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The Committee to End Sterilization Abuse is founded

1974

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The Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA) is founded by Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias, Dr. Raymond Rakow, and Maritza Arrastia. It is a multiracial coalition, led by and centering Latinx women, involving organizations such as the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, the Marxist Education Collective, and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party.

The committee is founded to respond to the legacy of racist population control policies begun by the federal government in the 1940s. They form specifically on the: "basis of rumors that sterilization abuse in public hospitals primarily in Puerto Rican neighborhoods" (Silliman et al., 2004) have skyrocketed by 180%.

CESA will help to create the Advisory Committee on Sterilization, which is a coalition of groups that develops regulations to protect women using public hospitals in New York City. They will later form chapters along the East Coast and become a critical organization in the lineage of Latinx and Women of Color reproductive grassroots movements.