Pressure: Kimberly Jeffrey said she was
pressured multiple times, including while strapped to an operating
table, to have sterilisation surgery after giving birth to her son Noel,
now 3
By
Daily Mail Reporter
A shocking new report reveals that
nearly 250 women have been sterilised in California prisons since the
1990s, some as recently as 2010.
Many
of the women say that they were repeatedly pressured into having tubal
ligation surgeries by prison doctors - raising the specter of
California's dark history of eugenics.
Female
inmates revealed stories of being told - while in labour - that they
should have the surgery, without being given a reason why it was
medically necessary.
The Center for Investigative Reporting
found that between 1997 and 2010, the state of California paid more
than $147,000 for sterilisation surgeries on 148 sterilisation surgeries
- all of which were performed without proper state approval or
oversight.
Instead of going through
state prison healthcare regulators, doctors took it in their own hands
to order the permanent surgery, which is commonly referred to as a woman
'having her tubes tied.'
Dr
James Heinrich, the for OB-GYN at Valley State Prison for Women in
Chowchilla, California, said the money was a bargain for California
taxpayers.
'Over a
10-year period, that isn’t a huge amount of money compared to what you
save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated
more.'
- Dr James Heinrich, the for OB-GYN at
Valley State Prison for Women, on the $175,000 spent on sterilisations
He
said no patients were coerced into having sterilisation surgery and he
only recommended women who were at risk after multiple C-sections.
The CIR found that doctors
targeted pregnant inmates who already had multiple children and were
seen as being likely to wind up back in prison after their release.
'He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn’t do it. Today, I wish I would have never had it done.'
- Christina
Cordero
Christina
Cordero, 34, who gave birth in Valley State prison in 2006, says she
felt like she was coerced by Dr Heinrich into having the sterilisation
surgery after giving birth to her child.
'As
soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look
into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he
talked about it,' Christina Cordero, who served a two year prison
sentence for auto theft, said.
Most of the incidents took place at the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, California
Kimberly
Jeffrey, 43, says she was strapped to a hospital table and under the
influence of medication - preparing to have a C-section in 2010, when
the doctor all but demanded she agree to sterilization surgery.
'He said, "So we’re going to
be doing this tubal ligation, right?"
'I’m like, "Tubal
ligation? What are you talking about? I don’t want any procedure. I just
want to have my baby." I went into a straight panic.'
Prison records from Valley State show
that Jeffrey, who was imprisoned for a probation violation, had rejected
requests she undergo sterilisation surgery twice before.
'Being treated like I was less than human produced in me a despair.'
- Kimberly
Jeffrey
Nikki
Montano, 42, who has seven children, agreed to sterilisation surgery
after giving birth in Valley State in 2008. She said she was battling
drug addiction at the time and was undergoing a C-section.
She was never given a medical reason why she needed the surgery, she said.
The sterilisations reportedly targeted women who had multiple children and were deemed like to re-offend
'I figured that’s just what happens in prison – that that’s
the best kind of doctor you’re going get,' Montano told the CIR.
Many
states, including New York and North Carolina, have a history of
sterilising 'undesirable' people - the mentally ill, criminals, women
deemed to be 'promiscuous.'
The
most egregious use of this practice, however, was in California, where
some 20,000 people were sterilised against their will from 1904 until
1964.
Even the Nazis took
notice of the state's eugenics policies and sent representatives to
study the state's policies in the 1930s.
Related Reading:
When It Comes To Abortion, Progressives Can Be Counted On
To Fully Reveal Their Racism And Ignorance
http://tinyurl.com/kaas66x
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