From The Marshall Project:
In the early 2000s, a California prison doctor urged Moonlight Pulido to undergo surgery to remove potentially cancerous growths from her uterus. Instead, she was given a hysterectomy without her knowledge.
After she was paroled, Pulido applied for and received a reparations payment from California’s Forced or Involuntary Sterilization Compensation Program. That outcome was rare: Of the 320 applicants who have claimed to be survivors of state-sponsored eugenics or their descendants, only 51 have been approved, according to the most recent report on the program. Like many others, Pulido lacked the documentation to prove her story. The 58-year-old says she hasn’t even seen the records that the California’s Victim Compensation Board pulled to process her claim.
In 2005, when I was eight years into a life sentence at Valley State Prison, a prison doctor named James Heinrich informed me that my annual Pap test had shown two potentially cancerous growths on my uterus. My thoughts immediately went to my son Michael, who had been diagnosed with cancer at age 12. Continue reading >>>
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