Unexplained abortion haunts decades later
Pregnant at 15, Indigenous woman says she did not give her consent
A woman says the unexplained termination of her pregnancy at age 15 contributed to her sterility.
Morningstar Mercredi said that since learning about Indigenous women who were coerced into having tubal ligations in Saskatoon, she sees her own partial sterilization in her youth as part of a systemic negligence toward her as an Indigenous woman.
“I just don’t think I’m alone, unfortunately,” she said.
Mercredi was about six months pregnant in 1977 when she went to a Saskatoon hospital because of spotting and pain.
Mercredi said no one told her what was wrong or what treatment she would receive before she was anesthetized. When she came to, the baby was gone and she had an incision below her navel.
“I went to the hospital out of concern for my baby,” Mercredi said in an interview.
“When I woke up, the only thing the doctor told me was that my chances of becoming pregnant would be less than the average woman,” she said.
She doesn’t remember being told that her left ovary and Fallopian tube had been removed and didn’t know it had happened until years later.
She still doesn’t know why much of her reproductive system was removed nor was she given any explanation of what had happened to her baby.
“In my second trimester, I don’t know what procedure would necessitate the removal of an ovary and a Fallopian tube. I did not consent to an abortion. I did not consent to the removal of my baby. Had I known, I probably would have walked out of the hospital,” she said.
Mercredi thinks hospital staff tried to contact her mother, who had no phone, through the RCMP in Fort McMurray but were unable to reach her.
At 17, Mercredi was married and had a full-term pregnancy and a healthy baby. Even then, no one discussed the fact she had only one Fallopian tube and ovary.
Two years later, her husband took her to a hospital emergency department, but she suffered a ruptured Fallopian tube from an ectopic pregnancy and went into cardiac arrest after bleeding internally.
It was only after she had survived that medical crisis that she realized her left ovary and Fallopian tube had been removed previously.
“By age 20, I could not have children. It had a profound effect ... I’ve spent my adult life processing that,” she said.
While she grieves, she said she has always seen her son as “a blessing and a miracle.”
Mercredi held onto a hope in technology and at age 37, looked into the possibility of in vitro fertilization.
The doctor who examined her for that procedure said in a letter to her family doctor, which was provided to the StarPhoenix, that she was not a candidate because her one remaining Fallopian tube could not be repaired.
He saw extensive scarring from the removal of the left ovary and Fallopian tube.
In an effort to understand what happened in 1977, Mercredi looked recently for hospital records but learned they are routinely destroyed after 10 years.
“I grieve my human right to have children taken from me,” she said.
“PTSD, depression. I get angry. So angry ... I internalized this and it’s not my fault.
“It’s always haunted me — not knowing what happened to my baby (and) why did I have such a gross incision?”
She feels for other girls and women who have been subjected to similar “inhumane treatment” when seeking medical care.
Lawyer Alisa Lombard represents two women who are suing the Saskatoon health region because they were coerced into having tubal ligations, and has heard from others.
“The known dimensions of tragic circumstances to which vulnerable Indigenous women are subjected sadly appears to be expanding,” Lombard said in an email.
“Violence perpetrated against Indigenous women and their children by any person or organization is unacceptable and demands serious, immediate and careful investigation.
“Our efforts must be driven by the very real sense of urgency affecting Indigenous women today in asserting and protecting reproductive rights.
She said future generations of Indigenous women will “inevitably experience the same systemic failures if institutional racism is left unaddressed.”
By age 20, I could not have children. It had a profound effect ... I’ve spent my adult life processing that.