Calif. inmates illegally sterilized

[teko]

Calif. inmates illegally sterilized, new report shows
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An inmate at California Institute for Women state prison in Chino, Calif., hugs her daughter during a Mother's Day visit.
8 hr ago  By Lisa Heinrich of MSN News
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Female prison inmates in California were sterilized without state approval in recent years, according to a new report by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Doctors in California prisons sterilized nearly 150 female inmates between 2006 and 2010 without state approval, according to a report.

The Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that doctors at two women’s prisons in California sterilized 148 women between 2006 and 2010 after they gave birth, with as many as 100 more in the years before that and without following proper procedures.

California, which has a long history of forced sterilization, banned the procedure in state prisons in 1979. Because of the state’s grim history, a number of laws were put in place including that state-funded tubal ligations (having one's fallopian tubes tied) be approved by a medical review committee and that inmates must give consent. Because of this, it would be illegal to pressure a female inmate to agree to the procedure while she is going through labor or childbirth.

But former inmates at the California Institution for Women in Corona and the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla claim they were pressured to undergo the procedure while they were pregnant and in prison. Doctors allegedly targeted inmates they thought were likely to be repeat offenders or already had many children.

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According to former Valley State inmate Christina Cordero, 34, the institution's OB-GYN doctor pressured her to have a tubal ligation.

“As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it,” she said.  “He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn’t do it.”

Cordero, who spent two years in prison for auto theft, agreed, but said, “today I wish I would have never done it.”

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http://news.msn.com/us/calif-inmates-illegally-sterilized-new-report-shows

[adgal]

My thoughts exactly.  Counseling - good.  Forced sterilization - horrible, absolutely horrible.  People can and do change, happens all the time.  And as much as I feel certain people shouldn't have children, it is removing a basic human right.  

[specialmom]

Forced sterilization seems barbaric.  Sounds like a crime!  What is going to happen to those doctors??

I don't think it is wrong, however, to counsel women about tubal ligation when pregnant and about to give birth (good time to do the procedure).  If they choose to do it, then that is like any other woman deciding to make that choice.  It seemed like a good idea at the time and maybe, just maybe, a mother of 5 in prison and is a repeat offender might not be the best mom in the world.  (I'm also not the best mom in the world by the way).  

No one should ever be forced though!!  That should be something that these doctors are held accountable for!