By LILY ALEXANDER
The Santa Fe New Mexican

Somewhere between 25% and 50% of Indigenous women were forcibly sterilized in the 1970s with some of the highest concentrations of procedures in New Mexico, research indicates.

Shocking as the statistics are, getting more specific data than that is tricky.

“The information gap is tremendous,” Keely Badger, a human rights advocate who has researched the issue, said Tuesday at the Roundhouse. “But there is now a global movement to bring the heinous nature of these acts, globally, to the forefront.”

New Mexico lawmakers are looking to join this movement, calling for a comprehensive study and plan addressing the history, scope and lingering effects of forced and coerced sterilization of Native American women and other women of color — which was often at the behest of the United States government and which continued until 2018, they say. The passage of Senate Memorial 14 — sponsored by Sens. Shannon Pinto (Diné), D-Tohatchi; Linda López, D-Albuquerque, and 11 other legislators — would make New Mexico the first state in the country to formally address the issue, according to Native News Online.

The memorial cleared its second committee hurdle Tuesday, when the Senate Indian, Rural and Cultural Affairs Committee voted unanimously to advance it. SM 14 now heads to its final hurdle on the Senate floor. Memorials serve as an expression of the desire of the Legislature, and do not contain funding or require action from the governor.

“It was difficult to understand that we are still faced, today in this day and age, with the forced, coerced sterilization of our Indigenous women,” Democratic Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero of Albuquerque, who is a co-sponsor of the memorial, said at Tuesday’s hearing.

Between 1907 and 2018, the forced or coerced sterilization of Indigenous women and other women of color in New Mexico often took place through the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs or the Indian Health Service, according to SM 14.

The Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970 subsidized sterilizations for women who received health care through the Indian Health Service or Medicaid. Some hospitals at the time used these funds to operate on minority women who were unaware of what procedure they are undergoing, according to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center.

In 1976, a study by the U.S. General Accounting Office found four out of the country’s 12 Indian Health Service regions sterilized 3,406 Native American women without their permission between 1973 and 1976. Two years earlier, an independent study by a Choctaw and Cherokee doctor indicated the Indian Health Service had “singled out full-blooded Indian women for sterilization procedures,” according to the National Institutes of Health.

This reproductive violence, the memorial states, has caused historical and generational trauma and demographic loss and cultural devastation.

Under the memorial, the state Indian Affairs Department and the Commission on the Status of Women would conduct the study, which would then be presented to the governor and Legislature by the end of 2027. The presentation would also include proposals for a related state truth and reconciliation commission; a statewide, Native American-led reproductive justice and sovereignty program; a public memorial and educational curriculum, and the state’s acknowledgement “of the inhumanity of the grievous policy of forced or coerced sterilization of Indigenous women and other women of color.”

“Some of these numbers … will, I think, give us impetus of how we move forward in recognizing and actually, I think, coming to fruition about how we honor those women who’ve been through this atrocity,” López said at Tuesday’s hearing.

Jean Whitehorse (Navajo) told committee members she was 22 years old when she “became a victim.” She was coerced into signing for a sterilization procedure in Gallup, she said.

“Women are the givers of life, but many women never had children,” Whitehorse said. “They never talk about forced sterilization that prevented them from having children.”

If New Mexico passes the memorial, Whitehorse said, it will open the door for other states to pursue similar research.

Roybal Caballero relayed a near brush she had with coerced sterilization when she was in the hospital for a procedure following a miscarriage. As Roybal Caballero was being sedated and wheeled into the operating room, she recounted, her husband was given forms to sign on her behalf.

Upon review, her husband noticed a box on the forms had been checked — one consenting to a hysterectomy, which was not the procedure Roybal Caballero was scheduled for, she said.

“As a result, I found out that this was a practice, and it was a practice that, in fact, hit national news at the time,” she said, adding, “I have not spoken freely nor openly about my personal experience until we had to listen to the testimony of other women. They gave me courage to speak up on their behalf.”

The Legislature’s Indian Affairs Committee heard testimony in November calling for a truth and reconciliation commission on the issue. SM 14 now has 13 sponsors, and a mirror memorial — House Memorial 32, carried by Roybal Caballero — is moving through the House.

Jenifer Raphael Getz, executive director of the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women, said during the hearing she believes the commission is uniquely suited to do the research requested by the memorial. SM 14 specifically asks for the study to include a list of all known and potential cases of forced or coerced sterilization by the U.S. Indian Health Services or its contracted health providers; survivor testimony; an assessment of the accessibility of reproductive health care for Indigenous women and other women of color; and a review of educational, policy and reparative measures, with recommendations.

The commission would act as an organizing entity for the study and partner with Indigenous-led organizations, Getz said.

Alysia Coriz, lobbyist for NM Native Vote, said legislators have shared they did not previously know about forced and coerced sterilization — but “this is not distant history.” Forced and coerced sterilization procedures occurred within living memory, she said, and were carried out by government systems meant to protect the health of Indigenous people.

“The impacts of these actions live on through generational trauma, mistrust of medical institutions, disrupting families and lasting harm to mental, physical and community health,” Coriz said. “This is an opportunity for truth, accountability and healing.”