Category: Reproductive Justice

Reproductive Justice

Forced Sterilizations – Reading List

Newspaper Articles

“Female inmates sterilized in California prisons without approval.”  by Corey G. Johnson July 7, 2013. Reveal News. https://revealnews.org/article/female-inmates-sterilized-in-california-prisons-without-approval 

“Prison doctor blamed for excessive sterilizations: Excessive sterilizations, unhealthy methods alleged.” By Corey G. Johnson, Center for Investigative Reporting. Feb 15, 2014. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/prison-doctor-blamed-for-excessive-sterilizations-5238882.php 

“California Once Targeted Latinas for Forced Sterilization: In the 20th century, U.S. eugenics programs rendered tens of thousands of people infertile” By Nicole L. Novak and Natalie Lira. March 22, 2018. Smithsonian Magazine.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/california-targeted-latinas-forced-sterilization-180968567/

“California to pay victims of forced, coerced sterilizations.” By Adam Beam. July 7, 2021. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/california-business-science-health-government-and-politics-bb019f426cdbb839790ac98d420a0224 

“Beautiful Strength: ‘Sobrevivir’ Pays Homage to the Women Coerced to Sterilization in 1960s and ’70s L.A.”  By Carren Jao. July 19, 2022.

https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/artbound/beautiful-strength-sobrevivir-pays-homage-to-the-women-coerced-to-sterilization-in-1960s-and-70s-l-a

“California trying to find, compensate sterilization victims.” By Adam Beam. January 2, 2023. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/politics-health-california-state-government-prisons-b560ec0a0155d8cc13730310e1073d9d 

“More pain for California’s forced sterilization patients.” By Lynn La. March 22, 2023. Cal Matters. https://calmatters.org/newsletters/whatmatters/2023/03/forced-sterilization-california/ 

“‘I would have been a great mom’: California finally pays reparations to woman it sterilized.” By Cayla Mihalovich. October 7, 2024. Cal Matters. https://calmatters.org/justice/2024/10/reparations-forced-sterilization/

Scholarly Presentations and Talks

“Measuring Miscegenation: Eugenics and the Legacy of Slavery” By Rana Hogarth. National Human Genome Research Institute. December 2, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjz9C5I3Psg 

“The Impact of Eugenic Legacies on Queer & Trans Communities.” In conversation with Susan Raffo, Kenyon Farrow, Sebastian Margaret, and Isa Noyola. Dismantling Eugenics: A Convening. 9/26/21 – 10/2/21 https://antieugenicsproject.org/video-archive/the-impact-of-eugenic-legacies-on-queer-trans-communities/ 

“Eugenics and Sterilization in the US: Patterns, Experiences and Legacies” By Alexandra Minna Stern. National Human Genome Research Institute. December 10, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFAQQpU0REY 

 “Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition.” ​​Liat Ben-Moshe. April 13, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofRgzXO97tQ

Books and Peer Reviewed Articles

Avila, Vrindavani, and Jennifer Elyse James. 2024. “Controlling Reproduction and Disrupting Family Formation: California Women’s Prisons and the Violent Legacy of Eugenics” Societies 14, no. 5: 73. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc14050073 

Roberts, Dorothy. Killing the black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. Vintage, 2014. https://bookshop.org/p/books/killing-the-black-body-race-reproduction-and-the-meaning-of-liberty-dorothy-roberts/6723871 

Roth, Rachel, and Sara L. Ainsworth. “If they hand you a paper, you sign it: a call to end the sterilization of women in prison.” Hastings Women’s LJ 26 (2015): 7. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/Roth_If_They_Hand_You_1_15_2015.pdf 

Stanley and Smith, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. AK Press. 2011. https://www.akpress.org/captivegenders.html 

Stern, Alexandra Minna. Eugenic nation: Faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America. Vol. 17. Univ of California Press, 2016. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/eugenic-nation/paper 

Sufrin, Carolyn. Jailcare: Finding the safety net for women behind bars. Univ of California Press, 2017. https://www.jailcare.org/ 

Whatcott, Jess. Menace to the Future: A Disability and Queer History of Carceral Eugenics. Duke University Press, 2024. https://www.dukeupress.edu/menace-to-the-future 

“Confronting Pregnancy Criminalization: A Practical Guide for Healthcare Providers, Lawyers, Medical Examiners, Child Welfare Workers, and Policymakers.” [Formerly Known As] National Advocates for Pregnant Women. June 2022. https://www.pregnancyjusticeus.org/resources/confronting-pregnancy-criminalization-guide/ 

Appleman, Laura I. “Deviancy, Dependency, and Disability: The Forgotten History of Eugenics and Mass Incarceration.” DUKE LAW JOURNAL 68 (December 2018): 62. https://dlj.law.duke.edu/article/deviancy-dependency-and-disability-appleman-vol68-iss3/ 

Gonzales, Angela, Judy Kertész, and Gabrielle Tayac. “Eugenics as Indian Removal: Sociohistorical Processes and the De(Con)Struction of American Indians in the Southeast.” The Public Historian 29, no. 3 (January 1, 2007): 53–67. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2007.29.3.53.

Roth, Rachel. “‘She Doesn’t Deserve to Be Treated Like This’: Prisons as Sites of Reproductive Injustice.” Radical reproductive justice: Foundation, theory, practice, critique (2017): 285-301. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/Roth%202017%20Prisons%20Reproductive%20Injustice.pdf 

Whatcott, Jess. “No selves to consent: Women’s prisons, sterilization, and the biopolitics of informed consent.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 44.1 (2018): 131-153. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26553061 

Stern, Alexandra Minna, Nicole L. Novak, Natalie Lira, Kate O’Connor, Siobán Harlow, and Sharon Kardia. “California’s Sterilization Survivors: An Estimate and Call for Redress.” American Journal of Public Health 107, no. 1 (January 2017): 50–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303489.

Reproductive Justice

Together We Rise, Together We Heal Quilt

CCWP has been privileged to work with survivors of forced sterilization in California prisons to win reparations for them. We advocated for several years with the California legislature for women sterilized while incarcerated to receive some form of financial reparations, though nothing could ever fully compensate them for the harm that was done. We celebrate the people who have already received their initial compensation award and continue our efforts to ensure that everyone will receive their award.

The California’s Forced or Involuntary Sterilization Compensation Program included $1 million to be distributed across three state agencies to create memorials that mark the harm caused by forced sterilization. The process to develop the memorialization was led by CDCr, the same state prison system still incarcerating survivors of forced sterilization. The bill was written to require collaboration with survivors and advocates. However, from the start, survivors and advocates were pushed out of the process. Eventually, the state rewrote the contract to eliminate the requirements for community engagement.

Seeing the exclusion and re-traumatization caused by the lack of inclusion in the memorialization process, CCWP decided to find a different want to memorialize the harm and heal in community. To memorialize the reproductive oppression of prisons, the harm of the forced sterilizations, the victories and losses of the reparations program, CCWP created a series of quilts to honor the survivors and their struggle to defend their reproductive rights. 

The first quilt, features squares made by CCWP members outside of prison, including formerly incarcerated people and advocates, often in partnership with friends and loved ones on the inside. Each square represents someone’s story or how people are processing and healing from the ongoing harm and reproductive oppression of prisons. The quilt was designed and created by Linda Evans, who gathered the squares and thoughtfully and beautifully brought them together as a cohesive story titled, Together We Rise, Together We Heal.

This quilt is meant to be a reminder of the harms that have occurred and a testament to the strength and healing that comes through community. Through sharing the quilt, and the stories it represents, we hope to ensure that such violations do not happen again and seek to bring awareness to the ongoing violence and harm in California state prisons.

The “Together We Rise, Together We Heal” quilt display honoring survivors of forced sterilizations is available to rent for events and exhibits throughout California.

Please fill out this form if you are interested in hosting the display.

Reproductive Justice

Belly of the Beast

On July 13, 2021, Governor Newsom signed the California state budget which included $7.5 million to provide reparations to survivors of state sponsored forced sterilizations. California is the first state in the country to provide reparations to survivors who were sterilized while incarcerated in its women’s prisons.  Between 2006 and 2010, a state audit revealed that at least 144 people, the majority of whom identify as Black and Latinx, were illegally sterilized during labor and delivery while in custody in women’s prisons. Most of these people were never even made aware that they had been sterilized. The law provided compensation for any survivor of coercive sterilization performed on an individual under the custody and control of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation after 1979. Most of these people were never even made aware that they had been sterilized. See the article Belly of the Beast: California’s dark history of forced sterilizations to learn more.

Check out the movie, Belly of the Beast: California’s dark history of forced sterilization’s, using the link below. 

Reproductive Justice

Forced Sterilization and Compensation History

On July 13, 2021, Governor Newsom signed the California state budget which included $7.5 million to provide reparations to survivors of state sponsored forced sterilizations. California is the first state in the country to provide reparations to survivors who were sterilized while incarcerated in its women’s prisons. Between 2006 and 2010, a state audit revealed that at least 144 people, the majority of whom identify as Black and Latinx, were illegally sterilized during labor and delivery while in custody in women’s prisons. Most of these people were never even made aware that they had been sterilized. The law provided compensation for any survivor of coercive sterilization performed on an individual under the custody and control of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation after 1979. Most of these people were never even made aware that they had been sterilized.

Check out the movie Belly of the Beast: California’s Dark History of Forced Sterilizations; or learn more from Guardian News here. 

The California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) was one of the co-sponsors of this historic bill. We initiated a robust outreach and support campaign to reach incarcerated people, formerly incarcerated people, and family members who could be entitled to compensation/reparations under this new program. The program was administered by the state of California’s Victims’ Compensation Board (VCB). Between 2021-2023 over 500 people applied for reparations from the state. As of today, about 120 people have received compensation.

Another feature of this historic and groundbreaking bill was to memorialize the harm done by the state and educate the public on eugenics. The bill mandated the involvement of survivors and advocates, with the intent to center the needs and desires of survivors in the process. However, most felt shut out of the process; their voices left unheard. CCWP instead came together to create a memorial quilt. Titled, Together We Rise, Together We Heal, this series of quilts was created by survivors and advocates inside and outside of state prisons. It represents the healing that comes through community and the importance of centering survivors and communities as we repair past harms.

From supporting survivors inside and outside of prison on getting compensated for being forcibly sterilized by the state, there was a direct need by incarcerated people inside that there needs to be more resources and education on people’s reproductive and medical rights while inside prison. Because of that response, a small group of incarcerated people, advocates, researchers, as well as clinicians worked together to create a “Know Your Reproductive Rights in Prison: A Resource Guide for Healthcare Access and Decision Making During Incarceration” booklet that is directed at providing educational and advocacy tools for people inside prisons around reproductive and medical care.

This booklet is still being finalized but will be made available through CCWP’s website by the end of 2025 to purchase. Buying a booklet covers the printing and shipping costs as well as provides a FREE copy to an incarcerated person. CCWP is offering FREE copies to incarcerated people inside California women’s facilities. If you are connected with someone inside who wants a FREE copy, please fill out this form.

In February 2025, CCWP helped launch a class action lawsuit against horrific OBGYN abuse at the California Institution for Women (CIW).