\n<\/p>\n
The coil isn’t the only contraceptive device that appears to have been inserted in some of Greenland’s female population without their knowledge.<\/p>\n
Annita [not her real name] woke up from an abortion in 2011 with what she describes as a “limp feeling” in her arm, which she saw had been covered by a bandage. After asking the Danish doctor about it, he explained that it was a contraceptive implant – a small, flexible plastic rod that is placed under the skin of the upper arm. <\/p>\n
Annita, now 31, says the doctor explained that the implant had been inserted because this was her fourth abortion. <\/p>\n
“It was so horrible\u2026 he really crossed the line,” she tells me. “I felt violated.”<\/p>\n
She demanded to have it removed, which she says he was reluctant to do. It was only when she began pulling off the bandage, threatening to take the implant out herself, that the doctor agreed to remove it. <\/p>\n
Twenty-eight-year-old Saara, whose name we’ve also changed, says she, too, regained consciousness after an operation to make a shocking discovery. <\/p>\n
It was 2014, and she had been put under general anaesthetic for a procedure following a miscarriage, but woke to a Danish nurse injecting her with the contraceptive Depo Provera. <\/p>\n
“I didn’t know what it was and she didn’t ask me if I wanted it,” she tells me, “just that I should come back to the hospital to get it every three months.” <\/p>\n
She says the nurse didn’t even tell her the name of the drug. And once she did find it out, she had to look it up online to learn more.<\/p>\n
Saara decided to continue using it for a few years, but she says that when she stopped taking the drug so she and her husband could have a baby, it took several years for her to fall pregnant. <\/p>\n