Latina Issues

Fragments of Historia(ella) (Herstory)

Antoinette S. Lopez, Antoinette Sedillo López

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000149975
• Subtopic: Women in History

This book attempts to make Latina history visible and Latina voices heard. It focuses solely on women – not to marginalize Latina stories but to showcase them, illustrating Latina perspectives on colonization, gender, race, and class.

CHICANAS AND THE ISSUE OF INVOLUNTARY STERILIZATION: REFORMS NEEDED TO PROTECT INFORMED CONSENT

ANTONIA HERNANDEZ**

** A.A. 1969, East Los Angeles College; B.A. 1971, U.C.L.A.; J.D. 1974, U.C.L.A. Staff attorney, Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice.

The purpose of this article is to inform the public and its government representatives about practices which have caused the involuntary sterilization of Chicanas. These unauthorized medical practices have occurred within the area presently governed by laws which sanction voluntary sterilization. The right to procure a voluntary sterilization is not challenged, but the duty to provide an opportunity to render informed consent is in need of more stringent guarantees. In too many instances women have been coerced into undergoing sterilization surgery without their informed consent.

Most of the areas to be reviewed involve women who are poor, usually on welfare, and of a racial minority. With respect to Chicanas an additional element, lack of English fluency, deserves considerable attention. Furthermore, any concrete form of analysis cannot ignore the fact that women eligible for welfare not only must contend with the doctor-patient relationship, but also with government participation. At present, the federal and state governments provide substantial assistance to hospitals and women unable to afford medical care on their own. Consequently, doctors and hospitals which receive government subsidies to perform sterilization surgery, but violate a patient’s right to informed consent, not only violate existing government regulations but raise the issue of inadequate government enforcement.

A thorough examination of this topic would not be complete without some understanding of the attitudes which cause unwanted sterilizations. Special focus will be directed toward the ethical beliefs held by many medical practitioners, and the transference of these beliefs into nationwide practice. The interrelationship between government and the medical profession also requires some mention of the Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell¹ A state policy which required that a woman institutionalized in a mental facility be sterilized prior to her release was upheld. So long as the state’s procedures satisfied due process standards, the inability of the woman to render an informed consent did not bar the involuntary condition.

1. 274 U.S. 200 (1926). A Virginia statute which authorized the involuntary sterilization of an institutionally committed woman was upheld, because both the woman’s mother and illegitimate child were mentally incompetent.

Chief Justice Holmes sanctioned the government’s right to exact this condition as the price for freedom in the following terms:

It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.²

2. Id. at 207.

Such an unequivocal endorsement of the government’s right to forcefully deprive an individual of the decision to procreate lessens personal freedom. The Buck decision’s broad language provided a license for public officials to subject individuals considered “manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” By 1966, for example, twenty-six states had eugenic sterilization laws: twenty-three of these were compulsory.³ These statutes applied to mentally retarded persons but a dozen extended to certain criminals as well.⁴ When compared with similar attitudes held by many doctors, the social implications posed by the tangible existence of the Holme-sian philosophy raises the real threat of a professional and governmental denial of a protected right.

3. Ferster, Eliminating the Unfit: Is Sterilization the Answer?, 27 OHIO ST. L.J. 591 (1966).

4. Id. California, for example, once authorized the sterilization of those adjudged guilty of carnal abuse of a female person under the age of ten years (1923). But by 1976, this could only be accomplished with the informed consent of the prisoner, and could not be made a term or condition of probation or parole. CAL. PENAL CODE § 645. As of 1974, CAL. PENAL CODE § 2670 was amended to prohibit the punitive sterilization of recidivist prisoners for the crimes of rape, assault with intent to commit rape, or seduction, or who exhibit evidence of moral or sexual depravity.

To emphasize the gravity of coerced sterilization, the problems which confront Chicana hospital patients will be considered first.

I. PROBLEMS CONFRONTING CHICANA PATIENTS

A condensed clinical explanation of the tragic circumstances forced upon Chicanas must yield to a graphic narrative of personal harm. The personal experiences attested to by twelve Chicanas in a recent suit, Madrigal v. Quilligan,⁵ brought against the U.S.C.-Los Angeles County Medical Center (hereinafter referred to as the Medical Center), relate the abuses perpetrated against them. All of them alleged that they were unduly pressured into accepting an operation to be sterilized.

5. Brief for Plaintiffs, Madrigal v. Quilligan, No. 75–2057 (C.D. Cal., filed June 18, 1975) (hereinafter referred to as Madrigal). Joined as defendants were the Director of Obstetrics, U.S.C.-Los Angeles County Medical Center (hereinaf ter referred to as the Medical Center); Dr. John Doe, physician on the staff of the Medical Center; Jerry Bosworth, Executive Director of the Medical Center; Mario Obledo, Secretary of the Health and Welfare Agency of California; Jerome Lackner, Director of the Department of Health of California; and Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Dolores Madrigal,⁶ on or about October 12, 1973, was admitted to the Medical Center for the delivery of her second child. Even though she had dismissed the suggestions of a staff doctor and nurse that she submit to a sterilization, she was presented with sterilization consent forms while in labor and told to sign them. Under the severe pain of labor, and after being assured that the operation could be easily reversed, she signed these forms and was sterilized. The forms signed by Mrs. Madrigal were printed in English. Her primary language was Spanish, which made it impossible for her to determine the content of the forms. Only after the sterilization operation was completed was she informed that it was effectively irreversible.

6. Id. Affidavit by Dolores Madrigal, June 18, 1975.

Maria Hurtado⁷ appeared at the Medical Center for a routine medical checkup on or about December 6, 1972. The doctors who examined her determined that her baby should be delivered by caesarean section. She was anesthesized with a spinal injection for the delivery of her child. After the delivery of the child, she was given general anesthesia. While under this unconscious state, she was surgically sterilized by a staff doctor without her consent. She was not informed about the sterilization until six weeks later when she appeared for a routine checkup. She spoke only Spanish and did not recall signing a form authorizing the operation.

7. Id. Affidavit by Maria Hurtado, June 18, 1975.

On or about September 13, 1973, Jovita Rivera⁸ went to the Medical Center for the delivery of her baby. She was given general anesthesia in preparation for a delivery by caesarean section. While groggy and incoherent she was approached by ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Malintzin Tenépal: A Preliminary Look into a New Perspective
• The Widowed Women of Santa Fe: Assessments on the Lives of an Unmarried Population, 1850–80
• Dead Ends or Gold Mines?: Using Missionary Records in Mexican-American Women’s History
• The Chicana in American History: The Mexican Women of El Paso, 1880–1920 — A Case Study
• Puertorriquenas in the United States: The Impact of Double Discrimination
• Labor Market Stratification: The Chicana Experience
• Day Work in the Suburbs: The Work Experience of Chicana Private Housekeepers
• Cuban Women in the U.S. Labor Force: Perspectives on the Nature of Change
• Se me acabó la canción: An Ethnography of Non-Consenting Sterilizations Among Mexican Women in Los Angeles
• Chicanas and the Law
• Hispanic Women Breaking New Ground Through Leadership
• Political Familism: Toward Sex Role Equality in Chicano Families
• Marital Decision-Making and the Role of Machismo in the Chicano Family
• Chicanas and the Issue of Involuntary Sterilization: Reforms Needed to Protect Informed Consent
• Privacy and the Regulation of the New Reproductive Technologies: A Decision-Making Approach
• The Implications of Being a Society of One
• Two Legal Constructs of Motherhood: “Protective” Legislation in Mexico and the United States
• The Development of Chicana Feminist Discourse, 1970–1980
• Chicana Studies: Is There a Future for Us in Women Studies?
• Ain’t I a Feminist?
• Chicanas and El Movimiento
• “Abnormal Intimacy”: The Varying Work Networks of Chicana Cannery Workers
• Acknowledgments