California Female Inmates Sterilized

[Autumnlicious]

Here, have a more reliable source:
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/07/5549696...ornia.html

The crux of the issue is, is it forced sterilization or not?

Advocates claim that it is coercive, proponents claim that requesting permission is not coercion.

Regardless, there is a procedural violation as it should be a case-by-case review. Whether or not that is sensible is another matter.
Against:

Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison's infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized.

"I was like, 'Oh my God, that's not right,' " said Nguyen, 28. "Do they think they're animals, and they don't want them to breed anymore?"

One former Valley State inmate who gave birth to a son in October 2006 said the institution's OB-GYN, Dr. James Heinrich, repeatedly pressured her to agree to a tubal ligation.

"As soon as he found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it," said Christina Cordero, 34, who spent two years in prison for auto theft. "He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn't do it."

Cordero, released in 2008 and now living in Upland, agreed to the procedure.

"Today," she said, "I wish I would have never had it done."

For:

In an interview with CIR, Heinrich said he provided an important service to poor women who faced health risks in future pregnancies because of past Caesarean sections. The 69-year-old Bay Area physician denied pressuring anyone and expressed surprise that local contract doctors had charged for the surgeries. He described the $147,460 total as minimal.

"Over a 10-year period, that isn't a huge amount of money," Heinrich said, "compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children – as they procreated more."

The top medical manager at Valley State Prison from 2005 to 2008 characterized the surgeries as an empowerment issue for female inmates, providing them the same options as women on the outside. Daun Martin, a licensed psychologist, also claimed that some pregnant women, particularly those on drugs or who were homeless, would commit crimes so they could return to prison for better health care.

"Do I criticize those women for manipulating the system because they're pregnant? Absolutely not," said Martin, 73. "But I don't think it should happen. And I'd like to find ways to decrease that."

Procedural violations aside, how does one qualify the difference between coercive and non-coercive recommendations?

In the strictest sense, the against side did agree to such operations. There remains the question of informed consent though.