Female prisoners in the American prison system are also victims of forced sterilization. Although state lawmakers banned the practice of forced sterilization of the mentally ill and the poor in the late 1970s, the practice continued in California prisons until its official banning in 2015. While we do not know exactly how many female inmates have been sterilized over time, nearly 150 were sterilized between 2006 and 2010, and nearly one-third of these operations were done without informed consent. These women were either forced into receiving tubal ligations, or coerced by prison doctors or staff. Many of these doctors operated under the guise of doing what was best for the female inmate. That is, they deemed it a “medical emergency” and did not consult the women before taking matters into their own hands. Some doctors even falsified the paperwork, as to avoid taking responsibility for determining a woman’s reproductive fate. Just because these women are, or were, prisoners that does not mean they forfeit their rights to reproductive justice. These women were unjustly viewed as unfit mothers, regardless of their actual ability. They were shown no equality, and their fate was predetermined by an arbitrary set of rules meant to govern, but instead inflict harm.
Reproductive Sterilization 