The Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, one California prison where forced sterilization allegedly occurred. Via CDCR
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From 1909 to 1964, California was the United States’ top sterilizer, forcing surgery on over 20,000 men and women under a statewide eugenics program so successful that even the Nazis asked for California’s advice in the 1930s. The state’s early eugenics program was justified as a way to save money by reducing welfare and relief.
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The US even partnered with Puerto Rico to sterilize more than a third of the island’s women between 1930 and 1970—Puerto Ricans referred to sterilization, which was given to women for free upon entering the workforce, as “La Operacion.”The program was conducted as a response to a slow economy and high population rate.
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