Madrigal v. Quilligan was a 1978 federal class action lawsuit from Los Angeles County, California, involving sterilization of Latina women that occurred either without informed consent, or through coercion.
In the case of Madrigal v. Quilligan, many unsuspecting women were coerced to sign paperwork to perform sterilization, while others were told that the process could be reversed.
[5] When the case of Madrigal v. Quilligan surfaced to the public, the leaders of the Chicano movement recognized that sterilization was another injustice that was targeted to Mexican and middle-class women.
The case led to hospitals making the patient more aware about what sterilization does to their fertility and consent forms were easier to read for women whose first language was not English.
[7] Prosecutors: Antonia Hernandez and Charles Nabarrete of the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice Charges: Through the lawsuit, the plaintiffs and the lawyers had three goals in mind: strengthening federal and state policies on voluntary and informed consent for sterilization, acquiring financial compensation for the women, and demanding that someone be held accountable for the tubal ligations performed.
The plaintiffs charged that their civil and constitutional rights to bear children had been violated, and that between 1971 and 1974, they had been forcibly sterilized by obstetricians at County Hospital.
"[3] Some women alleged that they were forced to sign papers that gave the doctors the right to perform these operations under coerced circumstances or under false impressions.
For the case, attorneys Antonia Hernandez and Charles Navarrete and Gloria Molina, a leader of the Chicana feminist movement, sought out and interviewed women sterilized at the Los Angeles County Hospital.
Rosenfeld, so horrified by the practices he witnessed while at the hospital, gathered evidence of the unlawful sterilizations and wrote letters to civil rights groups and journalists.
[11] When Hernandez and Navarrete's legal group discovered the case, they, along with leaders in the Chicana feminist movement, began to interview the women found on the released medical records from the hospital.
Gloria Molina played a large role in convincing the ten Plaintiffs, mainly from East Los Angeles, to come forward and testify with their stories.
Third, because of the language barrier and the lack of access to sterilization forms in Spanish, many of the plaintiffs were uniformed regarding the effects and needs of their tubal ligations.
While under the influence of anti-pain medication and labor pain, she signed a consent form thinking it was for the c-section operation, when in fact it was for sterilization.
[11] Medical staff informed Consuelo Hermosillo that she was "high-risk" and thus could die from having another baby in an attempt to persuade her to give consent to sterilization.