California Set to Prohibit Sterilization of Prisoners
Last month, the California Senate unanimously approved bill 1135, which bans the sterilization of inmates as a form of birth control. The bill will soon be put before the Assembly and could become state law this year. If it passes and is signed by the Governor, the sterilization of prison inmates will be permitted only in cases of life threatening emergencies or when medically necessary.
Evidence of unauthorized sterilizations in California prisons emerged through the persistent efforts of Justice Now and an extensive investigation by Corey Johnson of the Center for Investigative Reporting. State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, vice-chair of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus, spearheaded the request for a state audit and authored SB 1135.
According to the California State Auditor, more than 39 out of the 144 bilateral tubal ligations performed on inmates from fiscal years 2005-06 to 2012-13 were done without lawful consent. Even more alarming, there is no evidence that the inmates’ physician signed the required consent form for 27 of the sterilization procedures.
The audit additionally says that “the true number of cases in which Corrections or the Receiver’s Office did not ensure that consent was lawfully obtained prior to sterilization may be higher.” In other words, there could be even more victims of sterilizations who are unaccounted for because they are still unaware that the procedure was performed.
With the SB 1135 approved unanimously and on its way to the Assembly, it’s easy to forget about California's murky history with sterilizations. During the twentieth century, dozens of U.S. states had laws permitting explicitly eugenic sterilization. Some 20,000 procedures were performed between 1909 and 1963 in California, the highest number in any state.
This history was raised in the legislature in 2003. Governor Gray Davis issued an apology, and a state resolution was passed that
urges every citizen of the state to become familiar with the history of the eugenics movement, in the hope that a more educated and tolerant populace will reject any similar abhorrent pseudoscientific movement should it arise in the future.
Yet the resolution presents no outline for making this idealistic “urging” a reality.
When I learned of the continuing sterilizations in California, it seemed to me that the 2003 apology and resolution were empty. As an effort to truly help prevent “any similar abhorrent pseudoscientific movement to arise,” I worked on a petition to incorporate the history of the eugenics movement into California schools’ curricula. The approval of Senate Bill 1135 would also help challenge the re-emergence of eugenic ideologies, as well as prevent abuses in California’s prisons.
Previously on Biopolitical Times: