Involuntary Sterilisation Threatens Rights of Disabled Women

[polly7]

by Elizabeth Whitman (United Nations)Friday, September 21, 2012

Inter Press Service

http://www.globalissues.org/news/2012/09/21/14853

"UNITED NATIONS, Sep 21 (IPS) - In 1996, Maria Mamerita Mestanza Chavez, a 33-year-old Peruvian mother of seven, was threatened with imprisonment if she did not comply with the government policy of undergoing sterilisation. After suffering post-operative complications for which she was refused treatment, Chavez died nine days later.

After years of legal proceedings in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), in 2003 the Peruvian government finally acknowledged international legal responsibility for its actions.

Chavez's story is not the only case in which national law has forced women to undergo involuntary sterilisation. Although many women's and disability rights organisations and other human rights bodies have condemned coercive sterilisation, thousands of women and girls worldwide are still denied the right to make decisions about their own reproduction."

.....

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Buck v. Bell is not only alive in other countries, but these

government sponsored sterilization laws in this country are still constitutional as the Supreme Court has not overturned them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell

BTW, to make Carrie Buck's case more intriguing, her pregnancy was the result of being raped by her adoptive mother's nephew. She was sent to a state home where the government classified her as feebleminded. So she was punished for being raped.

[polly7]

2. Wow. I didn't realize that at all, why on earth wouldn't they have officially overturned that

by now? The Carrie Buck story is so sad.

[musical_soul]

3. I'm guessing no local government has pushed the issue.....

prompting somebody to take them to court. Otherwise, it takes an act of congress.