Women sterilized in prison – like animals who shouldn’t breed

I saw a story in the Sacramento Bee. Here it is with a couple substitutions of words:

Female inmates sterilized in [Communist Chinese] prisons

Doctors under contract with the [Communist Chinese] Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.

From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.

The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the [Communist Chinese] Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison.

Former inmates and prisoner advocates maintain that prison medical staff coerced the women, targeting those deemed likely to return to prison in the future.

Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison’s infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s not right,’ ” said Nguyen, 28. “Do they think they’re animals, and they don’t want them to breed anymore?”

[…]

Yes, I substituted “Communist Chinese” for California.

Smacks of eugenics, doesn’t it?

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32 Comments

  1. Moro says:

    Father, not only has this happened to prisoners in places like China, Peru, etc. But there are cases of women going in to give birth, or some other surgery only to leave the hospital sterilized. It’s frightening and I can definitely see it happening here in the States.

  2. Andrew Mason says:

    All of this under a Republican, Roman Catholic governor. Politics in this country has become a means of gaining and maintaining power; nobody cares about actually governing and protecting the people anymore.

  3. iPadre says:

    We are becoming more like the People’s Republic of China each day. Soon, there will be no need for them to take us over, we are being handed over by the traitors, who should represent us.

  4. LisaP. says:

    Poll women who have had planned C-Sections and you’ll find probably all of them were asked multiple, multiple times if they didn’t want a tubal ligation while the surgeons are there anyway. Several women I know bought in to the logic, in your ninth month of pregnancy with complications that require a planned C-Section, you tend to be open to the suggestion of never feeling like that again, particularly if you aren’t Catholic so you don’t have any rules and regs against sterilization. Plus, at the end of a difficult pregnancy you have a tendency to think your ob/gyn can do no wrong, whatever he/she says goes. You’re tired, scared, have all sorts of physiological chaos going on. You’re very easily coerced.

    I’m talking Catholic hospitals here, too.

    Not in the least bit shocked these women were pushed into sterilization. The power disparity between a female prisoner and her doctor has to be enormous. The sense of self-reproach and lack of trust in your own judgment when you are in prison must be gigantic. These are easily preyed upon people.

  5. mamajen says:

    Was just going to mention what LisaP did. I had c-sections both times, and both times I had to turn down a tubal multiple times, even when I was in my 20’s and having my first child! And once I convinced them that I wasn’t having a tubal, I still had to answer on multiple occasions “so, what will you be doing for birth control?” I have been laughed at and made fun of when I’ve mentioned NFP. It takes some guts to be a practicing Catholic. It might sound silly, but when I had difficulty getting pregnant a second time, I began to wonder whether the doctor had done something without my consent during the first surgery. It’s difficult to trust people who have that mindset.

  6. Indulgentiam says:

    @LisaP- you are absolutely right. Nurses are “encouraged” read “required” to ask. There are a few, very few, Catholic nurses who refuse. Said nurse then gets the crummiest shifts on the crummiest units e.g. perpetual banishment to ER trauma bay, all weekends and holidays.
    How many of y’all know that there is an “Office of Population Affairs” right here in the good ole USA.
    http://www.hhs.gov/opa/title-x-family-planning/research-and-data/fp-annual-reports/

    These folks are responsible for over 5 million tubal ligations and vasectomies yearly. They are scheduled and paid for by the HHS aka US Health Dept. and funded by our tax dollars. Many women who go to the Health Dept. to sign up for the WIC program, after giving birth, are encouraged (read talked into) to have a tubal ligation for free. And of course contraception is dispensed like M&Ms for free as well.
    Here is the PDF link to the 2011 report. Have a stiff drink handy
    http://www.hhs.gov/opa/pdfs/fpar-2011-national-summary.pdf

    In other news California is being investigated (pffft, yeah right) for illegally sterizing 150 females over a 4 year period. The “Office of Population Affairs” has been around since the 70’s and every year their budget increases and so do the number of tubals and vasectomies.

  7. majuscule says:

    Very funny Father. [sarcasm…]

    I bought into the story as taking place in China until it mentioned Corona and Chowchilla. Then I knew it was really about the sad state of my home state.

  8. maryh says:

    Just wanted to confirm what @LisaP, @mamagen and @Indulgentiam said. I didn’t have a c-section, so this didn’t happen to me personally, but did happen to a friend of mine (being asked about tubal ligation during a c-section).

    This is the real War on Women.

  9. The Masked Chicken says:

    These sorts of sterilization procedures could have been carried out in the 1940’s and 1950’s, but were not. Why? Simply put, whenever there is a sense of class entitlement as occurred in the 1920’s and 1960’s, Eugenics rears its ugly head. It was when the middle class started to encroach into the lifestyle of the super-rich that cries for sterilization re-emerged in the late 1960’s, early 1970’s, with Paul Erlich, “discovering,” the, “population bomb,” as he put it. Women, as a riding class, had to be rendered infertile with promises of free sex with no consequences. All of this is simply greed, writ large.

    Of course, the symptoms have metastasized and undergone revisionist rationalization to make it seem natural for women to want to control (read, own) their own body. Neither God nor Nature can be mocked or long, however. A Godless war is coming and it is all because society has become deaf to the sweetness of a baby’s cry.

    The Chicken

  10. The Masked Chicken says:

    Women, as a rising class…

  11. Ralph says:

    I have to admit, Father, you had me. I didn’t realize it was the USA until the very end.

    How sad that this is happening in our very own country. I am sure some of the doctors are pushing for the sterilization because they (misguidedly) believe that it is best for the woman. But what percentage are in it strictly for the stipend paid by the government for preforming the procedure, with no thought to the physical and emotional well being of the lady?

    As for Catholic hospitals. Two of our children were born in a Catholic hospital. My wife was pressured each time to select a method of birth control before check out. When we questioned the nurses as to why a Catholic hospital would do this, they said that they respect the varied beliefs of all of their patients and don’t wish to push the Church’s views on others. (Never mind that my wife’s admittance forms clearly listed her as a Catholic) Very disappointing.

  12. NBW says:

    The Constitution says no cruel or unusual punishment to criminals in jail. Oh wait… the government doesn’t follow the Constitution anymore.

  13. ckdexterhaven says:

    Wallace Kuralt (Charles Kuralt’s father)was a progressive eugenicist who sterilized mainly black women in NC from 1945-1972. Planned (un)Parenthood gave him their highest honor in 1983, the Margaret Sanger award. The Charlotte Observer did a series on the NC sterilization program, here is the link to one of the stories they ran.
    http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/26/2637820/wallace-kuralts-era-of-sterilization.html

    Even though 1972 isn’t ancient history, how is this *still* going on?

  14. Ignatius says:

    Well, remember the infamous ruling in “Buck v. Bell” and the odious words of Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough”. This eugenicist way of thinking has been going on for quite a while.

    Best regards.

  15. moon1234 says:

    What most people forget is that Hitler’s Eugenics program was NOT his own. It was modeled after the programs in the USA and directly those of Planned Parenthood and Ms. Sanger. Never forget that what you see today as “Population Control” or “Birth Control” is nothing more than modern day Eugenics without the stigma of the word Eugenics. Make no mistake that the goals of “Birth Control” and Eugenics are one in the same. The elimination of the unwanted unborn.

    I can guarantee you that if Hitler had chemical birth control available to him, he would have simple made it mandatory for all of the “unwanted” people to be on it. The “final solution” would not have been bloody and almost no one would even notice it. Look at major cities where Planned Parenthood sets up shop. The birth rate of black babies drops by over 50%. If someone was using the “final solution” method of reducing the population of a class of people then we would be at war. Yet when it is a “choice” it is somehow magically ok.

    I can guarantee you that most doctors, especially surgeons, have to depersonalize the patient in order to do what they do. I have met more than a few surgeons who see patients similar to cattle, a job to be done. A few extra cuts and a knot will net a few thousand more dollars. They do NOT see it as a problem as long as it is a “Choice.”

    My wife switched to an OB/Gyn who actually has some religious convictions. She never asks about birth control any more. She did tell my wife after she had our eigth baby that my wife’s A1C numbers were borderline high and that she should try and wait a year or two before having any more babies or she risks having full blown type two diabetes. She said that my wife’s body needs time to recover and heal. NEVER did she tell her NOT to have more children. She simply explained the risks and what she thought would be best for her health. How many doctors are honest like that any more?

    It really takes patients to speak up and tell their doctors what their convictions are. The doctors need to be de-programmed after medical school from all of the Eugenics that is put into their heads.

  16. drea916 says:

    …and most people don’t see a problem with this. A lot of people don’t see anything wrong with Margaret Sanger’s view of the poor and “unfit.” It’s a little bit different understanding of it, but, if someone is costing the system money, then make sure they don’t have anymore kids. We don’t want to bog down the system and pay for anymore people than we have to. In the book Freakonomics, the author argued the most people who go for abortions are going to raise future criminals and poor people, so do the abortions so the rest of society doesn’t have to deal with this. (I don’t agree, but this is what happens when priests don’t do their job…their people revert to paganism.)

  17. The Masked Chicken says:

    “Many married women who have deliberately spurned the “hour” of childbearing are unhappy and frustrated. They never discovered the joys of marriage because they refused to surrender to the obligation of their state. In saving themselves, they lost themselves!”
    ? Fulton J. Sheen, Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

    In reality, eugenics is simply another way of proving that evolution is NOT in charge of the human race, for, at least evolution is governed by Natural Law. Try telling an atheist that. It is a great proof that there must be something beyond man, for man fails in ways of which nature could never dream.

    The Chicken

  18. Johnno says:

    More fruits of the heretical scientific hoax & secular creation myth & gospel called ‘evolution.’ The USA & UN have been forcing & bribing 3rd world countries to forcibly sterelize certain classes of people as part of population reduction to artificially raise living standards & follow another hoax scientific theory of global overpopulation while happily protecting oppresive corporations that destroy & control food supply & sanctioned trade. The devil continues his attack on the woman & child in their own name. The errors of communism have spread as we were warned it would & we pretended not to hear it.

  19. PA mom says:

    The pressure is HIGH to not have any more children. From doctors, from nurses (BIG time), from family, and from total strangers. And this on a happily married, employed couple! I really cannot be surprised that they are also doing it to prisoners.
    For every conversation I am able to slide in about the joys of children, my husband hears from a dozen people how astonishing it is that we already have four children. You would never know from reading the papers that the “demographics crash” predicted means that more babies, especially into families, would be a GOOD thing. They say that it is about not having more people dependent on the government, but they are just as critical of fully independent people having larger families.
    I would welcome another in a heartbeat, if my husband’s heart can just soften enough for it to not be totally against his will. There is real fear in him over his ability to cope. Discussions and prayers continue….

  20. chantgirl says:

    Women in vulnerable positions are often encouraged to be sterilized or contracept. I’ve read about incidents in Mexico in which women coming to the hospital in labor are sterilized or have an IUD implanted without their knowledge, and only find out later when they develop an infection or have a miscarriage. Poor women in India are often offered small, token cash payments or appliances if they will consent to be sterilized. Women who live in countries with government sponsored healthcare are seen to be a drain on the system if they have more than the acceptable number of children, or if they carry a child with a genetic defect to term. These poor women in California didn’t even have a patient advocate to speak up for them,

    I had my first four children with a Catholic OB (who had quite a few children himself) in a Catholic hospital, and I was still pressured to contracept. Even methods that were potential abortifacients were suggested. Thankfully, I was able to find an NFP only OB and when I had to have exploratory ovarian surgery, I had no fear that I would wake-up needlessly sterilized.

    http://onemoresoul.com/ is a great website to search for an NFP-only OB or family doc in your area.

  21. Alice says:

    Wait, I’m supposed to be surprised that this is happening in the US? Forced sterilizations have been legal in parts of the US for ever a century! Take a look at this article. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/13/opinion/la-oe-rubin-eugenics-mothers-day-20120513

  22. ReginaMarie says:

    My friend recently gave birth to their second. Her OB suggested that she get an IUD (known to be abortifacient). My friend said no thanks, that she was Catholic. The OB, apparently insulted, blurted out that he was Catholic, too. He then pressured her into taking home papers on the ‘wonders’ of the IUD so that she could rethink her decision. She wisely tossed them in the trash…then did some research on her own so that she could share her legitimate concerns with the OB the next time she saw him.

    I had an emergency c-section & was also repeatedly asked if I wanted a tubal ligation…after all, I was considered high risk due to my ‘advanced maternal age’ (mid-30s!) & the fact that this was my 6th pregnancy. I finally found a midwife who respects my beliefs on pregnancy, childbirth & (NO) contraception. Honestly, most Ob/Gyns I’ve spoken with have no understanding whatsoever of modern fertility awareness through NFP, sympto-thermal, Creighton, NaPro Technology, etc. …or even ecological breastfeeding & co-sleeping.

  23. Priam1184 says:

    I will echo what everybody else has said on this comment board, because it needs to be echoed: the whole of American society has been largely sterilized, by our own choice. We succumbed and plucked the fruit of the tree of sex with no consequences and we will fall. It is such an absurd situation but whenever the subject gets brought up a glaze comes over peoples’ eyes. They will not allow even a word of what we are really doing to ourselves be spoken and given a chance to really sink in in a public forum, because if even a small light of Truth comes in through a crack in the gloom then this whole edifice of despair that has been so carefully constructed over the decades and centuries by the enemy of mankind will come crashing down on his head. God of hosts bring us back.

  24. wmeyer says:

    iPadre, while they have a long way to go, the PRC is each day more capitalist, and more free. Many of their time-honored totalitarian “solutions” just get in the way of the economic growth to which they have become addicted. And they are smart enough to understand that continuing that growth depends on external markets.

    My wife is from the PRC, and has family there, so I am a good deal more aware of these changes than many of us might otherwise be.

  25. OrthodoxChick says:

    I was not just offered, but was strongly recommended to go on birth control by my doctor after each pregnancy. Of course, I refused. All 4 of my pregnancies were high risk and the doctor recommended that I not continue to risk future pregnancy. My first children were diagnosed with special needs at around age 2. When I became pregnant with my fourth child, and knowing that I had 2 already with special needs, I was sat down for a “talk” about an abortion of the fourth child because a. it was high risk (again), b. I already had my hands full at home, and c. my advanced age (39 at the time) put me at risk of having a Down’s Syndrome baby. When the “talk” didn’t convince me to abort, I was then sent to genetic testing and counseling to see if that would scare some sense into me.

    Sometimes stubborness is a blessing rather than a cross. The fourth child will be entering Kindergarten this fall.

  26. off2 says:

    While agreeing with most of the above, does anyone consider that the victims were convicted felons to be a mitigating factor?

  27. Many Catholic women (like me) who are offered sterilization with a C-section, may not be properly catechized to the moral dangers and deadly nature of the sin. When they come to understand their error and confess, they may also consider a tubal reversal as a gesture of repentance. Tubal reversal is not an option for everyone, the Church does not require it, and it can be very expensive. However, in the event that someone reading this is open to the possibility of a tubal reversal: http://www.tubal-reversal.net/.
    A book with many testimonials, called “Sterilization Reversal” published by One More Soul is also available: HERE

  28. eulogos says:

    off2
    In a word, no.
    Why would it be?
    Susan Peterson

  29. RafkasRoad says:

    In Australia and other English speaking nations (unsure about Continental Europe or the developing world), sterilisation of girls and women with a disability has been practiced in one form or another into the present day. Various disability action groups are presently petitioning the UN to outlaw this practice, however for girls and women with more profound disability, it is seen as a health, hygene and even protective procedure; the latter claim stems from the sinister reality of sexual abuse perpetrated against girls and women with significant to profound disability by carers etc., and in more than a few ways, reeks of utilitarianism in its ultimate guise.

    as a relatively new Catholic (with a disability), I am sensitive to both church teaching and the circumstances of women and girls with significant to profound disability re both sides of this incredibly delicate argument. How do we navigate Catholic teaching, reproductive/sexual health and women and girls with significant to profound disability? When do genuine health concerns for the individual come into the argument, and how does Catholic teaching navigate this minefield, especially for those of us who wish to practice our faith in an orthodox manner?

    Considered and sensitive discussion would be appreciated.

    Love and God’s blessings,

    Aussie Maronite.
    St. Lucy, pray for us,
    Bl. Margaret of Castello, Pray for us,
    Bl. Stephen ‘the cripple’, pray for us.

  30. chantgirl says:

    RafkasRoad- If sterilization is done to treat an illness, that is true medicine. If it is done to merely prevent pregnancy, that is immoral. People, including the disabled, have a right to their bodily integrity. Unfortunately, sterilizing women and girls with disabilities will not prevent them from being taken advantage of, and might even make them more of a target since they couldn’t get pregnant. All I can say is, God have mercy on the perverts that would take advantage of such vulnerable women and children, because He’s the only one that can truly forgive something so heinous.

  31. RafkasRoad says:

    Dear Chant Girl at #30,

    Thank you for your compassionate and heartfelt response. Sadly, one of the scenarios I raised in my former comment that is used to justify the practices mentioned is indeed not unknown here; worse still the diabolical crimes perpetrated by those into whose care families entrust their members with a disability whose testimony, tragically, has time and time again been deemed inadmissible in courts of law here in Aus; several huge cases have been highlighted in our media over the past two years or so, due to perceived inability to speak for themselves (alternative forms of communication also deemed unsuitable methods by which evidence can be admitted in court). Hence the need to defend bodily integrity – that is frequently managed either surgically or chemically, especially for those with profound disability for the first two reasons I have already specified, even in my own personal experience. On the whole, health professionals engaged in such treatment methods genuinely believe they have the best interests of the person with a disability and their family in mind.

    Just as horrid,

    The abuse folk with disabilities have encountered and continue to encounter when they have children, by strangers and health/welfare professionals alike is staggering and heartbreaking – ranging from departments of human services automatically removing newborns from blind parents, assuming said parents unable to safely and properly care for said children, to welfare workers trying to charge able bodied husband of wife with significant cerebral palsy with spousal abuse when they conceived a child.

    Please pray for we women and girls with a disability, and even moreso for mothers with a disability.

    Love and God’s blessings,

    Aussie Maronite.

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