Every night, Mary Alice and Minnie Lee Relf fall asleep clutching brown baby dolls -- their silent companions for decades now. The dolls are all they have to replace their hopes for children, which were shattered 50 years ago.
The doctor assured the Relfs that their 12- and 14-year-old daughters needed “shots” for pregnancy prevention in their teen years. The parents, who could not read or write, believed him and marked the consent form with an X. But what the doctor did to the girls was permanent and NOT what the parents had agreed to.
Mary Alice and Minnie Lee were two of the thousands of poor Black girls and women in the South who were victims of federally funded population control programs. The medical system exploited the Relfs’ lack of education and their trust in the medical system to “tie” the girls’ tubes.
When the Relfs learned the horrifying truth, they sued the government. Their lawsuit ended federal funding for sterilization without the patient’s informed consent. However, Mary Alice and Minnie Lee never received a penny in compensation for the harm done to them.
With 31 states and Washington, D.C., still allowing forced sterilization, is eugenics truly a thing of the past?