Women Beware!
Do not let Yourself Be Sterilized without Making the Choice Yourself.
Sterilization is on the rise. In the last five years the number of women sterilized has tripled. Approximately one million female sterilizations are performed in one year (in the USA).
Because it is permanent and not reversible, sterilization ends a women's control over her ability to have children. It is an important decision. It is not something we should be pressured or forced into without knowing all the facts, or because we don't know what else to do.
Many doctors in hospitals and clinics are pushing surgical sterilizations on women without giving the facts about the risks and consequences. Teaching hospitals are pushing sterilizations, especially hysterectomy, as training for new doctors.
Sterilization can be a good form of birth control for son women who choose it. However, many women are pressured to make the choice without being informed that it is permanent (irreversible) operation, or that there are other forms of birth control. Some women are forced to sign consent forms for the operation without knowing all the facts, while they are in labor or childbirth, before a Caesarean section, or at the time of abortion. Many women agree sterilization because they are threatened or are afraid they will lose their welfare, or the right to medical service.
For the U.S. government, sterilization is part of the population control program. It is a cheap and effective way to control births. Most sterilizations are performed on Black Puerto Rican, Native American (American Indian) and poc women. Puerto Rico has the highest number of sterilization in the world with 35 per cent of Puerto Rican women or childbearing age having been sterilized.
From WASA - Women Against Sterilization Abuse (see resources for address and more information)
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Sterilization Abuse of Third World and Working Class Women in the USA.
The bitter facts are that already some 20% of all black married women in the United States have been sterilized, three times the number of white married women. Sterilization among Spanish-speaking women is six times greater than for white women. A recent government survey reveals that 3,400 Native American women have been sterilized without even being given a consent form, and a total of 19% of all Native women of childbearing age have been sterilized.
- Marian Mac Donald of Low Income
Planning Aid at the February 22 hearings on the proposed new regulations for federally funded sterilizations.
Twenty-three such testimonies were given at Boston John F.Kennedy building at the tenth and final region. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW hearings on sterilization. The proposed regulations come in response to the blatant abuses of sterilizatiort on poor, third world and working class women made public by growing evidence compiled by groups such as the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA) and women who have taken care after case to court. Ninety percent of the 100,000 yearly sterilizations in the US are federally funded, making sterilization abuse a national problem.
Testimony
Native American Dawn Gore gave strong, angry testimony on her case. Many women in the courtroom cried with her as she told her story. Sterilized while undergoing surgery for an appendectomy, the Holyoke, Massachusetts woman was told by her doctor that she "had enough kids." Following testimony by several male gynecologists who insisted that a 30-day waiting period between consent and sterilization- would cause "undue hardships." Dawn exploded with anger: "Are you afraid that if you give us 30 days to think about it we won't come back, doctors? You don't need to be afraid - if that woman really wants to be sterilized she'll be back. Our bodies will not be dues for the US government".
Sterilization has risen to proportions which seriously endanger the survival of the Native American nation, testified Rita Toll of the Native American Solidarity Committee (NASC). The Indian Health Service received HEW funding in 1965. Birth rates began dropping severely. Ms. Toll advocated a moratorium on sterilization of Native Americans until a panel including victims of abuse is set up by the International Indian Treaty Council to review the situation. Six months with extensive counseling is the minimum waiting period that would be acceptable to NASC.
The case of Puerto Rico, the US colony with the highest incidence of sterilization in the world was cited by CESA and the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee (PRSC). First legalized in 1937, 35.3% of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age had been sterilized by 1968, 95% of whom were under the age of 35. And the numbers are rising. HEW operates 19 free clinics at a capacity of 1,000 sterilizations per month on the island. Public education offers little information on alternative forms of birth control and propaganda continually links unemployment to "too many kids." Few alternatives coupled with an almost total lack of information leaves even those women who receive and sign proper forms (in English) in no position to give "knowing and voluntary consent." The 1972 Family Planning Digest states that as professional attitudes change, sterilization will become "as important in the 50 states as in Puerto Rico."
Proposed Regulations: Strengths and Weaknesses
A major definitional change is proposed in HEW's new regulations eliminating the distinction between "therapeutic" and "non-therapeutic" sterilization, thus standardizing regulations for all sterilization. Hysterectomy will no longer be considered an appropriate form of sterilization.
To ensure "knowing and voluntary consent," procedures for obtaining consent would change significantly. Proposed procedures require the person securing consent to inform the patient of her right to refuse sterilization, her right to change her mind at any time, and the fact that no federal funds or benefits can be withdrawn if she decides not to be sterilized. Everything on the consent form must be stated orally, including information on alternative birth control methods and the permanence and irreversibility of the operation. HEW proposes that the procedure be implemented in, or translated into the woman's first language, with arrangements for blind, deaf and otherwise disabled persons. Signatures from patient, doctors, social workers and others present would be required, certifying compliance with regulations.
Obtaining consent for sterilization while a woman is in labor or under medication and performing the operation during the same hospital stay is common practice. CESA revealed numerous cases of women in Boston having sterilization pushed on them up to six times during labor. Spanish-speaking women, unable to understand the forms, are manipulated into signing consent. Other women came out of surgery only to discover that while drugged they signed a form and were sterilized.
The current 72-hour waiting period between consent and sterilization is clearly too little. HEW proposed 30 days as a minimum amount of time for reflection and informed consent. Likewise, 21 years is proposed as a minimum age for sterilization to avoid manipulation of younger women.
"The inherent potential for coercion in mental hospitals, prisons and other institutions" according to HEW led the Department to propose additional safeguards for institutionalized persons. The major safeguards are as follows: denial of funds to institutions for anyone deemed "mentally incompetent"; a reviews committee for each case; a hearing; and a committee and judicial decision that the person is "capable of understanding the operation and has voluntarily and knowingly consented."
Compulsory sterilization for women on welfare with more than three kids, with a cut in benefits if she refuses, was favored by 94% of all doctors polled in a recent Family Planning Digest survey. With such attitudes rampant, the lack of a sure mechanism for enforcement is a major problem with the HEW regulations. Suggestions offered by New England groups included denial of funds to abusers and the creation of local groups to watchdog sterilization practices and present statistics for public security.
Trained interpreters and consent forms in Spanish, Chinese and other major first languages in particular regions are mandatory if regulations are to effectively control abuse. The lack of control a woman has over the method of sterilization chosen, and the history of reviews committees in institutions tending to represent the interests of the institutions are two other failings of the proposed regulations.
The Larger Context for Sterilization Abuse
"The numbers of those living in poverty, according to census bureaus reports, increased ten percent between 1974 and 1975' alone, increasing the numbers of people who must rely on public assistance. Inadequate health care is the norm in most poor and working-class communities. The December 1976 Supreme Court decision denying pregnant workers disability benefits, along with recent cutbacks in daycare make the prospect of motherhood an economic impossibility for many workers. And finally, the most recent irrational, discriminatory and hypocritical government action is the denial of federal funds for abortion for women on welfare, making a mockery of the notion of choice for women who have lost a key option in determining their futures. These are the conditions which create sterilization abuse." The connection made by Low Income Planning Aid between socio-economic factors, the abortion decision and abuse was echoed by many groups testifying.
Bonnie Mass, author of The Political Economy of Population Control In Latin America, put the issue in an international context. She briefly outlined the deeply interwoven influence of theories of eugenics and white supremacy in the history of population control. Multinationals, banks and the government have shown much interest in limiting third work population. USAID tripled its population control funding' between 1969 and 1972 while health care funding was reduced by two-thirds. The 1975 International Development and Assistance Act allocated 67% of its budget to population control. The case of Puerto Rico shows what has happened historically when the US has free reign. As Karen Rosen the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee has warned "Sterilization is the fastest growing type of birth control
in the US today."
By Alison Brow
reprinted from WIN Magazine, 30 March 197
503 Atlantic Ave., 5th floe
Brooklyn, New York 1121 US
Sterilization Abuse Worldwide
United States corporations are multinational and so is U.S. population policy. Through the Agency for International Development (AID), the Peace Corps, and various private foundations and religious organizations, population control is carried out in countries all over the world.
For example: 40,000 women were sterilized in Colombia between 1963-65 by Rockefeller funded programs. These women were coaxed by gifts of lipstick or artificial pearls, by small payments of money, and by promises of free medical care. A million women were sterilized in Brazil between 1965-71. In India, men are being given transistor radios if they agree to a vasectomy. In Bolivia, a US-imposed population control program administered by the Peace Corps sterilized Quechua Indian women without their knowledge or consent.
The U.S. funds population control in foreign countries through the Agency for International Development. AID spends more money on population control - $ 125 million in 1973 - than it spends on programs like agricultural an rural development.
When the U.S. gives a country aid it doesn't really "give anything away. "Strings" are attached so that the country are forced to become more dependent on the U.S. and in corporations, and they are forced to implement the population policies dictated by the U.S. An important facts determining how much foreign aid a country qualifies for how much consideration that country gives to population control.
AID also contributes to a wide range of private clinic foundations and organizations, such as Planned Parenthood which research and carry out population control in both foreign countries and in the U.S. Many of the directors these private agencies have close ties with U.S. corporation and with the U.S. government.
from CESA - Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (see) resources for address and more information).