The U.S. Is Still Forcibly Sterilizing Prisoners AP/Rich Pedroncelli https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2013-120.pdf https://shadowproof.com/2021/05/12/survivors-of-forced-sterilizations-in-cal... http://cironline.org/reports/female-inmates-sterilized-california-prisons-wi... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/california-female-pris... https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/cia-mkultra-collection/ https://ufo.fandom.com/wiki/MKUltra Last month, news broke that a Tennessee judge issued a standing order offering inmates a 30-day sentence reduction if they underwent a permanent birth control procedure: vasectomies for men, or a 4-year birth control implant (Nexplanon) for women. Though the program is technically voluntary, media pointed to it as a form of coercion that forces inmates into sterilization. The American Civil Liberties Union agreed, arguing that the program “violates the fundamental constitutional right to reproductive autonomy.” But the media missed a key piece of context in its outcry: Programs like this aren’t actually unusual. The United States has a long history of forcibly sterilizing people, and it never really stopped. Starting in 1907, state governments sanctioned sterilization as a form of eugenics, to prevent anyone with undesirable traits—disabilities, poverty, a criminal record, specific racial backgrounds—from procreating. This type of legislation justified the sterilization of approximately 60,000 Americans until the laws were phased out in the late 1970s. But that doesn’t mean the practice actually ended: In 2013, the Center for Investigative Reporting found that at least 148 female inmates in California received tubal ligations without their consent between 2006 and 2010. Just one year later, the Associated Press reported on at least four instances of prosecutors in Nashville including birth control requirements in plea deals. Other recent examples of court-required sterilization throughout the country include a 21-year-old West Virginia mother who had her tubes tied as part of her probation for marijuana possession (2009), and a man in Virginia who traded a vasectomy for a lighter child endangerment sentence (2014). “We’re starting to reach a point where the courts are responsible for anyone,” explained one prosecutor involved in a Florida plea deal. “It’s one final step to have to supervise teenagers in sexual relationships they aren’t ready to handle.”