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The Coercive Sterilization of Aboriginal Women in Canada
Abstract
This paper considers the coercive sterilization of Aboriginal women in legislated and non-legislated form in Canada. I provide an historical and materialist critique of coercive sterilization. I argue for coercive sterilization to be understood as one of many policies employed to undermine Aboriginal women, to separate Aboriginal peoples from their lands and resources, and to reduce the numbers of those to whom the federal government has obligations. I show how the effects of the sterilization of Aboriginal women, whether intended or not, are in line with past Indian policy and serve the political and economic interests of Canada.
... Sir John A. MacDonald famously stated: "We are doing all we can, by refusing food until the indians are on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense". (Daschuk, 2013;Stote, 2012). ...
... Coercive sterilization of Indigenous women occurred during the eugenics movement in the early 1900s. According to Stote (2012) (Stote, 2012). Between 1942 and1952, some of Canada's leading nutrition experts, in cooperation with various federal departments, conducted an unprecedented series of nutritional experiments and studies on Aboriginal communities and on children in IRS. ...
... Coercive sterilization of Indigenous women occurred during the eugenics movement in the early 1900s. According to Stote (2012) (Stote, 2012). Between 1942 and1952, some of Canada's leading nutrition experts, in cooperation with various federal departments, conducted an unprecedented series of nutritional experiments and studies on Aboriginal communities and on children in IRS. ...
The purpose of this paper is to enhance a nascent discussion to white settlers about how they can be active participants in reconciliation action to decolonize health care—by way of truths. I start with an examination of settler denial and settler truth-telling about Indigenous genocide, along with the deadliness of white settler health care racism, which results in embodied oppression—oppression that is the root of Indigenous inequities in the social determinants of health (SDH). White settler privilege is emphasized, including persistent impacts of Western, Eurocentric, and biomedical knowledge dominance in health care, and related suppression of Indigenous knowledge systems and healing traditions. I analyze how white settlers can engage in performing decolonization with critical perspectives on the SDH, allyship, and anti-racist, anti-oppressive health care. Although persistent white settler acts of racism, including systemic racism in health, legal, and educational systems, make reconciliation seem an impossible goal, we continue to be ethically bound to walk alongside Indigenous peoples in the Truth and Reconciliation’s Commission’s Calls to Action.
... Indeed, various groups of people, communities, and women have experienced patterns of coercive sterilization, including trans* people (Lowik, 2018), people with intellectual disabilities (Dyck, 2013;Rowlands & Jean-Jacques, 2019), racialized women (Novak et al., 2018;Stern, 2005), Indigenous women (Boesten, 2007;Carpio, 2004;Grekul et al., 2004;O'Sullivan, 2016;Stote, 2012Stote, , 2015, women living in poverty (Park & Radford, 2013;Schoen, 2001), women living with HIV/AIDS (Chingore-Munazvo et al., 2017;Durojaye, 2018;Kendall & Albert, 2015), and women who are incarcerated (Roth & Ainsworth, 2015). Healthcare providers have also engaged a range of coercive practices related to sterilization (Brault et al., 2016;Erviti et al., 2010), abortion (Cuca & Rose, 2016), and birth control (Abarbanell, 2020;Guerra-Reyes et al., 2021;Logan et al., 2021) in various locations. ...
... Both Indigenous peoples and women were overrepresented among the cases presented to the Alberta Eugenics Board (Grekul et al., 2004). Further, research shows that healthcare providers subjected Indigenous women in other provinces and territories to coercive sterilization (Cohen & Baskett, 1978;Stote, 2012Stote, , 2015, even without such legislation. Stote's (2015) archival research indicates that between 1928 and 1973, Indigenous women in various locations in Canada-regardless of existing sterilization acts-were subjected to coercive practices related to birth control and abortion procedures. ...
... Research specific to the Canadian context has focused on historical patterns of coercive sterilization (see, for instance, Dyck, 2013;Dyck & Lux, 2016;Stote, 2012Stote, , 2015. However, reproductive coercion is not only a problem of the past. ...
This analysis of urban Indigenous women’s experiences on the Homeland of the Métis and Treaty One (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), Treaty Four (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), and Treaty Six (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) territories illustrates that Indigenous women have recently experienced coercion when interacting with healthcare and social service providers in various settings. Drawing on analysis of media, study conversations, and policies, this collaborative, action-oriented project with 32 women and Two-Spirit collaborators demonstrated a pattern of healthcare and other service providers subjecting Indigenous women to coercive practices related to tubal ligations, long-term contraceptives, and abortions. We foreground techniques Indigenous women use to assert their rights within contexts of reproductive coercion, including acts of refusal, negotiation, and sharing community knowledge. By recognizing how colonial relations shape Indigenous women’s experiences, decision-makers and service providers can take action to transform institutional cultures so Indigenous women can navigate their reproductive decision-making with safety and dignity.
... Forced and coerced sterilization is one example of colonial violence towards Indigenous women and is the focus of this paper. In Canada, thousands of tubal ligation and hysterectomy procedures have been performed on Indigenous women since the rise of the eugenics movement in the early 1900s (Stote 2012(Stote , 2019. Not only were these procedures supported by eugenically guided policies, but recent investigations reveal sterilization procedures con tinue to be pushed onto Indigenous women using coercive and manipulative tactics (Dhaliwal 2019;Rao 2019;Stote 2012). ...
... In Canada, thousands of tubal ligation and hysterectomy procedures have been performed on Indigenous women since the rise of the eugenics movement in the early 1900s (Stote 2012(Stote , 2019. Not only were these procedures supported by eugenically guided policies, but recent investigations reveal sterilization procedures con tinue to be pushed onto Indigenous women using coercive and manipulative tactics (Dhaliwal 2019;Rao 2019;Stote 2012). ...
... Sexual Sterilization Acts were passed in Alberta (1928-1972) and in British Columbia (1933-1973; this legislation allowed the forced sterilization of Indigenous women in these provinces (Boyer and Bartlett 2017;Dyck and Lux 2016). These Acts enabled the appointed eugenics board to assess and determine the mental capacity of women and subsequently order a tubal ligation procedure if deemed "mentally defective"; after an amendment to The Act in 1937, consent from the patient was no longer required (Fabre and Schreiber 2017;Stote 2012). The transfer of land from Indigenous women to federal or provincial bodies could also be determined by the board if an individual was deemed "mentally incompetent" (Stote 2012). ...
This brief, yet current, commentary discusses the way eugenically guided policies, like the Sexual Sterilization Acts in Alberta (1928–1972) and British Columbia (1933–1973), have impacted Indigenous women’s reproductive healthcare in Canada. Indigenous women from Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Northwest Territories, and Saskatchewan have reported they were coerced into having tubal ligation procedures by their healthcare providers, the most recent account occurring in 2018. These procedures fit the definition of genocide according to the United Nations, and a form of torture as defined by the Criminal Code of Canada. This paper includes an analysis of the legislated and non-legislated policies which aim to control Indigenous women’s reproductive rights and discusses the action the Indigenous community has taken to fight back against racist policies and practices within government and healthcare using activism, storytelling, and a class action lawsuit. The article closes with multilevel recommendations moving forward.
... The eugenics movement allowed government to control which women were able to reproduce. Typically, women in the upper and middle classes were encouraged to reproduce, while women who were poor or marginalized were targeted (Stote, 2012). For example, in 1928, Alberta enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act that disproportionately, if not exclusively, targeted Indigenous women (Grekul et al., 2004). ...
... The provider must ensure that the consenting individual understands what has been explained to them and that they are aware that they are the main voice in the decisionmaking process, ultimately determining their own medical course of action (Evans, 2016). costs associated with the implementation of necessary public health measures (Stote, 2012). After all, it is far more economical to sterilize Indigenous women than to invest in the improvement of social determinants of health within Indigenous communities (Stote, 2012). ...
... costs associated with the implementation of necessary public health measures (Stote, 2012). After all, it is far more economical to sterilize Indigenous women than to invest in the improvement of social determinants of health within Indigenous communities (Stote, 2012). These poorer social determinants of health were directly linked to colonialism and expropriation of Indigenous lands. ...
Between 2015 and 2019, over 100 Indigenous women from six provinces and two territories have come forward to say that they were forced or coerced to undergo a sterilization procedure in Canada. Despite this, government action is lacking. Through this paper, the research team aims to collect and synthesize the recommendations that have been made in response to the recent cases of forced or coerced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada. Through a secondary analysis of data, we outline the findings of a thematic analysis of 162 recommendations from four selected sources: (a) Tubal Ligation in the Saskatoon Health Region: The Lived Experience of Aboriginal Women, an external review by Senator Yvonne Boyer and Dr. Judith Bartlett, July 22, 2017; (b) a meeting of the Senate Committee on Human Rights, April 3, 2019; (c) meetings of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health, June 13 and 18, 2019; and (d) a letter from Bill Casey, Member of Parliament and Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health, to three federal ministers, August 2, 2019. Seven themes emerged following the thematic analysis of the 162 recommendations: (a) Services and Supports (b)Accountability, (c) Training and Education, (d) Legislation and Policy, (e) Criminalization, (f) Data Collection, and g) Investigation. These themes represent seven areas where immediate government action is required to meaningfully and appropriately respond to the recent cases of forced or coerced sterilization of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis women in Canada.
... Politicians, healthcare, professionals, demographers and economists have consistently maintained a common narrative that characterizes Indigenous fertility as too high and required to be controlled, constrained, and brought into line with Eurocentric norms. High Indigenous fertility has been identified as a problem since systematic record keeping began in the twentieth century (Dyck and Lux 2016;Romaniuc 2003;Stote 2012), and this has resulted in a wide variety of colonial interventions into the reproductive lives of Indigenous peoples (Stote 2015). These interventions are not relegated to the distant past but continue to occur and mar the lives of Indigenous nations, as was highlighted most recently by the sterilization of Indigenous women in Saskatchewan (Boyer and Bartlett 2017). ...
... State and medical actors have consistently maintained the necessity of reducing the rate of Indigenous fertility, often by coercive means if necessary. For example, Karen Stote (2012Stote ( , 2015 and Boyer and Bartlett (2017) record at length the efforts of public actors from 1920 to 1980 to forcibly sterilize Indigenous women across Canada. These acts were not merely racist in intent but were situated within a discourse that justified coercive sterilization as a quasi-humanitarian act designed to alleviate poverty and enable Canada to focus its development dollars more efficiently on growing the economy. ...
The dominant Canadian narrative of Indigenous fertility has been told largely from the perspective of non-Indigenous Canadians. Politicians, healthcare professionals, demographers, and economists consistently characterize Indigenous fertility as too high and required to conform to Eurocentric norms. This has resulted in a wide variety of colonial interventions into the reproductive lives of Indigenous peoples. This article will provide a brief overview of the ways in which mainstream Canadian society has characterized Indigenous fertility and explore the subjugated discourse practiced by Indigenous nations in Canada regarding their own fertility, highlighted by original research conducted with Anishinaabe people in Thunder Bay.
... The BC Sexual Sterilization Act also cited industrial, now termed residential schools (federally funded, segregated schools for Indigenous children which are now known to be sites of genocide), as qualified locations for the assessment of intellectual disability, one of the diagnoses considered to be an indication for sterilisation under the Act. There is also evidence that sterilisation was carried out on Indigenous women from 32 different northern settlements in the 1970s (Stote, 2012). It is estimated that in 1976, 26% of all Inuit women between the ages of 30 and 50 in Igloolik, Nunavut, were sterilised (Boyer & Bartlett, 2017). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to draw attention to the global infringement of reproductive rights of Indigenous and racialised Peoples.
Design/methodology/approach
Narrative literature review. Description and comparative analysis of examples of forced sterilisation.
Findings
Large-scale sterilisation campaigns were identified in three different regions of the world: North America, Latin America and Europe. Within these, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous and racialised Peoples have been forcibly sterilised as part of state-sponsored procedures, predominantly aimed at women and gestating people. These abuses are continuing in the 21st century and have origins in “racial science” theory. The exact nature of the abuses is identified alongside the long-term health and wellbeing implications. Professional attitudes and behaviours that condoned such practices within healthcare settings are identified. The psychological, social and cultural impact of such practices, including on Indigenous body sovereignty and self-determination, are demonstrated.
Practical implications
These are twofold: firstly to eradicate any future practice of forced sterilisation and secondly to provide reparations to those affected.
Originality/value
The analysis brings together scholarship from Indigenous studies alongside that of health and social sciences.
... It is with this understanding that I offer a brief explanation of the European eugenics movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Eugenic ideologies emerged from the belief that the social ills of a society-poverty, illness, and social problems generally-were a result of the innate traits of the poor rather than as consequences of social organization (Stote, 2012). This belief led to a practice referred to as ' selective reproduction,' or the regulation of human reproduction as a method to improve the capacities of humans by "allowing differential reproduction of superior people to prevail over those designated as inferior" (Ralstin-Lewis, 2005, p.74). ...
This paper explores how the colonial construction of Indigenous women as ‘unfit’ mothers of ‘inferior’ status justifies state interference in their lives, perpetuates other harmful stereotypes within the public consciousness and blames Indigenous mothers for their life conditions. Sterilization is but one weapon used by the Canadian state to violate Indigenous women’s right to reproductive autonomy, both historically and at present. Recent Canadian reports investigate Indigenous women’s claims to forced tubal ligation procedures and how coercion within colonial institutions stripped them of their power and identity through the removal of choice. Multiple class-action lawsuits are currently underway in Canada, where the voices of Indigenous women who have suffered the intergenerational impacts of colonialism in their daily lives and at the hands of western medical institutions are demanding justice and recognition of their basic human rights. Despite at least five generations of state-directed violence against them, Indigenous mothers continue to resist colonization of their bodies, land, and communities. Through reconnecting to their past, present, and future, Indigenous mothers are remembering their inherent roles and responsibilities as mothers of the nation. They have never forgotten their power nor their role as protectors of their people. They have always resisted. I aim to amplify the voices of Indigenous women in a country that has silenced them for too long and acknowledge that I by no means am interpreting their work through my point of view – I am giving them the space they deserve.
... communities in Canada are incredibly diverse yet face a shared history of colonization (Wuttunee et al., 2019) that has attacked intersectional ways of being, including targeting the roles of women and the sacredness of Two Spirit people (Clark, 2016). Examples include the 1867 Indian Act, which privileges patrilineal descent (Harper, 2016), the enforcement of Christian gender ideologies within residential schools (Wuttunee et al., 2019), and the forced sterilization of Indigenous women (Stote, 2012). These genocidal practices targeted Indigenous women because their ability to produce and nurture future generations threatens the colonial project (de Finney, 2015;Lavell-Harvard & Brant, 2016;Smith, 2005). ...
The 2019 National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls called on educators at all levels to raise awareness about the phenomenon of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people (MMIWG2S) and its root causes as connected to centuries of colonial violence and ongoing systemic discrimination. This article responds to that call by showcasing the experiences of eight teachers already teaching about MMIWG2S, the recommendations of 11 adolescent Indigenous girl activists, and the guidance provided in the Their Voices Will Guide Us teaching and learning guide, published alongside the National Inquiry’s final report. We draw upon the combined perspectives to encourage teachers in Canada to address the issue of MMIWG2S with their students, moving past representations of colonial violence as historical to examining how it affects the lives and deaths of far too many Indigenous people in Canada today.
... From the mid-1970s, reports have emerged that the Canadian government was encouraging increased sterilization of Indigenous women at federally operated hospitals using the most perfunctory forms of consent. 84 In 2015, these stories re-emerged. In Saskatoon, reports broke of pressure being placed upon Indigenous mothers to undergo sterilization after giving birth. ...
This article places the landmark 1986 Supreme Court of Canada decision E. (Mrs.) v. Eve within its avowedly anti-eugenic context. Then it compares the trial record and appellate documents of Eve to the notorious 1927 American case Buck v. Bell . It outlines the legal reasoning of the Eve decision, its reception, and the different trajectories of law in the US, the UK, and Australia. These multiple points of historical comparison expose a series of unresolved eugenic continuities in the politics of youth, sex, and disability. The interpretation challenges more conventional definitions, periodization, and understandings of eugenics, drawing attention to the formation of "liberal" eugenics in the late twentieth century.
... However, a third group consisting of defectives born in Canada could not be deported and, therefore required a different approach to manage (Strange & Stephen, 2010). Eugenicists in Canada during the 1920s began debating sexual sterilization along with immigration control and deportation of undesirables as part of a larger amalgam of eugenic policies that targeted the mental defectives to ensure the production of a prosperous Canadian future rooted in the privileging of narrow and highly gendered conceptions of whiteness, racial purity, and fear of racial mixing (Brownlie, 2006;Pitsula, 2013;Quesnel, 2021;Stote, 2012Stote, , 2015. However, sexual sterilization was itself controversial as a method to deal with the reproductive capacities of mental defectives and only gained substantial and prolonged implementation in Alberta where its program expanded in the late 1930s (Dack, 2020;Strange & Stephen, 2010;Wahlsten, 2020). ...
From 1929 until 1972, the Alberta Eugenics Board (the Board) recommended that 4,739 individuals be sterilized. The original 1928 act that legalized eugenic sterilization stipulated that the surgery itself required the consent of the individual or their caregiver; however, in 1937, the Alberta government removed the consent requirement for such cases where the Board determined individual patients to be “mental defectives.” By analyzing published reports, case histories, medical journals, and primary sources from the Board, we situate the concept of “mental defective” in a historical context to clarify the Board’s diagnostic process. By analyzing how the Board found individuals to be “mental defectives,” we challenge a previous historiographic assumption that intelligence tests played a critical or defining role in this diagnostic process. We argue that the notion of the “mental defective” used by the Board had a long history before the advent of intelligence testing and eugenic thought. This history helps to explain how and why the Board relied extensively on the broader examination of behavior, social status, and physical appearance as core evidence in the diagnosis of “mental defect.” Intelligence tests were certainly important as they shed light on an individual’s academic ability. However, this alone was only one part of “mentality.” Defects of mentality were understood to be broad and multifactorial, and included difficult, if not impossible, to measure attributes such as personality, emotionality, and morality. Further research should incorporate the concept of mentality in the history of psychology, testing, and eugenics.
... Where the "past harms" of colonization are more commonly acknowledged and documented within the Canadian state (CBC Newsworld, 2008), the current colonial relationship and structural and systemic manner by which Indigenous people continue to be colonized are categorically ignored. This ongoing colonial violence within the Canadian state is reflected in wide-scale boil-water advisories across reserves (Arsenault et al., 2018), thousands of unmarked graves of Indigenous children forced into residential schools (McKenzie, 2021), exponentially high rates of Indigenous children in child welfare and foster care systems (Blackstock, 2019), the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit+ people (NIMMIWG, 2019), economically starved communities (Leonard, et al., 2020), forced migrations to cities (Lampron & Chartrand, 2020), coercive and forced sterilization (Stote, 2012), and negligent or lack of available healthcare (Denny, 2020) -all in addition to the high rates of imprisonment. ...
... The most essential such elements are indicators of First Nations and Metis identity and status. During the 2016 Census, nearly one out of every six Saskatchewanians selfidentified as indigenous-10.7 percent self-identified as First Nations and an additional 5.4 percent self-identified as Metis-and the indigenous population is growing much faster than the non-indigenous population, yet informants who deliver services in predominately indigenous communities and who conduct research into population health disparities reported that they cannot confidently identify indigenous persons due to incomplete data collection, partial self-reporting, inaccurate address assignment, and the lack of connectivity between federal and provincial systems (Saskatchewan, 2017f;Winiewski, 2017 (Moore, 2018;Stote, 2012;Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015). ...
State-level unemployment and Medicaid enrollment; The seasonality of Medicaid enrollment; State population health monitoring
... La doctrine eugéniste est implantée depuis longtemps dans l'Hexagone, où elle a par exemple inspiré les politiques natalistes de l'État français dans l'entre-deuxguerres, pour notamment préserver « l'hygiène raciale » de la nation (Read, 2012). Rappelons enfin que la France ne serait pas le premier État colonial à encourager voire contraindre à la prise de contraceptif ou stériliser des populations colonisées et racisées (Hartmann, 2013 ;Stote, 2011 ;Vezina, 2010). ...
Les milliers d’avortements et de stérilisations forcés pratiqués sur des Réunionnaises à la fin des années 1960 sont le point de départ de l’ouvrage de Françoise Vergès Le ventre des femmes, qui relève le double standard de la politique française en matière de fécondité et en explore les causes. Bien qu’elle les évoque indirectement, Vergès ne mobilise pas les doctrines de population pour expliquer les politiques démographiques différenciées de l’État français. Le présent article a pour objet de les convoquer afin de pousser plus loin l’analyse et questionner de quelles doctrines de population ces politiques relèvent-elles et dans quelle mesure sont-elles instrumentalisées.
... L'eugénisme est instrumentalisé pour justifier le génocide au nom de la réalisation d'une « race supérieure » (McLaren, 1990, p. 1) exempte des faiblesses génétiques qui affligent les non-Blancs et les non-élites (Strange et Stephen, 2010). Pour les peuples autochtones comme pour les personnes handicapées, les mouvements eugénistes ont tenté de mettre fin aux capacités de régénération par la stérilisation forcée (Grekul, Krahn et Odynak, 2004;Stote, 2012). Depuis le début des années 1900, les provinces canadiennes ont maintenu des politiques fondées sur l'eugénisme qui ciblaient les populations marginalisées, telles que les communautés autochtones, handicapées et noires, avec des procédures de stérilisation médicalement forcée pendant ou après l'accouchement, alors que la compréhension des conséquences à long terme était limitée ou inexistante (Stote, 2015). ...
Cet article explore le concept de handicap à travers la lentille des études critiques du handicap dans le but de comprendre le positionnement des ontologies autochtones dans le discours dominant des personnes handicapées au Canada. Il s’appuie sur les connaissances inhérentes des communautés autochtones (principalement anishinaabek) grâce à une intégration des connaissances émanant des récits et des relations avec les ainés autochtones, les gardiens du savoir et les membres de la communauté. Jumelées à la littérature universitaire, les perspectives autochtones illustrent les points de vue dichotomiques qui positionnent les autochtones, le plus souvent des enfants, comme étant des « personnes handicapées » au sein des établissements non autochtones, sans égard à leur désignation individuelle. Une telle catégorisation suggère que l’étiquette du handicap est une construction coloniale qui entre en conflit avec les perspectives autochtones d’appartenance à la communauté et perpétue les pratiques d’assimilation qui, à leur tour, entretiennent les préjudices coloniaux.
... In the 1930s, the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta made sterilization legal. Scholar Karen Stote's research reveals that many Indigenous people were coercively or forcibly sterilized under the pretext of them being "mentally defective" [27]. And despite the laws being phased out in the early 1970s, a recent proposed class-action lawsuit has found over one hundred reports of Indigenous women and birthing people from different Canadian provinces stating they were forcibly or coercively sterilized in the past few years, with some cases occurring as recently as 2018 [28]. ...
Background
In Canada, there has been a significant increase in the training of Indigenous doulas, who provide continuous, culturally appropriate support to Indigenous birthing people during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period. The purpose of our project was to interview Indigenous doulas across Canada in order to document how they worked through the logistics of providing doula care and to discern their main challenges and innovations.
Population/setting
Our paper analyzes interviews conducted with members of five Indigenous doula collectives across Canada, from the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of the five Indigenous doula collectives across Canada in 2020 as part of the project, “She Walks With Me: Supporting Urban Indigenous Expectant Mothers Through Culturally Based Doulas.” Interview transcripts were approved by participants and subsequently coded by the entire research team to identify key themes.
Results
Our paper examines two themes that emerged in interviews: the main challenges Indigenous doulas describe confronting when working within western systems, and how they navigate and overcome these obstacles. Specifically, interview participants described tensions with the biomedical approach to maternal healthcare and conflicts with the practice of Indigenous infant apprehension. In response to these challenges, Indigenous doulas are working to develop Indigenous-specific doula training curricula, engaging in collective problem-solving, and advocating for the reformation of a grant program in order to fund more Indigenous doulas.
Conclusions
Both the biomedical model of maternal healthcare and the crisis of Indigenous infant apprehension renders Canadian hospitals unsafe and uncomfortable spaces for many Indigenous birthing people and their families. Indigenous doulas are continually navigating these challenges and creatively and concertedly working towards the revitalization of Indigenous birthing care. Indigenous doula care is critical to counter systemic, colonial barriers and issues that disproportionately impact Indigenous families, as well as recentering birth as the foundation of Indigenous sovereignty and community health.
... Historically, this relationship was reflected in the practices of enslavement, reserves, assimilation and genocide. Today, it is a part of a colonial pattern found in citizenship and immigrations laws (Thobani, 2007), sterilization practices (Stote, 2012), child welfare apprehensions (Blackstock, 2007) and imprisonment -all carceral institutions and techniques that continue to intervene in the lives of targeted populations and disrupt connections to people, place and land. ...
... However, reproductive violence is not just a thing of the past in Canada. Legislated and non-legislated coerced sterilizations were and are currently used as a form of mass birth control for Black, Indigenous, and people of colour, as well as LGBTQ2SIA+ people [9,22,[31][32][33][34][35]. In 2017, a class action lawsuit was launched by Indigenous women in Saskatchewan who reported experiences of coerced and forced sterilization [36]. ...
Background
Advancements in assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and policy development have enabled more people to have biologically related children in Canada. However, as ART continues to focus on infertility and low fertility of heterosexual couples, ART access and research has been uneven towards meeting the reproductive needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, two-spirit, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQ2SIA +) people. Furthermore, experiences of reproduction are impacted by intersectional lived realities of race, gender, sexuality, and class. This commentary utilizes a reproductive justice (RJ) framework to consider reproductive access for LGBTQ2SIA + Black, Indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC), while simultaneously engaging through a critical lens RJ has on ART. An RJ framework considers the constitutive elements of reproductive capacity and decision making that are not often at the forefront of reproductive health discussions. Additionally, this commentary discusses reproductive rights violations and reproductive violence such as coerced and forced sterilizations that have and are currently occurring in Canada. This article considers systems of access and structures of regulation that seek to control the reproductive capacities of marginalized communities, while empowering accessibility and upholding white supremacy and heteronormativity. In thinking through research and access in ART, who are ART users and whose reproduction is centered in research and access in Canada?
Conclusion
A reproductive justice framework is urgently needed to address inequities of sexual and reproductive health access in Canada.
... Historically, this relationship was reflected in the practices of enslavement, reserves, assimilation and genocide. Today, it is a part of a colonial pattern found in citizenship and immigrations laws (Thobani, 2007), sterilization practices (Stote, 2012), child welfare apprehensions (Blackstock, 2007) and imprisonment -all carceral institutions and techniques that continue to intervene in the lives of targeted populations and disrupt connections to people, place and land. ...
... Medical malpractice and scientific racism still plague modern medicine today. In 2020, aboriginal women in Canada and women detained at the US border were subjected to involuntary sterilization [44][45][46]. These extreme events are not the sole example of contemporary malpractice. ...
This study investigates the associations between three forms of discrimination, race and ethnicity, general medical mistrust, health-specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, and adherence to COVID-19 protective behaviors. Participants (n = 963) completed an online survey during May 2020, when stay-at-home orders and other government mandates were implemented in many states. Results indicate that everyday discrimination and healthcare discrimination were associated with significantly higher general medical mistrust, and healthcare discrimination and structural discrimination were associated with higher endorsement of health-specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. Higher endorsement of health-specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, but not general medical mistrust, was associated with significantly lower engagement in health-specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. This study helps to contextualize racial health disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread impact of everyday, structural, and healthcare discrimination in society.
... Family planning programs had been globally initiated as means to address concerns primarily relevant to demographic and economic development (Kaler, 2009;RamaRao & Jain, 2015;Stote, 2012). For example, in Asia, the main motive to promote family planning was to control population growth as an essential component of economic success and modernization (Cleland et al., 2006). ...
China's family planning policy has historically silenced the voices of women, especially unwed single mothers at the expense of their reproductive health and overall wellbeing. Further, reproductive decisions in China are closely intertwined with marriage decisions and intergenerational dynamics, highlighting the relevance of gender in women's reproductive health experiences. Chinese unwed single mothers are in particular penalized for violating the gendered social norms supported by the national reproductive policies. Drawing on previous work that calls on the need to explore gender system and its influence on health, this manuscript explores the ways in which gender norms are played out for the unwed single mothers within romantic and intergenerational relations, with impacts on their reproductive health and decision‐making. The findings show that reproductive decisions are interwoven with the fulfilment of other gendered identities, such as daughter, daughter‐in‐law and wife. Although the decision to go through unwed motherhood is reflective of their agency, the tie between childbirth and marriage does not allow the women to entirely break free from the social system. The findings also highlight the importance of considering the role of gender system that is played out within social relations, which in turn impacts the health of the women.
... We also acknowledge that forced sterilisation, forced abortion and forced pregnancy have historically been perpetrated (and in some cases, still are) against women from racialized or marginalised groups. For example, studies report these behaviours in the context of colonisation [29,30], eugenics and genocide [31], as well as being forms of gender-based violence. These statesanctioned tactics, however, may be driven by different motives to those of the individual perpetrator. ...
Background
Reproductive coercion and abuse (RCA) is a hidden form of violence against women. It includes behaviours intended to control or dictate a woman’s reproductive autonomy, for the purpose of either preventing or promoting pregnancy.
Main text
In this commentary, we argue that there is a lack of conceptual clarity around RCA that is a barrier to developing a robust evidence base. Furthermore, we suggest that there is a poor understanding of the way that RCA intersects with other types of violence (intimate partner violence; sexual violence) and—as a result—inconsistent definition and measurement in research and healthcare practice. To address this, we propose a new way of understanding RCA that centres perpetrator intent and the presence of fear and/or control. Recommendations for future research are also discussed.
Conclusion
We suggest that IPV and SV are the mechanisms through which RCA is perpetrated. In other words, RCA cannot exist without some other form of co-occurring violence in a relationship. This has important implications for research, policy and healthcare practice including for screening and identification of women in reproductive healthcare settings.
... Examples include: early twentieth-century eugenics programs aimed at "race betterment" (in Canada, see McLaren 1990; in the United States, see Engs 2000;2003, 275-78); 20 the destruction of neighborhoods deemed "unsanitary" (e.g.,. Bacher [1993] 21 and Swope [2018] 22 ); coerced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada (Stote 2012); and child apprehension policies regarding mixed-raced Aboriginal children in Australia (McGregor 1997). These policies were considered, at the time, to be progressive public health reforms. ...
... Indigenous nations with complex and varied systems of kinship and social organization (Arvin, Tuck & Morrill, 2013;Million, 2013); the Indian Act, which in its much amended version continues to govern the lives of Indigenous people in Canada, including the ways in which Indian status is passed down (Barker, 2008;Lawrence, 2009;Million, 2013;); the Indian Residential School system; official sterilization programs in Alberta and British Columbia, as well as non-official sterilization practices in other provinces (Stote, 2012); widespread sexual violence which continues to the present day (Million, 2013); and lastly (although the list could continue) the child welfare system, which in the nineteen sixties began to remove children from Indigenous families in huge numbers, a phenomenon known as the 'sixties scoop' (Salmon, 2011). ...
This paper contemplates the absence of Indigenous perspectives within autism discourse in Canada, despite increasing concern and surveillance over a growing autism ‘epidemic.’ I posit that the simultaneous production of a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) ‘epidemic’ among Indigenous populations contributes to this absence. Taking a genealogical approach to the emergence of FASD as a diagnostic framework, I situate the FASD ‘epidemic’ and subsequent prevention campaigns within a lineage of biopolitical strategies aimed at limiting the reproductive agency of Indigenous women. I argue that this phenomenon has two main consequences: first, the erasure of Indigenous autistics and a homogenization of Indigenous neurodiversity; and second, I claim that the association of FASD with Indigeneity converts the violent outcomes of settler colonialism into an embodied pathology, working to justify ongoing dispossession of land and resources from Indigenous people.
... (McLaren, 1990, p. 1) free of the genetic inadequacies that plague non-whites and non-elites (Strange & Stephen, 2010). For Indigenous and disabled peoples alike, eugenics movements attempted to end regenerative capacities through forced and coerced sterilization (Grekul, Krahn, & Odynak, 2004;Stote, 2012). From the early 1900s, Canadian provinces maintained eugenicsbased policies that targeted marginalized populations, such as Indigenous, disabled, and Black communities, through medically enforced sterilization procedures during or after childbirth, with limited or no understanding of long-term consequences (Stote, 2015). ...
This paper explores the concept of disability through a critical disability lens to understand how Indigenous ontologies are positioned within the dominant discourse of disabled peoples in Canada. This paper draws on the inherent knowledge of Indigenous (predominantly Anishinaabek) communities through an integration of story and relational understandings from Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers, and community members. Indigenous perspectives paired with academic literature illustrate the dichotomous viewpoints that position Indigenous peoples, most often children, as ‘disabled’ within mainstream institutions, regardless of individual designation. Such positioning suggests that the label of disability is a colonial construct that conflicts with Indigenous perspectives of community membership and perpetuates assimilation practices which maintain colonial harm.
... 20 Such views were commonly shared in contexts of post-colonial states, where Indigenous peoples were regarded as a problematic population who prevented states' modernization processes. 21 In the struggles of Taita Matildo my father noticed these dynamics of class, ethnicity, and language. And, it further made the little boy motivated to pursue his studies. ...
... As well, outside the walls of institutions, colonialism and medicalization interlocked in other eugenic projects, such as sexual sterilization, increasing the vulnerability of Indigenous Peoples with cognitive disabilities from the Northwest Territories housed in institutions of the south. For example, from 1969For example, from -1972 in Alberta, First Nations people accounted for 25% of patients sterilized through the Sexual Sterilization Act, despite only representing 3% of the province's population (Stote, 2012). Together, these factors contributed to an especially violent and painful experience of southern institutionalization for Indigenous Peoples from the north with cognitive disabilities, who not only faced significant geographical separation, but also cultural repression and greater levels of subjugation, isolation, and attempted erasure (Roman et al., 2009). ...
This research traces colonialism and neoliberalism as foundational architecture to health policy in Canada that seeks to erase Indigeneity and disability and secure the dominance of a White settler able-bodied state. This is accomplished through critical analysis of the Residential Southern Placement Program, a health policy from the Northwest Territories, Canada. Residential Southern Placements are contractual agreements made between the Northwest Territories Department of Health and Social Services and service agencies from southern provinces to provide care to territorial residents with a disability whose needs—according to the Department of Health and Social Services—cannot be met within the territory. We explore how the ostensibly neutral health policy Residential Southern Placements becomes enacted as a violent intervention of erasure that specifically targets Indigenous adults and children with cognitive disabilities –as evidenced through data collected by a Freedom of Information Request-through long-term and, at times, lifelong dislocation from families, communities, and land. In this analysis we position the Residential Southern Placement Program as an intervention that aims to uphold and safeguard a White settler able-bodied vision of Canadian society. This research highlights an ongoing colonial practice with important implications for disability studies and Indigenous health researchers.
... We also acknowledge that forced sterilisation, forced abortion and forced pregnancy have historically been perpetrated (and in some cases, still are) against women from racialized or marginalised groups. For example, studies report these behaviours in the context of colonisation (24,25), eugenics and genocide (26)). These state-sanctioned tactics, however, may be driven by different motives to those of the individual perpetrator. ...
Background: Reproductive coercion and abuse (RCA) is a hidden form of violence against women. It includes behaviours intended to control or dictate a woman's reproductive autonomy, for the purpose of either preventing or promoting pregnancy. Main text: In this commentary, we argue that there is a lack of conceptual clarity around RCA that is a barrier to developing a robust evidence base. Furthermore, we suggest that there is a poor understanding of the way that RCA intersects with other types of violence (intimate partner violence; sexual violence) and-as a result-inconsistent definition and measurement in research and practice. To address this, we propose a new way of understanding RCA that centres perpetrator intent and the presence of fear and control. Recommendations for future research are also discussed. Conclusion: We suggest that IPV and SV are the mechanisms through which RCA is perpetrated. In other words, RCA cannot exist without some other form of co-occurring violence in a relationship. This has important implications for research, policy and practice including for screening and identification of women in reproductive healthcare settings.
... Although psychology is not unique in this regard, as many other professions are also implicated (Mosby, 2013), this is important memory work for the discipline of psychology, in part because it is in such profound misalignment with our perceived sense of ethical practice. The memory work engaged by critical scholars (Ansloos, 2017a;Mills & Lefrançois, 2018;Stote, 2012) promotes accountability, generates increased understanding of the tenuousness of existing relationships with Indigenous communities, and sets a course for the work ahead (Dudgeon & Walker, 2015). ...
La réponse en 2018 de la Société canadienne de psychologie au sujet du rapport de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada (2015) a attiré l’attention sur les différentes façons dont la psychologie pourrait mieux répondre aux besoins des collectivités autochtones, en particulier par l’éducation et la formation professionnelle. À ce jour, pratiquement aucune recherche canadienne n’a étudié la possibilité d’associer la formation professionnelle en psychologie avec les collectivités autochtones. Le présent article examine cette question du point de vue des psychologues autochtones qui travaillent en tant qu’universitaires praticiens dans le cadre de programmes de deuxième cycle de formation professionnelle en psychologie. Par l’intermédiaire de leurs réflexions décrites à la première personne, les auteurs définissent les possibilités et les principaux défis liés à la formation professionnelle en psychologie parmi les Autochtones ainsi que les changements nécessaires pour faire progresser ce segment de la population dans le domaine. Enfin, l’étude présente divers paradigmes qui sont susceptibles d’aider les Autochtones à répondre à leurs besoins en formation professionnelle en psychologie.
... While the above examples refer to historic examples of dispossession, it is important to note that the impact of these and other policies and regulations related to Canada's colonial agenda continue to be felt across Indigenous communities today, as communities struggle with the impacts of forced sterilization (Pegoraro, 2015;Stote, 2012), murdered and missing women and girls (Palmater, 2016;Pearce, 2013), the legacies of industrial development (Huseman and Short, 2012;Yakovleva, 2011) and many other health inequities whose roots lie entirely in their experiences of colonialism and environmental dispossession (Adelson, 2005). ...
The land is critically important for the health of Indigenous peoples, as it is the place where Indigenous Knowledge originates to form strong and healthy relationships. In the wake of unprecedented processes of environmental dispossession, Indigenous communities around the world are revitalizing the land-based cultural practices and knowledge systems that have kept them strong and healthy. For the first time in a century, Biigtigong Nishnaabeg canoed the length of the Biigtig Ziibii (Pic River). With a greater purpose of reclaiming places (e.g., mountains, rivers, portages) along the route in Anishinabemoen (the Ojibway language) and restoring community history of the river and its meanings, this canoe journey was also developed to restore land-based learning about healthy relationships and mino bimadisiwin, or "the good life". Four adults and five youth participated in this journey. Framed theoretically by the concept of environmental repossession, this paper examined participants' perceptions (n = 9) of the canoe journey, with emphasis placed on the ways in which it fostered health and well-being. Specifically, this canoe trip supported spaces for learning and practice of Indigenous Knowledge, nurturing of social relationships and, stronger connections to the land. Participants defined the canoe journey as an important space for sharing intergenerational and ancestral understandings of Indigenous Knowledge, and for broadening understandings of the land as part of the community's history, culture and well-being. As other communities search for ways to both assert their Indigenous rights and identity, this case provides an important example to build from.
... Pakistan's family planning program has reflected the rhetoric and mandate of the global population apparatus, with its emphasis on controlling population growth as an essential component of economic success and modernization (Hakim and Miller, 2001). This rhetoric reflects the history of family planning programs globally which were initiated as means to manage concerns related to geopolitics, economic development, and eugenics (Greene, 1999;Kaler, 2009;Schoen, 2005;Stote, 2012). Foreign support, moreover, has continued to play a pivotal role in paying for and shaping family planning programming in Pakistan (Population Council & Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2016;A. ...
As the population of Pakistan has increased beyond 200 million, it is evident that the country's family planning program has been unable to sufficiently expand contraceptive use. To understand the obstacles, researchers have tended to focus on service delivery failures, ‘cultural’ barriers and varying political support. However, a small body of literature documents citizen's suspicions of an ulterior motive underlying Pakistan's family planning program. Often dismissed as unfounded conspiracies, a gap in our knowledge is the role these beliefs might be playing in the failure of the program. Using a critical ethnographic approach, we conduced 242 observations of daily life, 109 informal and 197 in-depth interviews with 41 women and 35 men living in a village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Data were collected between September 2013 and April 2015 and analysed using latent content analysis. Our respondents viewed Western support for family planning as confirmation of their suspicions of the program's hidden agenda. Western military intervention in the region complicated their beliefs about the potential altruistic nature of foreign support for the family planning program. Awareness of rampant corruption among Pakistani government officials had fractured their trust in the state while contributing to the notion that the government was complicit with foreign interference. These considerations coupled with the fact that the priorities of Pakistani Family Planning program did not align with the reality of their lives contributed to the skepticism of family planning. For our respondents, resisting family planning and its ideology was a means to resist the perceived violence inflicted by the West and the complicity of the Pakistani government. These findings signal how geopolitics influence the use of family planning services. By demonstrating the importance of embedding perceptions of family planning programs in their local and global contexts, these findings suggest potential areas for future research in the field.
... Experiments were conducted without the "subjects'" informed consent or knowledge. 7 These histories of genocide resulted in contemporary intergenerational trauma and disruption of lifeways, traditional healing practices, and relationships with the land. Treaty violations created a synergistic impact, as centuries of signed agreements about the land and relationships among settlers and Indigenous Peoples' approaches to land use, were illegally ignored by settler leaders. ...
Health leaders in organizational governance have a key role in enacting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. This discussion highlights historical and contemporary truths that can underpin action for addressing colonial impacts on Indigenous (First Nations, Metis, and Inuit) health outcomes and healthcare. Emphasis is on white settler roles and responsibilities, where health-related Calls provide a blueprint for health reconciliation leadership. There is broad agreement of the necessity to acknowledge and address key cornerstones of decolonization at individual, intermediary, and organizational stages: racism, white settler power and privilege, and cultural safety. Already existing leadership roles, responsibilities, and inter-organizational networks can form a solid foundation for health leaders to bring the Calls to the table—alongside First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples, in meetings, forums, and conferences and in lobbying efforts to influence the structural, systemic shape, and direction of healthcare in Canada.
... Yet, going even further than disconnecting them from their communities, the break that comes from robbing Aboriginal women of the ability to reproduce cannot be undone, and effectively terminates the legal line of descendants able to claim Aboriginal status, thereby reducing the number of those to whom the federal government has longstanding obligations, whether these are founded in treaties, or are obligations stemming from the occupation of Aboriginal peoples' lands (Stote 2012: 139). The finality of forced sterilization permits the Canadian state to abandon its responsibilities to compensate Indigenous peoples as a result of land dispossession (Stote 2012). The effects of the act undoubtedly align with Canadian social and economic interests that were first prioritized through the Indian Act. ...
Traditional examinations of genocidal violence tend to focus on ethnic divisions and often fail to consider the impact of gender with respect to conflict. Building from the work that critical gender studies has made in post-conflict peacebuilding, this paper will look at cases that illustrate how targeting women within specific ethnic groups is an effective means of achieving genocidal goals. It will pay particular attention to the well-known events of the Rwandan genocide and draw comparisons to the legacies of the Indigenous genocide in Canada. Moreover, it will argue that the current crisis of murdered and missing Indigenous women in Canada is related to a project of genocide fuelled by settler colonialism.
... A pseudoscience, scientific racism is "the act of justifying inequalities between natural groups of people by recourse to science" (Marks, 2013, p. 445) and many negative eugenic strategies motivated by racism have been deployed in its name. For example, in the United States, "between 1970 and 1976, the Indian Hospital Service and its affiliates sterilized a dramatically high 25 to 42 percent of all Native American women of childbearing age" (Hansen & King, 2013, p. 254) and Canada has a similar history of sterilizing its Indigenous communities (Stote, 2012). Settler-colonialism and the development of nation states have been built on a foundation of eugenic ideologies focusing on Indigenous people, and then on many of the new populations being brought by force or otherwise to these countries. ...
In many jurisdictions across the world, trans people are required to undergo genital surgeries that render them infertile for the state to legally recognize their genders. This article explores the rationalities used to justify mandating the sterilization of trans people, and names these eugenic logics. Much like the negative eugenics strategies directed at people of color, Indigenous people, those with a history of incarceration and people with disabilities (among others), trans people have had their reproduction restricted under the guise of doing what is in the best interest of children. This article demonstrates how historical eugenic logics concerned with normative notions of sex, gender and sexuality linger in the laws regarding trans people's legal gender recognition. This article calls for legal gender recognition based on self-determination, where giving up one's reproductive capacity is no longer a requirement all the while recognizing that trans people are parents, desire parenthood and are not inherently bad parents simply because of their non-normative gender identities or expressions.
Reproductive coercion (RC) is a form of violence involving behavior that interferes with an individual’s contraceptive and reproductive decisions. Like other forms of violence perpetrated by intimate partners, victims of RC do not necessarily identify it as such. Similarly, victim-survivors do not readily disclose their experiences or seek support and treatment. This study identifies patterns of acknowledgment and formal and informal disclosure of RC experiences in a community sample of 317 participants. Latent classes are then compared with respect to characteristics of victims/survivors, RC consequences, and associated contexts. Participants completed measures to assess experiences of RC and violence perpetuated by intimate partners as well as social support, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and consequences for psychological and sexual health. Latent class analysis was performed to identify acknowledgment and disclosure patterns. An optimal three-class solution was selected: High unacknowledgment with ambivalence, High disclosure (41%); High acknowledgment, High disclosure (30%); and Hesitant acknowledgment, No disclosure (29%). Classes were identified according to the presence of social support, living with a disability, victimization experiences, and mental and sexual health consequences. Future studies should explore the relationship between RC acknowledgment and disclosure, which can influence victims’ search trajectories for support and services.
La pandémie de la COVID‑19 a mis en évidence l’importance de la vaccination pour prévenir des maladies infectieuses, mais également les enjeux liés à l’acceptation des vaccins par les individus et groupes ciblés par les programmes. Le concept d’ hésitation à la vaccination est désormais couramment utilisé en santé publique pour référer au fait qu’une partie de la population entretient des craintes importantes par rapport à la vaccination ; craintes qui peuvent mener à refuser ou à retarder la vaccination. L’accent important mis sur les connaissances, les croyances, les valeurs, les attitudes, les trajectoires de vie et les expériences individuelles dans les recherches sur la vaccination peut toutefois occulter l’importance des influences structurelles et socioculturelles plus larges sur les attitudes et décisions à l’égard de la vaccination. À partir d’entretiens menés au Nunavik, cet article propose donc d’explorer comment les facteurs organisationnels et historiques, les normes sociales, les valeurs et les croyances partagées à propos de l’étiologie de la COVID‑19 et à propos de l’efficacité et de la puissance des vaccins pour la prévenir, influent sur l’hésitation à la vaccination contre la COVID‑19 dans des communautés inuit.
Health professions education is a socialisation process into a privileged collectivity with a common goal of members who are competent. This chapter provides some frameworks through which research questions related to equity in health professions education can be done rigorously and with attention to the researchers' own social positioning as the research is conducted. Issues of equity, social injustice, discrimination, racism and colonising practices and epistemologies are therefore important to study in medical and health professions education. Achieving social justice is at the core of healthcare practice and health professions education needs to embrace it as an educational outcome. This chapter illustrates how different problems connected to social inequality, racism and discrimination, in the context of medical education and practice, may be the starting point for high‐quality research. Transformation happens in different layers, all relevant to achieving social justice.
In this article I explore the Khadr family through shifting Canadian news media representations and the CBC’s documentaries, “Al Qaeda’s Family” and “Out of the Shadows.” Omar Khadr and his parents, Maha Elsamnah and Ahmed Khadr, came to be framed as a “bad” Muslim family as a result of supposed failed (Muslim) parenting. I interrogate how media attach Omar Khadr’s acts of violence to orientalist images of the violent (terrorist) Muslim family, and framed Elsamnah and Ahmed Khadr as foreign and un-Canadian parents, unable and unwilling to socialize their children within the Canadian state order. When Omar Khadr was released from prison, it was only under the guidance of his white lawyer, Dennis Edney, that he could be rehabilitated and brought back into Canadian society in Canadian news media framings. In order for Khadr to be portrayed as worthy of reentering Canada, images of him practicing his religion, wearing non-Western clothing, and even speaking Arabic were subdued. It is within the images of Khadr in the Edney home, severing his relationship with his family, that the Canadian public could be reassured that Khadr would be able to reinvent himself as a Canadian citizen, a child soldier, rather than a Muslim terrorist.
Mass incarceration of Indigenous peoples is a fundamental Canadian human rights problem. One response since the 1970s has been to “Indigenize” prisons by teaching Indigenous culture and history, facilitating spirituality, involving Elders and communities in rehabilitation, and creating special prisons called “healing lodges.” Criminologist proponents of “critical prison studies” are widely dismissive of these programs, with some arguing that Indigenized programming advances cultural genocide. They are wrong. University of Alberta Prison Project researchers interviewed nearly 600 prisoners in six prisons across western Canada, of whom 40 percent self-identified as Indigenous. Respondents generally praised Indigenizing initiatives for teaching them about their history and culture and helping them feel empowered and proud of their Indigenous identity. They said the initiatives helped them feel better able to cope with colonial traumas, including residential school and foster care system experiences; created a support network between Elders and fellow prisoners; and facilitated basic religious accommodation. Respondents’ criticisms focused on prison management, particularly security restrictions and staff prejudice that can prevent access to Indigenized resources. Indigenized programming supports the dignity and religious rights of incarcerated Indigenous peoples. Participants wanted expanded, more easily accessible cultural programming.
This article argues for what the author calls a trans-mad aesthetic of space, defined as designs or artworks that embark, sense, emote, and collect, in ways that queerly disrupt the norms of the public sphere. These four aesthetic operations resist, in turn, four current affective/spatial norms of mental health treatment: confinement, rationality, repression, and an individualizing model of madness. As part of unfolding this model for a trans-mad aesthetic, the article asserts that the link between transgender and madness (as categories) is not merely one of addition—say, people who are both transgender and mad—but, rather, one of mutual constitution. To make these suggestions, the article engages an eccentric archive that includes posters that advocate transgender depathologization, Greek mythologies of gendered madness, government legislation about sexual sterilization, and psych ward design protocols. Its two key case studies, however, are artistic: Hannah Hull and James Leadbitter's “Madlove: A Designer Asylum” and the oeuvre of Montreal performance artist Coral Short.
This article examines accountability discourses in Alberta’s legislative debates on child intervention during the years 2016–19. I demonstrate that the supposedly apolitical discourse of accountability functions as a form of neoliberal and settler-colonial governmentality that reaffirms the legitimacy of settler state intervention into the pathologized Indigenous family. Using the death of Serenity in Alberta’s child intervention system in 2014, and the subsequent legislative debates surrounding her death and the lack of accountability in the child intervention system as a case study, I demonstrate that accountability as both a discourse and a mechanism moves between positioning Albertans-as-Victims, Albertans-as-Stakeholders, and, finally, Albertans-as-Responsible-Agents. Ultimately, I argue that shifting discourses of accountability, which move from governmental to societal to individual accountability, re-centre a relationship of settler possession in relation to the Indigenous Public Child, whose life and death become available for consumption by settler publics in exchange for governmental credibility and accountability.
Peru’s national health program Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar (PSRPF) aimed to uphold women’s reproductive rights and address the scarcity in maternity related services. Despite these objectives, during PSRPF’s implementation the respect for women’s rights were undermined with the forced sterilization of women predominantly of indigenous, poor, and rural backgrounds. This study considers the forced sterilization of indigenous women as a genocide. Making the case for genocide has not been done previously with this particular case. Using the normative markers of the Genocide Convention, this study categorically sets forced sterilization victims from the state-led-policy as victims of genocide, considering the effects the health malpractice had on victims’ reproductive rights and the prevention of births of future indigenous populations. In doing so, this study proves the genocidal intent from the state to destroy in whole or in part, an ethnic minority group.
Prior to the colonization of Turtle Island, Indigenous women held leadership roles within their communities. Colonization brought patriarchy and racism which attacked women’s identities. Violence toward Indigenous women and girls continues to be a tool of the colonial state while many Indigenous peoples have internalized patriarchal beliefs which manifests in the way they view women’s identities. This article argues that patriarchy may have infiltrated so-called “traditional teachings” that dictate rules about women’s participation in spiritual and cultural practices. It highlights the voices of Indigenous women who discuss this exclusion and how they are taking back their power.
Within the context of settler colonialism, this paper investigates the contemporary coerced sterilizations of Indigenous Women in Canada. By going through the history of coercive sterilizations in Canada, and then delving into the efforts in light of these supposedly historical coerced sterilizations, of culturally safe care in hospitals in Canada. This paper goes on to investigate the case of M.L.R.P., who was coercively sterilized in 2008. Lastly, this paper relates to Audre Lorde's work on the "master's tools" to the activism put forth around the case of indigenous women's coercive sterilizations highlighting again, the settler colonial contexts of these cases.
Inadequate access to anesthesia and surgical services is often considered to be a problem of low- and middle-income countries. However, affluent nations, including Canada, Australia, and the United States, also face shortages of anesthesia and surgical care in rural and remote communities. Inadequate services often disproportionately affect indigenous populations. A lack of anesthesia care providers has been identified as a major contributing factor to the shortfall of surgical and obstetrical care in rural and remote areas of these countries. This report summarizes the challenges facing the provision of anesthesia services in rural and remote regions. The current landscape of anesthesia providers and their training is described. We also explore innovative strategies and emerging technologies that could better support physician-led anesthesia care teams working in rural and remote areas. Ultimately, we believe that it is the responsibility of specialist anesthesiologists and academic health sciences centers to facilitate access to high-quality care through partnership with other stakeholders. Professional medical organizations also play an important role in ensuring the quality of care and continuing professional development. Enhanced collaboration between academic anesthesiologists and other stakeholders is required to meet the challenge issued by the World Health Organization to ensure access to essential anesthesia and surgical services for all.
Objective:
According to the SOGC Contraception Consensus, it is recommended that permanent contraception be offered to women regardless of age or parity. Many women who desire sterilization at a young age experience barriers from physicians who decline to facilitate the request.
Methods:
As part of a quality assurance project, we performed a review of cases where tubal sterilization was performed in women under 30 over a 42-month period (September 2013-March 2017). We also performed a literature review on the ethical and clinical considerations with respect to young women requesting permanent contraception.
Results:
We identified 29 women under 30 who had consented for tubal sterilization; 27.5% of women were nulliparous, and 27.5% had a medical condition for which unintended pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of adverse event. As documented in the patients' records, many women expressed prior difficulty in obtaining the procedure. Despite being informed of the risk of regret, most women proceed with the surgical procedure. Three additional women had consented and subsequently cancelled their surgical procedure.
Conclusion:
Women who are well-informed and desire permanent contraception should be offered the procedure, regardless of age or parity. Declining such requests is a form of conscientious refusal and is not a clinical decision.
This autoethnographic essay examines the complexity of reproductive storytelling. Framed around a pair of interwoven reproductive stories, and located within a reproductive justice framework, it asserts that women’s stories of fertility, pregnancy, contraception, and abortion have, both historically and in the contemporary period, been marked by silences. Such silences, the result of political, legal, social, and moral forces beyond women’s control, have limited women’s abilities to share and reflect on the intricate negotiations that have shaped their reproductive lives, and as a consequence, have also limited their capacities for telling their reproductive stories. As this article argues, all reproductive stories are complex stories. Too often, however, those complex nuances that shape women’s reproductive lives and stories remain hidden, unspoken, and secret. Making room for the intricacies of reproductive stories and storytelling can also, this article argues, offer greater nuance to continuing debates around reproductive rights and reproductive justice.
This comparative analysis of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal families uses a 1998 Cana- dian study of child maltreatment cases to identify important differences: Aboriginal fam- ilies face worse socioeconomic conditions, are more often investigated because of neglect, less often reported for physical or sexual abuse, and report higher rates of substance abuse. At every decision point in the cases, Aboriginal children are overrepresented: investiga- tions are more likely to be substantiated, cases are more likely to be kept open for ongoing services, and children are more likely to be placed in out-of-home care. Findings suggest the development of neglect intervention programs that include poverty reduction and substance misuse components.
A. R. Kaufman (1885-1979), founder of the Kitchener-based Kaufman Rubber Company, was nicknamed "Canada's Mr. Birth Control" because he established the Parents' Information Bureau (PIB)-a birth control information centre that functioned out of his factory office. Besides creating mail order/home visiting services, Kaufman also funded birth control clinics. Because he was a rubber manufacturer, it was widely believed that commercial concerns were behind his activities. This article examines recently archived material, local newspaper accounts, and court transcripts to connect A. R. Kaufman and the PIB with the manufacture of contraceptive products. It also outlines Kaufman's involvement with the eugenics movement, especially his dealings with medical practitioners who carried out sterilization procedures for the PIB.
L'A. examine l'une des composantes, souvent negligee, du mouvement des droits civiques aux Etats-Unis dans les annees 1970. Il montre comment, face au silence sur la sterilisation forcee des femmes amerindiennes, les revendications identitaires et culturelles des Amerindiens se sont exprimees egalement par la defense des droits autochtones a la reproduction biologique et a la perennite demographique des nations indiennes. A partir d'exemples concrets de femmes soumises a la sterilisation forcee, il decrit notamment le role des services sociaux et de sante dans ces operations, ainsi que les differentes actions legales, et les interventions des organisations autochtones, pour garantir le respect des droits de la femme a la libre procreation.
Wicazo Sa Review 20.1 (2005) 71-95
Women have always been the backbone and keepers of life of the indigenous nations of North America. Most precontact indigenous civilizations functioned as matriarchies, and women of those cultures did not espouse subordination to males, whether such males were Native or from the white/Euro-American culture. Considering their traditional significance in the continuation of Native cultures, it should not come as a surprise that European colonizers often targeted Native women. The assaults on Native women continue to be a goal of some descendants of these European colonizers.
Ironically, while middle-class white America applauded a newfound freedom over reproductive rights during the 1960s and 1970s, many policy makers and physicians targeted Native women for involuntary birth control and sterilization. Estimates indicate that, from the early to mid-1960s up to 1976, between 3,400 and 70,000 Native women—out of only 100,000 to 150,000 women of childbearing age— were coercively, forcibly, or unwittingly sterilized permanently by tubal ligation or hysterectomy. Native women seeking treatment in Indian Health Service (IHS) hospitals and with IHS-contracted physicians were allowed neither the basic right of informed consent prior to sterilization nor the right to refuse the operation. IHS also subjected mentally retarded Indian girls and women to a contraceptive known as DepoProvera before it received approval from the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in 1992.
From 1970 to 1980, the birthrate for Indian women fell at a rate seven times greater than that of white women. This dramatic statistic indicates that the sterilization and birth control campaign was significantly more than an attack on women in general: it was a systematic program aimed at reducing the Native population, or genocide. The United Nations recognizes prevention of births in a target group as a form of genocide. Attacks on the reproductive capacities to indigenous women in the United States continue today through the use of chemical contraceptives such as Norplant and DepoProvera. The latest threat is a new form of nonsurgical permanent sterilization known as quinacrine sterilization.
Was the IHS sterilization abuse prompted by individual racism among doctors? Were their actions a dying gasp of government-sanctioned eugenics in the United States? Or was it a reprisal for gains in indigenous sovereignty? Violations against the reproductive rights of indigenous women did not occur because of the efforts of any one individual or agency, nor can a single explanation or theory account for them. Rather, these violations resulted from sexism and racism, remnants of eugenics, population-control measures, and family-planning programs that drew large subsidies from the federal government. Complicating this situation are the unique political and social realities of indigenous peoples, who were often dependent on the federal government for health care while also demanding federal recognition of their rights to land and sovereignty.
This research examines the Native American and Euro-American cultures' differing views toward women and birth. It provides an overview of eugenics and how it used a combination of biological and racist rhetoric to justify offenses against Native women and their capacity to give birth. In addition, I assert that population-control ideas (ostensibly aimed at ending poverty) legitimated these offenses in the minds of many physicians who performed the procedures. Finally, I investigate the federal government's role in the genocide by examining evidence found in court cases, the Indian Health Service (IHS), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) records, and reports from Native American community leaders.
Traditionally, Native women held positions of esteem in tribal societies and were thought to be born with certain dispositions toward spiritual guidance, and so could offer important knowledge in many matters. As Paula Gunn Allen states, they held a responsibility to maintain the life of the tribe:
This paper argues that the pro-life versus pro-choice paradigm for understanding reproductive rights is a model that marginalizes women of color, poor women, women with disabilities, and women from other marginalized communities. The pro-life versus pro-choice paradigm serves to both reify and mask the structures of white supremacy and capitalism that undergird the reproductive choices that women make. While both camps of the pro-choice and pro-life debate give lip service to addressing the concerns of women of color, in the end the manner in which both articulate the issues at stake contributes to their support of political positions that are racist and sexist and which do nothing to support either life or real choice for women of color. Instead, women of color activists should develop alternative paradigms for articulating reproductive justice that make critiques of capitalism and criminalization central to the analysis rather than simply expand either pro-choice or pro-life frameworks.
Abstract Between 1929 and 1972, the Alberta Eugenics Board recommended that 4739 residents of the province be sterilized. However, only 60% of these individuals, 2834 in total, were ultimately sterilized since the legislation under which the Eugenics Board operated required patient consent to be obtained unless the individual recommended for sterilization was diagnosed as “mentally defective.” Women, teenagers and young adults, and Aboriginals were particularly targeted by the Alberta Eugenics Board. The Board pursued its sterilization mandate extremely aggressively and, because of a unique set of social, political and economic circumstances in the province, continued to operate long after other political jurisdictions in North America had set aside their involuntary sterilization programs.
Marx's methodology is indispensable for identifying a) the capitalist structural conditions and macro-level processes that are the foundations of the inequality between men and women in capitalist societies; and b) the limits of political and legal changes to end gender inequality. The oppression of women is the visible, observable effect (e.g., in the labor market, in so-cioeconomic stratification, the domestic division of labor, bureau-cratic authority structures, etc.) of underlying relations between men and women determined by the articulation between the capitalist mode of production, and the organization of physical and social reproduction among those who must sell their labor power to survive. Feminism, to remain relevant to the majority of women, must, therefore, acknowledge that most women are working women whose fate, and that of their families, are shaped both by gender oppression and class exploitation. S INCE THE END OF THE SOVIET UNION and the socialist bloc, capitalism has intensified its grasp over the entire world, unleash-ing processes of economic change that intensify and render in-creasingly visible the links between the fate of people in the advanced capitalist countries and the rest of the world's population. In this historical context, a return to an examination of the relevance of Marx for feminism makes sense — despite the now fashionable academic belief in its irrelevance — because, as long as capitalism remains the dominant mode of production, it is impossible fully to understand * I would like to thank Christine DiStefano and Lise Vogel for their thoughtful comments and suggestions.
In this article, the author examines the campaign leading up to the passage of the Sexual Sterilization Act in Alberta in 1928. The author asserts that the passage of this Act was the result of the influence of a few elite individuals, particularly those involved with the United Farm Women of Alberta social reform movement, and may not have been reflective of widespread favourable public sentiment. While there were serious misgivings regarding the passage of the Sexual Sterilization Act, the legislation was ultimately successful because of the pressing problems of inadequate mental facilities and budgetary constraints. The author discusses the legislation's eventual repeal in 1972 due to public denunciation of eugenic measures, concerns about liability, and the threat posed to individual liberties. This article was the winner of the William Morrow Essay Contest in 1999.
The American Indian Quarterly 24.3 (2000) 400-419
A young Indian woman entered Dr. Connie Pinkerton-Uri's Los Angeles office on a November day in 1972. The twenty-six-year-old woman asked Dr. Pinkerton-Uri for a "womb transplant" because she and her husband wished to start a family. An Indian Health Service (IHS) physician had given the woman a complete hysterectomy when she was having problems with alcoholism six years earlier. Dr. Pinkerton-Uri had to tell the young woman that there was no such thing as a "womb transplant" despite the IHS physician having told her that the surgery was reversible. The woman left Dr. Pinkerton-Uri's office in tears.
Two young women entered an IHS hospital in Montana to undergo appendectomies and received tubal ligations, a form of sterilization, as an added benefit. Bertha Medicine Bull, a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, related how the "two girls had been sterilized at age fifteen before they had any children. Both were having appendectomies when the doctors sterilized them without their knowledge or consent." Their parents were not informed either. Two fifteen-year-old girls would never be able to have children of their own.
What happened to these three females was a common occurrence during the 1960s and 1970s. Native Americans accused the Indian Health Service of sterilizing at least 25 percent of Native American women who were between the ages of fifteen and forty-four during the 1970s. The allegations included: failure to provide women with necessary information regarding sterilization; use of coercion to get signatures on the consent forms; improper consent forms; and lack of an appropriate waiting period (at least seventy-two hours) between the signing of a consent form and the surgical procedure. This paper investigates the historical relationship between the IHS and Indian tribes; the right of the United States government to sterilize women; the government regulations pertaining to sterilization; the efforts of the IHS to sterilize American Indian women; physicians' reasons for sterilizing American Indian women; and the consequences the sterilizations had on the lives of a few of those women and their families.
The IHS evolved out of various government programs designed to address the health care issues of American Indians. Under the auspices of the War Department in the early 1800s, "Army physicians took steps to curb smallpox and other contagious diseases of Indian Tribes living in the vicinity of military posts." Army physicians used vaccinations and other medical procedures to prevent both military men and the Indians they came in contact with from being infected with diseases. The first treaty that included medical services was signed between the United States and the Winnebago Indians in 1832. In 1832 Congress provided funding for Indian health care in the amount of twelve thousand dollars.
In 1849 Congress transferred the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) from the War Department to the Department of the Interior, including all health care responsibilities for American Indians. By 1875 half of the federal Indian agencies had physicians, and the BIA built the first federal hospital for Indians in Oklahoma during the late 1880s. After the turn of the century, the BIA created a separate health division and appointed district medical directors. The health division started special programs to combat tuberculosis and other diseases and established health education classes to support these programs. The Snyder Act of 1921 included congressional authorization for the BIA to provide Indian health care "for the benefit, care, and assistance of the Indians throughout the United States." The BIA contracted with the Public Health Service (PHS) in 1928 to provide sanitation engineers to investigate water and sewage problems at BIA facilities and renewed and expanded that contract through the early 1950s.
In 1955 Congress transferred total responsibility for Indian health from the Department of the Interior to the Public Health Service. The legislation stated that "all facilities transferred shall be available to meet the health needs of the Indians and that such health needs shall be given priority over that of the non-Indian population." The PHS, a division of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), formed the Division of Indian Health, which was renamed...