Sterilization In Australia

As previously mentioned, there are many laws and regulations that interfere with a woman’s right to reproductive

Sterilization abuse is a practice in which the woman is either unaware she is being sterilized, or

The role of law reform in achieving justice for both families and members of society due to the changing ways in Australian culture. Surrogacy has become a more popular choice due to increasing numbers of Australian women wanting to put of child bearing until they are older in life which decrease their chances of being able to have children, this is due to changing cultural factors one being women wanting to stay in the work force. Reasons for surrogacy is also due to the child protection policy, which is making it more difficult/stricter for people to adopt children so surrogacy is seen as an easier option. As well as improved technology available which provides assistance for families through the surrogacy process. The legal issues within

The idea of eugenics made it possible for involuntary sterilization. In order to improve the human race, it meant regulating reproduction. 1907 Indiana passed to sterilize the mentally insane and inmates. Their plan was to eliminate “defective” genes. By 1960 63,000 people were involuntary

“In the United States, 15 states have laws that fail to protect women with disabilities from involuntary sterilization” (Against her will). Sterilization of disabled women in the United States should not be allowed. It denies disabled women the rights of having children. It is sexist to force women to get sterilized but men do not have to get sterilized. Women should have the right to have children, no matter if they have a disability or if something is wrong with her. The United States has used forced sterilization along with other countries in North and South America, along with places such as Asia and Africa.

he most significant reason against this policy includes the violation of female rights in behalf of the government deciding the number of infants a family have to have and the increment of crime against women. Since, 1979 the law has prevented around 250 million births since ultrasound tests and abortions became easier to access (Doc E). Also, since ultrasound tests are more accessible this policy created sex discrimination and the number of abortions increased since they could find out earlier if they were expecting a male or female (Doc E). It is imperative to mention that since there's fewer woman, woman became more vulnerable to suffer a crime against them and it represents the power the government is capable of using. This information

In England, which gave birth to the eugenics movement, it is interesting to note that sterilization laws never took hold. Bertrand Russel, a British philosopher at the time published Marriage and Morals (1929) in which he wrote “I say only that our scientific knowledge at present is not adequate for this purpose, and that it is very dangerous when a community allows its moral reprobations to masquerade in the guise of science, as is undoubtedly happening

By the time sterilization for both the poor and minorities became an official sanction in 1970, and reservation populations became main targets of this policy, the IHS was ready to initiate its campaign against Indian women. Policy turned into perpetration, and people turned into victims.

It may be said in all soberness that professional reliefers and most other indigents who produce children thereby commit crimes against humanity which are fully as serious as many acts now considered felonies. They have no moral right to produce such children and therefore should have no legal right to immunity from punishment that constructively fits the crime, such as some form of painless sterilization of both guilty parents, which would be permanent.

In the 19th century, after tremendous progress in surgical processes, abortions were then conducted by surgeons on a wide scale, while medical abortions are used concurrently. However, as abortion technology prospers, legal restrictions came with it. In 1803, a English statute abolished the previously-legal first trimester abortions. The act “condemned the willful, malicious, and unlawful use of any medical substance when used with the intent to induce abortion” (Stern, 1968). In 1821, Connecticut enabled the first statute in the United States regulating abortions. Within 10 years, states like Illinois, Ohio, New York, Alabama, and others enabled abortion restriction statutes, and by 1968, 50 of the 51 jurisdictions in the United States have prohibited abortion except in the case women’s life is endangered (Ibid., at 3). In 1965, Britain, however, legalized abortion for “medical conditions of the mother, for socio-economic reasons, for eugenic considerations, and for pregnancies which resulted from rape or incestuous intercourse”, which is still law today (Ibid, at 4). In Canada, abortion has been legalized since 1969 through Bill C-150 if “a committee of three physicians determined that the pregnancy was a threat to the woman's life or health” (Norman, 2012). In 1988, Canadian Supreme Court struck down bill C-150’s provision requiring committee approval to receive an abortion in its decision R v Morgentaler, legalizing abortion across Canada for any reasons (Ibid.).

The right to have children is understood in very different ways and people’s ethics and values are put to the test each and everyday when they find out they not only must take care of themselves but the lives of another human being. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted this statement regarding the right to bear children “men and women of full age, without any limitations to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and found a family”[1]. This concept has been viewed in multiple ways and according to ethical theorists; they agree that no rights are absolute. However, it is said that for women at least, there is a fundamental privilege to have children. The right to

These "science"-based eugenic influences break through the lines of science in to the world of politics, promulgating anti-humanistic views of poor women of colour in the form of legislation fraught with bigotry and baseless generalizations. This political view flows through the judicial system, as courts apply eugenic philosophies in determining who should be sterilized and for what reasons.

Sterilization "on eugenic grounds" (Lombardo 1) was not legalized until 1907 in Indiana, but doctors across the nation practiced the procedure illegally before even then. Generally, the patient didn't know about the sterilization until after the act was done, at which point they were informed of their "feeblemindedness" or other social disorder. Within 17 years of the law being instated, a recorded 3000 people were sterilized, and thousands more suspected off the record. The range of reasons for being sterilized was infinite, ranging from genuine mental disorders such as schizophrenia, to things as pointless as "excessive masturbation" (Selden

Cica, N, _Abortion Law in Australia_,
Law and Bills Digest Group, 
31 August 1998 http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/1998-99/99rp01.htm viewed on 16/04/10.

In India, women are being manipulated to stop having children after their second birth. Officials claim that by regulating population and the pregnancies of women after their second child they will be able to empower women by offering them contraceptive choices and child care facilities. In reality, if women do not agree to be sterilized after their second birth they will be