Female Sterilization Essay

Lopez used many resources to piece together an understanding and educational opinion in regards to United States influence within Puerto Rico, and the causes and effects of birth control movements. She discovered that there was a large intrigue with Neo-Malthusianism within the United Sates during the time that they were colonizing Puerto Rico. According to Lopez, intrigue with Neo-Malthusianism along slide of a Eugenic ideology was the majority cause for the significant loss of Reproductive Freedom among Puerto Rican women. She does acknowledge that Puerto Rican women were not the only to

Sterilization in Puerto Rico has two sides, the political side and the cultural side. Starting in 1898 when Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States, putting making Puerto Rico a U.S. territory under strict control. The United States had concerns that overpopulation of the island would lead to disastrous social and economic conditions. Which lead to the implication of instituted public policies aimed at controlling the exponential growth of the population. The passage of Law 116 in 1937 signified the institutionalization of the population control program (Designating Dependency, Seal). After World War I a program was put in place by the United States government along with the medical community and the local government of Puerto Rico. Which resulted in the sterilization of one third of the female population by 1965, as well as the use of sterilization on a nation wide scale by Puerto Rican women as a form of birth control (Sterilization and Fertility, Presser).

Briggs' historiography of the enslavement of working class Puerto Rican women to experimentation intersects with and was part of the formation of racialized ideologies of disease, which were used to construct the racial, social and political difference between Puerto Ricans and white Americans and to control Puerto Rican working class women, in a context of explaining away U.S exploitation of the island and constructing Puerto Rico as the reason why the U.S. is a benevolent international force.*** In the 19th century, this was discussed primarily in relation to Puerto Rican sex workers, in the 20th century it focused on reproductive control.

Control of reproductive decisions of black women is a highly prevalent a form of racial oppression in America. Due to this form of control, the meaning of reproductive liberty in America has been significantly altered. These issues are addressed in Dorothy Roberts’ Killing the Black Body. The novel demonstrates the way in which black women were consistently devalued as a tool for reproductive means, which in itself was a form of racial oppression. The novel also provides the reader with insight as to how experiences of black women since times of slavery have drastically changed the present day connotation of reproductive freedom.

As the end of the slave trade seem to become a reality, many slave owners in the Caribbean started to try to even out slave female to male ratios. The reproductive ability of females became needed in order to keep the sugarcane industry alive. Soon enough slave owners were beginning to realize that although they were treating the females better they weren’t getting pregnant. The theory is that many African healers and women brought with them the knowledge of how to have an abortion and used it in fear of the servitude their future children would have to suffer. This was a very important act of resistance because of the power slave women took over their reproductive system. Although they had not control over their sexuality, having a child was something they knowingly decided against, while also hindering the institution of slavery that need their children to live.

While in South Carolina, Cora has regular access to a doctor. As mandated by her the dormitory she lives in, Cora has scheduled checkups at the local hospital. While visiting her doctor one day, the doctor spoke with Cora about a new surgical procedure. Detailing the conversation, the text says, “Dr. Stevens explained, to educated folks about a new surgical technique wherein the tubes inside a woman were severed to prevent to growth of a baby. . . ‘As of this week, it is mandatory for some in the state. Colored women who have already birthed more than two children, in the name of population control. Imbeciles and otherwise mentally unfit, for obvious reasons. Habitual criminals. . .’” (113). Here, the doctor reveals to Cora that women of color are being forced to have a surgery that inhibits the ability to procreate. By forcing women of color to have these surgeries, doctors are taking away the human ability to procreate, and the human ability to choose what happens to their own bodies. Also, because the doctors are performing these reproductive surgeries against black women’s will, the surgical procedure would be a form of sexual assault. Through forced reproductive surgeries, whites are using sexual brutality to dehumanize women of color.

In Killing the Black Body, Dorothy Roberts describes the history of African-American women and the dehumanizing attempts to control their reproductive lives. Beginning with slavery, to the early beginning of birth control policy, to the sterilization abuse of Black women during the 1960s and 1970s, continuing with the current campaign to inject Norplant and Depo-Provera along with welfare mothers, Roberts argues that the systematic, institutionalized denial of reproductive freedom has uniquely marked Black women’s history in America.

The Scythe and the Scalpel: Dissecting the Sterilizations of Native American Women in the 1970's

Naturally this affected Mexican American families, but more than that it criminalized and marginalized their lifestyle, providing even more reason to sterilize Mexican American Women. Whether or not a family member had been previously committed to a California Prison was often used as a reason to sterilize Mexican American women. Such is the case of Manuela Morales whose brother was an inmate in a California Institution. Not only did the eugenics board draw on Manuela’s incarcerated brother, but also the “unsocial behavior” other members of her family were perceived to exhibit. The official decision to sterilize Manuela cites reasons such as her mother being of low mentality and an alcoholic with eleven children, and her father being a laborer born in Mexico and therefore lacked the ability to understand (Lira and Stern 24). Stories such as Manuela and her family’s provide clear evidence that the forced Sterilizations of Mexican American Women was a direct attack on Mexican American families with the purpose of reducing the Mexican American population, thus solving California’s “foremost racial

The idea of eugenics made it possible for involuntary sterilization. In order to improve the human race, it meant regulating reproduction. 1907 Indiana passed to sterilize the mentally insane and inmates. Their plan was to eliminate “defective” genes. By 1960 63,000 people were involuntary

Oral contraceptive has been a controversial topic for years. Oral contraceptives are a common form of birth control. Birth control is used to prevent pregnancy by blocking a male’s sperm from fertilizing a female’s egg. Women take birth control to prevent pregnancy. Also, teen women can prevent unwanted pregnancies by having access to over the counter birth control pills. Birth control pills should be available without a prescription.

Minority women shouldn’t be forced for sterilization just because they do not outnumber white women. People shouldn’t be looked down because race and gender. If a country wants to control its population, it shouldn’t force women to control the population. Some women probably would want more children and would like to have a larger family but with restrictions with such as being sterilized just takes that right away from a woman. On the other hand, you have women who are sterilized without their consent. If I were sterilized without any consent, I would probably be emotionally traumatized. Women can also take pills and injections without going through knives and cutters to be sterilized.

Females as a general population have been faced with discrimination across the ages. In recent history, women have begun to assert their freedom and independence from the male oriented traditions that have spanned generations. In industrialized countries the discrimination of women has diminished, but a serious form of violation of human rights occurs sometimes in parts of the world, such as Africa, the Middle East, and even sometimes the United States and other industrialized countries in North America and Europe. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is an umbrella term for three subtypes of crimes committed against women as a part of various coming of age rituals for young girls in certain patriarchal communities in Africa, spreading through

Male sterility is a form of birth control that has affected me in positive and negative ways. I am a single male in the early thirties. Five years ago I had no plans of marriage or a family, therefore I decided to have a vasectomy. My sterility enabled me to not worry about unplanned pregnancies and undesirable economic responsibilities. Although I am sterile and would like to have a relationship with a women, it is difficult to find a women who does not want to have children. In this research paper I am going to explain how I have used this method as birth control, how pregnancy has been prevented, the risks of a vasectomy, the advantages of a vasectomy, whether there is STI Protection from having a vasectomy, the cost of the procedure, where

I would like to compare and contrast the subject of the Female Labor Force and Sterilization Practices. As the progressive era began, there are a lot of changes for the women’s labor force with respect to politics. They were stronger because they stood up for themselves, refusing to be victims any longer and they did so by way of going on strike and making demands (Dubois & Dumenil, 2016). The labor force at this time was 18.3% of women, which when compared to the 2014 statistic of 57%, shows a substantial increase over this period of time ("Women in the Labor Force," n.d.). Wage rates for the women in the early 1900’s continues to be approximately half of what the men earned, as well as there was a division between occupations and business sectors between the sexes so women were not given many options in the labor force. Many single women were limited to working in factories or domestic labor. However, as time progressed, more opportunities such as clerical positions, which were once a male dominated field, began to open for women. This gave them steady wages, clean and safe working conditions but eventually had a similar setting as factories and some were even paid per piece wages. Eventually, by the 1920’s, there were even professional fields opening up for the educated female workforce. This gave women personal independence as they were in positions such as medicine, law and teaching to name a few. However, these professional women would begin to have problems as we