недобровольная стерилизация в Пуэрто Рико

READ...Female Sterilization in Puerto Rico

Female Sterilization in Puerto Rico

Sara Hoerlein

There are a number of examples in post Civil War America of eugenic programs but none as effective and widespread as the mass female sterilization in Puerto Rico. Beginning in the years following WW I, a program was initiated by the United States government, the medical community and the local government of Puerto Rico, to name a few, which resulted in the unprecedented sterilization of 1/3 of the female population by 1965, and the continued use of sterilization on a broad scale by Puerto Rican women as a form of birth control (Presser 1980).

The island of Puerto Rico is over 80% Catholic and providing services to prevent pregnancy was a felony until the 1930’s. The historic and social conditions -- medical, legal, and political -- that were conducive to this mass sterilization movement are important and of interest. For decades the United States has blamed overpopulation for economic problems, unemployment, and poverty in Puerto Rico, while ignoring the fact that they (the U.S.) have played an enormous role in generating and solidifying these conditions (Michaelson 1981). As a result, non-official programs with the intent of distributing birth control information and educating specifically poor families about the need for such practices were implemented in the 1920’s (Presser 1973). Incredibly, as overpopulation was being blamed for economic crisis in the 1920’s, "less than 2% of the population owned 80% of the land" (Hartmann 1995 p.247). Strong opposition from the Catholic Church, unfavorable legal status of birth control, a disinterested public, and insufficient federal funding from the U.S., prevented these early programs from becoming successful.

In 1937, 23 birth control clinics were opened by a private organization and a bill was signed that made it no longer a felony to advertise contraceptives or provide services to prevent pregnancy (Presser 1973). Another bill was signed authorizing the "Commissioner of Health in Puerto Rico to regulate the teaching and dissemination of eugenic principles, including contraception, to health centers and maternal hospitals" which was followed by the opening of 160 birth control clinics, private and public (Presser 1973 p.25). Then came law #136, passed by the U.S. government, which legalized sterilization for other than strictly medical reasons (Garcia 1985). Underlying the legal jargon was the advocacy of weeding out the "unfit". It was then that sterilization was introduced to Puerto Rican women by physicians as a means of birth control. By 1939 the government was actively supporting birth control clinics and the distribution of contraceptives (Presser 1973). This was timely and convenient for the recent arrivals of U.S. manufacturing companies that needed cheap labor, i.e. women who could be "freed" from childcare for employment (Hartmann 1995).

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UNVOLUNTARY female STERILIZATION in PUERTO RICO!
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