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  • Title: [Voluntary female sterilization].
    Author: Poirier PY, Ducroze-Taze ML.
    Journal: Rev Fr Gynecol Obstet; 1986 Feb; 81(2):111-2. PubMed ID: 3961380.
    Abstract:
    French law and the code of medical practice do not permit voluntary female sterilization for personal convenience. The relevant juridical references are well known: articles 309, 310 and 316 of the penal code relating to voluntary assault and battery and article 22 of the code of medical practice specifying that no mutilation be done without a serious medical reason. The 50-year-old case of nonphysician who performed some 15 sterilizations on anarchists and neomalthusians of Spanish origin for ideological motives set the precedent of illegality. The man, and Austrian named Bartosek, was condemned by the tribunal and the court of appeals of Bordeaux, where the operations occurred. The criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation, France's highest court of appeals, found that the consent of the sterilized men did not remove penal responsibility since they had no right to violate rules of public order by undergoing corporal injury with no medical or surgical justification. The case confirmed that sterilization violates public order according to articles 309 and 310 of the penal code, that a surgical intervention is only justified if the patient has some medical reason or undergoing it, and that the individual does not have the right to free disposition of his body. No other judgments concerning voluntary sterilization were made by the French courts until 1983, when a 28-year-old woman in precarious health who had had 5 previous pregnancies and had become pregnant once again within a month of her sterilization won a case against the physician performing the sterilization on the grounds that he had failed to inform her of the possibility of pregnancy after sterilization. The court judgment was limited to the failure to inform the patient and did not address the legitimacy of sterilization itself. The failure of the court to address the issue of legality stopped short of explicit recognition of the legality of voluntary female sterilization. The text of the court opinion nevertheless appears to suggest that human sterilization is governed by the same norms as other surgical interventions, in particular the obligation to provide full information to the patient. It appears that in order to protect themselves against civil suits if no longer against criminal prosecution, sterilization practitioners need informed consent of the patient and patient's spouse, which usually involves a waiting period of several months, complete information intelligible to the patient, and a document containing the information and mentioning in particular the risk of sterilization failure. The physician could use "scores" based on age, medical history, social and other factors to help decide whether to accept sterilization patients. The sterilization technique should involve the least possible damage and best chances for reversal if later desired.
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