California is trying to pay reparations to the victims of forced sterilization. It may not find all of them
By Adam Beam and The Associated Press,
Fortune
| 01. 04. 2023
About 600 people alive today can’t have children because California’s government sterilized them either against their will or without their knowledge, and now the state is trying to find them so it can pay them at least $15,000 each in reparations.
But after a year of searching, the state has approved just 51 people for payments out of 310 applications. There’s one year left to look before the $4.5 million program shuts down and the challenges remain steep. State officials have denied 103 people, closed three incomplete applications and are processing 153 others — but they say it’s difficult to verify the applications as many records have been lost or destroyed.
Two groups of people are eligible for the money: Those sterilized by the government during the so-called eugenics movement that peaked during the 1930s and a smaller group who were victimized while in state prisons about a decade ago.
“We try to find all the information we can and sometimes we just have to hope that somebody maybe can find more detailed information on their own,” said Lynda Gledhill...
Related Articles
By Annika Inampudi, Science | 08.01.2025
In June, Sara* received a message asking whether she wanted to continue to participate in a massive, multicenter research project led by scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark. The iPsych study, the message said, had sequenced her genetic data from...
By Riley Beggin and Jeff Stein, The Washington Post | 08.03.2025
The White House does not plan to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization services, two people with knowledge of internal discussions said, even though the idea was one of President Donald Trump’s key campaign pledges.
Last...
By Editors, Nature | 08.15.2025
A technology that played a key part in saving millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic1 should be feted to the skies. Instead, US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr announced last week that the US federal government is...
By Staff, National Women's Law Center | 08.13.2025
INTRODUCTION
Baby bonuses. Motherhood medals. Fertility tracking. You may have heard of these policy proposals as solutions from the Trump administration to help encourage women to have more children.
Besides falling short of ensuring that people have what they need...