North carolina compensation
Victim from North Carolina speaks out about her own forced sterilization.
The sterilization program in NC was one of the most aggressive and longest-running of any state. In total, 7,600 people were sterilized. North Carolina recently budgeted $10 million as compensation to those still living as victims of the 20th century eugenic laws. Each person victimized from sterilization is planned to receive $50,000. However, many other states have not yet confronted their past policies like N. Carolina, California, and Virginia who have formally apologized for their roles in the eugenics movement. So far, 281 people have come forward to the state of North Carolina and have been verified.
STerilization Today
Recently, the Center for Investigative Reporting conducted an investigation which revealed that many female inmates at California prisons have been pressured into getting sterilized since 1997. Doctors secretly did these surgeries by signing them off as "medical emergencies", as California repealed its sterilization law in 1979. As many as 150 women have been reported as victims. In 2014, to erase this violation of human rights, a bill was presented to the California Senate Health Committee to close loopholes that allow doctors to sterilize female inmates without state approval.
“As soon as [the institution's OB-GYN Dr. James Heinrich] found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. 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 ----Today, I wish I would have never had it done.”
- Christina Cordero, former inmate at Valley State Prison