Roxanne Mykitiuk

York University · Osgoode Hall Law School

In this article, we examine how disability is figured in the imaginaries that are given shape by the reproductive projects and parental desires facilitated by the bio-medical techniques and practices of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) that involve selection and screening for disability. We investigate how some users of ARTs understand and...

Objectives Women with disabilities are less likely to have cervical screening and mammography, and subsequently have a higher incidence of advanced cancers. This study explored the knowledge of physicians regarding their “duty to accommodate” women with disabilities to receive equal access to women's health promotion and care, and the possibility o...

La recherche scientifique confirme de plus en plus le potentiel des hommes à transmettre des problèmes de santé à leur progéniture du fait de leur exposition, avant la conception, à des substances chimiques perturbatrices du système endocrinien. Le présent article examine comment les « problèmes de santé transgénérationnels transmis par les hommes...

Re•Vision, an assemblage of multimedia storytelling and arts-based research projects, works creatively and collaboratively with misrepresented communities to advance social well-being, inclusion, and justice. Drawing from videos created by health care providers in disability artist-led workshops, this article investigates the potential of disabilit...

This chapter examines Article 6 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which speaks directly to the unique experiences of gender and disability-based discrimination. The chapter begins by canvassing the historical background and travaux préparatoires on Article 6. It then reviews the text of the article...

The use of multimedia story-making and narrative-based drama in disability research raises conventional ethical issues of informed consent, anonymity, and confidentiality. In this chapter, we explore unique issues that arise when working with non-normatively embodied/enminded participants in a collaborative way, using arts-based mediums that transg...

Imagining disability futurities." Hypatia 32, no. 2 (2017): 213-229. Abstract This article explores twelve short narrative films created by women and trans people living with disabilities and embodied differences. Produced through Project Re•Vision, these micro documentaries uncover the cultures and temporalities of bodies of difference by foregrou...

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals have been identified as posing risks to reproductive health and may have intergenerational effects. However, responses to the potential harms they pose frequently rely on medicalised understandings of the body and normative gender identities. This article develops an intersectional feminist framework of intergeneratio...

‘Normal’ is a contentious term. Descriptively, ‘normal’ represents ‘what is’ as a statistical average. However, the term also represents normative or prescriptive content about what is ‘right’ or ‘what should be’. Correspondingly, abnormality is a deviation from the norm. It is both a factual exception to the average and a value judgement about wha...

Reproductive rights have historically focused on access to safe, legal contraception and abortion. More recently, reproductive rights have come to include preservation of reproductive health and access to assisted reproductive and genetic technologies that facilitate procreation. Recognition of additional barriers to reproductive self-determination...

In Western culture, the pervading medical model of disability has characterized disability as a problem in need of a solution: an unwanted condition that demands a cure. Even the word “disability” is unavoidably negative: structurally it signifies a loss or a lack, a state that exists only because it falls short of something better. Contrary to mai...

Project Re•Vision is a Canadian Institute for Health Research funded research project that uses arts-based research methods (digital storytelling and drama workshops) to dismantle stereotypical understandings of disability and difference that create barriers to healthcare. We have completed two years of our project and have generated an impressive...

Roxanne Mykitiuk understands the Canadian Biotechnology Strategy, and the genetic technologies which it promotes, to be both a contributor to, and signifier of, the changing nature of the state. The state is currently undergoing restructuring, Mykitiuk argues. These changes are commonly attributed to the forces of ‘globalization’; they are effected...

TERMINAL CARE, TERMINAL JUSTICE: THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA AND SUE RODRIGUEZ

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other international human rights conventions guarantee the fundamental human rights to physical, social, and psychological health. The purpose of this study was to examine whether these rights are being upheld in Canada for disabled women. An interpretive, qualitative, foc...

The fulfilment of promises made 25 years ago to link clinical conditions with gene sequences has allowed patients and families to better understand hereditary conditions1–4 and make choices regarding prevention, early detection and treatment.2–4 There have also been warnings issued over this period regarding other purposes for which genetic informa...

Since genes are increasingly seen as determinants of health, we are faced with decisions about whether, or how to alter them in order to ensure that people are healthy, and able to participate in society. Our ideas about what makes a person "normal" in terms of health play a pivotal role in these decisions. Within policy discussions, it is crucial...

This study seeks to document and analyze the uneasy relationship between that most ubiquitous and unyielding form of social control – the institution of law – and the “unwieldy...humanness” of women’s bodies “in all their glorious imperfection”. Our over-riding objective is to make visible and concrete the links between a woman’s lived experience o...

Canadians are living through a period where an examination of the meanings and consequences of "privatization" is acutely needed. The welcome appearance of a comparative volume on the impact of privatization on the role of law in regulating the relationship among the state, the market and the family in the United Kingdom and Poland should stimulate...

Canadian clinicians must be aware of new standards of care resulting from national clinical practice guidelines, both to ensure best practice1,2 and to avoid malpractice litigation.3,4 Clinical practice guidelines can reduce successful malpractice actions through physician education and they may be used in court as evidence that the standard of car...

Objective: To develop guidance for clinicians participating in the informed choice process with respect to the donation of human embryos for research purposes. Recommendations: 1. As indicated in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Guidelines and the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, specific consent from both the gamete and embryo provide...

Objectif : Offrir des conseils aux cliniciens qui participent au processus de choix éclairé en ce qui a trait au don d'embryons humains à des fins de recherche. Recommandations 1. Comme le stipulent les lignes directrices des Instituts de recherche en santé du Canada et la Loi sur la procréation assistée, le consentement explicite tant des donneurs...

Achieving gender equity in clinical trials requires that women be included in sufficient numbers to carry out analysis, that sub-sample analyses be performed, and that results be communicated in such a way as to expand medical knowledge, inform policy decisions, and educate patients. In this article, we examine the extent to which Canada promotes g...

Achieving gender equity in clinical trials requires that women be included in sufficient numbers to carry out analysis, that sub-sample analyses be performed, and that results be communicated in such a way as to expand medical knowledge, inform policy decisions, and educate patients. In this article, we examine the extent to which Canada promotes g...

To develop guidance for clinicians participating in the informed choice process with respect to the donation of human embryos for research purposes. Recommendations: 1. As indicated in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Guidelines and the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, specific consent from both the gamete and embryo providers is required...

Achieving gender equity in clinical trials requires that women be included in sufficient numbers to carry out analysis, that sub-sample analyses be performed, and that results be communicated in such a way as to expand medical knowledge, inform policy decisions, and educate patients. In this article, we examine the extent to which Canada promotes g...

Through Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, embryos created by IVF are selected for transfer to a woman based on particular characterisations, including the presence of genetic markers or a tissue match for a sibling. In this paper we examine the precise language used in the recent policy and regulatory documents of four jurisdictions (the United Ki...

Medicine and health care generate many bioethical problems and dilemmas that are of great academic, professional and public interest. This comprehensive resource is designed as a succinct yet authoritative text and reference for clinicians, bioethicists, and advanced students seeking a better understanding of ethics problems in the clinical setting...

Caulfield and Bubela (2007) argue that the Canadian Assisted Human Reproduction Act (An Act Respecting Assisted Human Reproduction and Related Research (S.C. 2004, c.2) imposes a complete “criminal ban” on somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) that is unwarranted because, they contend, the ban was based on concerns regarding the moral status of the...

Basic concepts of prenatal screening are discussed, including the various types of analytes and protocols used to screen for neural tube defects and chromosomal abnormalities. A detailed discussion of the legal and ethical issues associated with prenatal diagnosis and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is presented.

Introduction: The past few years have seen an explosion of legislative activity around developments in genetics and assisted reproduction. In this chapter we examine recently passed legislation in Australia and Canada in the area of genetic modification technologies and reproductive genetics. We demonstrate that legislative control in this area has...

The ethical and legal obligations with respect to treating a minor can be confusing, particularly in the areas of consent to treatment, confidentiality, and parental involvement. The clinician must be aware of the appropriate course of practice when the patient is an adolescent seeking care for contraception, pregnancy, or sexually transmitted infe...

This article has 4 intents: 1. to highlight the major players and targeted consumers in the realm of private access to genetic testing and DTC advertising. 2. to canvass arguments for and against private access to commercially available genetic testing. 3. to analyze the recent DTC campaign by Myriad as an example of what may be on the horizon for...

The report directs its recommendations to the provincial and federal governments and to non-governmental bodies who can ensure that people in Ontario benefit from genetic science.

Health care providers who treat adolescents may also be required to diagnose and treat the reproductive health conditions of minor patients and to facilitate health prevention measures, including contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. Teens who do not want their parents to know about their sexual behaviour may consult a health...

This article argues that legal determinations of filiation are normative ideological constructions about how societal relations between parents and children should be ordered. They are based upon regular understandings of the relationship between biological and social facts and, as this article demonstrates, operate to create an asymmetrical relati...

Contemporary debates regarding the appropriate way to resolve custody and access disputes reflect deeply rooted conceptions of both the family and the proper relationship between the family and the state. The prevailing "best interests of the child" test and judicial presumptions favouring sole custody embody a traditional definition of the family...

In March 1993, the Department of Justice, Canada, published and circulated a public discussion paper on child custody and access. Building on the public responses generated by the 1993 paper and more recent public and political responses to the reform of federal child support law, the Department has been attempting to clarify its approach to develo...

This paper reviews the legal implications for children born as a result of assisted human reproduction (AHR). Artificial insemination, egg donation, and preconception arrangements challenge family law principles, especially with respect to the determination of who constitutes a family member. The various forms of AHR complicate the legal significan...

Public attention on embryo research has never been greater. Modern reproductive medicine technology and the use of embryos to generate stem cells ensure that this will continue to be a topic of debate and research across many disciplines. This multidisciplinary book explores the concept of a 'healthy' embryo, its implications on the health of child...