Iris Lopez,
"Sterilization and the Ethics of Reproductive Technology: An Integral Approach"
(page 4 of 5)
A Case Study: The Robles Family
The Robles family provides a good example of a family in which the
women's sterilization experiences range from agency to abuse. Doña
Rosario is the matriarch of the Robles family. She grew up in an
agricultural society where it was the norm for peasants to have large
families. Her family was so poor there were times when she could barely
feed her children. In doña Rosario's era, temporary methods of birth
control were not readily available. Therefore, she was sterilized after
she had ten children, a larger family than she desired. Doña Rosario was
sterilized in Puerto Rico before she migrated to New York City. She
waited until her husband migrated so that she could get sterilized
without his knowledge. This occurred in the context of an unethical
practice that took place in Puerto Rico during the election period for
the mayor of a small town: women would exchange a vote for free tubal
ligation.
Carmen, doña Rosario's eldest daughter, wanted to have her tubes
"cut" in New York but because her English was limited she told the
doctor she wanted an operation so that she would not have any more
children. Instead of performing a tubal ligation the doctor removed her
uterus. Carmen was outraged that the doctor would perform an
unnecessary hysterectomy on her and felt violated. According to Carmen
she never fully recovered from the trauma. Ironically, Carmen actively
sought to be surgically sterilized, but since she was given
unnecessarily invasive surgery she ended up being a classic victim of
sterilization abuse.
Doña Rosario's youngest daughter, Nancy, dropped out of high school
at 17 when she became accidentally pregnant. Her ideal family size was
three but she had four children because her third pregnancy resulted in
twins. Nancy was unhappy in her marriage. She worked around the clock
and her husband did not help her with the children or housework since he
felt that was her responsibility. Nancy was sterilized because of
economic reasons but also as a way to resist her sexist husband and gain
some control over her life.
Sonia, Carmen's daughter and doña Rosario's granddaughter, graduated
from high school and wanted to do other things in life in addition to
raising children. Sonia only wanted one child. When we met she was
pregnant with her second. Her grandmother warned her to get sterilized
before "se llenará de hijos," which literally translates as
"being filled with children." The implication of this parable is that
Sonia would ruin her life if she continued to have so many children.
After she gave birth in the hospital, Sonia decided to get sterilized
there because she felt it was the only way she could gain control of her
life. However, she delayed getting sterilized because her son was born
prematurely and she wanted to make sure he was safe and healthy before
she had her tubes "cut." Despite her decision to wait to get sterilized,
after she gave birth Sonia claimed that numerous nurses and doctors
stopped by her room to ask her if she wanted a tubal ligation.
With the exception of Carmen, all the women in the Robles family
exemplify how women exert agency within constraints. Even though Nancy
and Sonia were aware of temporary methods of birth control, neither of
them was well-educated about them. In Sonia's case her second unplanned
pregnancy precipitated her decision to get sterilized. Even Carmen, who
was a victim of sterilization abuse, wanted to have la
operación ever since she had her second child but her husband
was against it until she had her sixth.
The Robles women and their families lived below the poverty level in
New York and worked hard to improve their lives. They discussed and
recommended sterilization to one another. For example, doña Rosario
encouraged her daughters and granddaughter to get sterilized because she
felt if they were not careful they would end up having more children
than they desired. The Robles women had a keen sense of gender
consciousness and they resisted women's gender subordination. Their
stories show the powerful influence culture and social conditions played
in shaping and limiting their fertility decisions.[21]
The Robles family reveals how important it is to use an integral
model of reproductive freedom and social justice because it provides us
with a broader scope to see the myriad forces that influence and limit
Puerto Rican women's fertility experiences. In the case of the Robles
family, their reproductive experiences ranged from agency within
constraints to sterilization abuse. Their stories are similar to those
of the many women I interviewed, leading me to conclude that Puerto
Rican women make the best fertility decisions they can within the
parameters of their difficult lives.
Beyond Victimization and Toward an Integral Approach
I am always struck by the continued high level of misinformation
among Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and other Latinos on this important
topic. These misconceptions are reflected in the attitudes of the women
in my study[22]
as well as among white, black, and Latina populations
citywide.[23]
I also see these misconceptions among the students I teach
at City College/CUNY. When I teach about sterilization, at the
beginning of my lecture I ask my students to raise their hands if they
believe that a woman can still have children after she has been
sterilized. In my predominantly Latino class of thirty to thirty-five
students, almost all but one or two raise their hands.
To avoid making the sterilized students in my class feel like
victims, I prepare them with a more nuanced analysis. I distinguish
between victims of sterilization abuse and women who are proactive in
their fertility decisions (i.e., those who make the best fertility
decisions they can under difficult conditions). I educate my students
from an integral perspective (e.g. personal, cultural, social, and
historical) and show them Ana María García's popular film,
La Operación,
to discuss its strengths and weaknesses. The
strength of this film is García's powerful rendition of the history of
sterilization in Puerto Rico and her presentation of Puerto Rican
women's stories. But because none of the women in her film clearly
states that she was sterilized because she wanted fewer children, this
lends itself to a pronatalist interpretation, that it is natural and
good for all women to have children. The only exception is an older
Puerto Rican woman who excitedly inquires in the street about how she
can get sterilized when she finds out that other woman in her town have
had la operación [see Excerpt 5 from
La Operación in this issue].
Based on my research among Puerto Rican women in New York City, this
woman's experience is more representative of the majority of sterilized
Puerto Rican women.
García represents most Puerto Rican women as victims of sterilization
abuse. Even though one woman in the film explicitly states that no one
forced her to get sterilized, all these women are cast as helpless
victims. When my students watch this film they walk away in a rage, or,
if they are sterilized, feeling like victims themselves. Consider this
example in the film where García might have shown the nuances of women's
sterilization experiences: a young woman holds up two plastic tubes in
her hands; she tells the audience that the doctor inserted these tubes
in her uterus, that she had a tubal pregnancy, and that everything
exploded and fell apart. What this young woman does not share with the
audience is that she had an operation to try to reverse sterilization.
We learn about this from her distraught mother or grandmother, an older
woman to whom the director pans; she starts to cry and says that she
does not understand why (her daughter or granddaughter) had to have
another operation since she already has children. She ends by saying
that the young woman could have died from this operation. It is clear
from the older woman's statement that she disapproves of this young
woman's decision to have a reversal operation.
A film with an integral perspective would have shown the role the
young woman herself played in having this reversal operation rather than
portraying her solely as a victim. It is quite possible for example that
she wanted to have another child to solidify her relationship with the
father of the child, a common reason among women who sought a reversal
operation, something I found often in my study. A film with an integral
perspective also would have translated the mother or grandmother's
disapproval of her decision. My point is that an integral perspective
enables us to see the co-existence of agency and constraints and does
not reduce anyone to a helpless victim. It also recognizes that just
because Puerto Rican women make decisions about their own fertility,
that does not mean they are exercising complete reproductive freedom.
Page: 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5
Next page
|