Relf v. Weinberger

A Student’s Guide to Essential Primary Sources
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Relf v. Weinberger
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https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844025.book-part-148

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Abstract

A significant number of women, especially Black women, who were on welfare during the 1970s were involuntary sterilized. The sterilization ofAfrican American women in the United States had been going on for decades. The practice was tied to eugenic proponents who supported the sterilization of Black women because of their race and economic class. Lower-class women did not have bodily autonomy; instead, state administrators, doctors and other medical professionals, and legal practitioners exerted control over poor women’s health choices and reproductive systems. Many women were unable to choose their own form of birth control; some consented to sterilization due to the threats of loss of welfare assistance.

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