Landmark suit over sterilizations
June 18, 1975: Future Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, then just out of law school and head of the Commission Feminil Mexicana Nacional, filed Madrigal vs. Quilligan, a landmark classaction civil rights suit on behalf of 11 Mexican American women who said they were coerced or deceived into being sterilized at County-USC Medical Center.
The women lost the case, but it helped lead to changes, including clearer regulations and simplified consent forms in patients’ primary languages.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. June 29, 2006 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday June 29, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 82 words Type of Material: Correction
Sterilization lawsuit: A Times Past item in the June 18 Section A about a landmark civil rights lawsuit on behalf of women who said they were coerced or deceived into being sterilized at County-USC Medical Center said future Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina had just finished law school in 1975, when the case was filed. Molina did not attend law school. Also, the name of the Comision Femenil Mexicana Nacional, the organization Molina ran, was misspelled as Commission Feminil Mexicana Nacional.
Dr. Bernard Rosenfeld, who revealed the alleged abuses, said the consent forms were in English and written at a 12th-grade level, while the hospital’s studies showed 45% of its Latino patients read at a sixth-grade level, The Times said.
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