On April 21, 2026, at the 25th session of the United Nations (UN) Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City, Jean Whitehorse (Diné) recounted her experience with forced sterilization and called for a global study and a statement from the UN against these practices.    

Whitehorse shared how in 1972, she went to the Gallup Indian Medical Center in “New Mexico,” an Indian Health Service (IHS) hospital that serves the Native community, for a ruptured appendix.   She was in pain and distress and quickly signed the papers given to her before the emergency surgery. Only later did she discover that, unbeknownst to her, the hospital had included paperwork for approving sterilization. Whitehorse went in for an emergency appendectomy and received an additional procedure—a tubal ligation. At 22 years old,  she was denied the right to bear more children by a government-run, federally funded hospital.  

“I felt shame and guilt,” Whitehorse explained. “In our culture, true wealth is our children. They are the guardians of our heritage. When Native women were sterilized, it wasn’t only an individual loss, it was a loss of a generation…For years, I carried this burden in silence.” It wasn’t until 2010 that Whitehorse broke her silence at a conference organized by the American Indian Movement (AIM-West). Since then, she has continued to lend her voice to the cause, calling for acknowledgement, investigation, and accountability. 

“This is not only a personal tragedy,” she continued during her speech at the UN forum. “It is a grave violation of the right to health and bodily autonomy and informed consent under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These acts constitute crimes against humanity.”

Control over the bodies of Native women in the “U.S.” can be traced back to the 1907 eugenics laws, which labeled Native communities and women of color as “undesirable.” Keely Badger, international human rights advocate and senior advisor to the American Indian Movement (AIM-West), explained how these laws laid the foundation for eugenics policies that enabled the forced sterilization of Indigenous women. “Over decades, the rhetoric changed a bit to population control and family planning,” said Badger, “but the objective was always the same, which was cultural and biological erasure.”

Decades later, the 1970 Family Planning Services and Population Research Act, which federally funded sterilizations for low-income families under the guise of “family planning,” provided the impetus for the sterilizations of Indigenous women, like Jean Whitehorse, seeking medical care at IHS facilities.

While the “U.S.” government has never apologized for the forced and coerced sterilizations of marginalized populations, “New Mexico” has recently taken a big step toward investigating this dark history. Thanks in large part to AIM-West’s Keely Badger and testimony from survivors like Jean Whitehorse, the “New Mexico” Senate unanimously passed Senate Memorial 14 in February 2026. This bill greenlights a statewide study of forced or coerced sterilization of Indigenous women and other women of color in “New Mexico” and lays the groundwork for a state truth and reconciliation commission.