A new report looks at how Indigenous people who have experienced coerced or forced sterilization may be able to pursue future pregnancies.
The report by the University of Ottawa Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics and the Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice outlines the options, costs and barriers for survivors of coerced and forced sterilization to restore fertility.
The options outlined include tubal ligation reversal, in vitro fertilization (IVF), surrogacy and egg donation.
“This is an opportunity, a possibility that many may have never dreamed of being an option,” said Harmony Redsky, executive director of the Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice.
Redsky, who is from Wasauksing First Nation in Ontario, said this is just the beginning of figuring out how survivors can have families after experiencing forced or coerced sterilization.
Lack of access to services, and the lack of comfort Indigenous people feel when trying to access those services, still remain major barriers, she said.
“How many opportunities have there been to have these discussions around reproductive justice,” Redsky asked.
“When before has information on those services and treatments… been shared with them?”
Redsky said she also hopes to see progress made on this issue when it comes to the law. A bill introduced by Métis Senator Yvonne Boyer aims to criminalize sterilization done without consent.
Katy Bear, a survivor of coerced sterilization two decades ago who recently gave birth to a baby girl, was one of the co-authors of the report.
Redsky said Bear’s contributions were key to understanding the wide-ranging impacts of the issue.
The report recommends patient advocacy positions along with a list of care providers who specialize in restoring fertility and creating more cultural safety guidelines for care providers.
Bear said of the roughly 300 members of the Survivors Circle who have experienced coerced or forced sterilization, she is currently supporting about five women who hope to have a child again.
“It is [re]opening not just the traumas but it’s creating new traumas, unfortunately, to reverse what the government has done,” Bear said.
More information generally is also needed by survivors — some of whom may not even know what has happened to them, she said.
“Even I didn’t know for years and years that’s what had happened to me,” Bear said.
Additionally, survivors may be told by health-care providers that sterilizations could be easily reversed, which isn’t always the case. Issues accessing information about care, and the challenges of getting care in remote or isolated communities, can be significant barriers to survivors, according to Redsky.
On top of all those issues, the cost of reversal procedures is often high.
“Why did I have to pay $7,000 for something that I never chose,” Bear said.
The Survivors Circle has a Healing Support Fund which offers up to $30,000 for people to access reproductive technology like IVF, and up to $10,000 for other services like therapy.
“By examining costs, service availability, and the importance of cultural safety, we aim to inform evidence-based policy and health system change. Ensuring survivors have equitable access to fertility care is an essential part of reconciliation,” said University of Ottawa professor Vanessa Gruben, one of the report’s authors, in a news release.
“The Indigenous experience of the health-care system has been bleak,” said Redsky.
“There’s a lot of more work for us to do with… health-care professionals within the assisted reproductive technology services available in Canada to make sure that those cultural safeties are there.”
Bear said she hopes people will reach out to their local members of Parliament to ask them to support the bill.
