Filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the lawsuit reveals that sterilization is primarily forced on people diagnosed as "mentally disabled" who are also impoverished, Black, Indigenous, or Latinx.

The lawsuit centers on Mary Alice and Minnie Relf, two Black girls with disabilities living in Montgomery, Alabama who were sterilized by a physician at a federally funded clinic when they were 14 and 12, respectively. Their mother thought she was signing them up for birth control, but later realized they had been subjected to the widespread coercive sterilization efforts that sterilized 150,000 people annually under federally-funded programs. Many were forced to agree to this procedure or risk losing their welfare benefits.

The SPLC lawsuit exposes this sterilization abuse and leads to doctors being required to obtain informed consent before performing procedures. However, forced and coercive sterilizations by the U.S. government will continue.