Voluntary Sterilization | Opinions Pertaining to Requirements

[Lady Sabine]

Hello, Iwaku! Another strange debate topic up today. ^^ Before we get started, here are some rules to moderate the debate:

• Be polite to your fellow members. Because of conflict in the past, I'm going to go right out and say that this covers ALL swearing directed at a member. (Example: no calling anyone an ass. Saying something is bullshit, however, is acceptable)
• On a similar note, no direct insulting of generalized or specific people on one side of the issue or another. This includes but is not limited to people who have had this discussion before and politicians who have taken stances on it.
• No extended two-person dialogue. Wait for another poster to contribute before taking off.
• No tangents.
• No factdumping. This thread is for opinions and discussion.
• This is not for the discussion of non-voluntary sterilization. This includes criminals and those unable to make their own legal choices (mentally disabled or disturbed persons, for example).

Now. Voluntary Sterilization refers to an individual choosing to modify his or her body to make having children impossible. This only covers non-reversible* methods, not birth control. The most common forms of voluntary sterilization is a vasectomy, in which a man's vasa deferentia, the tubes that transport sperm from the testes to the rest of the body, are removed, disconnected, or blocked. In women the equivalent is a tubal ligation, which prevents eggs from entering the uterus.
These procedures are both legal. However, getting them can be a difficult process- though much easier for men than women because of costs and difficulty, and arguably also due to gender based discrimination. Single persons are often refused on the grounds that they can't know they don't want kids because they haven't had any- being too "immature" to make the decision. They can also be refused due to the doctor's personal beliefs, or, rarely, due to medical reasons.
What do you think, Iwaku? What requirements should there be for a person to get a voluntary sterilization procedure?

 

[Elyd]

STERILIZE MEH

No, really, who the fuck gets the say in what I do to my body? It is Fucked. Up.

tag @Kooriryu

 

[LogicfromLogic]

I think that people should be allowed to do what they damn well please to their bodies. I think that there should be an age limit up to seventeen (not including certain cases) so the person can mature enough to know what they want in life.

As far as doctors go, I think they need to keep their personal beliefs out of it all. You don't go there for a nice little discussion, you go there to get physical help and that's it.

 

[Peter Feels]

Get what you want done to your body since it belongs to you. I think at most, a doc should be allowed to give enough info for the person to make an informed decision and that's it.

 

[FJ22]

I live in Canada and you think we would have more freedom to do as we wish with our bodies... But starting the process to get tubes tied, ect. when you are under 30 is impossible. i have had friends who have had it done but apparently you need a good reason. I would love to get it done before I take any serious steps with the boyfriend.

 

[Kylulu]

I think the procedure should be open to anyone over the age of 18, with one information seminar. The seminar would cover what the patient could expect during the procedure, the medical long term affects (backed up by fact-checked studies and science, with unbiased presentation) with a small portion on how the procedure would be non-reversable. I add this, because I've known guys who thought of getting a vasectomy as the perfect birth control, and then reversing it when they were ready to have kids. -_-

 

[Kooriryu]

... You motherfuckers, y'all couldn't just let me enjoy visiting my sister so I can play with my cat!niece tonight. JUST COULDN'T LET ME ENJOY PLAYING WITH THE CUTEST SQUISHFACED CAT. GAW. Had to just go and tag me into this clusterfuck, issit???

Arright, fine, I'mma give a show ya sadistic fuckin' fucks. In order of the poll's choices I see before me, this that shit as all I really see being presented:

• LOL ARENT U A LITTLE YOUNG TO BE THINKIN' ABOUT DOING THIS TO YOUR FRESH, NUBILE BODY?

• ROFL YOURE STILL TOO YOUNG TO BE Making These Kinds of Decisions™

• I MEAN YOURE LEGALLY AN ADULT THAT CAN DRINK BUT... HAHAHA UR STILL TOO YOUNG, WHAT DO YOU EVEN KNOW???

• You're the minorest of minors, you need a parental consent form to sneeze, go watch Pokémon or something.

• WE'LL CALL YOU AN OLD MAID AT THIS AGE BUT NOW UR THIS WEIRD PARODOXICAL YOUNG/OLD MIX BUT THE BOTTOM LINE IS YOUR AGE ISN'T AT THIS ARBITRARILY DESIGNATED LEVEL TO DECIDE TO DO SOMETHING WE ALSO ARBITRARILY CALL "DRASTIC" TO YOUR BODY p.s. THE UNDERLYING MESSAGE WE'RE SENDING IS THAT YOU ARE GOING AGAINST ANOTHER ARBITRARILY ASSIGNED SOCIETAL PRIME DIRECTIVE FOR WOMEN, STOP. STOP DOING The Thing™

• WE HAVE TO MAKE SURE YOU'RE NOT CRAZY BECAUSE The Thing™ YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR BODY IS SO STRANGE AND ABNORMAL, Don't You Want Kids? You Might Want Them Later In Life™. LOLOL SILLY BROODMARE.

• HAVE YOU FILLED OUT YOUR QUOTA FOR CHILD-BEARING? YOU REALLY SURE? It's Such A Waste™

• C'MON SERIOUSLY, THINK ABOUT Your Potential Future Kids™ LET'S GLIDE OVER HOW MUCH TIME YOU GAVE BEFORE COMING TO THIS CONCLUSION, YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME SOME TIME TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER ABOUT IT TOO BECAUSE: ME ME ME NOT YOU YOU YOU.

• WAIT REALLY, IT'S IMPORTANT TO CLOCK IN TIME WITH US SO YOU ALSO HAVE OUR IMPORTANT VALIDATION IN The Choice You Make™

• YOU SURE YOU'RE MENTALLY SOUND? WHAT'S BODY AUTONOMY??? YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO ME WAX HYPOTHETICAL ABOUT WHAT'S PROBABLY MAYBE POSSIBLY GOING TO HAPPEN IN YOUR LIFE ALL BECAUSE WE REALLY THINK You Might Want Kids Someday™

*****

Shit, I need a beer now but because I'm such an avid advocator for Things Don't Exist In A Vacuum™

Sterilization Abuse in State Prisons: Time to Break With California's Long Eugenic Patterns

Reproductive control of women has taken many forms. On plantations, slave owners and overseers wielded tremendous power over female slaves and their families by raping women and deciding whether to sell off their children. In the nineteenth century, all states passed laws making abortion a crime. Around the time criminalization was consolidated, campaigns against "vice" successfully restricted women's access to birth control devices and information that might have reduced the need for abortion. The eugenics movement succeeded in institutionalizing and sterilizing masses of "unfit" persons, ranging from developmentally disabled individuals to sexually promiscuous women. The legacy of sterilization abuse continued throughout the twentieth century, shifting primarily to African American, Native American, and Puerto Rican women. - Rachel Roth, "Backlash and Continuity"

Sterilize Me, Please: Why is it so difficult for young women to get their tubes tied?

Lopez argues that, by contrasting the choice to become sterilized with the idea of forced sterilization, we overlook the fact that choices are primed by larger institutional structures and ideological messages. Reproductive freedom not only requires the ability to choose from a set of safe, effective convenient and affordable methods of birth control developed for men and women, but also a context of equitable social, political and economic conditions that allows women to decide whether or not to have children, how many, and when. via BREAKING DOWN THE FORCE/CHOICE BINARY IN THE STERILIZATION OF WOMEN OF COLOR

lololololololol huehuehuehuehue

Keep in mind kids, It's not just porn that's being uploaded for mass file sharing, it's textbooks, academic papers and all those things you would've had to pay university ass-gouging fees to obtain as well. If you can manage to find particularly obscure niche porn, you can manage to find old edition textbooks... which may or may not turn out to also be porn. Or malware, can't help with the malware just get some good-ass firewalls up.

 

[Minibit]

I voted over twenty-one, my ideal would be twenty-five. A lot can change in your life plans and world perspective in your twenties - and especially in your teen years! I also voted for a long waiting period to prevent highly emotional/irrational decisions, and counselling, to be sure the person understands fully the ramifications of the procedure.

I'm against the practice of assuming someone will have children, but a family is something a great number of people find wonderful and fulfilling, and many didn't always feel that way. It's not a decision you should make when you're young and still have tons of paradigm-altering experiences ahead of you, it needs to be a well-thought out decision made by a healthy, mature person who has had lots of time and tons of experiences and knowledge to base their decision on.

 

[Zen]

I do think twenty one or twenty two sounds like a reasonable age to make this kind of decision, and I'm speaking from my experience. From a very young age I was in charge of taking care of children. I was the oldest child so I had to babysit and tutor my cousins and distant relatives because it was my responsibility. For the most part I enjoyed it and in high school I was very set on having a family. I wrote letters to my kids, talked about it with my fiance, and had a feeling I would have twins.

... Fast forward a couple years later when I had to deal with a college degree, finding a job, getting another college degree because I didn't like the first degree, and ugh. Basically I was learning what it was like to be an adult with bills to pay. The thought of supporting a kid didn't sound so appealing anymore, and I was starting to lose patience with them. I honestly don't know why my nerves were starting to unravel around children, it just did. By the time I was around nineteen or twenty I decided not to have kids. That opinion hasn't changed so far and I'm turning twenty three next month.

That being said, if you truly feel like you don't ever want kids when you're sixteen, that's fine. Your body, your life, I won't question it. I will also say though that if you feel like you regret that decision, it's on you. You got to make that decision, take responsibility for it. Regrets in life exist in both the small and great decisions.

Now on the whole business of people - whether they be medical professionals or close family members - trying to persuade someone not to go through with sterilization when they've had enough life experience to know what they want... I know someone who had X number of kids that weren't planned, and after X number of kids she decided to get her tubes tied. The nurses said something along the lines of, "Well what if you aren't with your husband anymore? Wouldn't you want to have kids with your new husband too? And what if you want more kids in the future?"

She ended up not getting her tubes tied and got pregnant with another baby. The pregnancy was not a happy one according to family members. =/

 

[Laggy Lagiacrus]

I'm saying over 21, and people need to know what they're going to go through if they choose to get sterilised. It's their body and they have the right to choose what they want to do with it, but I feel like they need to be well-informed, and that they need to be an adult to make the decision responsibly.

Me? I won't go into details, but due to a condition I've got that's genetic, I'd rather not have a kid through natural means. Whether I want to be a father at all is still up in the air, but if I don't want to run the risk of having a child that could inherit my condition.

I also believe medical professionals have the right to inform you of the decision you're making. What I don't think they have the right to do is try and convince you to go ahead/not go ahead with it. It's not their place to try and convince you of anything unless they have good reason to believe it'll affect your health.

 

[heliacalRebirth]

We actually had this discussion in my honors literature class at school after reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and we as a class decided that it would not be a bad idea to sterilize all males at a young age by means of a vasectomy, as it is a reversible process and would greatly reduce teen pregnancies. When the male decides that he is ready to produce kids then he can undergo the procedure and shit.

The reason we chose male instead of female is because our current contraceptive methods have a higher risk of birth defects in females than males. Birth Control can cause miscarriages and it is not a permanent solution. A vasectomy is the cheapest and easiest route. Now, this wasn't completely based upon careful studies and all that, it was just a random high school classroom discussion that happened to occur.


So, our class actually thought that involuntary sterilization would be a good idea. I thought it was a peculiar notion, so I posted it :P

 

[Elyd]

Because I love you, Koori <3 <3 <3 <3 Now go play with kitty!

 

[Fyrra]

You're basically always "too young to be making such a drastic life-altering decision," according to somebody who is older than you and believes that they know better, especially if it involves a possibility of becoming sterile. Parents will constantly throw down the "But you'll want them eventually" argument, because somehow they've justified the idea that children are the most important thing to have in life, disregarding the fact that what works for them will not always work for their children.

I've never understood what it was with people, to glorify procreation to the point of overpopulation, but when I was twelve I had a sister, and because my mother and her husband would often fight, I had to be the emergency babysitter. My stuff would go missing, the screaming would continue well into the dead of night, and I would get vomit on my favourite shirts, but that mostly just comes from having a stepfather around the house. The sister wasn't nearly as terrible, unless she really wanted her mother while the mother was busy. Parents will tell you about the "terrible twos," and I will tell you that being around for that and having a front row seat for one of the worst marriages I've ever seen, just as I was becoming a teenager, I wanted nothing to do with raising children of my own. With the way divorces work in the states, usually the mother keeps the children (even when she has addictions to street level drugs) and the father is stuck paying child support, and every time the two parents talk, a huge argument breaks out.

The children help parents justify getting into an unhealthy relationship and sticking with it for as long as they do, but ultimately, parents want to become grandparents, because it gives them something to be proud of. So they'll push for you to start dating, judge you for not having the same standards for romance that they do, and then tell you that any thoughts you're having that could get in the way of producing more children are "just a phase." They will do their best to convince you of this, and if you're talking to somebody else about this subject, they will try to influence that person as well. It doesn't matter whether you're certain that you need some sort of treatment done to your body, or that you're very informed on the subject and understand the consequences of your actions very clearly: "You're still too young to be doing this!" It doesn't matter if you're getting a vasectomy, getting your tubes tied, entering into a monogamous homosexual relationship, taking hormone treatments so you can be perceived as another gender, or doing something completely unrelated in which sterility is just a side effect. They always want you to think about it a little longer.

And yet, people get so uptight whenever sterilization is refused to a person and she gets pregnant and wants to terminate, when the entire situation could have been avoided.

Or on the other side of the mirror, someone who is sterile will be unable to understand how someone could throw away what s/he can't have.

And some people just want to be able to live their lives without being forced into an unhappy situation for the next twenty years, or even worse, raise a child that they ultimately don't want. Any child in that situation is going to grow up with issues, with depression being one of the more minor issues on the list.

 

[Diana]

18. You're pretty much an adult by that point. Make your choices and live the consequences.

It's MY body and I will do what I want with it. >:[ If I don't want children and get sterilized, then regret it later, that is MY regret to bear and none of anyone's damned business.

 

[Neobullseye]

- Age requirement: 21 years.
This mostly speaks for itself. In fact, I would probably like to see it even higher, somewhere around 25-30. While this may sound high, the reason is that 21, although the legal age of adulthood, is also a very chaotic time for most people. In between first jobs/college, finding your own place to live and whatnot, I can easily see someone making a rush decision. In addition, it's been shown in scientific research that the part of the brain that governs impulses and such doesn't stop developing until around the age of 25.

- Waiting period (One month and/or higher):
On one side, I do want to believe that people who decide to do things like this don't just wake up one day and say "Hey, why don't I go and let myself get sterilized today! Whee, sounds like fun!"; Much like other major decisions, it's very likely that they've wanted to do so for quite some time. On the other hand, I know that some people really do fail to think things through. As such, to protect this group of people, even if it's just a minority, there has to be a rule to force people to think about what they're doing.

I'm sort of doubting about the "Clear bill of mental health" bit. If it's about things like depression and such, then that shouldn't be that much of a problem in this scenario (Note: I'm not saying that depression isn't a problem period). If it's about something like MPD or whatever, then yeah, that's obviously important too.

 

[Fyrra]

"Clear bill of mental health" sounds like a crazy requirement for voluntary sterilization. It purposely locks out the kind of people who don't know they lack the capacity to raise their own children, as well as the people who are completely aware of this fact if it applies to them.

 

[Lady Sabine]

"Clear bill of mental health" sounds like a crazy requirement for voluntary sterilization. It purposely locks out the kind of people who don't know they lack the capacity to raise their own children, as well as the people who are completely aware of this fact if it applies to them.

Not to mention the number of mental illnesses that have a genetic link! If I had anything serious I might pass on to my kids, I would definitely elect to adopt rather than risk another generation carrying my same problem.

 

[Hisoka]

Frankly I think sterilization should perhaps be mandatory if only because the world is beginning to show signs of overpopulation. That and lets be honest there are a staggering amount of people out that have no business being capable of breeding. Just look at the amount of children taken by the various social services of various countries. Frankly I think the only reason children should be conceived is to maintain a stable population.