For Rosa Reveals The Ugly History Of Forced Sterilizations

^{“Stop Forced Sterilization” poster by Rachael Romero, San Francisco Poster Brigade, 1977
Courtesy of Rachael Romero through Library of Congress}

“We’re still here,” Kathryn Boyd-Batstone, the filmmaker behind For Rosa, tells Refinery29, referencing our nation’s lack of progress when it comes to reproductive justice. Premiering May 1 on HBO, the short film follows the story of one Latina and her decision to become part of the Madrigal 10, a group of mothers who filed a class-action lawsuit against L.A. County-USC Medical Center in the 1970s, helping to define informed consent and stop the hospital’s eugenics-informed practice of forced sterilizations of women of color.

Although For Rosa takes place some 50 years ago, forced sterilization is hardly a thing of the past. Last year, it was reported that ICE was performing mass hysterectomies on migrant women at one of its Georgia detention centers. The year before, Indigenous women in Canada joined together to sue the country’s national health system, citing documented cases of sterilization occurring up until as recently as 2018. In California, 1,400 women, most of them Black...