Mississippi Appendectomy

PJC Media

Birthed from the Eugenics Movement, practices of contraception are still a controversial matter as they carry with them the history of states in the US targeting and deciding whowas allowed or desired to reproduce. As a result in some parts of the south, this gave rise to a phenomenon known as the Mississippi Appendectomy in the 1920s-1980s. This was the medical practice that provided involuntary steriliztion to poor, black women who were deemed unfit to reproduce. The term itself was coined by Fannie Lou Hamer, who was a civil rights activist who was also sterilized without her consent.