Police in Canada say they will not pursue a criminal investigation into a recent case in which a doctor sterilized an Inuit woman without her consent

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.”

  • Alien Nathan EdwardEnglish
    133•9 months ago

    I don’t want to be controversial here, but if someone is forcibly destroying the internal organs of someone else without their knowledge or consent then maybe we should, and again I don’t wanna overstep my bounds on this nuanced and multifaceted issue here but my instinct is that maybe we should, I don’t know, maybe make them stop doing that. If that makes me a “no secretly wrecking someone else’s innards” extremist then I guess I’ll have to live with that.

    • @Lt_Cdr_Data@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      -57•9 months ago

      I mean, what’s the context here? I doubt doctors are sterilizing people because of some evil agenda. If she was already undergoing explorative abdominal surgery, I’d wager they found a pathology that requires her reproductive organs to be removed.

      If they didn’t get her consent during the preoperative information, then that’s malpractice and a part I don’t understand. However, I’d assume the surgeons wanted to spare her from having to undergo sedation and surgery again at a later point in time, just to get her consent.

      • @Buffaloaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
        70•9 months ago

        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.

        So, no. There wasn’t consent and the other doctors said it was a bad idea, but he did it anyway.

      • @can@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        48•9 months ago

        Something isn’t right here.

        Among its findings, the board noted that it was likely the patient did say she did not intend to have more children, however, there was no written evidence that she had consented to sterilization.

        The board also heard testimony from an anesthesiologist who was present during the surgery, and who reported Kotaska making the comment: “Let’s see if I can find a reason to take the left tube.”

        Kotaska admitted to making the comment, describing it as part of his clinical reasoning. The board found the comment was not made “maliciously” and did not represent unprofessional conduct.

        The complaint also alleged that Kotaska ignored comments from colleagues present during the surgery. The board found inconsistent evidence on this point, and found that this, too, was not unprofessional conduct.

        And I appreciate your optimism about doctors but this isn’t an isolated incident.

      • @WHYAREWEALLCAPS@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31•9 months ago

        I’d assume the surgeons wanted to spare her from having to undergo sedation and surgery again at a later point in time, just to get her consent.

        That is still performing the procedure without her consent. Are you really that dense? Or are you one of those types who believes that “no” doesn’t always mean “no” or that if someone doesn’t say “no” that means they automatically consent?

        • @batmaniam@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6•9 months ago

          I’m assuming the above person, like me, had one of those “come on, no WAY” moments. It just seems to insanely wrong.

          • Alien Nathan EdwardEnglish
            2•9 months ago

            Thing is, some people have weaponized that “come on, no WAY” moment. They say “there must be some missing context that makes this okay” and then they dismiss the issue without having established that context. My mother did that with Elijah McClain’s murder. When she found out that they injected him with ketamine, she said “Well something must have been going wrong, they don’t give people that kind of drug for nothing”. For her, that settled the matter. It wasn’t until I taught her about so-called “excited delirium” and how cops and EMTs have conspired to make non-compliance a medical diagnosis so that they have an excuse to tranquilize people who piss them off that she even considered that someone may have done something wrong.

            Furthermore, it was wildly irresponsible of dude to try to guess what that context was. “He didn’t want to go through the process of waking her up, getting consent and then anaesthetizing her again so he just ripped out a few extra organs while he was in there.” Trying to establish the idea that it’s okay to ruin someone’s body for the sake of convenience is just unimaginably gross. Assuming what they said was actually the truth and not just their conjecture in trying to justify this, that behavior in and of itself justifies prison and a loss of license to practice medicine. This situation is so fucked up that the extra context that had to be posited from nothing doesn’t actually absolve anyone of guilt.

      • Alien Nathan EdwardEnglish
        24•9 months ago

        Did you even read the post? The context is he didn’t have consent and other medical professionals in the room told him not to do it.

      • @EurekaStockade@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23•9 months ago

        I doubt

        I’d wager

        I’d assume

        You have a news article linked here which clearly spells out an example of this happening yet you still lean on assumptions that it couldn’t possibly happen

      • @5BC2E7@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13•9 months ago

        Afaik some countries treat female urinary infections with what they call female circumcision. here it’s called genital mutilation (at least when the victim is female)

        This is why I don’t assume they had an actual medical reason to sterilize her.

      • @Historical_General@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3•9 months ago

        Canada had paedophile and state-run genocide camps masquerading as schools for Indiginous children well into the 70s!!! This is clearly an extension of that mindset. The Canadian government is sick.