Israel's Controversial Treatment of Ethiopian Immigrants: Forced Sterilization
medium.com
medium.com
> Depo-Provera is a well-known brand name for medroxyprogesterone acetate, a contraceptive injection that contains the hormone progestin. Depo-Provera is given as an injection every three months. Depo-Provera typically suppresses ovulation, keeping your ovaries from releasing an egg. It also thickens cervical mucus to keep sperm from reaching the egg.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/depo-provera/abo...
Given this is a temporary acting drug, and the term 'sterilization' typically refers to at least partially irreversible surgical interventions, the headline is quite misleading and better characterized as "Forced contraception" or - given the available details - "Giving contraception without informed consent"
The investigation also reported an almost 50% decline in the birth rate of Ethiopian women in the prior decade. A government official acknowledged the practice of injecting women of Ethiopian origin with the long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera in 2013…
…A Channel 10 poll indicated that a majority of Israelis support expelling African migrants from the country, with 56% in favor of the government’s decision to deport the migrants.
But the outcome between regular administration of a drug that wears off in less than 10 months and surgical interventions that are mostly irreversible permanently sterilizing someone are very different things and not "splitting hairs."
As well, you are deliberately ignoring what the article points to as other factors which might be in part playing into differences in birthrates:
> A 2016 study argued that the rapid decline in fertility rates among Ethiopian Israeli women following their migration to Israel was not the result of the administration of Depo-Provera, but rather the product of urbanization, improved educational opportunities, a later age of marriage and commencement of childbirth, and an earlier age of cessation of childbearing[1].
Was there a decline in birthrates? Yes. Was that in part because of an unethical dosing off a drug without informed consent or under coercive conditions? Probably.
Is that still a world of difference from permanently sterilizing a population? Yes, very much so.
> From the available evidence, it appears likely that some Ethiopian women were given contraceptive injections without fully understanding the potential side effects or their alternative options. However, there is no clear evidence indicating that the Israeli government or humanitarian organizations involved purposefully coerced women into receiving injections in an effort to reduce birth rates—though the narrow scope of the investigation into those claims has been criticized.
It sounds like many Ethiopian women went to the same few clinics (likely because ethnic groups tend to form enclaves) where Depo-Provera was commonly prescribed, and some of the women who were prescribed it were not fully informed of the side effects or the alternatives. In fact, the way this was addressed was to issue a directive to doctors and pharmacies not to refill prescriptions unless the recipient understood the ramifications of taking the medication:
> In response to a letter sent by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel in January 2013 and pressure from a number of female members of Israel’s legislature, Ronni Gamzu—the director general of Israel’s Health Ministry—instructed gynecologists in the country’s four health maintenance organizations to cease use of the long-acting contraceptive injection in question, Depo-Provera, if there were any questions around the patient’s comprehension of the treatment. Gamzu reportedly directed medical providers “not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera if for any reason there is concern that [the patient] might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.”
So while some women may not have been fully aware of the side-effects of the medication or been aware of alternatives (perhaps due to language barriers or doctors simply not going into detail as they should have), there is scant evidence that any of these women were unaware that they were taking birth control or did not desire to do so. And there is zero evidence that these injections were in any way “forced”; these women were voluntarily refilling their prescriptions, not being told to take the medication or risk deportation.
This all sounds like somebody with an anti-Israel bias took what amounts to a relatively minor medical ethics issue and twisted it into claims of “forced sterilization”. That’s what’s really unethical here.
According to the article, the original report aired on the Israeli Educational Television show Vacuum: https://www.timesofisrael.com/ethiopian-women-claim-israel-f...
The anchor interviewed Ethiopian women who said they thought the shots were vaccinations. “The women claimed Israeli representatives from the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Health Ministry told them that raising large families is especially difficult, that it is for hard people with many children to find work and support their families, and that many landlords would not be willing to rent apartments to large families.”
This is from Times Of Israel, not Al Jazeera.
The article posted today by "Chris Jeffries" on medium and then posted here, is meant to be propaganda against Israel in the intent to destroy it.
looking at post history, almost every single post made by that user has been killed here. Most not on Israel. Which would indicate propeganda user without real value.
I'm gonna have to call bullshit here. And honestly, it's kind of racist and sexist bullshit.
1) How does anybody believe that the “vaccinations” they are being given have to be re-administered every three months?
2) Why would these “vaccinations” only apply to women? Do you think the women getting these injections are too stupid to notice that, for whatever reason, their husbands and sons aren't required to get them?
3) Depo-Provera is known to reduce or eliminate womens' periods, as are most forms of birth control when taken constantly throughout the menstrual cycle. Do you really think these women are so out of touch with their own bodies that they wouldn't realize that, hey, something just might be wrong, when they haven't gotten their periods in months or years?
Unfortunately, to believe the story as stated above, you have to accept at least one, and possibly all, of these statements at face value. And I fail to see how anybody could accept any of these statements at face value, unless you believe that Ethiopian (read, “Black”) women are generally less intelligent than the rest of humanity, either due to their gender or race.
I'm not trying to be critical of you personally, because I know it's hard to see things from the perspective of another sociological position. But before ascribing viewpoints to a race or gender other than your own, you really should look at things from their point of view, while assuming that they are at least as intelligent as you are while doing so.
2. There are plenty of preventative treatments that differ between men and women.
It is clear from the reporting that there was a concerted government policy to encourage Ethiopian women to have fewer or no children. The women themselves said they didn’t understand what the shots did. But yeah, the reporters calling attention to this horrific policy are the racist ones, got it.
That’s still way less frequently than every three months. And honestly, that was a really big deal at the time, and there was nothing comparable before that. A vaccine being required every three months, indefinitely, is implausible. And it’s a stupid plan, too; how would they ensure all of these women were compliant with getting the “vaccine” every three months? Vaccine uptake rates are low enough as it is. The only way to ensure women would reliably continue to get these injections is if they are something they actively want—i.e., birth control.
> 2. There are plenty of preventative treatments that differ between men and women.
You can’t seriously expect tens of thousands of women to be injected with birth control and not have any idea of what’s going on. What about when their periods stop and they’re somehow not pregnant? Oh, gee, that’s weird. Guess my daughter and I better keep going back to get these “vaccinations” every three months that my husband and son don’t need for whatever reason.
> It is clear from the reporting that there was a concerted government policy to encourage Ethiopian women to have fewer or no children.
Apparently you didn’t read the article, because it’s actually not clear at all that there was any such policy. It literally says:
> However, there is no clear evidence indicating that the Israeli government or humanitarian organizations involved purposefully coerced women into receiving injections in an effort to reduce birth rates.
> The women themselves said they didn’t understand what the shots did.
No, they didn’t. Nobody said they didn’t understand that these shots were, in fact, birth control. Some women may not have understood what the side-effects were, or that there were other options for birth control.
> But yeah, the reporters calling attention to this horrific policy are the racist ones, got it.
I don’t see how anyone can in good faith call this a policy, much less a “horrific” one. And, yes, to believe that such a policy could have been successful in its supposed goals requires one to believe that tens of thousands of immigrant women were foolish enough to unquestioningly take these “vaccines” every three months despite the obvious changes to their bodies and fertility. In other words, one would have to hold blatantly racist and sexist beliefs for the story to be plausible on its face.
“Furthermore, many of the women claimed they were never told that the shots were to prevent pregnancy. Rather, they were under the impression that the shots were vaccinations.”
But the detailed investigation from Isha L’Isha (http://isha.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/%D7%93%D7%A4%D...), which also conducted interviews with the women, made no such claim, focusing instead on the lack of understanding of side effects and alternatives.
Were refugees told they had to get vaccinations as a condition for their receiving asylum? Very probably; vaccination is frequently a requirement for asylum seekers in many countries. Were Depo-Provera injections also offered? Yes, we know they were. Were they, like vaccinations, mandatory? There is no evidence that that is the case, and in fact we have several accounts of women electing to stop the injections after getting them for months or years.
Is it possible that some female refugees, many of whom could not read, write or speak Hebrew (or even English) very well at all, were under the mistaken impression that the Depo-Provera injections they were initially offered were part of the vaccine series they were required to take? In theory, sure, or perhaps these women were misremembering the details of what happened while they were in the middle of an incredibly stressful and exhausting situation, and later forgot the distinction between what was required and what was optional. But even in these cases, there is no evidence that the women were forced to continue with the Depo-Provera injections against their will once they realized what they were taking, or even that any of them were ultimately unaware that they were taking birth control.
Does any of this amount to a policy of forced sterilization (or even forced contraception) of immigrants by the Israeli government? That’s a claim that rises beyond irresponsibility to outright dishonesty. But here we are seeing these lies being spread on HN…
Your claim that “there is no evidence that the women… were ultimately unaware that they were taking birth control” directly contradicts the TOI quote mentioned above. I don’t know what else to tell you.
A good refresher is this book "War Against the Weak", by Edwin Black.
https://books.google.com/books/about/War_Against_the_Weak.ht...
I wonder how much of what is written is not fictional, given the misuse of words such as "sterilization".
What's next? testing for christian children's blood in Matzos? LOL
I saw a comment and article on kidnapping / organ harvesting last week for which Israeli doctors admitted to. Reading the details left me disturbed me for a few days, was akin to something from Predator.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/israeli-pathol...
I genuinely have lost hope for humanity. There's a televised genocide in 2023 with hospitals, refugee camps and schools being bombed with western money.
Funded internet farms and YouTube adverts trying to advert discussion on this in their favour.
These were pathologists who basically felt their medical knowledge gained via autopsy was more important than not desecrating the bodies of reasonably long dead people (i.e. peoples whose organs are not able to be transplanted). They were equal opportunity offenders in terms of jews and non jews (and in practice, many more jews were impacted by it).
It was a huge out cry within Israel due to the desecration of dead bodies.
The use of the term "organ harvesting" is generally referring to organ trafficking. Using the term for unauthorized autopsies is very close to a blood libel.
i.e. to quote wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_procurement
Organ procurement (also called organ harvesting) is a surgical procedure that removes organs or tissues for reuse, typically for organ transplantation.
If one doesn't have any evidence that these organs were reused in a manner consistent with that (and it wouldn't make sense for a forensic institute to get anything but long dead people, which would make it difficult) the use of such language is very problematic.