Forced Sterilization of Women of Color in 20th Century America

Eugenics Definition: A nineteenth and twentieth-century movement believing that genetics could be improved by favoring white, able-bodied people, who were considered the most "fit."
Key Figures: The ideology was adopted by powerful individuals including Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, and Margaret Sanger.
Margaret Sanger: A nurse and founder of Planned Parenthood who published The Woman Rebel. She allied with Neo-Malthusians and eugenicists to provide scientific and social justification for her birth control movement.
Origins: Sir Francis Galton coined the term "Eugenics" in 1883. It gained popularity among upper-class white Americans experiencing anxiety over immigration from eastern and southern Europe and African American migration to northern cities.

Early Legislation: Indiana was the first state to allow eugenic surgery in 1907, though Doctor Harry Clay Sharp performed such surgeries on inmates as early as 1899.
Buck v. Bell (1927): A landmark Supreme Court case that confirmed the constitutionality of forced sterilization for the "feeble-minded," with the court famously stating that "three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Historical Abuse: James Marion Sims, known as the "father of modern gynecology," performed experimental surgeries on enslaved women without anesthetics.
North Carolina Programs: The state had one of the most active programs. In the 1930s-1940s, $23\%$ of sterilized patients were African American; this rose to $64\%$ between 1964 and 1966.
Fannie Lou Hamer: A Civil Rights leader who was involuntarily sterilized in 1961 during a procedure to remove a cyst; she later fought against a 1964 Mississippi sterilization bill.
Relf v. Weinberger (1973): A lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center after twelve-year-old Minnie Lee Relf and fourteen-year-old Mary Alice Relf were sterilized without informed consent. The court found that $100,000$ to $150,000$ poor people were sterilized annually under federal funding.

Puerto Rico and "La Operación": Efforts by organizations like the Maternal and Child Association, formed by Clark Gamble in 1935, led to massive sterilization rates. By the 1960s, one-third of Puertorriquenas had undergone tubal ligation.
California and Xenophobia: Latina women in California were sterilized at rates $59\%$ higher than non-Latinas, fueled by labels like "sex delinquents" and "hyper fertile."
Madrigal v. Quilligan (1975): Ten Chicanas sued physicians at the University of Southern California Los Angeles County Medical Center. While they lost the case, it resulted in bilingual consent forms and a mandatory 72-hour waiting period.
Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias: A women's rights activist who helped create the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA) and push for federal guidelines in 1979.

Indian Health Service (IHS): Targeted Native American women due to high birth rates ( $3.79$ children per woman compared to the U.S. average of $1.79$ in 1970).
Scope of Abuse: Doctor Connie Uri and Marie Sanchez (Northern Cheyenne Tribe chief judge) documented cases. Uri estimated that $25\%$ of Native American women had been sterilized.
Jean Whitehorse: A Navajo woman who was coerced into a tubal ligation in the 1970s while being treated for appendicitis at an IHS hospital in Gallup, New Mexico.
GAO Investigation (1976): A Government Accounting Office report found the Aberdeen, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, and Phoenix areas were non-compliant with IHS sterilization regulations.