As many as 148 female inmates in California were sterilized without proper authorization from the state, according to The Washington Post.
In a report originally published by the Center for Investigative reporting, the procedures took place between 2006 and 2010 and occurred within the confines of the California Institution for Women in Corona and the Valley State Prison for women in nearby Chowchilla.
According to The Post, prison advocates and former inmates now claim that targeted victims were routinely coerced by facility staffers into consenting to tubal litigation. To that end, CIR reports that doctors and prison administrators ignored and then tried to get around a 1994 state law that requires a detailed approval process for all sterilizations in California state prison.
Based on state documents and interviews, the CIR report estimates that there could be as many as 100 additional women similarly affected since the late 1990s. Research also shows the state paid doctors as much as $147,460 to perform the procedures between 1997 and 2010.
In one instance, former inmate and mother of five Christina Cordero told investigators her consent to sterilization was sought while she was in labor, strapped down, and under heavy sedation.
“As soon as he Dr. Heinrich found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done,” she said of the Valley State Prison’s lead OB-GYN. “The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it. He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn’t do it.”
Daunt Martin, top medical manager at Valley State Prison between 2005 and 2008, justified the actions by arguing “homeless and drug-addicted pregnant women commit crimes in order to be imprisoned so that they can receive better health care.”
Even though the state prison database shows that at least 60 tubal ligations were done at State Valley Prison while Martin was in charge, Martin denies having approved any of them.
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