Editing Compulsory sterilization (section)

=====Sterilization procedures and [[coercion]]=====
From beginning of the 1900s, U.S. and Puerto Rican governments espoused rhetoric connecting the poverty of Puerto Rico with overpopulation and the "hyper-fertility" of Puerto Ricans.<ref name="Lopez">{{Cite journal |last=Lopez |first=Iris |date=1993 |title=Agency And Constraint: Sterilization And Reproductive Freedom Among Puerto Rican Women In New York City |journal=Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development |volume=22 |issue=3}}</ref> Such rhetoric combined with eugenics ideology of reducing "population growth among a particular class or ethnic group because they are considered...a social burden," was the philosophical basis for the 1937 birth control legislation enacted in Puerto Rico.<ref name="Lopez" /><ref name="Briggs" /> A Puerto Rican Eugenics Board, modeled after a similar board in the United States, was created as part of the bill, and officially ordered ninety-seven involuntary sterilizations.<ref name="Briggs">{{Cite book |last=Briggs |first=Laura |title=Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico |date=2002 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-22255-7 |location=Berkeley and Los Angeles, California}}</ref>

The legalization of sterilization was followed by a steady increase in the popularity of the procedure, both among the Puerto Rican population and among physicians working in Puerto Rico.<ref name="Briggs" /><ref name="B">{{Cite book |last1=Ramirez de Arellano |first1=Annette B. |title=Colonialism, Catholicism, and Contraception: A History of Birth Control in Puerto Rico |last2=Seipp |first2=Conrad |date=1983 |publisher=The University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-1544-1}}</ref> Though sterilization could be performed on men and women, women were most likely to undergo the procedure.<ref name="Mass" /><ref name="Nick" /><ref name="Briggs" /><ref name="B" /> Sterilization was most frequently recommended by physicians because of a pervasive belief that Puerto Ricans and the poor were not intelligent enough to use other forms of contraception.<ref name="Briggs" /><ref name="B" /> Physicians and hospitals alike also implemented hospital policy to encourage sterilization, with some hospitals refusing to admit healthy pregnant women for delivery unless they consented to be sterilized.<ref name="Briggs" /><ref name="B" /> This has been best documented at Presbyterian Hospital, where the unofficial policy for a time was to refuse admittance for delivery to women who already had three living children unless she consented to sterilization.<ref name="Briggs" /><ref name="B" /> There is additional evidence that true [[informed consent]] was not obtained from patients before they underwent sterilization, if consent was solicited at all.<ref name="B" />

By 1949 a survey of Puerto Rican women found that 21% of women interviewed had been sterilized, with sterilizations being performed in 18% of all hospital births statewide as a routine post-partum procedure, with the sterilization operation performed before women left the hospitals after giving birth.<ref name="Mass" /> As for the birth control clinics founded by Sunnen, the Puerto Rican Family Planning Association reported that around 8,000 women and 3,000 men had been sterilized in Sunnen's privately funded clinics.<ref name="Mass" /> At one point, the levels of sterilization in Puerto Rico were so high that they alarmed the Joint Committee for Hospital Accreditation, who then demanded that Puerto Rican hospitals limit sterilizations to ten percent of all hospital deliveries in order to receive accreditation.<ref name="Mass" /> The high popularity of sterilization continued into the 60s and 70s, during which the Puerto Rican government made the procedures available for free and reduced fees.<ref name="Briggs" /> The effects of the sterilization and contraception campaigns of the 1900s in Puerto Rico are still felt in Puerto Rican cultural history today.<ref name="Lopez" />

======Controversy and opposing opinions======
There has been much debate and scholarly analysis concerning the legitimacy of choice given to Puerto Rican women in regard to sterilization, reproduction, and birth control, as well as with the ethics of economically motivated mass-sterilization programs.

Some scholars, such as Bonnie Mass<ref name="Mass" /> and Iris Lopez,<ref name="Lopez" /> have argued that the history and popularity of mass-sterilization in Puerto Rico represents a government-led eugenics initiative for [[population control]].<ref name="Mass" /><ref name="Lopez" /><ref name="B" /><ref name="Elena">{{Cite journal |last1=Gutierrez |first1=Elena R. |last2=Fuentes |first2=Liza |date=2009–2010 |title=Population Control by Sterilization: The Cases of Puerto Rican and Mexican-Origin Women in the United States |journal=Latino(a) Research Review |volume=7 |issue=3}}</ref> They cite the private and government funding of sterilization, coercive practices, and the eugenics ideology of Puerto Rican and American governments and physicians as evidence of a mass-sterilization campaign.<ref name="Lopez" /><ref name="B" /><ref name="Elena" />

On the other side of the debate, scholars like Laura Briggs<ref name="Briggs" /> have argued that evidence does not substantiate claims of a mass-sterilization program.<ref name="Briggs" /> She further argues that reducing the popularity of sterilization in Puerto Rico to a state initiative ignores the legacy of Puerto Rican feminist activism in favor of birth control legalization, and the individual agency of Puerto Rican women in making decisions about family planning.<ref name="Briggs" />

A system was proposed by the California state senator [[Nancy Skinner (California politician)|Nancy Skinner]] to compensate victims of the well-documented examples of [[compulsory sterilization#United States|prison sterilizations that resulted from California's eugenics programs]], but this did not pass by the bill's 2018 deadline in the legislature.<ref>{{cite book |title=SB-1190 – Eugenics Sterilization Compensation Program |first1=Nancy |last1=Skinner |publisher=[[State of California]] |url= https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1190 |date=18 February 2019 |access-date=19 February 2019 |archive-date=19 February 2019 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190219130233/https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1190 |url-status=live}}</ref>