Systematized Review and Meta-synthesis of the Sterilization of Women with Disabilities in the Field of Social Science: from Macroeugenics to Microeugenics

Abstract

The forced sterilization of women with disabilities has been a common practice throughout the world, hindering the sexual and reproductive freedom of a significant part of the female population. In this paper, carried out between 2018 and 2019, we will perform a systematized review of this phenomenon in order to find out the scientific contributions on this matter in the field of Social Science, explore whether this practice is linked to one or more forms of violence, and analyze whether it is identified with specific disability typologies. For that purpose, we performed searches on three different bibliographic databases: Social Work Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, and Social Services Abstracts, focusing on the disciplinary origin of the analysis. The research focusing on the forced sterilization of women with disabilities was selected, while those pertaining to other groups subjected to involuntary sterilization were ignored. After an evaluation phase, we obtained 98 research papers that were then subjected to the synthesis and analysis phases, following the SALSA Framework review methodology. The main findings indicate that on how the macroeugenics carried out during the nineteenth century has continued up until today as microeugenics, setting up the required situation for the continuation of forced sterilization. This and other results provided significant data about the state of the matter in the field of Social Sciences, establishing the basis to organize further research about a phenomenon that has still not been sufficiently studied.