Maria grew up in a Puerto Rican area of Williamsburg, Brooklyn in a single-parent home in the '70s. She was an unabashed 14-year-old girl. She recounts the story of her first love, which brought her on a journey which made a permanent impact on her life. Decades later, she contemplates whether she was the victim of more than just young love. Her suspicions correlate with a history of coercive sterilization of poor women and women of color in the U.S. We speak with Dorothy Roberts, an Academic and Author of 'Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty.' In her research, she tells the stories of many women who lost their ability to have children at the hands of unregulated birth control policies.

Produced in collaboration with NPR's Latino USA.
To hear the full episode of Audio Smut: http://audiosmut.ca/audio/birth/