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The U.S. claims Puerto Rico as a territory; reproductive experimentation on Puerto Rican women dramatically increases.

1898

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Starting during the time of Spanish colonization, methods of reproductive control are used against Puerto Rican communities. When the U.S. claims the island as a territory in 1898, the practice rapidly expands. "Essentially, Puerto Rico, and its people have served as a laboratory for American contraceptive policies and products," reproductive justice organizer and writer Elena Gutiérrez (2004) writes. Medical trials of products, such as contraceptive foam, birth control pills, and the intrauterine device, will be denied approval on the mainland. As such, they will be illegally and nonconsensually tested on Puerto Rican women as a method of social and population control.