HUMAN RIGHTS

Calif. Enacts Inmate Sterilization Ban

After dozens of women's fallopian tubes tied without their consent.

California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that prohibits prisons from sterilizing inmates without their consent, his office said on Thursday. Media reports and an audit had shown that prison officials failed to obtain consent from dozens of female inmates before having their fallopian tubes tied as a form of birth control. “Pressuring a vulnerable population into making permanent reproductive choices without informed consent is unacceptable, and violates our most basic human rights,” the bill’s author, state Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, said in a statement. The bill makes exceptions for cases in which the inmate’s life is in danger or when there is a medical need and no other alternatives are available. It passed both the state’s assembly and senate chambers unanimously.