Another Libel Suit by Doctor Who Had Been Accused of Performing Unnecessary Gynecological Procedures on Immigration Detainees

This one is over a book (Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope) by one of the winners of a Time Magazine 2025 Earth Award, “environmental justice” activist Catherine Coleman Flowers.  For another recent suit over the same allegations in a different book, see Libel Lawsuit over Critical Race Theory Book That Accused Doctor of “Mass Hysterectomies”.  For a decision in favor of Dr. Amin against NBCUniversal, see Judge Concludes NBC’s Allegations of “Mass Hysterectomies” by Doctor at ICE Facility Were False, May Have Been Knowingly/Recklessly False.

From the Complaint in Amin v. Spiegel & Grau LLC (S.D.N.Y.), the passage from the essay in the book:

On September 14, 2020, in a footnote to President Donald Trump’s unconscionable treatment of migrants, a nurse named Dawn Wooten, who worked at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, filed a whistleblower complaint. She said that Dr. Mahendra Amin—the center’s leading doctor who was not even a gynecologist—allegedly told nearly every woman who went to see him that she had to have a hysterectomy. Wooten referred to him as a “uterus collector.”

Adding to this atrocity, Dr. Amin spoke no Spanish, and many of the vulnerable, detained women he violated spoke no English. The New York Times reported, “Both the reviewing doctors and all of the women interviewed by the Times raised concerns about whether Dr. Amin had adequately explained the procedures he performed or provided his patients with less invasive alternatives. Spanish-speaking women said a nurse who spoke Spanish was only sporadically present during their exams.” They did not have the faintest idea what he was doing to them. Meanwhile, as an independent physician who was under contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, this doctor was paid for each individual procedure that he executed.

Upon hearing about the whistleblower’s complaint, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the conditions at the detention center as “a staggering abuse of human rights.” On October 2, 2020, the House of Representatives condemned the practice in a congressional resolution. A congressional investigation finally revealed that “female detainees appear to have undergone excessive, invasive, and often unnecessary gynecological procedures” by a physician who was not even certified as a gynecologist.

And so, over these many years, Black and Indigenous women, migrant women and white women, barely adolescent girls and older women have all had the agency of their bodies seized by others with the explicit goal of controlling their reproductive lives. I think of enslaved women—my great-great-grandmothers, their sisters and friends, and other enslaved women whose bodies were trafficked and raped on the plantations of my home state. Whose children were seized and sold like animals. Whose capacity to bear children was considered either an asset or a liability but rarely something deeply personal, something that demanded autonomy.

I look at detainees whose children were ripped from them, some of whose wombs were ripped out of their bodies. Yes, I know that we have made great progress since the time when plantations dominated our economy. And yet, as we see too often with our justice system, and with our medical system, the plantation mentality endures….

Plaintiff’s argument (though of course note that this is just the argument in the Complaint, and any decision on the question is a long time in the future):

The essay falsely and defamatorily accuses Dr. Amin of: (1) performing gynecological procedures on women detained by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) at the Irwin County Detention Center (“ICDC”) without being a gynecologist and/or licensed gynecologist, when in actuality Dr. Amin is a licensed gynecologist with decades of experience; (2) being a “uterus collector” who performed hysterectomies on “nearly every woman who went to see him” who was detained by ICE at the ICDC, when in actuality he only performed two hysterectomies on such women, both of which were deemed medically necessary by independent experts; and (3) not having translators present when he treated such women and otherwise failing to inform the women regarding their treatment, when in fact Dr. Amin always had translators present, always explained his proposed procedures, and obtained the informed consent of the patient as to every procedure on ICDC detainee, as attested by witnesses and documented by consent forms signed by the patients….

The essay falsely and defamatorily portrays Dr. Amin as having had “the explicit goal of controlling [Black, Indigenous, and migrant women’s] reproductive lives,” whose “wombs were ripped out of their bodies,” as part of a “plantation mentality” toward such women….

Years before the publication of the essay, the statements were determined to be false, with multiple media outlets and investigations reporting that Ms. Wooten’s allegations of mass hysterectomies were not accurate…. The statements briefly cite a Congressional investigation, apparently referencing the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, without noting that the Report of that Subcommittee contradicted Ms. Wooten’s allegations in stating that Dr. Amin had committed two hysterectomies, both medically necessary.

Defendant has admitted that the statements are false and the result of its fault, stating as follows on a website hosted by Defendant for the book: “In a limited number of copies of the book released to the public in advance of publication there were several statements about Dr. Mahendra Amin, a physician who has previously performed services for persons detained at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. The statements about Dr. Amin were not accurate. All statements about Dr. Amin have since been removed from the book. The publisher and author regret the error.” https://www.spiegelandgrau.com/holyground….

{The notice of retraction, on Defendant’s website, was not published in as conspicuous and public a manner as the defamatory statements, which were published on Google books and distributed in some copies of the Book that were published. Defendant also stopped some copies of the Book from being distributed, printed a new version eliminating reference to Dr. Amin, and eliminated reference to Dr. Amin in the eBook and audiobooks would eliminate all reference to Dr. Amin, but the defamatory statements were published to and read by third parties via Google Books and the copies of the Book that had already been distributed.}

Defendant set forth those false statements well after it was clear that [the] allegations regarding Dr. Amin had been disproven, which Defendant knew or should have known….