Survivors of California’s forced sterilizations: ‘It’s like my life wasn’t worth anything’

A new reparations program will compensate survivors of prison system sterilizations and the 20th century eugenics campaign

It wasn't until years after Kelli Dillon went into surgery while incarcerated in the California state prison system that she realized her reproductive capacity had been stripped away without her knowledge.

In 2001, at the age of 24, she became one of the most recent victims in a history of forced sterilizations in California that stretches back to 1909 and served as an inspiration for Nazi Germany's eugenics program.