Posts Tagged sterilization

Trump throws paper towels into a crowd

Trump’s Atrocious Behavior Towards Puerto Ricans Is Nothing New

On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria swept through Puerto Rico, leaving 3.4 million people without power and with scarce access to potable drinking water and food. Two weeks later, less than 50% of people can access clean water and only 5% have power

On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria swept through Puerto Rico, leaving 3.4 million people without power and with scarce access to potable drinking water and food. Two weeks later, less than 50% ...

Quick Hit: California investigates sterilizations of prisoners

Last year, the Center for Investigative Reporting exposed to the country what California-based prisoners and advocates had known for years: women in the state’s prisons were being sterilized against their will. Now, the AP reports:

State auditors found 39 cases where female state prison inmates may not have understood they were submitting to medical procedures that would leave them sterile, according to a report released Thursday that recommended authorities investigate the doctors and hospitals involved.

State law prohibits inmates from elective sterilizations as methods of birth control. However, prison officials allow sterilizations in cases deemed medically necessary.

Last year, the Center for Investigative Reporting exposed to the country what California-based prisoners and advocates had known for years: women in the state’s prisons were being sterilized against their will. Now, the AP ...

Latinas were targeted for involuntary sterilizations for decades

Today we are reminded that pro-choice politics are as much about the right to reproduce as they are about the right to abortion. We are also reminded of our country’s history of taking away the right to reproduce of so many women of color.

A new report put out by the University of Michigan has found that Latin@s* were disproportionately targeted for involuntary sterilization under the U.S. eugenics movement. Between 1909 and 1979, Latin@s made up 20-30% of the 60,000 people who were coercively sterilized in the U.S., mostly in mental institutions in California. The majority of these people were women who were labeled as “bad girls” or “sexually wayward”: in other words, women who didn’t follow the strict ...

Today we are reminded that pro-choice politics are as much about the right to reproduce as they are about the right to abortion. We are also reminded of our country’s history of taking away the right ...

North Carolina still trying to compensate victims of state’s forced sterilization program

“I have to carry these scars with me. I have to live with this for the rest of my life.” Elaine Riddick, who was forcibly sterilized under North Carolina’s eugenics program in 1967

We’ve written before about North Carolina’s particularly terrible forced sterilization law. One of 31 states with a government-run eugenics program, North Carolina is now the only one to be trying to compensate the survivors of this shameful chapter in their history:

It began as a way to control welfare spending on poor white women and men, but over time, North Carolina shifted focus, targeting more women and more blacks than whites. A third of the sterilizations performed in North Carolina were done on girls under ...

“I have to carry these scars with me. I have to live with this for the rest of my life.” Elaine Riddick, who was forcibly sterilized under North Carolina’s eugenics program in 1967

We’ve written before about ...

Dealing with the implications of forced sterilization

Motivated by eugenics the United States has a long and dirty history with the use of forced or mandatory sterilization in the name of weeding out society’s ills. The United States was also the first country to implement laws motivated by eugenics and initially focused on people with developmental and physical disabilities, but spread to indigenous  and black women. After all was said and done, approximately 65,000 women people (correction, I read the link wrong) were sterilized under state by state laws.

Turns out, North Carolina had one of the most aggressive forced sterilizations campaigns in the country and as a result is home to thousands of families that were unable to have children. In an effort to ...

Motivated by eugenics the United States has a long and dirty history with the use of forced or mandatory sterilization in the name of weeding out society’s ills. The United States was also the first country to ...

U.S. organization paying HIV-positive women in Kenya to get IUDs

Anna Clark has a really important piece at The Nation about the work of Project Prevention (formerly known as CRACK), a previously domestic-based organization that has now spread their efforts internationally in the name of protecting children — by paying HIV-positive women 40 bucks to get an IUD.

That amount of money is actually quite a bit in Kenya, where the average household income makes $400 a year. So when you come across a person who is offering that kind of cash to team up with other HIV-positive women, create a business plan together and get free birth control, it sounds like a sweet deal, no? But the implications that this kind of program has around personal agency and ...

Anna Clark has a really important piece at The Nation about the work of Project Prevention (formerly known as CRACK), a previously domestic-based organization that has now spread their efforts internationally in the name of ...

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