In 2003, North Carolina became the third U.S. state to apologize for state-ordered sterilizations, carried out between 1929 and 1975, and the first to call for compensation to victims. This action was prompted by a series of newspaper stories based on the meticulous research of Johanna Schoen, who was granted unique access to the papers of the North Carolina Eugenics Board and to summaries of the case histories of nearly 7,500 victimsmen, women, and children as young as ten years oldmost of whom had been sterilized without their consent. In 2011, a gubernatorial task force held public hearings to gather testimony from the victims and their families before recommending in early 2012 that each living victim be granted $50,000 in compensation. The restitution proposal requires legislative approval before funds can be dispersed.
In this UNC Press Short, excerpted from Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare, Schoen explains the legal construction of North Carolina's sterilization program, which lasted far longer than similar programs in other states, and demonstrates through the stories of several victims how the state was able, in multiple ways, to deny reproductive autonomy to women who were poor, uneducated, African American, or promiscuous.
Johanna Schoen is associate professor of history at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
UNC Press Shorts excerpt compelling, shorter narratives from selected best-selling books published by the University of North Carolina Press and present them as engaging, quick reads. Produced exclusively in ebook format, these shorts present essential concepts, defining moments, and concise introductions to topics. They are intended to stir the imagination and encourage further exploration of the topic. For in-depth analysis, contextualization, and perspective, we invite readers to turn to the original publications from which these works are drawn.
Women and the Politics of Sterilization consists of the introduction, chapter 2, and the epilogue from Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare, by Johanna Schoen. 2005 The University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved. Originally published as part of the Gender and American Culture series, Thadious M. Davis and Linda K. Kerber, coeditors.
www.uncpress.unc.edu
The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition of this book as follows:
Schoen, Johanna.
Choice and coercion: birth control, sterilization, and
abortion in public health and welfare / Johanna Schoen.
p. cm.(Gender and American culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8078-2919-6 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 0-8078-5585-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Birth controlGovernment policyNorth Carolina
History. 2. Sterilization, EugenicNorth CarolinaHistory.
3. AbortionGovernment policyNorth CarolinaHistory.
I. Title. II. Gender & American culture.
HQ766.5.U5S36 2005
363.9609756dc22
2004017632
UNC Press Shorts ebook edition published in 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8078-3759-7
For more information on UNC Press ebook shorts, visit www.uncpressebookshorts.com.
INTRODUCTION
A Great Thing for Poor Folks
In 1948, Estelle, a twelve-year-old African American girl from Pittsburgh, had her first encounter with abortion. Without examining her, a physician had concluded that she was four months pregnant. An irregular period and, most likely, Estelles race had been enough evidence for him to diagnose pregnancy. Actually, Estelle had not been pregnant, and eventually she began menstruating again. Her first real pregnancy occurred in 1957, and at the age of twenty-one Estelle gave birth to her first baby. After the delivery, she tried to obtain contraceptives but found that as a single woman she was ineligible. Her second baby followed in 1958, and her third in 1959. In 1961, when she discovered that she was pregnant for the fourth time, she tried to secure an abortion. It took her a while to find an abortionist, and when she finally located one, the abortionist informed her that her pregnancy was too far along. Estelle had no choice but to have another baby.
After the delivery, Estelle married and again tried to obtain contraceptives. This time, however, she met the resistance of her husband, who refused to sign the required form. Within four months, Estelle was once again pregnant. Right away, she contacted her abortionist and terminated the pregnancy, only to find herself pregnant for the sixth time in 1962. Her husband had just lost his job, and there was no money for another abortion. Estelle tried a number of home remedies to terminate the pregnancy but was unsuccessful, and she had another child. Sick of her frequent pregnancies and overburdened with five children, a rocky marriage, and no money, Estelle sought sterilization. Her physician, however, refused to perform the operation.
Estelle concluded that she had no other option but to forge her husbands signature to get a diaphragm. But using the diaphragm was nearly impossible. Her husband objected and beat her whenever he noticed that she was using the device, and in 1963 Estelle found herself with a tubal pregnancy. When her physician removed her ovary, Estelle begged him for a sterilizationwithout success. Her sixth baby was born in 1964, and one year later she was pregnant again. After Estelle received a particularly severe beating from her husband in her seventh month of pregnancy, her seventh baby was born prematurely.
Estelle had had enough. For the second time, she forged her husbands signature, this time to obtain birth control pills. Then she bought a gun and practiced shooting in the basement to keep her husband away from the pills. With this safeguard in place, she was able to protect her birth control pills from her husband and herself from pregnancy for the next seven years. By 1970, however, Estelle had become a diabetic, and she had to stop taking the pill. Instead, she got an intrauterine device (IUD), which gave her a severe infection. After the removal of the IUD, she was again without contraceptives, and she promptly found herself pregnant. Fortunately, by this time she could get a legal abortion for medical reasons. The following year, she had another abortionher last. Shortly afterward, her husband divorced her.
Estelles story poignantly demonstrates womens struggle for reproductive control. While she turned to birth control, sterilization, and abortion in an attempt to control her reproduction, Estelle found that she was largely unable to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Her husband and her health professionals repeatedly denied Estelle what we have come to understand as her reproductive rightsher ability to control when and under what conditions to become pregnant and bear children. Poor and black, Estelle frequently lacked the resources that might have allowed her to gain access to birth control, sterilization, and abortion. This book is about women like Estelle. The state, I demonstrate, alternately offered and denied poor women access to birth control, sterilization, and abortion, and women negotiated with their physicians as well as with health and welfare officials in their attempts to control their reproduction.