Forced Sterilization Survivors Undertake Own Healing After Feeling 'Silenced Again' by State

The California Report Magazine

Moonlight Pulido is a mother and a caretaker for her own mom in Los Angeles. But she couldn’t have more children after a prison doctor gave her an involuntary hysterectomy while she was incarcerated in 2005. She’s one of hundreds of living survivors of state-sponsored sterilization.

Here in California, more than 20,000 people were involuntarily sterilized in state prisons, homes and hospitals under eugenics laws. People classified as “unfit to reproduce” were disproportionately poor women, people of color, and people with disabilities. Even though California’s eugenics laws were repealed in 1979, people who were incarcerated were still forcibly sterilized as recently as 2013.

In 2021, the state passed a historic reparations law to make amends for this shameful chapter in our history. For more than a year, reporter Cayla Mihalovich has been investigating how the law has been implemented. It was intended to compensate survivors for their suffering. But roughly 75% of applicants have been denied reparations.

Plus. our friends at KPBS in San Diego have a new series highlighting volunteers who devote their time in unique and unexpected ways. Today, we meet Jillian Shea at the Mesa Rim Climbing Center. She’s an athlete who lost a hand at birth. Now she’s introducing newcomers to the sport of adaptive climbing.

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