THE CASE FOR STERILISATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22204, 6 March 1934, Page 8

THE CASE FOR STERILISATION

Thebe will be considerable interest in this country among the medical profession and social workers in the report of the British Sterilisation Committee, which was released recently after a thorough examination of this problem lasting nineteen months. The inquiry was conducted on medical and scientific lines alone, And the Committee’s decision, arrived at unanimously, is in favour of voluntary sterilisation under safeguards. The classes of persons to whom its recommendations would apply are those who are mentally defective or have .suffered from mental disorder; ,|hose who suffer from or are believed to be carriers of a grave physical disability. that has - been shown to be transmissible; those who are believed to be likely to transmit mental disorder or defect. The principal safeguards proposed by the committee are that the written authorisation of the Minister of Health should be necessary for every operation of sterilisation, and that two medical certificates should be obtained in each case, one preferably from the patient's family doctor, the other from a doctor on a list approved by -the Minister. Doubtful cases of carriers would be referred by the Minister to a small advisory committee of doctors and geneticists. It would be required that the signed consent of the patient, or of parents or guardians, should be produced. In making its investigation, into this controversial issue the committee was able to secure valuable information from a study of sterilisation in the United States, the country with the longest experience in this aspect of eugenics, and two interesting conclusions were reached concerning the operation of sterilisation. In the United States, it is stated, sterilisation has not yet affected in any appreciable degree the incidence of mental defect, and legislation has been effective only in those States in which it has operated on a voluntary basis. But although it becomes clear from the committee’s investigation that sterilisation of the unfit will not provide an immediate and marked diminution in the incidence of mental abnormality, the report is quite emphatic regarding the value of sterilisation in this, its most important, phase. The committee, after consulting a great number of expert witnesses, found that in not less than 80 per cent, of eases of mental defect inheritance is a contributing factor. In only certain rare forms of mental defect has the method of transmission been demonstrated, and in many cases unfavourable environment is judged to assist in producing mental abnormality. Against these necessarily not entirely conclusive findings, however, the committee provides striking and disturbing evidence of the incidence of mental ‘defect in the children of known defectives. Of 1800 of the children of such persons 40 per cent, of those between seven and thirteen years of age were mentally subnormal; of 1850 children over thirteen years of age, 45 per cent, were found to be mentally subnormal. The committee states that it was impressed by the dead weight of social inefficiency and individual misery entailed by the existence in England and Wales of more than a quarter of a million mental defectives. “ Without some measure of sterilisation,” is is stated, “these unhappy people will continue to bring into the world unwanted children, many of whom will be doomed from birth to misery and defect. We can. see neither logic nor justice in denying these people what is ii) effect a therapeutic measure.” Tliese are facts

which require to be faced in civilised countries, and the'British Sterilisation Committee suggests strongly that there is not any alternative method to sterilisation or segregation, which Avould prove costly and inhuman. “It is idle,” it is said, “to expect that.the section of the community least capable of self-control will succeed in restraining one of the strongest impulses of mankind.” The main opposition to sterilisation rests, of course, on factors which were not taken into considei’ation by the committee, and it may' be assumed that the ease of the opponents will be fully ventilated now that a definite report is before the British Parliament. It is stated in the English press that there is more than a possibility of the committee’s recommendations being accepted as a basis for legislation.