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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
But the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they would not be investigating Kotaska, because the woman hasn’t filed a criminal complaint.
