sterilization - japanese american women

There are reports indicating that Japanese American women were coercively sterilized during their internment in camps during World War II.

In March 1945 Representative Jed Johnson (D-Okla.) proposed that Congress undertake specific legislation for the long-term disposition of the Japanese-Americans in relocation camps - suggesting “we should make an appropriation to sterilize the whole outfit.”(Ordover 2003:160)

Alice Tanabe Nehira’s 1981 testimony during hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians indicated that her mother, who was rounded up along with over 110,000 Japanese Americans under Executive Order 9066, was sterilized without her knowledge while interned at Tule Lake in 1943. (Ordover 2003: 161)

Tule Lake photo

Serena Sebring - last update: November 25, 2007

 

References

Contemporary Population Control Discourse

In October 2005, William Bennett (former US Secretary of Education) suggested to his radio talk show audience that”if you wanted to reduce crime…if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every Black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”

Though Bennett cautioned that actually aborting all African American babies “would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do” to him it remained clear that “the crime rate would go down.” (Ross 2006: 57)

Another face of the continuing population control discourse and its impact on women of color is the cash-incentive program Project Prevention, formerly known as CRACK (Children Requiring A Caring Komunity).

Project Prevention pays women with substance abuse problems $200 cash on receipt of documentation that they have been sterilized or are using long-term birth control such as Norplant, Depo-Provera or an IUD. This thriving privately funded non-profit organization was founded in 1997 by homemaker Barbara Harris, a white woman from Stanton, California who said,

“We don’t allow dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from having unwanted puppies, and yet these women are literally having litters of children.”

In order to find “clients” Project Prevention places large billboard advertisements in black and Latino communities offering to pay $200 in exchange for consent to sterilization. Signs read:

• “Don’t Let A Pregnancy Ruin Your Drug Habit.”

• “If You Are Addicted To Drugs, Get Birth Control-Get $200 Cash.”

Project Prevention also finds “clients” by offering an extra $50 for referrals of other substance abusing women, and distributing materials and pamphlets to foster parents, police, social workers, probation officers, hospital workers, church leaders and others who “may know someone who is taking drugs.” As of October 15, 2007, Project Prevention has found 2,269 “clients” (2242 women and 27 men).

References

Norma Jean Serena

Norma Jean Serena, a Native American (Creek/Shawnee) woman living in Apollo, Pennsylvania with her 3 children was a victim of sterilization abuse in 1970. Though Ms. Serena does not recall having signed the mandatory consent form (nor was one ever provided by the hospital at trial), the attending physician stated that he had explained the operation and felt convinced that she understood him.

This highly questionable “consent” was given by Ms. Serena the day after welfare case workers removed her children from the home under pretenses that were later determined by a jury to be false. This “consent” was given after days of being unfairly disparaged as an unfit and neglectful mother by case workers.

At trial Ms Serena was assisted by the Council of Three Rivers Indian Center in Pittsburgh in suing Armstrong County for the return of her children from foster care. She was awarded $17,000 damages for the removal of her children,who were ordered to be returned to her custody. It has since come to light that there was no actual medical basis for the sterilization procedures.

An excerpt from Ms. Serena’s “Statement of Need for Therapeutic Sterilization” in the hospital file reads “We find from observation and examination of Norma Serena that she is suffering from the following ailment of condition”…’socio-economic reasons’… and that another pregnancy in our opinion, would be inadvisable. Therefore, we are of the opinion that it is medically necessary to perform the sterilization.”

After being disparaged as a mother, and in the midst of the enormous stress of losing her children to the welfare system, Ms. Serena was encouraged to undergo sterilization for what she thought were medical reasons. Only years later did she discover that she had actually been sterilized because she was poor.

References

Alabama: Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf

In 1973, the case of two young black girls in Montgomery, Alabama brought increased public awareness to the issue of sterilization abuse against black women in the South. Minnie Lee Relf (age 14) and Mary Alice Relf (age 12) were the youngest of six children born to parents who supported them on welfare assistance totaling $156 a month.

When nurses from the federally funded Montgomery Community Action Agency requested Mrs. Relf’s permission to administer the long-acting contraceptive depo-provera (then still in experimental stages) to her young daughters, she signed the consent form with an “X”. The request to inject the Relf girls with depo-provera was apparently based on reasoning that placed a brutal link between gender, race, poverty and a government interest in population control. However, several months before nurses approached the Relfs, government orders had put an end to federally funded hormonal injections (due to their carcinogenic effect in lab animals).

In truth, though their mother had consented to temporary birth control measures, she would later learn that both Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf had been permanently sterilized using federal funds. With the assistance of the Southern Poverty Law Center, in July 1973 the Relfs joined a class action lawsuit in federal court demanding a ban on the use of federal funds for sterilizations. The court found that patients receiving Medicaid assistance at childbirth were the most frequent targets of coercive tactics by doctors and medical practitioners. Judge Gerhard Gesell found that an estimated 100,000-150,000 poor women had been sterilized annually under federally funded programs. Another study discovered that nearly half of the women sterilized were black - a rate that equals that reached by the Nazi sterilization program of the 1930s. The case was a catalyst for the passage of federal guidelines regulating government funding for sterilization procedures.

Link to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s file on Relf v. Weinberger

References

South Carolina: Marietta Williams and Dorothy Waters

In 1972 a South Carolina physician publicly defended his professional policy on welfare mothers: he told the local press that it was his policy to require sterilization after delivery of a mother’s third baby in order to reduce the state welfare rolls.

Dr. Clovis H. Pierce was the only obstetrician in rural Aiken County, South Carolina who accepted Medicaid patients. When Marietta Williams, a 20-year old black woman on welfare was pregnant with her third child, Dr. Pierce refused to deliver the baby unless Ms. Williams agreed to sign the consent form for sterilization. Dr. Pierce told another patient (Dorothy Waters), “Listen here, young lady, this is my tax money paying for this baby and I’m tired of paying for illegitimate children. If you don’t want this sterilization, find another doctor.” (Roberts 1997:92).

Dr. Pierce subsequently sterilized 28 black women in a three month time period (CCESA 1977). Between 1971-1972, Dr. Pierce was paid $60,000 of taxpayers’ money in the form of Aiken County Hospital fees billed to Medicare funds. Though several of the women targeted by Dr. Pierce sought government assistance in addressing their cases, the Department of Social Services refused to intervene on their behalf (Roberts 1997:92).

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