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one the fertility of women of mexican origin A Social Constructionist Approach “I think what we are trying to show is that throughout the entire period that the doctors were not using medical reasons to perform these sterilizations, but were using social reasons. That is very pertinent to this case.”1 Attorney Antonia Hernández spoke these words as she implored federal district court judge Jesse Curtis to hear the testimony of her next witness . Along with co-counsel Charles Nabarette, Hernández represented ten women of Mexican origin filing a class-action civil suit against physicians at the University of Southern California–Los Angeles County Medical Center (lacmc). The plaintiffs in the case of Madrigal v. Quilligan, which was tried in 1978, accused the doctors of coercively sterilizing each of them between June 1971 and March 1974. Many alleged that hospital personnel forced them into signing consent forms while under the duress of labor pains, or that they were never approached and informed about the procedure at all. All of the women had various levels of English comprehension, and most testified that they did not understand that tubal ligation would irreversibly terminate their childbearing. The plaintiffs filed suit against state and federal officials, and the administrators and doctors at lacmc for violation of their constitutionally guaranteed right to procreate.2 In addition to financial compensation , the plaintiffs requested that the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare require federally funded hospitals to provide thorough sterilization counseling and consent forms in Spanish.3 On this, the sixth day of the trial, tension in the courtroom was high. The contested witness was Karen Benker, a medical student at the University of Southern California Medical School, and an employee of the Women’s Hospital of lacmc during the period when the alleged forced sterilizations of countless Mexican-origin women occurred. As the only witness who had observed the alleged coercive practices of the doctors firsthand and was willing to testify in court, Benker’s observations confirmed Hernández’s T4292.indb 1 T4292.indb 1 7/27/07 7:22:32 AM 7/27/07 7:22:32 AM fertile matters 2 argument that the sterilization of her clients at this hospital was “socially motivated.”4 What Dr. Benker would share with the court could prove that the coercive sterilization of these ten plaintiffs was not incidental, accidental, or medically necessary, but was part of a concerted attempt by the doctors at the Women’s Hospital of lacmc to reduce the birth rate of Mexican-origin women. Based on this testimony, Hernández would maintain that many of the physicians deceptively pushed women into sterilization in accordance with an attitude widespread in the hospital community that the high childbearing rates of Mexican-origin women contributed to many social problems and could be effectively remedied through sterilization. I begin this book with an empirical case study of the forced sterilization at lacmc because it illustrates the convergent discourses around Mexicanorigin women’s fertility and the material ramifications of ideological notions of Mexican-origin women as “hyper-fertile” that surfaced during this period. The case of Madrigal v. Quilligan lucidly illustrates the central argument of this book: namely, that during the 1970s a confluence of ideas crystallized to construct the fertility of Mexican-origin women as a social problem to be remedied. These issues are part of a larger public policy discourse that has continued into the twenty-first century. the demography and politics of the population growth of people of mexican origin The 2000 U.S. census statistically confirmed that Latinos have become the largest racial-ethnic group living in the United States, totaling over forty million people. Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. Latino population increased by 58 percent.5 In what has been called a demographic revolution, Latinos were 12.5 percent of the nation’s population in 2000, and are expected to comprise 25 percent of the U.S. population by 2050.6 An ever-increasing volume of academic study, public policy investigation, and social commentary addresses this demographic change. Due to both higher birthrates than the national average and continued immigration from Mexico, persons of Mexican origin represent the largest portion of the Latino population growth in the last thirty plus years. In March 2002, Mexicans comprised 66.9 percent of the Latino population.7 Demographic and government interest in the birthrates of the Mexicanorigin community have also grown steadily over the past three decades. In T4292...

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