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A new documentary airing soon on PBS covers a grisly era of California history—the forced sterilization of untold numbers of poor, mostly Latino, Spanish-speaking women in the 1960s and 70s in Los Angeles.
%media%“No Más Bebés” tells the story of how 10 women sued doctors at the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center over tubal ligation procedures conducted on them without their knowledge. The lawsuit was led by a courageous attorney and prompted by the revelations of a whistleblowing doctor.
At a time when immigrant bashing has become a Republican sport and deportation a Democratic practice, this history is hugely relevant. Latino immigrants were seen as so undesirable that a seemingly concerted effort to curb their population was in effect for years.
“The Population Bomb,” the 1968 best-selling book by Paul Ehrlich, set the tone for a public fear of enthusiastic procreation. Writing that “Population control, of course, is the only solution to population growth,” Ehrlich was taken so seriously by authorities that President Nixon in 1970 signed the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act...