To sterilize....is to force?

With Susan Bordo’s “Are Mothers Persons?” we were discussing the key words and phrases, and talking about what each means: bodily integrity, informed consent, subjectivity, and lastly involuntary sterilization. Here are some of the brief definitions that I jot down for each of those terms.

Bodily integrity: intrinsic for bodies to have their own space—not meant to be violated—rights are protected

Informed consent: person is given all the options and consequences, and then making the person’s own choice and decision

Subjectivity: you and yourself are protected by the law, your self have rights; your self is an actual being

Involuntary sterilization: usually done to poor people who are usually on assistance from the state; therefore their bodily integrity is greatly diminished; they are seen as expendable by big hospitals, even doctors have performed involuntary sterilization as practice on those people

As we were going through each of these terms, when we came to the phrase “involuntary sterilization,” I was really unsure of what this term entailed, but I knew it was an act that violated the women’s bodily integrity. In addition, it was not done with informed consent; instead it was performed on the women without their knowledge. Plus, I was thinking of sterilization in terms of microbiology as in any process that eliminates (removes) or kills all forms of life, including transmissible agents such as virus, bacteria, etc. present on a surface, contained in a fluid, in medication, or in a compound such as biological culture media.

One of the tools needed for the sterilization process. 

However, as I was reading “Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide” by Andrea Smith, the term sterilization was brought up again. Before I read further, I looked up the definition of this term, and I found the act of sterilizing is defined as depriving someone of their ability to reproduce by blocking or removing their sex organs. I was shocked and ashamed of my ignorance because I did not bother to look up this term when I was unsure of its meaning.

Touching upon the chapter titled “Better Dead Than Pregnant,” I learned that involuntary sterilization was performed on Native American women in order to control the population of the Native American. Not only that, but this procedure was also performed on racial groups of color and the poor class who are often abusers of drugs and alcohol. As long as this practice is being performed on these oppressed groups, the concept of bodily integrity is disregarded as well as the ability to make one’s own choices and decisions. For example, in relating to the wealth status of women, historian Rickie Solinger states that the concept of “choice” is connected to possession of resources. As he states,

“Choice” also became a symbol of middle-class women’s arrival as independent consumers. Middle-class women could afford to choose. They had earned the right to choose motherhood, if they liked. According to many Americans, however, when choice was associated with poor women, it became a symbol of illegitimacy. Poor women had not earned the right to choose.

It is upsetting to read that individuals’ freedom of rights is based on the individual’s wealth status because of the resources that are being made available to those who can really afford it. That means those who are poor are not even given the choice to decide if they want to have children or not. That choice is taken away from them through involuntary sterilization because those in a higher position with the ability to choose to give the procedure (as in physicians and politicians) decide that the person should not have the chance to reproduce simply due to many reasons, necessary and also ridiculous.

Additionally, I found that along with Native American women with disabilities, involuntary sterilization was also done on women and girls with disabilities across the world. Some of the purposes for this violating procedure were population control, menstrual management and personal care, and pregnancy prevention (including pregnancy that results from sexual abuse).

Recently, the state of California just passed a bill that banned using sterilization as a form of birth control for the female inmates in all jails, prisons, and detention centers. Just last year, it was revealed that 148 women had undergone coerced sterilization which violated the prison rules between 2006 and 2010. An inmate, Crystal Nguyen who worked at a prison’s infirmary in 2007 recalled, “I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s not right,’ Do they think they’re animals, and they don’t want them to breed anymore?” What she said demonstrated the viewpoint of the people who looks at women including those serving time, as “breeders” that should not even have the ability to reproduce. In the perspective of 34 years old Christina Cordero who went to prison for car theft, she remembers being pressured by the prison doctor: “As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it (tubal ligation—sterilization) done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it…He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn’t do it.” Since then, she has regretted making this decision that she made because she was emotionally manipulated and coerced.  

All of the examples that I mentioned about had in some form of the violation of one’s own rights, including the freedom of choice over one’s own body. In fact, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women has asserted that coerced sterilization is a method of medical control of a woman’s fertility. The entirety of this specific act violates a woman’s physical integrity and security and constitutes violence against women. This is something that everyone needs to know because even at this time, there are still people who do not realize the true severity of the lack of women’s reproductive rights and bodily integrity. We need to start advocating for women’s rights to have control over their own bodies, and make informed decisions in relating to their bodies because it is their bodies, not anyone’s.