Forced sterilisation

[beenbotheringme]

I just saw a shocking report on the bbc about forced sterilisation of Roma women.

My mum was a midwife in Liverpool in the 60's/70's and I am sure she told me years ago that this was common place and that Catholic women (often poor with big families) were routinely sterilised without consent. My mum was Irish Catholic and totally horrified by it. She has died now so I can't check with her but I wondered if anyone else had heard this as it really is awful if true as it's really not that long ago.

I remember the court case about this in the mid-1970s, where a judge rules that a young woman with severe learning difficulties (as part of Soto's syndrome) should not be sterilised as it was a breach of her human rights. There have been a handful of cases since then where the courts have permitted it, but they do not set present, are very rare and are in exceptional circumstances,

I suspect the practice was happening before the Soto's syndrome ruling (the patient at the centre of it was never named, hence my clunky language round it) but I don't really know how widespread it was.

The Catholicism you mention in the article is an additional angle - those women could not openly consent to contraception/sterilisation. And I don't know if there is a way to go back and ascertain if all the procedures were unwanted as well as unconsented.
When a church inhibits a woman's ability to control her fertility (if that is what she wishes) there are all sorts of unintended consequences.

Yes, forced sterilisation was not uncommon amongst certain groups- people with LD, those with mental illness and certain ethnic groups. It's deplorable and shouldn't have been done. It's very rarely done now, though the use of long term contraceptives such as the implant or depo injection are used and safeguards are put in place around their usage.

The sterilisation of Catholic women is a bit of a different issue. I don't dispute some were sterilised against their will but many more were sterilised with implied consent- hushed conversations with doctors saying they prayed God would stop them having more babies and that sort of thing. C sections or placental removals "gone wrong". Because they weren't able to overtly request such things or use other forms of contraception.

It's similar to how the number of miscarriages requiring a D&C mysteriously dropped once abortion was legalised.

You are both, I suspect, right. Although my mum was adamant that it was a decision made for them if you get what I mean.

Pre-1976 it may well have been