MORAL ASPECTS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20221, 3 February 1934, Page 32 (Supplement)

MORAL ASPECTS.

Controversy on Sterilisation of Unfit. LONDON, January 17. Commenting on the report of the departmental committee on sterilisation of the unfit, “ The Times,” in a leading article, points out that any final decision on the subject will depend upon religious and moral aspects, in addition to the legal and medical side of the question.

“It cannot be assumed,” the article says, “ that persons are entitled to dispose of their own bodily functions. Therefore the objections to suicide apply in a lesser degree to sterilisation. “ Moreover, the committee, judging by its report, would not permit an individual to avail himself of sterilisation as a simple, permanent form of birth control, except on medical grounds. “ But medical grounds might be made an excuse for prompt employment of the lethal chamber in the case of severe infectious diseases.” The “ News-Chronicle ” says that

sterilisation is at present entirely experimental, but, assuming that it is necessary, the committee’s cautious proposals are the sanest and most sensible possible. The report recommended that, subject to safeguards, voluntary sterilisation should be made legal for persons who are mentally defective, or who have suffered from mental disorders, persons who suffer from, or are believed to be the carriers of, grave physical disabilities, which have been shown to be transmissible, and persons who are believed to be likely to transmit mental disorders.