Whistleblower: Mass Hysterectomies at ICE Facility | Hacker News Reader

Whistleblower: Mass Hysterectomies at ICE Facility

lawandcrime.com

172 pointsseigando55 comments

Link to original report https://projectsouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/OIG-ICDC...

Some testimonies from said report:

"Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody. He’s even taken out the wrong ovary on a young lady [detained immigrant woman]. She was supposed to get her left ovary removed because it had a cyst on the left ovary; he took out the right one. She was upset. She had to go back to take out the left and she wound up with a total hysterectomy. She still wanted children—so she has to go back home now and tell her husband that she can’t bear kids… she said she was not all the way out under anesthesia and heard him [doctor] tell the nurse that he took the wrong ovary."

"She was locked up in lockdown cells in E4 where the treatment was absolutely terrible. She was locked up with no right to commissary, no right to communicate with her family for many days, she had no right to use the microwave to prepare her food for two days. The rest of the time she was there, she was only allowed to go out for 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon, depending on the guard who was there because there were days where she was not permitted to leave at all. During the day, she asked the guards for water and was denied many times, during her isolation in the cell she never had cleaning products to keep the space clean, the shower water was extremely hot and this prevented her from correctly completing her personal cleaning. She only received personal hygiene products once (four small bar soaps, four tubes of toothpastes, four bottles of body wash, and two toothbrushes) that were not enough for the whole period of time that she was isolated. The treatment by the guards is humiliating and since she doesn’t speak English they make fun of her. She came out after 22 days of psychological, physical, and emotional torture."

Just fyi, that link 404s now.

This link seems to contain the report: https://www.scribd.com/document/476013004/OIG-Complaint#from...

Doessn't 404 for me, but here's an archive link https://web.archive.org/web/20200914205425/https://projectso...

You're right, it works now, I must've made a typo.

The US has had a lot of history and practice with forced sterilizations over the centuries. This is nothing "new". It's despicable. It has nothing to do with what party it is. The Democrats and Republicans have both participated and signed off on these.

This is a problem with the state in general, and with unchecked and unmonitored authority. This is why people say ACAB. It's the unchecked authority you give someone (e.g. a cop, border agent, DA, Judges, etc) that create issues like this. It's a matter of removing and reducing authority as much as possible in these systems.

Until we realize that authority is the cause, we are not going to find a proper fix. Everything else is a reactionary bandaid on a systemic issue.

> unchecked and unmonitored authority ... and I'd add: unaccountable

So many disturbing examples e.g. ordering blood be taken from an unconscious person under arrest [i], administering ketamine drugs to arrested people [ii], confiscating property without a warrant [iii]... the list goes on and on.

[i] https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/utah-police-nurse-1.4348819

[ii] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/ketamine-injected-ar...

[iii] https://buffalonews.com/news/local/cheektowaga-man-suing-she...

When did the democrats do this?

Obama is directly responsible for the structure of ICE and the various authorities they use to indefinitely imprison people.

He's also responsible for tons of civilians deaths in the middle east.

They were asking about forced sterilization though

While not exactly "the democrats", Planned Parenthood has a pretty dark history with eugenics and coerced/forced sterilization of members of marginalized communities. It seems to try and reconcile with its past though to improve itself.

A lot of it was done by Democrats. Admittedly, largely during the late Third and early Fourth Party Systems, when the dedicated core of the Democratic Party was the ideological antecedent of the present dedicated core of the Republican Party (the names of the major parties have been the same from the Third through the present Sixth party system, but the ideological and geographical alignment of the parties has shifted radically.)

What are you talking about?

Before anyone flags this for being "political": don't. This is about human rights, not politics. Don't conflate the two.

Human rights are a subset of politics. (It's fashionable to label as “nonpolitical” any matter of politics that the speaker thinks is important, as if “politics” as a label only applied to trivialities, but that's not what it means and, more relevantly, not why HN often prefers to avoid things that are in that domain but not particularly intellectual novelties.)

No. Absolutely not. Politics often impinges on human rights, yes. But human rights are not a subset of politics, and absolutely should not be couched in political terms. Issues that are rightly called political are those over which reasonable people may disagree. This highlights that "politics" doesn't only apply to trivialities --myriad real political issues come to mind. My point here is that to argue that this particular issue is political would be beyond the pale, as support of the alleged actions is not a humanly just or reasonable position: one could certainly make it into a political issue, if one were heartless enough, but such evil isn't worth discussion. This is not a political issue. Deciding that it is one would be despicable.

It's the other way around.

Politics is that which fills the space when violence and scarcity do not dominate psychic considerations.

Political discussions can only occur in a context where there are human rights, where human beings in authoritative positions adhere to laws and rules related to their jobs.

Public talk that defends the systemic, ungoverned practice of violence is not political, it's propaganda (and worse).

Human rights comes first. Then politics.

Cheers.

Very well said. Thank you

Corporate laws are a subset of politics. Labor practices are a subset of politics. Internet governance is a subset of politics. Systemd vs others is a subset of politics. Compensation packages are a subset of politics. Stock ownership is a subset of politics. Available food is a subset of politics. Water purity is a subset of politics. Air quality is a subset of politics. Power generation is a subset of politics.

Technically, politics is just "what shoud we do". Almost every discussion is political if you want to work by a strict standard.

> ‘Like an Experimental Concentration Camp’

Not political at all? Do we really think the USA is running something close to a Experimental Concentration Camp? Exactly what are they experimenting on, what don't we know about hysterectomies?

Or do we think the USA is making women infertile as a form of population control? Seriously?

I suspect it follows your politics which is why it's "not political". We aren't conflating anything.

It's an important story nonetheless.

Why do you think that people are being sterilized in a camp at the border at which people are not allowed the right for a trial, did not commit any crimes, and are not allowed to leave? Seriously, I'm hoping there is an explanation that is less horrific.

> Not political at all? Do we really think the USA is running something close to a Experimental Concentration Camp? Exactly what are they experimenting on, what don't we know about hysterectomies?

I think is 1) this story is probably true, 2) it is not the result of any kind of explicit national policy. My guess is the real problem here is malpractice by the gynecologist coupled with a criminal lack of competent oversight by the prison officials. My understanding is prisons scrape the bottom of the barrel of the medical profession (i.e. hiring doctors with bad records that no one else wants), and the actual complaint focuses on one doctor:

> According to Wooten, ICDC consistently used a particular gynecologist – outside the facility – who almost always opted to remove all or part of the uterus of his female detainee patients.

> “Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody,” Wooten said, adding that, “everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad.”

> “We’ve questioned among ourselves like goodness he’s taking everybody’s stuff out…That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector. I know that’s ugly…is he collecting these things or something…Everybody he sees, he’s taking all their uteruses out or he’s taken their tubes out. What in the world.”

IMHO, people who are saying (at this point) that this is the result of a systematic policy are jumping to conclusions. If that's true, it'll probably take a least a few weeks for the investigations to confirm it.

Back when the news broke originally about these camps disappearing thousands of children at a time, separating families, and the rampant sexual abuse, we got to have the fun conversation of, "is it really a concentration camp?" I'm terrified at what deflection will be made in this instance, but we can unfortunately expect the deflection.

Regarding the disappearing children, are you referring to https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/29/us/immigration-refugee-ch... ?

Had to vouch for this because this is the kind of uncomfortable truths people would rather not hear about, yet it's important that Americans are made aware of patent and flagrant humans rights violations made in their own soil.

I had to do so too.

What do you mean by 'you had to vouch for this'?

They mean that it was flagged a d they used the “vouch” option available to endorse it despite the flagging.

It appears the medicare rate for a hysterectomy is about $1-$4k. Much higher with hospital stay. Possible medical billing scam?

https://www.jnjmedicaldevices.com/sites/default/files/user_u...

There are much better ways to do a billing scam. If someone is doing hysterectomies in a camp where people have no rights it's not to jack up medicare charges.

Sounds much more likely than inflating Covid-19 deaths.

Posting this to r/news on Reddit resulted in the post being silently removed.

https://snew.notabug.io/r/news/comments/isx4me/whistleblower... (removed by moderators).

There are no duplicates on the subreddit, and the moderators have not sent any message.

I’m skeptical, people leave this facility and have been for years. The population is social media active and have friends and family who are in a position to speak out because we aren’t China. It’s difficult to fathom that this issue would surface precisely once by a lone whistleblower

Of course you are not China. You are the United States which has been systematically sterilizing indigenous populations up until the 70s.

This is terrible, and I feel powerless to prevent this type of injustice.

The people involved should be hung.

Why the hell is this off the front page?

Why did this get flagged? Is there something wrong with the facts?

Maybe because it's about bad things happened in the United States?

The comment contents (and back and forth) is why, devolved conversations

I've seen much worse conversations on posts that remain unflagged, and the news itself seems important for people to hear about.

I'm reading the report, it's mostly about Covid, general lack of care, and possibly denial of care.

The hysterectomy part (a short section of the document) has twice removed testimony of an immigrant woman there / the nurses perception of a high rate, no numbers presented.

Flagging can be user induced, depends on how people feel about it and dang's choice on the matter I believe too

I'm going to remain skeptical until the extraordinary headlines manage to provide extraordinary evidence.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/forced-hysterectomy-story-rus...

Damn, this is Uighur level bad for the US...

dang: should this really be flagged, while human rights violations from other countries aren't?

“anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics” should be treated with skepticism.

I completely agree. There seems to be a spate of anonymous blockbusters lately.

Good thing this isn't an anonymous whistleblower, then. Did you read the article past the ICE denial? The whistleblower put their name on the allegations.

I wouldn't rule out a form of Magical Penis Theft - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koro_(medicine)

Mass hysteria induced by bad conditions and language difficulties. You see a little of this in the report. The medical error making the woman infertile setting it off.

The alternative is medical fraud by a doctor who knows complaints are hard given their conditions.

But records will have to have been kept. What would the profit to risk be?

Why not do un-needed procedures that are not so permanent.

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