Two Indigenous women who allege they were sterilized against their will in Manitoba hospitals as recently as last year are suffering from anxiety and psychological trauma as a result, according to court documents.
The most recent case allegedly happened in 2018 at a Winnipeg hospital after a woman gave birth to her second child. The older case allegedly happened at a Brandon hospital in 1985 after a woman’s fourth birth, according to documents filed last month in Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench.
The two women’s cases are part of a proposed class-action lawsuit involving cases in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C., Yukon and the N.W.T.
“We stand in awe at their courage every day because what they’re coming forward with is certainly not easy to come forward with,” said Alisa Lombard, a lawyer who represents the women with Semaganis Worme Lombard.
“It’s very apparent that it’s being done in the best interest of the future generation of girls who deserve some protections that many other people perhaps take for granted.”
“We’re talking about women in their prime reproductive years who are rendered involuntarily sterile in 2018,” said Lomabrd.
Few specifics have been released of the alleged coerced sterilizations, though the publication ban application spells out lasting impacts the women say they’ve experienced.
The woman in the older case says she continues to experience “psychological and mental anguish,” a distrust of doctors and nurses, a loss of faith, painful changes to her menstrual cycle and a “breakdown” of her long-term relationship, according to court documents.
In the more recent case, the woman reported having “significant anxiety,” hormonal imbalances, mood swings, problems trusting people and a loss of “her sense of identity as a woman.”
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