Published April 20, 2021 at 1:00 AM PDT Belly of the Beast
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Belly of the Beast aired on PBS’ Independent Lens in November 2020 and was named a New York Times’ critic’s pick.
On this edition of Your Call, we discuss
Belly of the Beast, a documentary that follows two women who expose modern day eugenics in California prisons. They uncovered sexual assault, inadequate healthcare, and illegal sterilizations.
According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, more than 130 female inmates were involuntarily sterilized from 2006 to 2010. In 2014, California banned coerced sterilizations. What will it take to end reproductive injustice in US prisons?
Guests:
Belly of the Beast
Belly of the Beast exposes forced sterilization in the U S justice system
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A horrifying scheme described as modern-day eugenics has come to light, thanks to the bravery of a victim-turned-whistleblower.
Kelli Dillon was given a 15-year prison sentence after killing her abusive husband in self-defense; while in prison, Dillon says she was lied to about a medical condition and was then forcibly sterilized without her knowledge or consent.
Scott Hechinger, a Brooklyn public defender, tweeted about Dillon’s experience.
In 2001, while imprisoned at Central California Women’s Prison, the world’s largest women’s prison, Dillon was told she needed surgery to remove an ovarian cyst.
Five years later, Dillon began to experience symptoms of menopause at age 24, and it was only then that she discovered she had been given a hysterectomy without her knowledge or consent. She quickly sued the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) but lost.
After watching the documentary “Belly of the Beast,” Mary J. Blige was incredulous.
“I could not believe what I was seeing,” Blige said. “But somewhere in the back of my mind, all my life, I always felt like women weren’t being treated properly in prisons. Black women were just being treated like slaughtered pigs.”
Directed by Erika Cohn for PBS’s Independent Lens, the 2020 film investigates the widespread sterilization of female inmates in California prisons predominantly women of color and the callous, covert system that allowed this illegal practice to continue well into the 21st century. A central figure in the story is Kelli Dillon, a former inmate who was given a hysterectomy against her will.
Best films and television of the year and the devastation of cultural life
As the year ends, it is not possible to discuss any aspect of artistic life, or life in general, in 2020 without central reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, which the various ruling elites have permitted to ravage the world’s population.
In late March, we noted that “the global health and economic calamity” was without precedent. “Whatever the outcome in the short term,” we wrote, “social life and consciousness will never return to their previous states. A Rubicon has been crossed. The existing order, in the eyes of tens of millions, will be seen from now on as illegitimate and an immediate threat to their continued existence.”
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