Thread by @BAJItweet

A thread: mass hysterectomies at ICE Detention Centers #AbolishICE

Whistleblower, Dawn Wooten, a Black nurse who worked at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Ocilla, Georgia describes cruel medical practices that include mass hysterectomies on women in detention. Details here r29.co/2RvVfPO #AbolishICE

Dawn Wooten, thank you for your courage in speaking up. Now that your name is public, you must be protected. #ProtectBlackWomen

Thank you to all the detained people who continue to share the atrocious conditions in US detention centers. We are sorry that the state has failed you. Report on ICDC here bit.ly/3koV05N

The mass hysterectomies occurring in Georgia’s detention centers are a public health and human rights crisis.

Eugenics is not a thing of the past, or of fiction. It is a violent practice and belief system that has been exercised throughout U.S. history and persists in the present day.

The U.S. is notorious for experimenting on and mutilating the bodies of communities that it deems inferior. We saw this in the case of the Tuskegee Syphilis study, Henrietta Lacks & we also saw this with Dr. Sim’s experiments on enslaved Black women.

Throughout the 20th century, over 20,000 people were forcefully sterilized in California’s prisons.

#AbolishICE #AbolishPrisons

Like incarcerated people, undocumented people are branded as unfit to reproduce and care for their children. By reducing reproductive agency, the state sends the message that our bodies, families and communities are property that it can survey, control and destroy.

Not only are the people in Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) at risk of contracting coronavirus due to the lack of precautions and testing provided, they are also dealing with the physical, emotional and spiritual trauma of having their reproductive rights violated.

Prisons & detention centers provide a veil for the state to exercise its violence on bodies that it hopes society will forget. It's crucial that we continue to amplify the voices of people who are experiencing incarceration and that, ultimately, we demand abolition.

#AbolishICE

Every account we read from impacted people about the “uterus collector” is horrific. “Everybody he sees, he’s taking all their uteruses out or he’s taken their tubes out. What in the world?” bit.ly/3ixQfGw #AbolishICE #ReproductiveJustice