Germanna, UMW, Community Foundation host virtual documentary "Belly of the Beast" tonight – Fredericksburg Today

When Kelli Dillonwas a 24-year-old inmate at a California womensprisonin 2008, shebegan to experience abdominal pain. A doctor at thecorrectional facilitytold her he suspected cancer and that he needed to perform exploratory surgery. He found no cancer, butsterilized her withoutherconsentor knowledge.

Dillonsstoryis the focus of a new documentary aboutthe unconscionable practice of coerced sterilization of womenmostly Black and Latinain Californias prisonsand the history of eugenics in the United States.

Belly of the Beastwill bepresented online at 6 p.m. this Monday,March29by theWomen and Girls Fund of The Community Foundation, GermannaCommunity College and theUMWWomen and GenderStudy Program.

Believing in eugenics, California state legislators passed a law in 1909 authorizing involuntary sterilization. By the time the program ended 70 years later, Californiahadsterilized 20,000 peoplemostly women and girlsinstate institutions whowerelooselyclassified as having disabilities or deemed unfit for reproduction.

#BellyoftheBeast does not reach for happy endings and is most absorbing in its thesis, which makes the stakes of this battle against human rights violations loud and clear. NYT review

REGISTER: cfrrr.org/belly-of-the-beast/

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Germanna, UMW, Community Foundation host virtual documentary "Belly of the Beast" tonight - Fredericksburg Today