Synopsis

In a recent case in the US, a mother requested a vasectomy for her 13 year old son. He has autism and intellectual disability, and functions at the level of 4-5 year old. He had starting talking about getting married and having children, and she was concerned to make sure that he could never father a child. We will discuss this case, in the context of the wider ethical debate about sterilisation of children and young people, mostly young women, with intellectual disability.  Concepts of bodily integrity, dignity and human rights meet with the practicalities of life for a young person with ID and their parents and carers.

Speakers

Professor Lynn Gillam is the Academic Director of the Children’s Bioethics Centre at RCH, and Professor of Health Ethics in the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Merle Spriggs is an ARC Research Fellow at the Children’s Bioethics Centre, Royal Children’s Hospital; the Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne; and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute. She has a PhD in Bioethics and her expertise is in the areas of informed consent, patient autonomy, paediatric ethics, empirical ethics and the ethics of research practice. She is currently working on a project titled: ‘The ethics of altering children’.

Professor Sonia Grover Dept. of Gynaecology, Mercy Hospital for Women, Royal Children’s Hospital and University of Melbourne. Sonia has extensive experience in paediatric and adolescent gynaecology over 20 years. She has been instrumental in establishing this subspecialty in Australia as well as an Asia and internationally with teaching, clinical support and mentoring. As a gynaecologist, Sonia is a member of the executive committee of the international paediatric and adolescent gynaecology society (FIGIJ) and the Australian and New Zealand Society of paediatric and adolescent Gynaecology.