Sterilization Behind Prison Bars
Taking a look at the eugenics program within the prison system.
The prison system in the United States has always had a dark, twisted history. Prisons have oftentimes faced many abuse accusations by former and current inmates who state that their basic human rights were violated behind bars. Many female inmates have been subject to a wide variety of these inhumane abuses. One of the most severe forms of abuse practiced on female inmates has been the eugenics program. Eugenics is defined as the “science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.” This essentially means the forced sterilization of many women in prison. For a big part of the 20th century, the eugenics program in prisons was federally funded and was practiced in 32 states across the nation. It is important to recognize and acknowledge exactly who was being sterilized within prison institutions. According to Lisa Ko, the majority of people who were sterilized were the “undesirable population.” By “undesirable population,” Ko refers to “immigrants, people of color, poor people, unmarried mothers, the disabled, and the mentally ill.” Any woman who fit into these characteristics was oftentimes sterilized because they were deemed “unfit” to procreate by society.
Many of us, including myself, wonder how sterilization in prisons became a common practice and how it could even be considered legal in a country that prides itself on freedom. To help explain this, Foucault’s book, “Discipline and Punish”, illustrates how groups of people, especially the incarcerated population, are constantly susceptible to this kind of abuse. In the chapter titled, “Docile Bodies”, Foucault mentions that the body, specifically the docile body, became the center of attention in earlier years for many reasons. Interestingly, the body came to be seen as an object that needed to be regulated by societal forces. He claims, “The classical age discovered the body as object and target of power.” Here, Foucault tries to explain earlier societes knew that the body had more than just one function; it could either enact power or be submissive to power. The notion of docility comes to play here as he explains that the docile body is actually a “manipulable body.” He states, “A body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved.” The docile body is a form of domination used by the state to make individuals submissive to their power. This form of domination is mainly enacted through discipline. The state values docile bodies because of the type of power it gives. Foucault mentions, “Then there was the object of the control: it was not or was no longer the signifying elements of behaviour or the language of the body, but the economy, the efficiency of movements, their internal organization…” Foucault tells us here that docile bodies give the state economic power, organizational power, and can use our bodies in “efficient” ways. One of the main arguments that was provided by the courts for the legalization of the eugenics program within prisons was that it was their “duty” to “protect” the taxpayer from paying millions of dollars for “neglected” kids.
Also, by sterilizing women of color, poor women, and the mentally-ill, we see this organizational power play out as well. Women who are poor, minorities, and have some sort of disability are at the bottom end of this social hierarchy while women who are white, affluent, and “intellectual” are at the top. This method reinforces the social strata that is currently in place while concurrently proving that the state does not want anyone outside of the “top” of the strata to procreate to keep the “internal organization” of the state the same. Because a large number of minority women were locked away in prison, eugenics was a way to keep the white patriarchal system afloat. The less minorities that existed, the easier it would be to control the system in place.
Women in prisons are essentially the docile bodies. Women in prison are put away for the sole purpose of disciplining them and shaping them into “good, redeemable” citizens. Inmates are often disciplined through rigorous work and routines, strict schedules, enclosure, and ultimately through the mutilation of their bodies. Female inmates are often forced to be submissive to the power of the state within the prison walls.
What I find completely shocking and disturbing about this is the fact that sterilization was practiced in California’s prisons up until 2010. California was the state that had the most sterilizations nationwide. California alone sterilized 20,108 individuals from the year 1909 up until 1963. Out of those 20,108 sterilizations, almost 60% were considered mentally ill and 35% were considered mentally deficient. When we look at numbers in terms of race in California, Hispanics constituted between 7% and 8% of those sterilized while African Americans, who make up 1% of the population, constituted 4% of those sterilized. However, Lutz Kaelburg’s article, Eugenics: Compulsory Sterilization in 50 American States, mentions that many of these records have been difficult to access or have been altered and even suggests that the numbers given may be “conservative.”
California lawmakers banned forced sterilization in 1979. However, many prisons were able find loopholes within this ban and continued the practice for years. It is estimated that 150 female inmates in California prisons were sterilized up until 2010. Many of the women claim they were coerced into signing consensual forms to have a tubal ligation procedure or that they were unaware that their procedure was a tubal ligation. The women were either deceived or coerced by the prison doctors who were being paid $147,460 by the state for this procedure. Corey Johnson’s article, California was sterilizing its female prisoners as late as 2010, mentions the story a former inmate who was repeatedly asked by her doctor to have a tubal ligations moments after sedating her for a C-section. After an intensive state audit, California lawmakers passed SB 1135 in an attempt to ban sterilizations yet again.
Sterilizations in prisons have been a serious violation of basic human rights here in America. The fact that sterilizations continued on until 2010 is completely revolting. A female inmate’s body should not be mutilated under any means. An inmate is entitled to her body and can chose whether or not she wants to procreate. Although the inmate is enclosed in a state-owned facility; their body and their reproductive system do not belong to the state. Women should not have to submit to the power of the state by giving up her ability/choice to have a child; it is immoral and inhumane. As Foucault would say, a woman’s body should not be a docile body that can be manipulated by doctors and the state. We need to create laws that completely abolish coerced sterilization without any possible loopholes and completely take away monetary incentives from doctors who seek income for these procedures. Whether a woman is an inmate or not, she has the right to chose what she wants with her body without having any state intervention.
