NOVANEWS
Counter Current
Disturbing revelations about a U.S. government program to forcibly sterilize Latina women are now coming out, and the evidence is more damning that previously expected.
The documentary No Más Bebés has compiled a litany of evidence that sheds the light on one of California’s most disturbing secrets, which are reminiscent of Nazi eugenics programs: forced sterilization of Latina women.
For decades, California was one of several states that performed forced sterilization. For women, it meant having one’s “tubes tied” after giving birth – usually without their consent. It wasn’t just women, though. Men were also given vasectomies without their knowledge. Hardest hit: Spanish-speaking immigrants.
The eugenics program ran from 1909 to 1963. During that time, over 20,000 Californian Latina women were subject to forced sterilization to “control” the population of Latinos in the state.
By the 1970s, that same program had continued but was scaled back just slightly.
Before that gradual phasing out of the program, Latina women – particularly immigrants – in the 1960s had been forcibly sterilized at the Los Angeles County Hospital, without their consent.
The sterilization happened via government instruction to the hospital, after Latina women gave birth at the hospital.
Many women were told about the procedure, but only after it was performed on them.
As more and more women were told about what was done to them, word began to spread among the Latino community that the government was sterilizing them against their will.
To add insult to injury, many Caucasian Californians saw the government program as “legitimate population control.”
California’s government argued passionately that forced sterilization was “necessary” to keep “welfare” expenditures to a minimum.
But others knew very well that this was a further attempt to stem the growing Mexican American population in California.
The documentary No Más Bebés has now uncovered proof that the real intention was to rid society of “undesirables.”
Eventually a class action lawsuit was filed against the government for the forced sterilization program, in the case of (Madrigal v. Quilligan). Further implicated in the suit, was not just L.A. county doctors as well as the state governments, but also the U.S. federal government itself.
Perhaps the worst part of this infuriating story is that the class action suit – brought by the victims of this racist government program – actually lost the lawsuit when it was brought to court.
Watch the full trailer for the documentary No Más Bebés below…