STERILIZED in the Name of Public Health

2005/06/28 by Alexandra Minna Stern · 7 citations
Arts and Humanities · Medicine · #Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes #Medical History and Research #Reproductive Health and Technologies

paper · doi:10.2105/ajph.2004.041608

openalex publication_date 2005/06/28 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

In exploring the history of involuntary sterilization in California, I connect the approximately 20,000 operations performed on patients in state institutions between 1909 and 1979 to the federally funded procedures carried out at a Los Angeles County hospital in the early 1970s. Highlighting the confluence of factors that facilitated widespread sterilization abuse in the early 1970s, I trace prosterilization arguments predicated on the protection of public health. This historical overview raises important questions about the legacy of eugenics in contemporary California and relates the past to recent developments in health care delivery and genetic screening.

Cited by

• Randomized Controlled Trial of a Tubal Sterilization Decision Aid Among Medicaid Enrollees: Effects on Intended Contraceptive Method and Decision-Making Satisfaction
• Surgical sterilization, regret, and race: Contemporary patterns
• Emergency Contraception for Newly Arrested Women: Evidence for an Unrecognized Public Health Opportunity
• Disparities in Abortion Rates: A Public Health Approach
• Forced sterilization of women as discrimination
• Disparities in family planning
• Disproportionate Sterilization of Latinos Under California’s Eugenic Sterilization Program, 1920–1945

Related

• California’s Sterilization Survivors: An Estimate and Call for Redress
• The Politics of Reproduction
• The San Francisco Experiment: Female Medical Practitioners Caring for Women and Children, 1875-1935
• Eugenics and Healthy Families. Interdependence and Legitimation
• Remembering Dr. Kenneth C. Edelin