They Believed Native American Women Were Too Stupid to Use Birth Control

Chapter I

Congress is finally condemning a dark chapter in American history. Lawmakers introduced a historic resolution to address the forced sterilization of thousands of Native American women. This abuse happened during the 1970s. The federal government and the Indian Health Service hid this reality for decades. Survivors never stopped fighting for justice. Their voices now force a national reckoning.

The numbers reveal the true scale of the tragedy. An official investigation examined only four out of twelve Indian Health Service regions between 1973 and 1976. Doctors sterilized over three thousand four hundred Native women in just those four areas during those three years. Historians estimate that up to half of all Native women of childbearing age faced sterilization in that decade.

Women had no real choice. Doctors used deceptive tactics. They pressured women to sign forms while heavily medicated during labor or right after a surgery. Physicians lied and claimed the procedure was fully reversible. Other doctors threatened to take away welfare benefits and vital healthcare if women refused. The government even sterilized girls under the age of twenty one in direct violation of a court order.

Money and control drove the abuse. A federal law funded ninety percent of the cost. Clinics viewed the surgeries as profitable. Doctors operated with total impunity because they believed they could control who had children. This systemic abuse stripped thousands of Indigenous women of their reproductive freedom. The trauma still impacts Native communities today.

The legal system enabled these doctors. A 1927 Supreme Court case laid the dark foundation that allowed the government to target vulnerable women for most of the twentieth century.

Stay tuned for Chapter II

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