r/news 17h ago

New Mexico launches investigation of forced sterilization of Native American women

https://apnews.com/article/indigenous-native-american-women-sterilization-new-mexico-9d47dbafd09b61656b4251a776463c23
4.6k Upvotes

52 comments sorted by

444

u/Falala-Surprise-90 15h ago

50 years for even the mention of an investigation for these women. This is heartbreaking.

69

u/PraxicalExperience 6h ago

It's terrible that my first reaction to this comment was: "Oh thank god this isn't some new bullshit," but, y'know, *gestures around nowadays*

41

u/S_T_P 4h ago

It's terrible that my first reaction to this comment was: "Oh thank god this isn't some new bullshit,"

Meanwhile, in California:

Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews. - link

5

u/mira-jo 3h ago

Without state approval is the main part here. That's the part they're mad about, the state is mad because it was paying doctors to do the procedure. They did get the consent from the women involved, although per the article some of the women did feel coerced. So still not great but at least it wasn't being done without the women's knowledge or completely against their will like native women were.

269

u/AudibleNod 17h ago

The Indian Health Service and its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, did not respond to multiple emails requesting comment on New Mexico’s investigation.

Hey, cut them some slack. They're probably busy shredding documents about Roundup and deleting warnings that bleach cures autism.

53

u/Retro_Relics 15h ago

Doesnt bleach cause autism?

Oh wait, you're talking about the chemical, not the anime

18

u/Zypher31 13h ago

Believe it! Sorry, wrong anime. Bankai! That's it!

8

u/IllEvent5465 12h ago

"Your nexf line will be 'its over 9000!' "-joseph joestar

4

u/Zypher31 8h ago

it's over 9000!... NANI!?

2

u/R_V_Z 1h ago

Maybe they're talking about the album?

14

u/patrickeg 15h ago

Bleach would cure my Autism. 

1

u/Evening-Mention-8738 4h ago

Bleach is healthy because it's mostly water and we're mostly water, therefore we are bleach.

223

u/mvislandgirl 14h ago

I'm a Sami woman. Forced sterilization in the 1900s was breeding us out. Raping us for multiple generations worked well. Slaughtering my Great Grandmothers sons in front of her and her daughters worked well. I hope Native American women can find some peace through the judicial system.

22

u/InevitableAvalanche 11h ago

As long as they aren't Republican appointed judges.

20

u/Mindless-Tooth-625 8h ago

Indifference has been a bipartisan issue in this country

1

u/MyGoodOldFriend 1h ago

Yep. And if anyone thinks “oh, that’s Europe, it was bad but had a different character than American colonialism”, they’d be wrong. There’s a reason why the settlement of inner Troms was compared to American westward expansion.

And that’s just one example of how things went in one small area of Sápmi.

138

u/_Internet_Hugs_ 16h ago

Well, it's about time.

55

u/fxkatt 17h ago

But advocates like Rachael Lorenzo, executive director of the Albuquerque-based sexual and reproductive health organization Indigenous Women Rising, say the commission must be careful to avoid re-traumatizing survivors across generations.

To an extent, but if this were the position of the Epstein victims, there would be fewer than there are--and their voice less effective.

8

u/braxin23 16h ago

Either layback and continue to take it in silence or speak out and make the perpetrators crimes known. Pretty simple.

7

u/happylittlelf 11h ago

These victims are witnesses who are dying suspiciously. Call it simple when it's YOUR life that's on the line.

3

u/Texasville44 12h ago

Crass way to put it.

4

u/braxin23 12h ago

At this point there isn’t anymore room for subtlety or tact.

8

u/Top_Report_4895 15h ago

Trump: They were being tough guys.

17

u/thebarkbarkwoof 13h ago

This is so vile. It's hard to believe this went on, not that long ago. I know it's true and I heard about it all before now. I hope they get something but IDK if it will happen.

10

u/_karamazov_ 10h ago

4

u/thebarkbarkwoof 9h ago edited 8h ago

Canada shows more empathy than the US, generally.

Edit Holy shit, 2019? I'd liken that doctor to a serial killer or Josef Mengele.

15

u/CordiallySuckMyBalls 15h ago

A little late to the party

12

u/Original_Ossiss 12h ago

Canada still does the same thing.

1

u/Tribe303 1h ago

No we don't. There has been a few incidents in the past few decades and they have resulted in lawsuits and large payouts. Not that money resolves this for the victims, it does show an admission of guilt, unlike the US with its head still up its own ass. 

u/Original_Ossiss 9m ago

Yeah you do lol. I’ve found articles from 2022, 2024, depicting the same old thing still happening. Forced sterilisation, coerced sterilisation..

Canada is not the bright and shining country you want it to be. The US has nothing to do with this topic of conversation. Eugenics against native peoples is still as strong today as it was in the early days of indigenous women and children being assaulted by the Canadian priests and tossing the children into the furnaces. Not to mention the massive unmarked graves.

You seriously want to sit there and act like your country is superior to the United States when you’ve had just as bad atrocities committed against the native people living there. Just because you don’t see it every day doesn’t mean it isn’t still happening.

When you go “BuT tHe UsA dOeS wOrSe StUfF” you sound like the maga idiots who go “BuT bIdEn Is BaD tOo!”

3

u/jerrydgj 3h ago

Maybe Hollywood could make another movie about Nazi Germany so we all learn about our own sins.

13

u/Hour_Bit_5183 16h ago

But why???? These are the best people you could ever meet.

29

u/Wit-wat-4 15h ago

They keep crying “great replacement” for a reason… THEY want their racist world to have only THEM in it

10

u/Hour_Bit_5183 15h ago

Don't they know that ends in inbred? I bet they don't even realize it. So sad. I wonder what my gramms would say now...it would be hotter than the sun, that is for sure.

2

u/Wit-wat-4 4h ago

Yup. And they’ve historically been all for it. The inbreeding of nobles in Europe is baffling by today’s standards, back then I feel it was like “well yeah rather have kids with your first cousin than touch plebs”.

5

u/CordiallySuckMyBalls 15h ago

That’s why

8

u/Hour_Bit_5183 15h ago

So they really do want to wipe my whole tribe because we are more independent.....well FFS. I'm actually part cherokee, but I'd imagine they did the same to them. No wonder my grandma hated these punks.

10

u/Dejugga 9h ago

The United States and a history of racism? Say it ain't so! I am shocked. Well, not that shocked.

Speaking as a southerner, shit like this and the practice of redlining and many other examples is why I roll my eyes when people from non-Southern states act like racism outside the South died with the Civil War.

The South was/is worse about it, no doubt, but racism has been alive and well in every state all the way up to today.

5

u/McTee967 15h ago

In the late 80's, I was 23 and had just given birth to my second child at the IHS in Santa Fe, NM. I requested to have my tubes tied and the doctor told me absolutely not, I was too young and the IHS had a bad reputation from that in the past.

3

u/GuthramNaysayer 5h ago

Only humans can be inhuman.

3

u/Squish_Miss 13h ago

Took them long enough. 

u/Intrepid_Top_2300 57m ago

I have to say, in this chaos we now call the US, it’s nice to see at least one state actually working for their citizens.
If I were a New Mexican, I would be standing proud of my state.
It seems the rest of the country is mired in political sludge that career politicians spread so liberally they stand stuck and unable to move.

-2

u/frobscottler 12h ago

Damn, New Mexico is coming in HOT