This program was designed by the Eugenics Board and both U.S. government funds and contributions from private individuals supported the initiative. However, instead of providing Puerto Rican women with access to alternative forms of safe, legal and reversible contraception, the U.S. policy promoted the use of permanent sterilization. The US-driven Puerto Rican measure was so overly charged that women of childbearing age in Puerto Rico were more than 10 times more likely to be sterilized than were women from the U.S.[37]