Independent reports would later indicate that many of the doctors performing these procedures do not follow informed consent protocols, deeming the sterilizations "involuntary as a matter of practice.". The complaint has drawn the attention of top congressional lawmakers, 170 of whom have called for an investigation by the Homeland Security inspector general, and renewed calls to abolish ICE. The blatant disregard for the reproductive rights of women in order to achieve measures of population control is inherent in the history of female reproductive health in the United States. Marion Jessin, a Northern California woman, sued her county hospital for refusing to perform a medically unnecessary sterilization operation.
With the ruling of Roe v Wade in January of 1973, women across the country celebrated a milestone marking their right to determine reproductive outcomes. Although it is acceptable to use state money for this procedure in California, each surgery requires medical oversight by a review committee, something that did not happen during those four years. In the fall of 2016, thousands of people gathered at the Standing Rock Reservation to protest the proposed construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. For the Indigenous victims, their lifelong pain is compounded by the fact that IHS has never issued an apology.
Despite the fact that the practice is illegal, inmates were coerced into these invasive procedures by doctors who failed to explain the medical intricacies of the surgeries they were about to undergo. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Buck v.Bell that laws mandating the sterilization of the mentally handicapped did not violate the Constitution. During the protest, a Lakota woman gave birth in a teepee near the Cannonball River. Some of them were as young as 15. If coercion is a term that doesn't apply to all of the cases, Theobald believes some native women were sterlized at least without their full knowledge or consent. Another woman in Los Angeles was told her hysterectomy would be reversible, only to find out six years later that she had been lied to. The bill is never brought to a vote. A California Court of Appeals judge ruled "voluntary sterilization is legal when informed consent has been given, that sterilization is an acceptable method of family planning, and that sterilization may be a fundamental right requiring constitutional protection." The Skinner vs. Oklahoma case made it illegal for some lower class felons to be targeted for sterilization. Forced sterilization procedures were performed on Native American women in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s at similarly high rates in programs carried out … 1973-1976: 3,406 Native American Women Sterilized Without Permission The U.S government recently admitted to forcing thousands of Native American Indian women to be sterilized.