The Canadian government says it is urgently trying to end the forced sterilization of Indigenous women, describing the practice as a human rights violation and a prosecutable offense. Yet police say they will not pursue a criminal investigation into a recent case in which a doctor apologized for his “unprofessional conduct” in sterilizing an Inuit woman.

In July, The Associated Press reported on the case of an Inuit woman in Yellowknife who had surgery in 2019 aimed at relieving her abdominal pain. The obstetrician-gynecologist, Dr. Andrew Kotaska, did not have the woman’s consent to sterilize her, and he did so over the objections of other medical personnel in the operating room. She is now suing him.

“This is a pivotal case for Canada because it shows that forced sterilization is still happening,” said Dr. Unjali Malhotra, of the First Nations Health Authority in British Columbia. “It’s time that it be treated as a crime.”

  • JokeDeity
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    1 year ago

    Did we read the same excerpts? It’s disgusting that was said to that man, how can you defend that?

    • Not_Alec_Baldwin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Read the article:

      https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867

      Foley has a degenerative brain disorder. He IS dying. His quality of life will continue to deteriorate until he dies. This might be sad, but it’s just the fact. We need to be able to talk about these things.

      The hospital cannot fix him. There is no acute care for his condition. It’s just a matter of where and when. And this is EXACTLY what assisted dying is for.

      The only recourse the hospital has to people refusing discharge is to charge them the price of their hospital stay. It’s not coersion, it’s just consequence. It’s reality.

      I’m not saying this ethicist did their job well. But without the full recording it’s hard to know what the situation was. I’ve been in the palliative ward at the local hospital and I can tell you that people fight really hard.

      The alternatives, depending on how much care he needs, are long term care or hospice. Both are subsidized but if he has money saved he would have to contribute to his care and a lot of people don’t want to do that.

      • JokeDeity
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        1 year ago

        “people fight really hard”

        Have you considered that you might be the son of Satan himself? What an incredibly grim thing to say so matter-of-factly.