Conversations between patients and their doctors about permanent birth control procedures can at times be fraught and influenced by long-standing stigmas.
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The term voluntary sterilization, referring to the choice to receive permanent birth control, arose as a contrast to the involuntary, or forced, sterilization that stems from the eugenics movement.
Morningstar Mercredi, pictured on November 16, 2018, woke up from a surgery at 14 and discovered her developing baby was gone. What remained was an incision from her panty line to her belly button, cut without her permission.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
Recent revelations of the coerced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada are part of a long, complex and disturbing history – in which feminism became a fight to keep one’s own children.
Demonstrators rally in support of women’s rights at the Women’s March on Jan. 20, 2018 in Washington, D.C.
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