COERCIVE CARE
a stat investigation
For decades, physicians have steered sickle cell patients toward sterilization
How doctors push patients with sickle cell disease into unwanted sterilizations
PART 1
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“I can’t really say I consciously, 100% knew what I was giving consent to.”
“They didn’t believe that I was ever able to carry a child. But whose decision is that to make?”
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Have you or someone you know — with or without sickle cell disease — felt pressured into having a sterilization procedure?
Reporting Eric Boodman
Graphics Emory Parker
Editing Gideon Gil
Art and photo direction Alissa Ambrose
Photo editing Crystal Milner
Additional editing Rick Berke
Copy editing Sarah Mupo and Karen Pennar
Design and Development Jennifer Keefe, Julia Bujalski, Ben Lokshin
This series began with reporter Eric Boodman reading a research paper about the increased risk of pregnancy complications associated with sickle cell disease. As he started doing interviews with physicians and patients, they kept telling him about people who’d been discouraged from having kids — and in some cases, felt pressured toward sterilizations they weren't sure they wanted.
At first, he heard such stories only indirectly. But over the course of interviewing more than 50 people with sickle cell, he met some who'd had that experience firsthand, and he spent a year delving into the nuances of those stories. OB-GYNs and ethicists told him about the sterilization policies that were supposed to protect reproductive autonomy, and how they might be improved. Hematologists and maternal-fetal medicine specialists talked about the tools they now have to reduce the pregnancy risks for those with sickle cell who choose to have kids.
Boodman's series reveals that an injustice often relegated to the distant past persists today, and highlights the voices of the foremost experts — those who've lived it.
Behind the investigation
BY ERIC BOODMAN
COERCIVE CARE
TONYa MITCHELL
SHIRLEY MILLER
This federal rule didn't stop coercive sterilization — but blocked contraceptive access. Can it be fixed?
Coming soon 'What's your pain right now?' A life marked by sickle cell, reproductive injustice, and the opioid crisis
“It was scary, but I’m like, I guess I have to do this, for health reasons, like this is my only option."
PAT WELLS
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Credits
The doctor would treat her sickle cell pain crisis — if she promised not to get an abortion
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PART 2
PART 3
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New analysis reveals postpartum sterilization rates are higher among U.S. women with sickle cell
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PART 4
‘What’s your pain right now?’ Sickle cell, loss, and survival in America
‘What’s your pain right now?’ Sickle cell, loss, and survival in America
PART 5
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Coming soon 'I was almost forced to do it': One sickle cell patient's story of sterilization, pressure, and regret
PART 6
'I was almost forced to do it': One sickle cell patient's story of sterilization, pressure, and regret
read the story
PART 6