In 2005, Montreal practitioners performed a nonconsensual hysterectomy on Quebec Senator Amina Gerba, resulting in irreversible infertility. Gerba would not learn she had undergone this procedure—a clear violation of her medical rights and autonomy—until over a decade later, when, during an unrelated procedure, her gynecologist discovered she lacked a uterus. This phenomenon, known as coerced or forced sterilization, constitutes an international human rights violation and has been perpetrated against women—particularly of marginalized backgrounds—throughout Canada since the 1800s.
Despite centuries of evidence of nonconsensual hysterectomies, Canada has failed to criminalize this violating, dangerous practice. The persistence of forced sterilization testifies to how systemic anti-Blackness and colonial violence continue to shape Canadian healthcare systems, propagating the denial of Black and Indigenous women’s reproductive autonomy.
Senator Gerba shared her story when testifying in support of Bill S-228, an act to amend the Criminal Code that would criminalize coerced sterilization in Canada. An equivalent bill—Bill S-250—was introduced to and passed by the Senate in 2024. However, the proroguing of Parliament in advance of the 2025 Federal Election forced the termination of the bill before it reached House debate.
Bill S-228 brings forced sterilization to the forefront of the legislative agenda, opening a window for overdue systemic change: Affording //legal// reproductive rights to women across Canada. In her testimony, Senator Gerba noted the intersectional nature of prejudices against Black and Indigenous women in the Canadian healthcare system, particularly in regard to gynecological interventions. In healthcare settings, medical students and practitioners alike frequently dismiss the pain of Black women patients due to the harmful and racist misconception that Black women have a higher pain tolerance. Such misinformation amounts to an undeniable truth: North American healthcare institutions are failing Black women.
Indigenous women have also been the historic and current targets of this procedure. In the 1970s, Canadian practitioners facilitated approximately 1,200 cases of coerced sterilization of Indigenous women as part of a broader eugenic, colonial effort to eliminate Indigenous persons. By systematically sterilizing Indigenous women without their consent, these practitioners—acting on behalf of the colonial state—sought not only to control individual bodies but to exterminate future generations of Indigenous peoples. This practice amounts to one of the five acts encompassed within legal definitions of genocide: The deliberate imposition of measures intended to prevent births within a group.
The UN Committee Against Torture issued a statement in 2018 calling on Canada to end this abhorrent practice. Yet Bill S-228 remains under debate, and organizations like Amnesty International Canada continue to observe extensive evidence that the practice persists today.
In Quebec, 35 Atikamekw women have brought forward a class action lawsuit against the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de Lanaudière (CISSS) for forced sterilization, citing at least 22 cases of the procedure between 1980 and 2019. Some of these women were misinformed, told sterilization was reversible. Others were falsely told that the health of their future children could be at risk should they fail to undergo the procedure. Still more were told the procedure was unavoidable in the maintenance of their long-term health.
An estimated 20 other women are pending approval to join the class action lawsuit; the youngest survivor was merely 17 years old at the time of her nonconsensual gynecological intervention. Clearly, Canada has subjected the reproductive rights of women—disproportionately Black and Indigenous women—to systemic disregard through its ongoing failure to implement policy prohibiting this medical practice.
In a report published by the Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights in 2022, representatives offered clear steps that the federal government must take to achieve the end of this abhorrent and violent practice. Foremost among these recommendations were three key obligations: To criminalize forced and coerced sterilization; to implement measures heightening standards of informed consent and cultural competency in medical training; to collect data on sterilization to inform future policy and reconciliation efforts.
As Bill S-228 now awaits approval by the House of Commons, lawmakers, healthcare institutions, and the general public must call for the swift passage of this bill and for effective, comprehensive implementation. Evidence of forced sterilization is extensive and undeniable; its consequences for future generations of Black and Indigenous women are grave. Canada’s government must wait no longer to enshrine humane reproductive healthcare standards in the legislature.
