Mum of 9 Files Lawsuit Claiming Her Reproductive Rights Were Violated When She Was Sterilised Without Her Consent

[Earlybird]

This emotive story is beginning to gain national play, and is causing an ethical, moral, social and economic discussion in America.

Many say what the lawsuit claims occurred was/is barbaric, but the Mum's personal past has become a sticking point in the court of public opinion.

Background highlights:

• Mum had her first baby at 13, and quit school at the same time
• Mum has 9 children from four men - first two when she was a teenager, subsequent 7 were conceived while in 2 long term relationships.
• Mum has never been employed and receives financial aid from the state for 2 of the 4 children who live with her (the other 2 are supported financially by their father)
• Grandmother has custody of 3 of the children, who live with grandmother
• Mum has a litigation history having sued a chain of chemists in 2001 claiming they sold her an expired spermicide which failed to prevent a pregnancy (she won)
• - Mum was sterilised when she was 35, so in theory, had quite a few reproductive years ahead of her.

Part of why the story is beginning to get national attention is the overwhelming outpouring of angry public sentiment toward the Mum.

Extremists hail the doctors as 'heroes'.

More measured/moderate opinions are finding it difficult to defend the Mum because 'rights come with responsibility' and this Mum has been 'irresponsible' by continuing to have children she cannot afford to raise.

news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?&articleid=1222682&format=&page=2&listingType=Loc#articl eFull

What is your view?

I haven't said that they can't be discussed I have said that I won't be discussing them

tethersend - read your penultimate post back to yourself slowly and try and understand it.

"Tethersend - what do you think about the sterilisation of people with SN?" (In response to me asking you the same question. Which you didn't answer.)

Is this you not discussing SN? I get confused...

"tethersend - read your penultimate post back to yourself slowly and try and understand it."

For the love of God, if anyone else is reading this, give me a sign...

I was using an example of a situation when I wouldn't feel it appropriate to continue doing it because of how it was affecting me. I wasn't positioning my example as some kind of moral wrangle - just a straight forward example of why sometimes you need to move on from a job where your opinions are being distorted by it.

I'm surprised you can't think of any examples where a finance director might have a moral challenge though - off the top of my head I can think of:

• Deciding whether which homeless woman gets a bed depending on her ability to access housing benefit; knowing that one might be more deserving but without money we couldn't continue - which do you choose?
• paying a consultant to work with a patient group to lobby NICE to approve a drug - isn't ethcial but might result in a useful drug being made available to people who would otherwise not get it.
• paying protection money to russian landlord which is illegal
• paying bribe to soldier holding a gun to up to you.

All happened to me in work. And of course it isn't at the foothills of the moral challenge you are setting yourself up for when deciding who is allowed to procreate and who isn't.

I find your assertions that because of your job you believe, we should consider this approach chilling.

But I see you are convinced of the validity of your argument and no mere accountant is going to sway you.

Unless you mean your opinion (contrary to most of your previous posts) is not solely formed by the work you do?

no tethersend I wasn't discussing SN I was just firing your own question back at you. If you notice I didn't comment on your answer.

Thethersend - I do feel a little like I've fallen down the bleedin' rabbit hole, I've said that I do understand that OP's job would affect her opinions and she's even arguing with me! My suggestion to look at changing career was from experience of other friends in a similar though different area who have driven themselves into bitter sarcastic prunes by constantly feeling resentful that they couldn't sort out their clients problems in a more extreme way.

But never mind. I've come across lots of people Lemonade wouldn't approve of (in fact related to some!) but never come across anyone like her so it has been an education.

Of course my opinion isn't solely formed by that, I have never asserted that, it is however one of the major influences.

I am still waiting for someone to offer an alternative to the failing and unsustainable system we have at the moment.

I'll stick with the failing and unsustainable system we have thanks, rather than a new morally bankrupt, failing and unsustainable system we'd end up with.

Obviously only in my very humble opinion.

kewcumber - the fact that you have friends in I presume similar roles who also feel despair at the situation, doesn't that suggest to you that something needs to change?

I did, but you weren't interested.

not in the same field, as I said. in the health service.

All in favour of change for the better. I can't imagine any circumstance where forced sterilisations would result in a better system... in my opinion.

"no tethersend I wasn't discussing SN I was just firing your own question back at you."

Lemonadedrinker. That constitutes a discussion. When people ask each other the same question -granted, both parties usually answer, but hey ho- it means they are discussing the topic.

"I am still waiting for someone to offer an alternative to the failing and unsustainable system we have at the moment."

Christ, didn't realise I couldn't object to forced state sterilisation without a back up plan... ok... well, shot in the dark, how about we kill them all? No?

Oooh, no, even better... why don't we just not sterilise anybody? The system we have with all its failings is preferable to the one you advocate.

An education indeed, Kewcumber

If you are happy with the current system tethersend then I feel sorry for the children you work with as the care system in this country is failing miserably. The fact you are part of it and don't think it needs to be changed or can't think of any ways it could be changed is fairly worrying in my opinion.

kewcumber - interested in how you think things could be changed for the better?

Oh Edam - don't spoil things with a response lemons might need to go back and actually read!

Off to bed now ladies - all sorts of moral dilemmas to deal with tomorrow. (Though hopefully not the armed nigerian soldier again!)

Sorry kewcumber I missed the part where you were happy to stick with the system we have. Each to their own, personally I would rather see fewer children subjected to utterly shit lives but hey ho if it ain't broke don't fix it eh!

"If you are happy with the current system tethersend then I feel sorry for the children you work with as the care system in this country is failing miserably. The fact you are part of it and don't think it needs to be changed or can't think of any ways it could be changed is fairly worrying in my opinion."

Point out to me where I said the current system didn't need changing. I dare you.

Off to bed. Take all night if you wish, lemonadedrinker

edam - Sorry I wasn't meaning you. I agree that in an ideal world the interventions you talk about would be fantastic but they are hugely costly and it is fairly evident that many people don't want to pay the taxes necessary to fund such a system, which is one of the reasons we have such a poor system now. If you can find a way of getting the public to part with their cash happily I am sure all the major parties would be interested!

tethersend - If you are not happy with the system as you say, how would you change it.

what about forced sterilisation for those who drink lemonande?

"Sorry kewcumber I missed the part where you were happy to stick with the system we have" - yes that would be becasue I didn't say that. But don't let the truth get in the way of trying to win an argument.

I said if the choice was forced sterilisation, I'd stick with the system we have, thanks.

I'm an adoptive parent, I'm probably more intimately aware of how the system can fail children than you are. None the less, forced sterilisation for people who have committed no crime is not a sensible solution IMVHO. In practical terms it wouldn't solve the problem, you have denied earlier in the thread that you were talking about thousands of women (are you including men?) so presumably you are talking 100's at most. It's hardly going to address the budget deficit, is it?

ANd how are you going to work it practically? Are you going to wait until someone needs to go into hospital and sneak up on them when they're not looking? How are you going to get doctors to perform operations that patients have not consented to? What happens if a patient dies? Will you are or will you just shrug and think they are just a casualty of a sensbile policy? Or are you going to force people into hospital? How? Restrain them, at gunpoint or grug them? Who is going to do all this? Its currently illegal to hold someone against their will who isn't charged with any offence or under anti-terror laws. So we'd need to change the law to allow people who are guilty of anything but bad judgement or stupidity to be held and operated on. IS this just going to be people who have children or perhaps we could just arrest everyone we don't approve of. I can think of a few men I'd like castrated and mopre than a few people who would benefit from a lobotomy. Absolutely sure I could convince a small panel of people too.

I'm warming up to your idea now.

and I am wayyyyy guilty of poor typing in that post

lemonade - my point is we are already spending massive amounts of money on a less than ideal system, only it shows up in the crime budget and the NHS, not social care. It would be more cost-effective overall to fund those interventions that can prevent families falling apart where possible, even if that requires very complex support, e.g. the Dundee project.