A Dalkon Shield infection led to an emergency hysterectomy that sterilized Loretta Ross.

Evidence

A survivor of rape by a stranger at age eleven, Ross was sexually abused by a distant relative when she was fourteen and gave birth to a son. She nevertheless graduated from high school as an honors student and was admitted to Radcliffe College. But she lost her scholarship because she had a child. Ross went to Howard University instead and, as a first-year student in 1970, became involved in anti-apartheid activism and anti-gentrification organizing. Then, at age twenty-three, Ross endured another shattering violation. A white doctor failed to treat an infection caused by the Dalkon Shield, the dangerous intrauterine device marketed in the early 1970s. Ross had to be hospitalized and ended up unconscious for a day. While she was still comatose, doctors performed an emergency hysterectomy, sterilizing her. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 236