here on Democracy Now democracynow.org the quarantine report I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez in Georgia immigration authorities have stopped sending immigrant female detainees held in the Irwin County Detention Center to a gynecologist accused of sterilizing the women prisoners without their consent Dr Mahendra Amin reportedly saw at least 60 women detained at the ice jail which is run by the private prison company Lal Corrections on Tuesday we interviewed the whistleblower nurse Don woen who worked at Irwin and said a woman uh that women held there called Dr Amin a quote uterus collector well for our next guest the news that a doctor had given immigrant women unwanted sterilization sounded eerily familiar Virginia Espino is the producer of the documentary noas b or no more babies this is the film's trailer in East Los Angeles during the late 1960s and early 1970s women were going to the county hospital to give birth some went home [Music] sterilized there's still beds here look inside I feel pain remembering what makes you sad being here who knows why but I do feel sad oh mama this baby boy became a citizen 1 minute ago his mother does not have immigration papers told they should be sterilized to save taxpayers welfare something drastic must be done about population growth the doctor walked in and said we cut your tubes and I said why he goes well you signed for it I said me I go I don't remember nothing and I didn't tell my family I didn't tell anybody they were extremely fearful being told that you need an emergency cesarian section and you can feel blood pouring down your leg at that time signing the consent for a d liation this is the emergency department of Los Angeles County USC Medical Center some of them signed right in the midst of Labor some of them don't even remember signing here I is this young lawyer and for the first time telling him do you know that you've been sterilized we are suing HW for non-compliance or non- enforcement non-monitoring of the uh sterilization regulation it was just the beginning of the emergence of the civil rights movement in the Latino Community we were talking about abortion rights all of the issues of feminism at that time the idea that somebody could be forcibly sterilized like seemed like something out of a mental institution out of the 1920 20s to claim that we're part of a greater goal of sterilizing the Mexican population that immigrates to Los Angeles I mean I'm offended by that that's not what we [Music] did the way I felt when I was young it doesn't change the way I feel in my heart now that I'm older but it it's there all the time it's like when you bury somebody you're always going to carry it on your head that's the trailer for Nas Bay no more babies it aired on PBS's Independent Lens in 2016 tells the story of how some 46 years ago a whistleblower doctor spoke out about a large number of tubal ligations performed on mostly uh Chana patients at the Los Angeles County Hospital Dr Bernard Rosenfeld observed many women who came to the hospital for emergency C-section deliveries left the hospital sterilized 10 women of the women filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in a case known as madreal versus quilligan in this clip from the film we hear from plaintiff Maria herado that's what I heard them saying no more the Mexican women are having too many kids and they were having to figure out a way to slow it down speak English they treat you one way you don't speak English they treat you another way that's how I see it the only thing that the doctor said was Mama Mama because he wouldn't say sign here or here they couldn't say anything they only signaled Mama one of the women who was sterilized without her consent in the 70s at the Los Angeles County USC Medical Center from where we go to Virginia spino the films producer lead historian she's also a lecturer with the UCLA Department of CH Cho and Central American studies she made the film with her friend the Academy Award nominated filmmaker Renee tahima Peña before then the women in the lawsuit had not had much opportunity to describe their experiences um welcome to democracy now uh Professor Espino it's great to have you with us if you can lay out what happened and what this lawsuit was about and what came of it it was um the the events occurred in the early 1970s when women would go to the LA county hospital for emergency cesarians so the LA County Hospital wasn't a place where people would go and plan to deliver their child in some cases uh you did have people opting for that as a um as a safe place but you had other people going there because they were in pain in trauma they were bleeding they were having complications and that was the case of the madri gten who would eventually file a lawsuit against the hospital they would go to the hospital for a emergency C cesarian in full labor and at the that time they were approached by Hospital staff sometimes doctors sometimes nurses sometimes social workers about signing uh consent forms for tubal liation quite often they did not understand the terminology they did not in some cases understand the language many of them spoke um primarily Spanish uh and in some cases they were just in the under duress from Pain um from labor and so they didn't quite know what was happening to them uh in one case uh for example me Melina ernandez uh went for 3 years after her tubal liation wearing an IUD because she did not know she had that surgery performed on her and and Professor Espino could you talk somewhat about the difficulty you had in actually documenting what had happened uh and the the the problems you had in accessing records of what had occurred as I mentioned in yesterday show this kind of stuff had been happening in Puerto Rico in the late 1940s early 1950s this Mass sterilization of Puerto of women of childbearing age on the island but again finding the documentation was always difficult well in this case I think it's Unique because you had the explosion of the chig chigo movement occurring at the same time that these sterilizations were made public so you had people re conscious consciously saving these records uh Professor Carlos IES V ianz donated his um W expert witness testimony to UCLA archives the ch ch research uh Center there and he made available Court testimony um he made available some of the audio that you hear in the film was what he recorded when he was um an expert witness he actually interviewed uh the women in the 1970s and he saved all that material and donated it to the library it was harder to get the court records excuse me it was harder to get the court records because they had been lost they had been misplaced they had been misfiled get and in terms of when you hear what's been going on at the Irwin Center Detention Center in Georgia now uh putting what's happening currently in context from the history that you've that you've uh mined here uh could you make the some connections there absolutely it feels like um definitely the Geor case is mirroring what is taking place um or what had taken place in Los Angeles you have people not fully understanding the procedures that be that are being performed on them you have miscommunication you have a Code of Silence um thankfully you have a whistleblower who is breaking that Code of Silence but at the LA County Hospital in the 1970s you had a Code of Silence where people did not speak out against this abuse people normalized approaching women while they were in labor and asking them to sign over their fertility you know that was a normal practice that was taking place on a day-to-day basis and of course the consent form was in English um while they lost the lawsuit this wasn't before a jury but before one judge a white male judge um talk about the changes that resulted from The Bravery of these women coming forward it really rallied the community you had protests um you had uh the newspaper covering this issue at a time that it didn't really cover the ethnic Mexican Community you had um a waiting period implemented so that it became illegal to approach a woman um while she was in labor regarding tubal liation so 72 waiting period um wasn't implemented you also had um uh recommendations or um legislation put into place that required um consent forms be in the language of the per of the patient so some of those were um Monumental changes that occurred because of this lawsuit these women came forward we have to leave it there but we encourage people to see this amazing documentary producer and Lead historian for the film no must babies no more babies lecturer with UCLA Department of Chana ch and Central American studies the film aired on PBS Independent Lens in 2016 is now available on demand on Vimeo Vimeo in both English and Spanish we will link to it that does it for our show I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez stay safe wear a mask save [Music] lives