Public funding is being provided to find victims of forced sterilization in Los Angeles hospitals and provide them with compensation.

Efforts are underway to find and compensate victims of forced sterilization in the late 1960s and early 1970s at Los Angeles County General Hospital.

Assemblyman Wendy Carrillo announced the launch of this major government initiative to right a grave injustice. Last year, Carrillo launched the California Forced or Involuntary Sterilization Compensation Program, which included $7.8 million for an awareness campaign and compensation for survivors of forced or involuntary sterilization in public institutions such as public hospitals and prisons.

Due to a lack of research and information, the program did not include survivors of unknown sterilizations that took place between the late 1960s and early 1970s at Los Angeles County General Hospital.

In light of this injustice, Carrillo received another $300,000 for the Alliance for a Better Community to research these practices and their impact on immigrant Hispanic women who gave birth at Los Angeles County General Hospital and were sterilized without consent.

The goal is to find them and include them in the program.

“Protecting a woman’s right to choose is a fundamental value that includes the right to decide to become a parent,” Assemblyman Carrillo said. “Despite the fact that the Los Angeles County General Hospital was not a public institution, it followed the then principles of California eugenics, which gave medical personnel the right to decide whether people can reproduce. Reprehensible methods have left an indelible mark on the lives of countless women, forever depriving them of the right to have children and depriving them of autonomy over their own bodies.

Carrillo pays homage to the 2015 documentary No Mas Bebes highlighting this issue.