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.”
That’s precisely the job of a physician or health professional though. Ensure the patient is aware of the options they have available for care. They saw that he would likely meet the criteria and suggested it as an option. Them explaining the reasons of why they elected to suggest that option of care is not coersion in any sense.
The fact that they’re going to non-terminal patients and trying to talk them into suicide is a problem in and of itself. You MUST recognize that.
Again, they are not trying to talk them into anything, they are saying it’s an available option.