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Voluntary and involuntary sterilization: denials and abuses of rights
Author(s) -
Cook R.J,
Dickens B.M
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
international journal of gynecology and obstetrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.895
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1879-3479
pISSN - 0020-7292
DOI - 10.1016/s0020-7292(99)00193-9
Subject(s) - sterilization (economics) , denial , disadvantaged , human rights , oppression , law , bodily integrity , ambivalence , reproductive rights , political science , business , psychology , medicine , social psychology , population , environmental health , reproductive health , finance , politics , exchange rate , psychoanalysis , foreign exchange market
Laws that allow competent persons to make free and informed decisions for sterilization serve their entitlements to reproductive choice. Laws that allow others to consent to sterilization of disadvantaged persons who cannot freely consent risk oppression and denial of human rights. Laws that prohibit competent persons' choices for their own sterilization are comparably oppressive and violative of human rights to decide whether and how often to have children. Whether laws approach sterilization as a procedure done for patients, or to patients, is often ambivalent. Details of laws may indicate their liberating and oppressive potential. Programs offering inducements to persons to be sterilized may assist those who are disadvantaged to achieve their goals, but may appear to coerce those who, through poverty or dependency, cannot resist the inducement.