Exclusive: Territory’s government calls for visit to listen to those thought to be living with consequences of forced fitting of IUDs

The Danish health minister should “get on a plane and visit” some of the thousands of women thought to be living with the consequences of being forcibly fitted with the contraceptive coil as children, Greenland’s gender equality minister has said.

In an attempt to reduce the population of the former Danish colony, at least 4,500 women and girls are believed to have undergone the medical procedure, usually without their consent or knowledge, at the hands of Danish doctors between 1966 and 1970 alone.

The total number of those affected by the procedures, thought to have continued for decades, is understood to be far higher. Victims and their lawyers say generations of Inuit women were left traumatised and suffering reproductive complications, including infertility, as a result of the Danish state’s policy.

Earlier this month, a group of 143 women sued the Danish state over the alleged violations, but they have yet to receive a response from the government, despite the Danish prime minister visiting Greenland – now an autonomous territory of Denmark – soon after.

  • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.worldEnglish
    15·
    7 months ago

    There’s nothing reverse about it, it’s plain racism.

    This is the definition:

    prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

    Except the minority everything checks out. Note the word “typically” when referring to minority.

    Unless you want to change the definition of racism (which many of you fellas seem to want to), racism against white people is just racism, nothing “reverse” about it.

    • Excrubulent@slrpnk.netEnglish
      10·
      7 months ago

      Where did you get that definition? What is the context? And even then, the point is not to find a dictionary definition but to understand what race is and what it means.

      Dictionaries describe how words are used, they are not complete academic breakdowns of concepts. Yes, some people - like you - will call reverse racism actual racism, so the dictionary captures that usage, but even it acknowledges that that is atypical.

      Once you understand that white is not truly a part of anyone’s identity but a political category that is imposed by a power structure, you can stop getting butthurt whenever anyone attacks the concept, because you’ll realise that you don’t have to take it personally.

      Honestly it’s pretty insulting to the racism that non-white people face every single day to apply the same word to what white people deal with. It is not in any way equivalent.

      • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.worldEnglish
        10·
        7 months ago

        I could take the time to paraphrase every sentence you used with black people, but I’m kinda tired today, so you just have to believe me it can be done.

        But I’ll write this: You don’t get to decide what is and isn’t part of someone else’s identity. That’s called oppression, you know? The exact same thing that has been done to minorities over centuries and millennia. We have a name or two for that, one of those names is “racism”.