Recent accounts of unconsented hysterectomies in detained immigrants give modern relevance to a history of government-sanctioned reproductive control in the United States. In September 2020, Dawn Wooten, a nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Georgia, reported reoccurring instances of medical neglect and medically unnecessary and unconsented sterilizing procedures in immigrant women in ICDC custody. The initial report included five women who reported hysterectomies between October and December 2019. The women held in U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody received inadequate and misleading information about the hysterectomy procedure in language that was not their own, invalidating informed consent (
Cuffari et al., 2020). Since this initial report, dozens more women have come forward reporting medically aggressive and/or unconsented gynecological procedures. Investigation of these reports by U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and patient medical and psychological follow-up evaluations, have been compromised by deportation (
McEvoy, 2020).