Leaders of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus, along with Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg and other legislators, have sent a letter to California Correctional Health Care Services Federal Receiver Clark Kelso expressing outrage over recent reports of unlawful and coercive sterilization of female inmates.

The letter states, “As the federal Receiver, you were appointed by a three-judge panel to implement a lawful standard of medical care in California prisons. These instances of unauthorized tubal ligations under your watch violate California state laws.

Pressuring a vulnerable population — including at least one documented instance of a patient under sedation — to undergo these extreme procedures erodes the ban on eugenics. In our view, such practice violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment; protections that you were appointed to enforce.”

The letter asks for a response to a series of questions — including whether and when these procedures were stopped, and what actions were taken to stop them — and indicates that the Senate will request a review by the state auditor into allegations that female inmates were coerced into sterilization procedures.

Click here for a full copy of the letter.

— Lisa Gardiner is the communications director for state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson.