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.”

  • notatoad@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    i’m not seeing the part of that article where there’s any evidence at all of health care workers pushing anybody to take MAiD.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      So you missed this part then?

      "In one recording obtained by the AP, the hospital’s director of ethics told Foley that for him to remain in the hospital, it would cost “north of $1,500 a day.” Foley replied that mentioning fees felt like coercion and asked what plan there was for his long-term care.

      “Roger, this is not my show,” the ethicist responded. “My piece of this was to talk to you, (to see) if you had an interest in assisted dying.”

      Foley said he had never previously mentioned euthanasia. The hospital says there is no prohibition on staff raising the issue.

      Catherine Frazee, a professor emerita at Toronto’s Ryerson University, said cases like Foley’s were likely just the tip of the iceberg.

      “It’s difficult to quantify it, because there is no easy way to track these cases, but I and other advocates are hearing regularly from disabled people every week who are considering (euthanasia),” she said.

      Frazee cited the case of Candice Lewis, a 25-year-old woman who has cerebral palsy and spina bifida. Lewis’ mother, Sheila Elson, took her to an emergency room in Newfoundland five years ago. During her hospital stay, a doctor said Lewis was a candidate for euthanasia and that if her mother chose not to pursue it, that would be “selfish,” Elson told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. "

      • Not_Alec_Baldwin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That’s a far cry from “pushing” MAID.

        Maid is an option, and should be an option. People need to know about it. However, there are always other options. Hospice is subsidized. Long term care is subsidized. Homecare nursing us subsidized. You just can’t stay in the hospital, because the hospital is for acute people in recovery.

        There are absolutely illnesses that ruin your quality of life but don’t kill you, leaving you to suffer. Their medical system is NOT designed to care for all of everyone’s needs. It’s specifically designed to provide life saving care.

        The stupid part is that if a person is so sick that they can’t care for themselves, and they get released home, they often just deteriorate and end up back in the hospital.

        Their system beats our system, but it’s not perfect.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          “If you get sick, we can just kill you, because if we don’t, you’re back in the hospital eventually”

          This is terrible logic

            • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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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@lemm.ee
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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.