As a woman, I grew up learning that women were supposed to be mothers.
As a woman, I grew up learning that women had to take care of their reproductive systems to have healthy children.
As a woman, I grew up with a love for children and the hope that I would one day be a mother.
As the daughter of an immigrant, I grew up with the concept of America as a free country.
As the daughter of an immigrant, I grew up understanding that in this country I didn’t have to worry about having an arranged marriage like the women who came before me.
As the daughter of an immigrant, I learned the value of having children in a country that is supposed to be filled with opportunities.
But did the US Government miss those messages?
While the US has had a history of giving women hysterectomies without their consent, it has recently been brought to the attention of the public that ICE has been performing numerous hysterectomies without proper consent. While these claims are still being investigated, don’t jump to the conclusion that they are false because of how crazy they sound… That is right. The US has a history of doing such a thing, so why would ICE not be inclined to do such a thing right now?
Let us quickly go over some things:
In 1907, Indiana enacted a eugenic sterilization law that made sterilization mandatory for certain people who were incarcerated. THEN in 1909, California was feeling a little left out and enacted their own eugenics law… but wait, 32 states combined also allowed for such a law? And then it led to tens of thousands of women to undergo hysterectomies without consent? I am sure many of you who just read that think I am crazy or making false claims but go ahead and do some research and you will find the same thing.
You may be asking yourself why would the government want to do this? Or why would anyone enact a law like this? And the answer is simple – Social Control. Something that the US Government has always done, control those who are living within their country. In a sense all laws are meant to control society, either stopping us from committing certain acts or to requiring us to behave in ways that will allow society to properly function. It is the same thing as wearing a seat belt, to control society to force us to wear seatbelts so that we can minimize the number of deaths. But let us get something straight here – forced hysterectomies and wearing a seat belt are nowhere near being on the same level of morally correct, yet both are ways for the government to control people.
To all the women out there who may think that what the government is doing is correct, ask yourself this. What would you do if someone believed you were unfit for motherhood and stole any chance you had at motherhood without asking for your input? How would you feel if you went to the hospital to get a kidney transplant and awoke to learn that you had to have a hysterectomy due to excessive blood loss and to save your life?
To all the men out there who think that what the government is doing is correct, ask yourself this. How would you feel if the government told you that they believed your daughter was unfit to be a mother and thus you would never have a grandchild to love and to hold? What would you do if one of your life goals was to have a child but found out that your wife was forcefully sterilized?
If the government came and asked you if they could control you by imposing certain laws on you without your consent, would you willingly give in?
If you walk away with one thing from this, let it be this - The US Government has had a history of using forced sterilization as a means of social control and has gotten away with it thus far. The US Government is using ICE to force immigrants into having hysterectomies and are getting away with it. Are you okay with that? Because I sure as hell am not.
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