I don’t think anyone said poor women have never been sterilized against their will. However, no one here has produced evidence of a widespread problem occurring more recently than 30 years ago. Since we know about past incidents, I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t know about more recent incidents if they were happening frequently.

But the point is, we are looking to change the system to make it easier to get sterilized, because White middle-class women are having some trouble with access to that procedure.

We cannot assume there will be no negative consequences to this, including some racist doctors choosing to use high-pressure tactics and misinformation to convince low-income and non-English-speaking women to consent to sterilization.

We don’t laugh at the idea that “abortion alternative” clinics can misguide women who are under stress and poorly educated about reproduction. Why not be just as alert to the possible manipulation of the reproductive futures of women of color and women who are low-income?

I can’t say which is a worse long-term effect — having a child you don’t want, or not ever being able to have a child you do want. I think both are outrageous, and both should be guarded against.

And this is what we’ve been trying to convey to you:

THE POORER YOU ARE, THE MORE LIKELY IT IS THAT THE DOCTOR WILL TALK YOU INTO A TUBAL LIGATION WHEN YOU DON’T REALLY WANT ONE.

It’s pretty ironic that you’re arguing that no poor women are ever coerced into getting sterilized, and then present the exact situation when they’re most likely to be coerced into it as the perfect time for it to be done.

The article provides no evidence–zero, nothing, none whatsoever–for forced sterilizations of Native American women in the 1970s.

If you don’t believe what people said happened, sure. Do you think there will be records where doctors write, “sterilized 4 Native women against their will today. Hoo boy!”

Are you really saying there should be no concern about forced sterilization or deceptive practices around sterilization? Regardless of the accuracy of the actual numbers reported, do you really think none occurred during the 70s and 80s?

More importantly, do you really think with the Repug hysteria over immigration and fear that the dusky races will overbreed and overtake the US (especially the health care system), no one’s going to try to pull this shit again?

What exactly is your position?

The article provides no evidence–zero, nothing, none whatsoever–for forced sterilizations of Native American women in the 1970s.

It talks about:

A) Number of cases [see GAO investigation; no evidence provided the GAO found the sterilizations to be forced.]

B) Case report of Norma Jean Serena where there’s a finding of no forced sterilization [Serena said she could not recall having signed a consent form; the attending physician said he had explained the operation to Serena and that he was convinced she understood him. A jury agreed.]

C) Tale of the walk-in LA patient which touches our hearts but is devoid of any evidence [doctor doesn’t ask pt’s name, but does 1) perform a pelvic (or maybe he/she just looks deeply into the pt’s eyes and makes a diagnosis?), 2) determine that operation had been performed under false pretenses (really? How do you determine that without reviewing the pt’s records. And how do you do that without knowing the pt’s name?]

D) Direct quote from an IHS doctor critical of the sterilizations (Pinkerton-Uri) about, you know, voluntary sterilization:

A 200 million population could support voluntary sterilization and survive, but for Native Americans it cannot be a preferred method of birth control. While other minorities might have a gene pool in Africa or Asia, Native Americans do not; when we are gone, that’s it.

JohnL,

Yes I was, US only. I’ll read your link, thank you.

Second, Mnemosyne it’s 30 days minimum (180 up to 30 days). The women don’t wait on purpose; often it’s a combination of no/late prenatal care, mix up with the forms, no f/u, moving, etc. And, from what I’ve seen, the poorer you are the more likely there’s a problem with the paperwork, the less likely you are to have the tubal when you’re already in the hospital and it suits you. That’s just not right.

“I checked all the links in #53. None provide any evidence of recent (as in the 1970s and 1981) forced sterilizations.”

Check again. Native American forced sterilizations were occurring in the 1970s.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/sterilize.html

Fair enough. I wasn’t so much reading feminist literature in the 1970’s, as I did not yet (quite) exist. But I didn’t learn these critiques of feminism from Katie Roiphe or anything: these critiques were and are levied against feminist discourse by women of color who consider themselves feminists. Like I said, I agree with the logic of Amanda’s argument above, but am looking for an explanation of the re-emergence of this debate. I think that history has a lot to do with it, and I think that Sheelzebub makes a great point about our different relations to state power above.

Oh yes, agreed. I was just trying to say that feminism isn’t only now seeing people of color. But you are right, it is still a blind spot for many feminists in many ways.

I think it is because many feminists come from a White-centered experience — not usually of their own choice, but because of de facto and social segregation growing up — that these issues can take us by surprise.

It’s a technically self-negating statement to say, “I’m a feminist of color and I find feminists ignore people of color.” But I don’t dismiss it, because I know there is a huge amount of truth in it.

I think of feminism in its best aspects and less in its failures and imperfections, so I think of the feminists who ignore people of color as imperfect and flawed feminists rather than representative of feminism in that regard, and the complaining feminist of color as the more “true” feminist.

I guess I’m like those Christians who say “don’t judge us by Jim Bakker and whatsisface with the meth and the male prostitute.”

Sigh. Ever the optimist.

I may be mistaken, not being a medical professional and all, but I was under the impression that a pregnancy takes about 9 months to come to term — why would a woman who wants a tubal ligation after delivery have to wait until her 8th month to sign the consent form? Couldn’t she sign it around month 5 or 6 and have it on file for when she goes into labor?

If you can’t decide more than 30 days in advance whether or not you want to have a life-altering surgery that will remove your fertility forever, you should probably hold off on having the surgery until you’re less ambivalent about it.