California female inmates were sterilized, according a report from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Approximately 150 inmates were pressured into sterilization between 2006-2010.

According to the report, doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation may have performed as many as 250 total tubal ligations dating back to the 1990s involving California female inmates that were sterilized.

One of the alleged California female inmates sterilized was Christina Cordero. She was a former inmate at Valley State Prison who was released in 2008. Cordero said that she was pressured to undergo a tubal ligation after giving birth to her son in 2006.

"As soon as [the institution's OB-GYN Dr. James Heinrich] found out that I had five kids, he suggested that I look into getting it done. The closer I got to my due date, the more he talked about it. He made me feel like a bad mother if I didn't do it," she said in the report.

The Center for Investigative Reporting wrote in its report about the California female inmates that were sterilized.

"Federal and state laws ban inmate sterilizations if federal funds are used, reflecting concerns that prisoners might feel pressured to comply. California used state funds instead, but since 1994 the procedure has required approval from top medical officials in Sacramento on a case-by-case basis. Yet no tubal ligation requests have come before the health care committee responsible for approving such restricted surgeries, said Dr. Ricki Barnett, who tracks medical services and costs for the California Prison Health Care Receivership Corp.The receiver has overseen medical care in all 33 of the state's prisons since 2006, when U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson ruled that the system's health care violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The receiver's office was aware that sterilizations were happening, records show..."

[Daun] Martin, the Valley State Prison medical manager, said she and her staff had discovered the procedure was restricted five years earlier. Someone had complained about the sterilization of an inmate, Martin recalled. That prompted Martin to research the prison's medical rules.

Martin told CIR that she and Heinrich began to look for ways around the restrictions. Both believed the rules were unfair to women, she said.