The Mississippi Appendectomy: Forced Sterilization and Racial Bias

The Mississippi Appendectomy: Forced Sterilization and Racial Bias

​The history of medicine in the United States is marked by disturbing chapters, particularly concerning the reproductive rights of marginalized communities. One of the most egregious examples of systemic medical abuse targeting Black women in the South was a practice chillingly nicknamed the “Mississippi Appendectomy.” This term refers to the involuntary sterilization of women, often performed without their consent or knowledge, during what they believed were routine medical procedures.

​A Systemic Violation of Reproductive Rights

​Between the 1920s and the 1980s, it is estimated that more than 8,000 Black women in states like Mississippi and South Carolina underwent non-consensual hysterectomies (surgical removal of the uterus) when seeking treatment from white physicians for unrelated health issues. This mass violation stripped thousands of women of their ability to have children, fundamentally altering their lives and futures.

​The Story of Fannie Lou Hamer

​The ordeal of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer became a powerful testament to this abusive practice. In 1961, Hamer, a Black sharecropper, entered a Mississippi hospital to have a non-cancerous uterine fibroid tumor removed.

​She awoke to a devastating reality. Unbeknownst to her, and without her informed consent, the surgeon had performed a complete hysterectomy. She learned of the forced sterilization through plantation gossip, delivered by a family friend who overheard the surgeon’s relative discussing the procedure.

​Hamer, who had dreamed of having a family, was one of the last to discover the permanent, life-altering betrayal she had suffered.

​ Bringing the Abuse to Light

​For victims like Fannie Lou Hamer, legal recourse was practically non-existent in the deeply segregated Jim Crow South. The legal and medical systems were structured to deny Black patients autonomy over their own bodies, allowing doctors to act with effective immunity.

​However, three years later, in 1964, Hamer used her growing public platform in Washington, D.C., to expose the scale of this medical violence, calling it systemic abuse. Her testimony helped draw national attention to this widespread violation of human and civil rights.

A Dark Link to Eugenics

​The “Mississippi Appendectomy” was not an isolated regional phenomenon but rather a localized, racially-focused manifestation of the broader eugenics movement in the United States. This national movement sought to control the reproduction of groups deemed “unfit” to parent, which often included poor people, those with disabilities, and racial and ethnic minorities.

​From the 1920s up until the 1970s, tens of thousands of individuals nationwide were subjected to forced sterilizations under state-sanctioned eugenics laws. In the South, this policy was often fueled by racist stereotypes that falsely portrayed Black women as hypersexual or inherently incapable of raising children, providing a false medical justification for the procedures.

​The legacy of the “Mississippi Appendectomy” and the wider eugenics movement remains a stark reminder of how racial bias and systemic power imbalances have historically intersected with medicine to violate fundamental human rights.