Roxanne Mykitiuk

Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School York University

  • Toronto ON

Roxanne Mykitiuk investigates the legal, ethical and social implications of assisted reproductive and genetic technologies.

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Biography

Roxanne Mykitiuk is an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University where she teaches disability, health and family law. She is the Director of the Disability Law Intensive clinical program. From 1990-92 she was Senior Legal Researcher for the Canadian Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. From 2002-2006 she was a member of the Ontario Advisory Committee on Genetics and from 2005-2008 she was a member of the Ethics Committee of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada. In 2009 Roxanne was scholar in residence at the Law Commission of Ontario working on the Disability and Law Project. She is currently on the Board of Directors of ARCH Disability Law Clinic. Roxanne was the Chair of York University’s Senate from 2013-2015.

Roxanne is an active, engaged and collaborative researcher. She is the author/ co-author of numerous articles, book chapters and books investigating the legal, ethical and social implications of reproductive and genetic technologies and the legal construction and regulation of embodiment and disability. More recently her research has begun to create and investigate arts-based methods – digital stories and drama-based narratives – as a means of challenging and re-representing conceptions of disability.

She is completing work exploring the reproductive health and intergenerational justice implications of exposures to ubiquitous household toxics, especially in relation to conceptions of harm using a debility and disability justice framework. In another project, she analyzes Article 12 of the CRPD, collectively and collaboratively exploring the meaning of self-determination in health care decision making with a woman who calls herself a “schizophroenist”. In a recent SSHRC project, she is using legal research and digital story making to investigate episodic disability in the workplace and assist employers to adopt policies that are accommodating to the needs of variously positioned workers with episodic disabilities. Furthermore, Roxanne is part of an interdisciplinary team carrying out a program of research that archives, incubates, exhibits, disseminates, studies and provides access to disability art produced by disabled, mad, fat and aging/ed people through research creation activities aimed at interrogating the claim that access to art will provide disabled people with greater access to a fulfilled life beyond how full and equal access is imagined and protected under the law.

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning
Research
Women
Legal Services

Areas of Expertise

Health Law
Disability Law
Feminist Legal Theory
Family Law
Genetics and the Law
Assisted Reproduction Law
Reproductive Rights
Children and the Law
Bioethics

Education

Columbia University School of Law

LL.M.

Law

1994

University of Toronto

LL.B.

Law

1989

University of Alberta

B.A.

Political Science

1986

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Affiliations

  • Centre for Intellectual Property Policy McGill University : Associate Member
  • Health Law Institute University of Alberta : Research Associate

Media Appearances

Why care less about the disabled fetus?

The Globe and Mail  

2012-01-19

In a controversial editorial on sex selection in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, interim editor-in-chief Rajendra Kale identified female feticide as an “evil” that “devalues women.” In his view, the deliberate use of ultrasonography to identify female fetuses followed by their abortion in some ethnic groups “is about discrimination against women in its most extreme form.” But why stop at gender? What about disability?

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Event Appearances

Nonhuman Animal-Human Hybrid Embryo Research in Canada: Ethical and Legal Considerations

International Conference on the "Healthy" Embryo  London, ON

2007-11-15

Gender Equity in Health Research in Canada

30th International Congress on Law and Mental Health  Padua, Italy

2007-06-29

Characterizing the PGD Embryo: A Review of Recent Policy Positions

Ethics Matters: Joint Ethics Conference  Toronto, ON

2007-06-01

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Research Grants

Voices of Individuals: Collectively Exploring Self-Determination

European Research Council

2016

Insight Grant. I have been selected to work as part of an international team as a respondent to collaborate with a person who has a lived experience of schizophrenia to co-author a critical response to her experience grounded in Article 12 of the CRPD. The project is housed at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy Institute for Lifecourse and Society, Galway, Ireland. PI: Eilionoir Flynn.

From Invisibility to Inclusion: Developing and Evaluating Policies and Practices to Facilitate the Inclusion of Workers with Episodic Disabilities in Ontario Workplaces

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

2016
I am one of 2 co-applicants on this grant. There are 7 collaborators.

Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology, and Access to Life

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

2016
Partnership Grant. I am a co-applicant on this grant and a member of the Management Committee and Conceptual Panel. This application was ranked 1st by SSHRC.

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Articles

Notions of Reproductive Harm in Canadian Law: Addressing Exposures to Household Chemicals as Reproductive Torts

Canadian Journal of Comparative and Contemporary Law

2015

This article examines the potential for prenatal exposure to harmful chemicals to be approached as reproductive torts as opposed to toxic torts. Focusing on two groups of household chemicals – brominated flame retardants and phthalates – this article identifies the ways in which prenatal injury claims and birth torts (i.e. wrongful pregnancy, wrongful birth, and wrongful life cases) can inform future litigation regarding prenatal exposures to risky household chemicals.

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Understanding the Use of 'Genetic Predisposition' in Canadian Legal Decisions

McGill Journal of Law and Health

2013

Since the advent of the Human Genome Project in 1989, the ethical, legal, and social implications inherent in future genetic science and its applications have worried researchers and scholars in law and ethics. Concern that the results of genetic testing might be used to discriminate against particular individuals and groups of individuals has been paramount, prompting calls for specific legislation to protect against genetic discrimination. Against this backdrop we sought to investigate instances of genetic discrimination in Canadian legal decisions.

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Wrongful birth litigation and prenatal screening

Canadian Medical Association Journal

2008

Canadian clinicians must be aware of new standards of care resulting from national clinical practice guidelines, both to ensure best practice and to avoid malpractice litigation. Clinical practice guidelines can reduce successful malpractice actions through physician education and they may be used in court as evidence that the standard of care was met.

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