Dr sterilised a woman without consent given 12 months suspension

[Hoardasurass]

As the title says he sterilised her without her knowledge or consent the man should be struck off and jailed

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67625473?at_ptr_name=twitter&at_link_origin=BBCNewsNI&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_format=link&at_link_type=web_link&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_link_id=79A97F18-9385-11EE-98C8-CE2555826ABF&at_campaign_type=owned&at_medium=social

And not that far under the surface at times at times, misogyny and sectarianism often go hand in hand

on both sides

Absolutely shocking. Yes, he should be prosecuted.

So, she didn't consent to it, he accepted that he had no right to do it and there was no medical reason to proceed with the sterilisation? Did he just go to the tribunal and just shrug his shoulders till they gave him a one year suspension in his retirement?

How many children can you have before the violation of you body autonomy doesn't even demand answer, let alone a punishment?

Wasn't this a Grey's Anatomy plot? If I remember, the story of that was a surgeon privately asked by a Catholic mother of multiples to sterilise her during another surgery to avoid any more pregnancies, husband then complained and sued as no reason why that surgery should have resulted in any accidental damage that ended both tubes, and the woman could not admit that she'd asked for and wanted this and went along with prosecuting the surgeon. Would seem likely that many Catholic women have had this issue with pregnancies they didn't want and couldn't stop.

And also plenty of history about surgeons with God complexes and paternalist thinking and prejudices, and how women have suffered as a result.

The lightness of the sentence suggests the situation is more complex than can be shared in the press.

So, we just fill in the blanks with a Grey's Anatomy plot? Maybe he was being haunted by a tumor induced boyfriend ghost who told him to do it?

What has a plot from Grey's Anatomy got to do with anything?

The woman in question underwent another operation for a reversal. I don't agree with the number of children she has being mentioned. In fact it is inappropriate and prejudicial. It is dog whistling leading to speculation that there are mitigating circumstances, 'oh this woman has enough children, Catholic, probably secretly wanted it' as posters above have speculated.

I can GUARANTEE that if this surgeon had made a man infertile by performing a vasectomy without his consent, he'd have been struck off, no matter how many children he'd already fathered. This guy is a misogynist.

It's irrelevant how many children she already has.

He should go to prison for doing a medical procedure she didn't consent to.

I wish the victim would make a complaint to the police. I don't see how this doesn't constitute assault. I appreciate that he's retired, but why not struck off to emphasise the import ace of patient consent and the severity of the action.

I have very little faith in the GMC. I now always google any consultant I have to see to check to see if there are any court cases etc!

Appalling.
How did she find out, anyone know?

I don't think there are any mitigating factors if it is as described. He acted without her consent.

Perhaps in a court of law it would be irrelevant to point out that she had 11 children and had discussed sterilisation many times previously but it should not be deemed irrelevant on mumsnet where people are free to discuss the spirit of the law versus the word of the law. Nor would other factors be irrelevant such as if she drank during all these pregnancies and the kids had FAS, nor would it be irrelevant if all those 11 children were taken off her. I'm not saying this is true, I'm saying that a discussion forum should be able to handle wider discussion.
However all the slogan-based absolutists will tell me I'm all kinds of wrong.

These days the great god of consent is considered sacred but I don't think consent is the only moral principle that should drive people's actions. Some people consent to things that really hurt them. Eg some very traumatised people consent to sadism from their partner.

It's irrelevant because she did not consent.

Yes there's other issues at play in the judgement, 11 children, all known to social services, abusive relationships, police intervention.

And we have laws, procedures and professionals who are specifically there to investigate and deal with those issues if they arise.

If the doctor had concerns, he should have raised them with the correct authorities. He was/is not qualified to make that decision, let alone committing assault by forcing sterilisation onto patients. So many other options were open to him - contacting social services, signposting to support services, contacting police if deemed necessary.

Who is going to be bestowed wth the right to decide if a woman should be sterilised? And on what basis? He thinks she's had too many children? He thinks she's in a precarious situation? He doesn't like her lifestyle? It's a slippery slope.

Yes there's other issues at play in the judgement, 11 children, all known to social services, abusive relationships, police intervention.

Completely irrelevant - in fact, it makes what he did even worse because it implies...no, confirms..his actions were a moral judgement! How many children must a woman have in precarious circumstances before drs are allowed to sterilise without consent?

It's really appalling that any details of this woman's life were made public; the only facts important were he sterilised her against her wishes. It's reminiscent of courts allowing discussions of how many sexual partners a woman has had in rape cases; it shifts the pendulum of blame towards the woman for a man's actions and leads to discussions around 'mitigating circumstances' on a feminism board

Zero excuse for this, he should be in a prison cell!

'The great god of consent' is absolutely fundamental in medicine where there is still huge paternalism and misogyny and there need to be criminal prosecutions of medical staff or of hospitals where it's wilfully ignored or where procedures are inadequate to ensure that it's embedded.
What's the alternative? The sterilisation of women the medical practitioner deems unworthy or unsuitable in some way ( as we know has happened even very recently in so called civilised countries to women belonging to indigenous groups) the effective duplicity and violence of that? And how useful would it be for medical research purposes if you could just carry out this test the patient isn't keen on etc And what about other things like 'routine' gynaecological procedures or investigations that are intrusive and can be painful - should women go for these in the expectation that they will be ignored if they tell the practitioner to stop and will be held down etc ? Because if consent isn't centred above all else - except where it's genuinely impossible to obtain in a life and death situation with an unresponsive patient - then what you're heading for are Mengele type situations, particularly for women.

I'm surprised to see posts which suggest that coerced sterilisation by unaccountable health professionals can be viewed through the lens of context.

@Desecratedcoconut whatever our thoughts are on the ethics of it, the fact is that judges DO look at crimes through the lens of context when making sentencing decisions, context is basically how sentencing is decided, and that is probably what has happened here.

Obviously judges have applied this appallingly throughout history, eg the “what was she wearing?” victim blaming approach. Perhaps it can be argued that this judgement was along those lines.

Perhaps the doctor genuinely thought he was saving her life and this was the mitigating factor in sentencing.

I haven’t read the case so don’t know.

Perhaps the doctor genuinely thought he was saving her life and this was the mitigating factor in sentencing.

PPs have confirmed that no, there was no medical need.

I've worked in some pretty dreadful situations where women have multiple children who are taken away, living in addiction and sex work, very damaged. I've also know women with LDs who were sterilised without their full consent. It's a shit situation with no good and happy answer. The least worst answer is to treat women as if they are fully human. And that means they are allowed to make 'bad' decisions as long as they have capacity.