Inger Platou: The desire to give maternal love to one’s own child—and having no one to give it to, yet doctors surely know what is best for us

Inger Platou is a Greenlandic writer and one of many women who became victims of the so-called “coil campaign” in the 1970s, during which intrauterine devices were inserted without informed consent. In her book Mit livs skillevej (The Crossroads of My Life, in Greenlandic Aqqutima sangutinneqarnera, 2024/2025), she describes the trauma of losing her fertility, her coming to terms with the situation, the subsequent adoption of two children from Colombia, and her journey toward finding a new meaning in life. Inger Platou is the first Greenlandic woman to publish a book about this traumatic chapter of Danish-Greenlandic history from her own perspective. The book, which she translated herself from Greenlandic, was published in Danish in July 2025 and stands as a powerful testimony to loss, courage, and hope.