Southern medical training routinely sterilized black women without consent

Evidence

Some women unknowingly had their reproductive organs removed during C-sections or were threatened with losing their welfare benefits if they didn’t accept sterilization. Medical students in southern states carried out what became known as “Mississippi appendectomies,” unnecessarily sterilizing mostly black women without their knowledge as a routine part of their training. In California alone, more than twenty thousand people had forced hysterectomies or vasectomies, and the procedure was banned outright only in 1979. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 162

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to vault claims about prejudice psychology and state violence against minority communities.