La Operación exposes forced sterilization in Puerto Rico, which has the world’s highest rate of female sterilization. Over one-third of Puerto Rico’s women of childbearing age have been sterilized in what is simply known as “la operación.” The film links the island’s colonization with sterilization. Combining newsreels and government propaganda films with interviews with birth control specialists, doctors, politicians, and Puerto Rican women, this film critiques sterilization as a means of population control linked to industrial development.