Medical Practitioners Who Deny Young Women Sterilisation Surgery "Because They Will Regret It Later": Patient-centred Practice or Discrimination?

Abstract

Women in Australia routinely access medical services which, by design or consequence, sterilise them. There is evidence which suggests that some medical practitioners are not offering procedures to young women where the surgery will make them infertile. These decisions are often defended on the basis that women who lose their fertility will go on to regret the medical procedure in the future. This article will consider the legal and ethical implications of this practice. It will first critically analyse the ethics of this decision according to the Beauchamp and Childress principles of justice, applying them through the lens of a patient-centred practice framework. It will then examine whether such practice may constitute discrimination under the Federal and Victorian discrimination frameworks, focusing on whether such decisions constitute age discrimination, gender discrimination, or discrimination on the basis of parental status. This article will draw the conclusion that such decisions are generally unethical and may constitute discrimination under Australian laws.