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A 14 year-old is raped, and upon giving birth her illiterate grandmother unknowingly signs away her granddaughter’s right to ever have another child. The state forcibly sterilized the teenager, and she wouldn’t realize it until years later. This story, according to CBS news, is one of many from women who were victims of a dark period in US medical history. Some 60,000 women in 32 states were victims of forced, state imposed sterilization. They were commonly young, poor, and women who the state deemed “promiscuous” or “feeble minded”. Time magazine reports that North Carolina sterilized over 7,000 girls from 1929 through the 1970s. It is the first state to consider financially compensating victims of the practice. However, it’s next to impossible to put a dollar amount on the suffering imposed on victims of the practice. Payments of $20,000 each are being proposed, costing the state about $69 million dollars in payments to all survivors.

GUEST: Loretta Ross, founding member and National Coordinator of Sister Song, a Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

Find out more at www.sistersong.net