In Puerto Rico, over one-third of all women of childbearing age have been sterilized; so common is the procedure that it is known simply as “la operación.” This moving documentary by Ana María García explores the controversial use of sterilization as a method of birth control, focusing on Puerto Rico, where the incidence of female sterilization is the highest in the world. Examining the role of the United States and Puerto Rican governments as well as the medical profession in this policy, Garcia also treats another essential factor: the conditions in women's lives that motivate them to submit at an early age to this irreversible method of birth control. La Operación has been featured at film festivals and series in the U.S., including the Women's International Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art and the Margaret Mead Film Festival; and in Latin America, including the Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano in Havana, where it was a prize-winner. The Village Voice called it “the finest documentary of the Women's International Film Festival.”