Elaine riddick dreamed of motherhood. She and her husband tried to conceive for months without luck, so they consulted a doctor. The diagnosis was shocking: she had been sterilized four years earlier without her knowledge. She soon learned that the operation had been performed by state order in North Carolina in 1968, when she was just 14, and had given birth to a baby after being raped. At the time, she'd assumed doctors were just performing a routine post-birth procedure. The sterilization-consent form had been signed by her neglectful father and her illiterate grandmother, who had marked her assent with an X. Today, three decades later, she's still reeling from the revelation she blames for the death of her marriage and her eventual hysterectomy. "I felt like I was nothing," says Riddick, her fists clenched in anger. "It's like, the people that did this, tiiey took my spirit away from me."
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