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Wednesday 17 July 2013

Report of inquiry into involuntary sterilisation of people with disabilities

Interest in the report of the Senate Inquiry into The involuntary or coerced sterilisation of people with disabilities in Australia,  released today (17th July 2013).  A second report is to be presented on sterilisation of intersex people:

Overhaul call on disabled sterilisation
SBS World News Australia, 17th July 2013
Families who take their disabled children overseas to be sterilised should face criminal charges, a parliamentary inquiry has recommended.

The politician mother of a daughter with Down syndrome has helped shine a light on the forced sterilisation of disabled people. For 10 months, Sue Boyce and eight of her fellow senators have been investigating reports that some people with disabilities are being sterilised without informed consent.
Louise Negline, ABC News, 17th July 2013
Parents of intellectually disabled girls have spoken out in favour of sterilisation, saying it gives their daughters a better quality of life.

Calls for tighter laws around disability sterilisation
PM, ABC Radio, 17th July 2013 (inlcudes audio file and transcript)
It may come as a shock to some that people are still being forcibly sterilised in Australia. That may be because when it does happen, it happens to the disabled, and it's frankly, under-reported.
But it does happen, and sometimes sterilisation is even forced on disabled people who are capable of giving or withholding consent. Now a Senate committee wants that, at least, to change.But the committee stopped short of recommending a total ban on forced sterilisations.

Sterilisation of People with Disability
People with Disability Australia, page updated 17th July 2013
PWDA strongly supports the development of uniform national legislation to protect persons with disability from non-therapeutic sterilisation.

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