Womb wounds

Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770–1940, Elizabeth O’Brien, reviewed by Gavin O'Toole

Surgery and Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770–1940, Elizabeth O’Brien, 2023, University of North Carolina Press

Ghosts haunt the shadows of maternity wards in hospitals where physicians tried to curtail non-white bloodlines by state fiat or medical racism.

Eugenic sterilisation is one of the dark secrets of modernity, admitted…