In the summer of 1978, ten women of Mexican origin sued Doctor James Quilligan and the Los Angeles County Hospital for a violation of their civil and constitutional rights by forcible sterilization. These women claimed that they were either coerced into signing the sterilization consent forms, signed them under duress, could not read the English consent forms, or were not given any consent forms at all. Representatives Antonia Hernandez and Charles Nabarrete argued that the plaintiffs were targeted for forcible sterilization because of their Mexican identity. I will use Madrigal v Quilligan as a lens through which I analyze attitudes towards Latina women, women of Latin American origin and immigrant Hispanic women, in the 1970s.
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The Los Angeles County Hospital was pressured to meet a quota of tubal litigations based on the federal funding they received for family planning. The ten plaintiffs in the case were working-class mexican women who after difficult labor had to receive a cesarean section. They were sterilized between 1971 and 1974, and each one was targeted because of their status as “low income monolingual Spanish speakers who had migrated to California in their teens from rural areas in Mexico.” They were approached about the tubal ligation after a difficult labor and cesarean section and were still under the effects of anesthesia when they were coerced into signing the consent document, which was only in English. In three of the ten cases, however, no consent was obtained before the surgery was performed. Hernandez and Nabarrette argued that “these women were in such a state of mind that any consent which they may have signed was not informed.” Stern writes more specifically on each instance of coercion, “Rebecca Figueroa was falsely given the impression that she was submitting to a reversible procedure. Elena Orozco was told that her hernia would be repaired only if she agreed to be sterilized, which she refused repeatedly, ‘until almost the very last minute when she was taken to [the delivery room].’ At no point after being admitted to County General in 1973 did Guadalupe Acosta sign a consent form. Their accusations were supported by the affidavits of seven additional women, one of whom stated that a County General doctor told her after her cesarean delivery that ‘I had too many children’ and that ‘having future children would be dangerous for me.’ In the documentary No Más Bebés, Dolores Madrigal says that a doctor’s assistant told her that her husband had already signed the consent form, which was blatantly
Although …show more content…
The Los Angeles County Hospital was pressured to meet a quota of tubal litigations based on the federal funding they received for family planning. The ten plaintiffs in the case were working-class mexican women who after difficult labor had to receive a cesarean section. They were sterilized between 1971 and 1974, and each one was targeted because of their status as “low income monolingual Spanish speakers who had migrated to California in their teens from rural areas in Mexico.” They were approached about the tubal ligation after a difficult labor and cesarean section and were still under the effects of anesthesia when they were coerced into signing the consent document, which was only in English. In three of the ten cases, however, no consent was obtained before the surgery was performed. Hernandez and Nabarrette argued that “these women were in such a state of mind that any consent which they may have signed was not informed.” Stern writes more specifically on each instance of coercion, “Rebecca Figueroa was falsely given the impression that she was submitting to a reversible procedure. Elena Orozco was told that her hernia would be repaired only if she agreed to be sterilized, which she refused repeatedly, ‘until almost the very last minute when she was taken to [the delivery room].’ At no point after being admitted to County General in 1973 did Guadalupe Acosta sign a consent form. Their accusations were supported by the affidavits of seven additional women, one of whom stated that a County General doctor told her after her cesarean delivery that ‘I had too many children’ and that ‘having future children would be dangerous for me.’ In the documentary No Más Bebés, Dolores Madrigal says that a doctor’s assistant told her that her husband had already signed the consent form, which was blatantly