a whistleblower account of four sterilizations in a georgia ice detention facility recently shocked the nation but this horrendous crime is nothing new the u.s has a lengthy and well-documented history of medical and government authorities forcibly sterilizing black latina indigenous disabled incarcerated and poor women here are just a few examples the most obvious was the movement for eugenics a blatant effort to arrange reproduction so as to eliminate quote unquote undesirable traits among the population which was openly based on racist theories eugenicists established research and foundations that popularized eugenics in the scientific community and society as a whole the movement gained popularity in the 1920s which no coincidence was a time of severe anti-immigrant restrictions and the great migration of black people into urban areas the practice of forced sterilizations was institutionalized by the supreme court itself in the 1927 buck versus bell case the supreme court allowed the state of virginia to carry out compulsory sterilizations the state sought to sterilize a young woman for having a child out of wedlock with some records suggesting that she was raped justice wendell holmes wrote quote it is better for all the world if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for imbecility society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind more than 30 states passed legislation in support of forced sterilizations according to the standard set in buck v bell many states created eugenics boards to promote and oversee the four sterilizations of mostly black women and immigrants to this day the ruling has yet to be overturned in the early 20th century four sterilizations in the us were so widespread and disturbingly effective that hitler himself reportedly told a nazi colleague that quote i have studied with interest the laws of several american states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny and all probability would be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock even after eugenics fell out of favor in academic circles sterilization abuse continued it took place in the form of medical coercion and deception in situations where a woman does not know she is being sterilized or concedes to sterilization under duress overall the practice was so common in the south that mississippi appendectomies became a nickname for unnecessary hysterectomies on black women largely performed at teaching hospitals as training for medical students born and raised in mississippi the renowned civil rights activist fannie lou hamer was one of the most well-known victims of these quote-unquote appendectomies in 1961 when she underwent surgery to remove a tumor from her uterus and in the south it wasn't just mississippi north carolina sterilized over 600 people between the 1930s and 1970s 65 of whom were black women a third of the sterilizations were done on girls under 18 even as young as nine years old as early as 1909 four sterilizations took place in california and the state was the national leader in the number of sterilization procedures performed without consent an estimated 20 thousand sterilizations took place in state institutions making up a third of the total number performed in the country these sterilizations targeted women with spanish surnames many of mexican descent a 2015 documentary film nomas pebes follows a class-action lawsuit representing hundreds of mostly mexican women who say they were sterilized without informed consent shortly after giving birth in los angeles public hospitals this crime against humanity was not confined within the us mainland borders in the colonized nation of puerto rico population control remained a major effort of the u.s government since it seized the island nation from spain in 1898. in 1976 the u.s department of health education and welfare reported that one in three puerto rican women of child bearing age had been sterilized by coercion or without their consent the u.s policy of forced sterilizations was so common in puerto rico that it was simply referred to as la operation american doctors trained staff at private and public hospitals across the island and instituted the practice of sterilizing mothers of two or more children after birth indigenous peoples across the u.s have been subjected to this inhumane practice during much of the 20th century a 2010 study found that as many as 25 to 50 percent of native women were sterilized by the indian health service between the years of 1970 and 1976 alone in a harrowing example two cheyenne girls were admitted into an ihs hospital in montana for emergency appendectomies doctors sterilize both girls while they were sedated without their consent or that of their parents the fight against sterilization abuse became a major front of struggle for the women's movement and women who were members or influenced by the radical organizations of the 1970s as a result of their struggles and exposure the department of health and human services published guidelines for sterilization procedures in 1974. it mandated a 72-hour waiting period between the signing of a consent form and the procedure and created a moratorium on sterilization of women under 21 years old and others lacking the right to give consent but unfortunately that hasn't stopped the abusive sterilizations altogether more and more they are occurring for incarcerated women in particular a recent study found that almost 150 women were illegally subjected to sterilization and california prisons between 2006 and 2010. a majority were black and latina the latest whistleblower account brought by don wooten a black woman and nurse in georgia revealed that an untold number of immigrant detainees may have received such procedures in the irwin county detention center mounting evidence shows there is extreme medical neglect occurring in ice facilities and private detention centers nationwide so in a nation founded on the genocide of native peoples the enslavement of black people and cheap immigrant labor force sterilizations are not as uncommon as we'd like to believe it took a powerful and radical women's movement and a massive social movement of poor and oppressed people to make these abuses a big issue in the 1970s and it's going to take an equally powerful movement today to root out these abuses for once and for all