undesirable. Then between 1897 and 1909 several states had approved sterilizations, which included  Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Washington and California. In 1965, a sterilization campaign done by the governor of Puerto Rico left 30 percent of the women on the island unable to have children. This was a result of there being too many unskilled workers. Sterilization is now one of the birth control methods for Puerto Rican women on the island. Between 1973 and 1976, 3,406 Native American women were sterilized without permission. 36 of these women were even under the age of 21.

Back to California, within a 70 year period the state had women sterilized mainly Latino and blacks. This led to a class-action lawsuit by a Mexican woman. These women were persuaded into being sterilized minutes after birth. The sterilization in California even led into the new millennium. A new law took effect in January 2015 after it was reported that women in California prisons were being sterilized. This was supposed to be a form of birth control for the women.

Taken from UVM.edu

According to Truthout, between 2006 and 2012 about 500 women in two of California’s prisons were sterilized. Approximately 100 women were coerced into agreeing to tubal litigations. None of these procedures were put through the State Medical Board. 378 women had hysterectomies and had their ovaries removed and also destroyed their uterine lining. The women were also lied to at times, saying that they had fibroids. Now that the law is in effect, it bans sterilization as a form of birth control in California’s state prisons.

Women have faced enough issues in the United States based off of what we possess between our legs. From discrimination in the workplace to the degrading of women in society. Sterilization strips women of their reproductive organs, not allowing them to experience the miracle of birth themselves. Some women feel they were born to be mothers, but how can they ever be a mother when they’ve been sterilized by the government?