LAFF 2015: NO MÁS BEBÉS

A scene from No Más Bebés.

Population control

By Miranda Inganni

During the 1960s and 70s low-income Latinas seeking to have birth via cesarean section at Los Angeles County USC Medical Center got a lot more than they bargained for: tubal ligation, otherwise known as sterilization.

Director Renee Tajima-Peña’s No Màs Bebès (No More Babies) takes an in-depth look into this harrowing chapter in Los Angeles' history. Focusing on the women who were subjected to this unexpected, unwanted (unwarranted) and life-altering treatment utilizing interviews and archival footage, No Màs Bebèspoints out how there was no plan or policy to take care of indigent or low-income patients at the public teaching hospital.

Frightened women who were in pain and often didn’t speak English, or at least comprehend what was being said to them, either agreed without understanding the meaning of what was happening, or never agreed to it (to their recollection). Names were hastily signed, often with a nurse’s guiding hand. Sometimes the meaning of the procedure was misunderstood -- the tubes are going to be tied, but that implies that they can be untied. Was this a calculated process targeting poor women of color to help keep the population boom in check? Was there another even more nefarious explanation?

Then-intern Bernard Rosenfeld discovered the nasty occurrence and began writing everyone he could think of, from political organizations to women’s magazines. Fortunately, Antonia Hernandez at the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice paid attention to the letter they received.

A recent law school graduate, Hernandez was young and ambitious. She agreed that the scandal needed not only to be exposed, but those in charge held responsible and the victims given their day in court. Armed with medical records, she began scouring East LA trying to track down the former patients. Her task was gargantuan: locate victims, explain what had happened (some of the women had no idea they had been sterilized) and then convince them to be the faces of what would be a very public court case.

She found ten women and took the case to court. Known as Madrigal v. Quilligan went before a judge. If you do not the history, just looking at the amount of male doctors/former defendants who participated in the documentary, coupled with the economic surroundings of the involved women who were interviewed, gives you a pretty good idea how the case was decided.

While both parties believe their side of the story to this day, the case at least brought about a change in policy.

 

 

No Màs Bebès screens again at LAFF: June 16, 6:10 p.m., Regal Cinemas. For more information: Babies.