Cynthia Chandler is the co-founder of Justice Now. She gives FFWP permission to publish her comments on why sterilization coercion is not consent! She asks our readers to sign on to the petition to stand up to forced sterilization. We also published a previous blog about forced sterilization in India, offering women I Phones in exchange for sterilization. This also is not free choice, it's coercion, it's more, it's violence against women.
***************
by Cynthia Chandler
My response to prison officials who say women in prison signed release
forms before being sterilized: Of course. That is the whole point. In a
coercive environment, people in power can make people who are dominated
do or say anything, including signing a release form authorizing
sterilization.
Think about it.
Arrest a woman when she is pregnant. Cage her in a jail designed to be
so unpleasant that it induces plea bargains quickly. Feed her nothing
but a couple of bologna sandwiches daily. Shackle her with her hands
behind her back in a paddy-wagon, where she can do nothing to protect
her belly as she is jostled about, and then take her to court to face
the humiliation and life destruction that is criminal prosecution.
Send
her to prison where she will be stripped and body cavity searched, her
changing breasts and belly exposed, inspected, and patted down publicly,
daily, repeatedly. Give her very limited food, the quality of which is
so poor, people try to not eat it anyway. Subject her to daily taunts of
bitch, nigger, whore by guards. Subject her to doctors with a
demonstrated lack of attention and skill that results in documented
abnormally high levels of miscarriage and still birth. Some doctors will
refuse to even touch her.
Have her stand in the hot central valley sun
in 100+ degree heat for hours to try to get prenatal vitamins. Add
continued taunts reminding her that she is an unfit mother--that she
deserves to, and will, have her baby taken from her at birth. She will
sleep on a thin egg crate mattress over a concrete slab--back pain,
sciatica, irrelevant.
Have her be alone without family, birth attendant,
anyone to give her basic information about how and why her body is
changing, what it means, how to cope with birth. There is no birth plan.
There is no information about what a birth plan is. Know that there is a
high likelihood that she has survived child sexual abuse and violence
and that having her body taken hold by her baby inside her, no matter
how much she loves her child, likely triggers fear over loss of control
and post traumatic stress disorder. Good luck getting prompt medical
attention if she should start bleeding or get an infection. And if she
should refuse even one suggestion made by an inattentive physician, she
will know that getting attention later will be even less likely.
Those
same doctors will be reminding her of how irresponsible she was to get
pregnant, how she will be doing the right thing to agree to be
sterilized, that to do so is to be a good mother/Californian/person.
When she goes into labor, in a crowded cell designed for 4 people and
now housing 8, she will have to try to keep quiet so as to not increase
tension among everyone else caged in the cell. When she is near birth,
and only then, will she be put into a cage, within a van, like a dog,
and brought to a hospital by the same pool of guards who refer to her
and women in prison generally with racist, sexist slurs. Until recently,
she would have been shackled, too, unable to use her hands to keep
pressure off her vagina or to find any comfort during contractions, or
generally, to keep from falling in any direction. Her world may very
well be a sea of pain, fear, and shame. She will arrive at her final
destination--a rural hospital with less than 100 beds and a distressing
reputation for poor care.
The whole prison has been renovated, except
the wing for prisoners that remains as it has for over 20 years. The
medical staff refer to it colloquially as the dungeon. She will know no
one. And she will know that when her baby comes, her baby will be taken
away, most likely forever. And then a doctor, with his own agenda of
saving the state money and possibly ridding the world of people like
her, says he can help her. He can make sure she never has to experience
any of this pain ever again. It's a simple procedure. Just sign this
form. This pain will be in the past and you can go on with your life.
And a correctional officer looks on. And again, until recently, she
would be shackled to a gurney. And she signs.
By 1970, even
without the added pain of daily life in prison, over one-third of all
Puerto Rican women of child bearing age were coerced during the pain of
labor into "consenting" to sterilization during labor and delivery
through government-led eugenic programs. Californian doctors similarly
coerced tens of thousands of Latinas to "agree" to be sterilized during
labor and delivery in Los Angeles in the same period. Early civil rights
activists understood how these sterilization programs were racist,
sexist and wholly coercive--the consent the government was so proud of
obtaining, was not consent--it was the product of intimidation, fear and
coercion. And that is why there are now federal safeguards radically
limiting when and how free-world people can consent to sterilization
surrounding pregnancy. And why there is a total prohibition on any
sterilizations for the purpose of birth control on people in
prison--because it was understood that any attempt at obtaining consent
in that kind of coercive environment is unreliable at best.
So
of course California coerced women into signing consent forms before
committing the crime of sterilizing them. Congratulations. Shows what
bullies they are. They know how to intimidate women well.
If you have opinions about the subject matter of posts on this blog please share them. Do you have a story about how the system affects you at work school or home, or just in general? This is a place to share it.
No comments:
Post a Comment