Doctor No: Women Being Refused Sterilizations

We spent the month of May spotlighting pro-growth bias on the economic front. Now let’s turn our attention to population growth. Today it’s the Wall of Shame for physicians engaging in a troubling medical practice:

Doctor No: The Women in Their 20s Being Refused Sterilisations

This is an important story because it relates to women’s rights – critical in their own right, but also important because having a sustainable population level depends on women’s ability to choose when or if to conceive children (how can they make the right choice if it’s not theirs to make?). It appears, in England at least, medical practitioners are standing in the way of women who want to make the right choice, for themselves and for sustainable population dynamics.

“When Holly Brockwell first went to doctors four years ago — then aged 26 — asking for a sterilisation, she was refused for being “too young” and told she would one day change her mind. Now aged 30, Brockwell — who has never wanted children — has finally been sterilised after a four-year battle. Her struggle to get access to the procedure prompted an outpouring of support — as well as scorn — on social media, and other women came forward to share their experiences of being refused sterilisations during their twenties.”

I don’t know if this is unique to England or the UK; I suspect not. Getting the global average fertility rate down closer to one could reverse the growth curve and have us coasting back toward a sustainable world population well before this century’s end. It’s an interesting story, worth the full read at Mashable. I thank Mashable UK lifestyle reporter Rachel Thompson for reporting it, and I applaud the young women who don’t feel defined by a maternal duty to bear children. Thanks to Population Matters for bringing this story to our attention.

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