If I had to choose my favourite Canadian, I would without hesitation choose Tommy Douglas, the man most responsible for Medicare, one of Canadians’ two most popular institutions. I’m not alone. In 2004, CBC audience members voted him the “greatest Canadian” in a network competition. He was indeed a great
Continue readingTag: eugenics
Politics, Re-Spun: Does BC’s Neglect of Poverty Constitute a Eugenics Plan?
There has been a great deal of talk in recent decades about the cycle of poverty, how it’s a vicious circle that children have difficulty getting out of. Human chromosomes with telomeres stained fluorescent red. Copyright Nakamura et al. It makes sense. If parents are short on economic resources, have
Continue readingdrive-by planet: Depo Provera injections of Ethiopian women in Israel: accusations of racism
The recent admission by an Israeli government official that women of Ethiopian origin have been receiving injections of the long-lasting contraceptive Depo Provera simply confirms what many have known. The allegations have been around for a number of years but Israeli government officials have always denied the practice. The story
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Eugenics in Alberta
Given the province’s rather fanatical conviction that its tarsands projects should be subject to little or no oversight, it might be useful to bear in mind another kind of fanaticism it embraced between 1928 and 1972: eugenics. Between 1929 and 1972, 4785 cases [for sterilizations] were presented to the board,
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Malicious Whispers and Dangerous Trends
Occasionally, I will read something that another person has said or written and I think, “I just wrote about the same ideas last week! Are some of us wired to the same computer?!” The new summer edition of Abilities Magazine features an article I wrote about a trend that I
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