forced sterilization

In the 1970s, thousands of Native American women were sterilized by the Indian Health Service without their consent, including here in New Mexico. KUNM’s Jeanette DeDios sat down with three state senators who helped pass a memorial to investigate this history on New Mexico in Focus. Joining her were Senators Shannon Pinto, Antoinette Sedillo Lopez and Linda Lopez, who talked about what they heard from survivors.

For decades, Native women and other women of color were subjected to forced sterilization by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. Lawmakers introduced a memorial Tuesday in the Senate Indian, Rural and Cultural Affairs committee to create a truth and reconciliation commission that would conduct a study into the history, and continuing impacts of this abuse.

For decades starting in 1907 Indigenous women and women of color across the country, including New Mexico, were forced or coerced into sterilizations without their informed consent. On Thursday, a coalition of Indigenous women’s reproductive rights advocates called on state lawmakers to create a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the abuses.