Compulsory sterilization of disabled people in the U.S. prison system

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Compulsory sterilization of disabled people in the U.S. prison system was permitted in the United States from 1907 to the 1960s, during which approximately 60,000 people were sterilized, two-thirds of these people being women. [1] During this time, compulsory sterilization was motivated by eugenics. [2] There is a lengthy history when it comes to compulsory sterilization in the United States and legislation allowing compulsory sterilization pertaining to developmentally disabled people, the U.S. prison system, and marginalized communities.

Contents

Compulsory sterilization is the unwanted and/or nonconsensual sterilization of both men and women. The main form of sterilization for women is tubal ligation and for men it is vasectomy. [3]

History and legislation

Indiana eugenics law

The first law concerning compulsory sterilization to be passed in the United States was in Indiana in 1907. The law was passed by Governor Frank J. Hanly, which permitted that certain individuals in state custody were to be mandatorily sterilized. This law was passed because of the belief held by Indiana authorities that "criminality, mental problems, and pauperism were hereditary". [4] After the passage of this law, approximately thirty states followed suit and created compulsory sterilization laws based on the so-called scientific theory of eugenics. [5]

Buck v. Bell (1927)

Buck v. Bell is a significant case in the eugenics movement in the United States because in this case the US Supreme Court allowed the forced sterilization of young woman Carrie Buck in the state of Virginia. Because of the ruling of this case, many women were forced to be sterilized as well. [6] Buck, an inmate at the Virginia Colony for the Feebleminded, was deemed "feebleminded" and "sexually immoral" after becoming pregnant out of wedlock. After the birth of her child, Carrie Buck was sterilized. This case is so significant because from this, it was found by the Supreme Court that compulsory sterilization was within the police power of states, which therefore permitted the sterilization of both men and women. Still, primarily women like Carrie Buck were the victims of compulsory sterilization. [1]

Patterns of compulsory sterilization following Buck v. Bell

Following the ruling of Buck v. Bell, it was found that nationwide, the amount of sterilizations performed rose dramatically, especially those performed on women. Prior to this ruling, sterilization cases between men and women were about the same. In the years 1928 to 1932, it was found that women were sterilized two times more than men were. [1] As this pattern continued to progress and numbers continued to rise, it was found that approximately 30,000 sterilizations had been performed in the United States, with more than half of them taking place in California. [6] States began to institute more programs concerning compulsory sterilization, and also began to better fund older programs concerning this practice. [1]

Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942)

It was not until 1942 that there was another Supreme Court case, Skinner v. Oklahoma, that concerned the issue of compulsory sterilization, this time one that struck down Oklahoma's Criminal Sterilization Act of 1935. This statue stated that the state of Oklahoma was permitted to sterilize any person who had been convicted of three or more crimes "amounting to felonies involving moral turpitude." [7] This was said to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of this, therefore deeming the Oklahoma Criminal Sterilization Act of 1935 unconstitutional.

While this was progress for the repealing of the harsh compulsory sterilization laws nationwide and the Buck v. Bell ruling, it did not completely get rid of compulsory sterilization legislation in the United States. While states began to dissipate their sterilization laws, this case did not overturn Buck v. Bell and it did not completely cease cases of compulsory sterilization in the United States. [8]

Compulsory sterilization and developmentally disabled people

History

The compulsory sterilization of developmentally disabled people began in the late 19th century, even before the first state sterilization law was passed in 1907. From then on, the forced sterilizations of developmentally disabled people occurred in very high numbers until about the 1940s, when this number started to drop due to states beginning to repeal their laws allowing forced sterilization. [9]

The theory of eugenics acted as the reasoning provided as to why developmentally disabled people were targeted and forcibly sterilized at high rates. These people were seen as a "danger to society" and the goal was to prevent them from reproducing, mostly because of the false pretenses held by society that mental disability was inheritable. [9] One of the first instances recorded of compulsory sterilization in the United States took place at the Kansas State Asylum for Idiotic and Imbecile Youth. Beginning in 1894, Dr. Hoyt Pilcher authorized the sterilization of both boys and girls who lived in the facility. [9] There were many other notable institutions that engaged in the same practices, some of which still operate today and mention their histories of sterilization abuse. [9]

Buck v. Bell (1927) reinforced this by allowing the sterilization of Carrie Buck, who was deemed as "feeble minded similarly to her mother". In this ruling, it was stated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. that society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind ... three generations of imbeciles are enough". [9] Many of these sterilizations took place in California, and it is thought that approximately 20,000 sterilizations of developmentally disabled people took place in California state homes and hospitals in the beginning half of the 20th century. [10]

In recent years, much information has been uncovered concerning the forced sterilization of developmentally disabled people in the United States. It was found that developmentally disabled patients of state homes and hospitals were extremely vulnerable and taken advantage of by eugenicists and healthcare professionals and sterilized against their wills. It was also found that many physicians and social workers coerced their patients into being sterilized, with spoken consent not being required. In the present day, most states have repealed their sterilization laws and have passed other legislation to protect the human rights of their citizens. [10]

Present-day struggles

Spanning from the early to the mid 20th century, approximately 60,000 people were forcibly sterilized in the United States. Based on the previous rulings of the Supreme Court, it is said that these 60,000 people had their fundamental human rights violated when they were forcibly sterilized. Many of these people demand redress and compensation, but have not been able to totally receive that. While state legislatures and governors in states where compulsory sterilizations were performed have issued apologies and have begun investigations into the cases of their citizen's forcible sterilizations, it has not completely amounted to victims getting proper compensation for their struggle. [8] Because many states have repealed or amended their sterilization laws, cases brought about by victims do not fully hold up under present-day statutes. Further, some states' statutes of limitations prevent them from being able to assert claims of their forced sterilization. [8]

Compulsory sterilization in the United States prison system

History

Sterilization in the United States prison system dates back to the same origins as compulsory sterilization of developmentally disabled people. In the 1907 sterilization law passed by Indiana governor Frank J. Hanly, sterilization was made mandatory for "criminals, idiots, rapists, and imbeciles in state custody". [4] From this, many Indiana men who were being held in Indiana State prisons were given vasectomies by Dr. Henry Sharp. Sharp even argued that "we owe it not only to ourselves, but to the future of our race and nation, to see that the defective and diseased do not multiply" [11] when defending the sterilization procedures he performed. Following this, over 30 states enacted laws allowing sterilization of both developmentally disabled people and of criminals. In North Carolina, the heads of both state and penal institutions were given the right to sterilize, and oftentimes coerced people into forced sterilization by threatening to revoke social service benefits. [11] As mentioned above, most states have repealed their legislation allowing sterilization, but forced sterilization still continues to be present, and a problem in the United States prison system. [11]

Legislation

Sterilization in the U.S. prison system is something that is both incentivized and done as punishment to inmates. Oftentimes, people convicted of crimes involving child abuse are sentenced to compulsory sterilization, or offered lesser sentences if they agree to sterilization. [12] One example of this was in 1993, Barbara and Ronald Gross were convicted of molesting their children and were both sentenced to ten years in prison. The Gross' were offered to be put on probation instead of serve their sentences by Judge Lynn Brown of Washington County, Tennessee. The circumstances of their probation included Barbara Gross agree to a tubal ligation.

There have been many instances of sentences being reduced, or even replaced by probation in which the circumstances require some sort of sterilization or forced birth control. [12] Some cases of this include State v. Wilder, in which a young woman was convicted by a Florida court for smothering her newborn baby. She was sentenced to two years in prison and then ten years on probation, which required her to agree to not conceive during that time. While they told her she could not conceive, they did not say she had to be abstinent during that time period, therefore obliging her to undergo some sort of birth control procedure. Additionally, in multiple rulings concerning women convicted of child abuse, there have been requirements to either get a birth control implant and/or to not conceive during the probationary period. Some of these cases are People v. Johnson and State v. Carlton. [12]

Present-day sterilization in the United States prison system

While sterilization laws have been repealed and new ones have been put in place to protect the bodily autonomy of people, there is still a major problem when it comes to the forced sterilization of women in the U.S. prison system. In California, it was found that over 100 women were unlawfully sterilized between the years of 2006 and 2010. [13] Further, it was reported by the Center for Investigative Reporting that medical staffers at two California prisons with pregnant inmates targeted other inmates for sterilization who they thought would likely return to prison. [11]

Another instance of modern-day compulsory sterilization was at the White County Jail in Tennessee. In 2016, Judge Sam Benningfield signed an order that permitted inmates at the White County Jail to get 30 days taken off their sentences if they underwent a birth control procedure. As of February 2017, approximately 32 women had received birth control implants and 38 men had agreed to getting vasectomies. [11] This practice was ceased two years after it began and was said to be in violation of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection and Due Process clauses. [14] These are just some of the recent instances in which sterilization and incentivized birth control have been present in the U.S. Prison System.

Sterilization in marginalized communities

Black women as targets

There is a long history when it comes to targeting marginalized women to be forcibly sterilized. While the prevalence of sterilization targeting developmentally disabled people stopped around the 1960s, members of marginalized communities are still the victims of forced sterilization. Relf v. Weinberger (1974) found that poor people were being forced to agree to sterilization when doctors would threaten to deny them welfare benefits and medical care. [15] This case specifically involved Mary Alice and Minnie Relf, two black sisters who were 12-and 14-years-old. Their mother signed a consent form that was not explained to her or read prior, which ultimately led to the irreversible sterilization of her daughters. [15] This is just one instance of the targeting of marginalized groups for forced sterilization. Further, the practice of "Mississippi appendectomies", which was another term for compulsory hysterectomies was practiced on women of color in the South at teaching hospitals as practice for medical students. [16]

Recent allegations

More recently, allegations have surfaced that women at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia have been being transferred to a physician who has been performing forced hysterectomies on immigrant women without informed consent. [15] When asked, the women stated that their procedures were not properly explained to them and they were also misinformed when told what procedures they would be undergoing. [15] These claims are still being investigated, as whistleblower Dawn Wooten has just recently filed this complaint. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

Sterilization is any of a number of medical methods of permanent birth control that intentionally leaves a person unable to reproduce. Sterilization methods include both surgical and non-surgical options for both males and females. Sterilization procedures are intended to be permanent; reversal is generally difficult.

The Eugenics Board of North Carolina (EBNC) was a State Board of the U.S. state of North Carolina formed in July 1933 by the North Carolina State Legislature by the passage of House Bill 1013, entitled "An Act to Amend Chapter 34 of the Public Laws of 1929 of North Carolina Relating to the Sterilization of Persons Mentally Defective". This Bill formally repealed a 1929 law, which had been ruled as unconstitutional by the North Carolina Supreme Court earlier in the year.

Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectually disabled, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Despite the changing attitudes in the coming decades regarding sterilization, the Supreme Court has never expressly overturned Buck v. Bell. It is widely believed to have been weakened by Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (1942), which involved compulsory sterilization of male habitual criminals. Legal scholar and Holmes biographer G. Edward White, in fact, wrote, "the Supreme Court has distinguished the case [Buck v. Bell] out of existence". In addition, federal statutes, including the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, provide protections for people with disabilities, defined as both physical and mental impairments.

Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942), is a unanimous United States Supreme Court ruling that held that laws permitting the compulsory sterilization of criminals are unconstitutional as it violates a person's rights given under the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, specifically the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause. The relevant Oklahoma law applied to "habitual criminals" but excluded white-collar crimes from carrying sterilization penalties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Compulsory sterilization</span> Sterilization effected by government coercion

Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, refers to any government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done by surgical or chemical means.

The term feeble-minded was used from the late 19th century in Europe, the United States and Australasia for disorders later referred to as illnesses or deficiencies of the mind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carrie Buck</span> American Supreme Court case plaintiff

Carrie Elizabeth Buck was the plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, after having been ordered to undergo compulsory sterilization for purportedly being "feeble-minded" by her foster parents after their nephew raped and impregnated her. She had given birth to an illegitimate child without the means to support it. The surgery, carried out while Buck was an inmate of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, took place under the authority of the Sterilization Act of 1924, part of the Commonwealth of Virginia's eugenics program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial Integrity Act of 1924</span> Virginia anti-miscegenation law

In 1924, the Virginia General Assembly enacted the Racial Integrity Act. The act reinforced racial segregation by prohibiting interracial marriage and classifying as "white" a person "who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian". The act, an outgrowth of eugenicist and scientific racist propaganda, was pushed by Walter Plecker, a white supremacist and eugenicist who held the post of registrar of the Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry H. Laughlin</span> American eugenicist (1880–1943)

Harry Hamilton Laughlin was an American educator and eugenicist. He served as the superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office from its inception in 1910 to its closure in 1939, and was among the most active individuals influencing American eugenics policy, especially compulsory sterilization legislation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazi eugenics</span> Nazi German policy of the murder of "undesirable" persons from the German people

The social policies of eugenics in Nazi Germany were composed of various ideas about genetics. The racial ideology of Nazism placed the biological improvement of the German people by selective breeding of "Nordic" or "Aryan" traits at its center. These policies were used to justify the involuntary sterilization and mass-murder of those deemed "undesirable".

Paul A. Lombardo is an American legal historian known for his work on the legacy of eugenics and sterilization in the United States. Lombardo’s foundational research corrected the historical record of the 1927 U.S. Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell. He found Carrie Buck’s school grades and the grades of her child Vivian. He was the last person to interview her, and he discovered the pictures of all three generations of the Buck family. In 2002, he sponsored and paid for a memorial plaque that was installed in Buck’s hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia.

Compulsory sterilization in Canada is an ongoing practice that has a documented history in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugenics in the United States</span> "Race improvement" as historically sought in the US

Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population, played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States from the late 19th century into the mid-20th century. The cause became increasingly promoted by intellectuals of the Progressive Era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugenics in California</span>

Eugenics in California is a notable part of eugenics in the United States. As an early leading force in the field of eugenics, California became the third state in the United States to enact a sterilization law. By 1921, California had accounted for 80% of sterilizations nationwide. This continued until the Civil Rights Movement, when widespread critiques against society's "total institutions" dismantled popular acceptance for the state's forced sterilizations. There were an estimated 20,000 forced sterilizations in California between 1909 and 1979; however, that number may be an underestimation. In 2021, California enacted a reparations program to compensate the hundreds of still living victims from its eugenics program.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Indian Health Service (IHS) and collaborating physicians sustained a practice of performing sterilizations on Native American women, in many cases without the free and informed consent of their patients. In some cases, women were misled into believing that the sterilization procedure was reversible. In other cases, sterilization was performed without the adequate understanding and consent of the patient, including cases in which the procedure was performed on minors as young as 11 years old. A compounding factor was the tendency of doctors to recommend sterilization to poor and minority women in cases where they would not have done so to a wealthier white patient. Other cases of abuse have been documented as well, including when health providers did not tell women they were going to be sterilized, or other forms of coercion including threatening to take away their welfare or healthcare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924</span> 1924 U.S. state law allowing compulsory sterilization for eugenic purposes

The Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 was a U.S. state law in Virginia for the sterilization of institutionalized persons "afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy”. It greatly influenced the development of eugenics in the twentieth century. The act was based on model legislation written by Harry H. Laughlin and challenged by a case that led to the United States Supreme Court decision of Buck v. Bell. The Supreme Court upheld the law as constitutional and it became a model law for sterilization laws in other states. Justice Holmes wrote that a patient may be sterilized "on complying with the very careful provisions by which the act protects the patients from possible abuse." Between 1924 and 1979, Virginia sterilized over 7,000 individuals under the act. The act was never declared unconstitutional; however, in 2001, the Virginia General Assembly passed a joint resolution apologizing for the misuse of "a respectable, 'scientific' veneer to cover activities of those who held blatantly racist views." In 2015, the Assembly agreed to compensate individuals sterilized under the act.

Sterilization law is the area of law, that concerns a person's purported right to choose or refuse reproductive sterilization and when a given government may limit it. In the United States, it is typically understood to touch on federal and state constitutional law, statutory law, administrative law, and common law. This article primarily focuses on laws concerning compulsory sterilization that have not been repealed or abrogated, i.e. are still good laws, in whole or in part, in each jurisdiction.

Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf are two African-American sisters who were involuntarily sterilized by tubal ligation by a federally funded family planning clinic in Montgomery, Alabama in 1973. News coverage of a class-action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center brought U.S. government-funded sterilization abuse to the national spotlight.

Sterilization of Latinas has been practiced in the United States on women of different Latin American identities, including those from Puerto Rico and Mexico. There is a significant history of such sterilization practices being conducted involuntarily, in a coerced or forced manner, as well as in more subtle forms such as that of constrained choice. Forced sterilization was permissible by multiple states throughout various periods in the 20th century. Issues of state sterilization have persisted as recently as September 2020. Some sources credit the practice to theories of racial eugenics.

Harry Clay Sharp (1870–1940) was an American medical doctor and eugenicist. While working as a physician at an Indiana state prison around the turn of the 20th century, Sharp performed some of the first vasectomies for the purposes of sterilization, and helped popularize the procedure as an alternative to castration. Sharp was instrumental in the creation of Indiana's 1907 law mandating the sterilization of "confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles, and rapists"; this was the first compulsory sterilization law in the United States, and would serve as a model for similar statutes adopted by other states.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Carey, Allison (1 March 1998). "Gender and Compulsory Sterilization Programs in America: 1907- 1950". Journal of Historical Sociology. 11: 74–105. doi:10.1111/1467-6443.00054.
  2. ↑ Wellerstein, Alex (July 2011). Jasanoff, Sheila (ed.). "State of Eugenics: Institutions and Practices of Compulsory Sterilization in California". Reframing Rights: Bioconstitutionalism in the Genetic Age. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262015950.001.0001. ISBN   9780262298667 – via MIT Press Scholarship Online.
  3. ↑ Peterson, Herbert B. (January 2008). "Sterilization for Women and Men". Obstetrics & Gynecology. 111 (1): 189–203. doi:10.1097/01.AOG.0000298621.98372.62. PMID   18165410. S2CID   220557510 . Retrieved 2020-10-14.
  4. 1 2 "IHB: 1907 Indiana Eugenics Law". www.in.gov. Retrieved 2020-10-14.
  5. ↑ Lombardo, Paul (2011). A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era. Indiana University Press. pp. ix.
  6. 1 2 Wills, Matthew (2017-08-03). "When Forced Sterilization was Legal in the U.S." JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 2020-10-14.
  7. ↑ "Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson". Oyez. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  8. 1 2 3 Silver, Michael G. (2004). "Eugenics and Compulsory Sterilization Laws: Providing Redress for the Victims of a Shameful Era in United States History". George Washington Law Review. 72 (4): 862–892. PMID   16211742 – via HeinOnline.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Rowlands, Sam; Amy, Jean-Jacques (2017-12-11). "Sterilization of those with intellectual disability: Evolution from non-consensual interventions to strict safeguards". Journal of Intellectual Disabilities. 23 (2): 233–249. doi:10.1177/1744629517747162. PMID   29228865. S2CID   21564244.
  10. 1 2 Stern, Alexandra Minna; Novak, Nicole L.; Lira, Natalie; O'Connor, Kate; Harlow, Siobán; Kardia, Sharon (January 2017). "California's Sterilization Survivors: An Estimate and Call for Redress". American Journal of Public Health. 107 (1): 50–54. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2016.303489. ISSN   0090-0036. PMC   5308144 . PMID   27854540.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 "Our Long, Troubling History of Sterilizing the Incarcerated". The Marshall Project. 2017-07-27. Retrieved 2020-10-15.
  12. 1 2 3 Blum, Erika, T. (1994). "When Terminating Parental Rights is Not Enough: A New Look at Compulsory Sterilization". Georgia Law Review. 28– via HeinOnline.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. ↑ Sufrin, Carolyn; Kolbi-Molinas, Alexa; Roth, Rachel (22 June 2015). "Reproductive Justice, Health Disparities And Incarcerated Women in the United States". Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. 47 (4): 213–219. doi:10.1363/47e3115. PMID   26098183 – via Wiley Online Library.
  14. ↑ DanielAHorwitz (20 May 2019). "White County, Tennessee Inmate Sterilization Program Terminated By Historic Order". Supreme Court of Tennessee Blog. Retrieved 2020-10-15.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 "ACLU News & Commentary". American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved 2020-10-15.
  16. ↑ "Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United States". Independent Lens. Retrieved 2020-10-15.
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