Objections to a permissive Bill to legalise the voluntary sterilization of certain mental defectives / [Westminster Catholic Federation].

Date:
[between 1930 and 1939?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Objections to a permissive Bill to legalise the voluntary sterilization of certain mental defectives / [Westminster Catholic Federation]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    arrangement will make it impossible for opponents to suggest that the parenthood of private citizens is being controlled by a bureau¬ cracy. This Sub-Section 1 (a) clearly negatives the purely voluntary character of the measure, and it is difficult to see how the transference of the final decision from a Board of Control to a judicial authority preserves the rights of the individual in question. As far as he is concerned, it is a matter of purely academic interest whether his compulsorj^ mutilation is inflicted Ьз'^ a Board or a judge. (b) The Bill, if passed, may bring into being a new class of conscientious objectors in the medical and nursing professions. What would be the position of a doctor or nurse in an Institution, who declined to perform or assist at the mutilation of an inmate ? A great many, perhaps the majority, would refuse, for it has been the constant and honourable tradition of the medical body to preserve rather than to destroy human life and faculties, a tradition with which the common law of England is in perfect accord. (Ill) The proponents of the Bill, it is willingl}^ admitted, have the welfare of posterity in mind, but its opponents ma}^ also be per¬ mitted to have some regard for future developments. It is incontestable that this guarded measure for legalising sterilization will open the door to further developments, whereb3^ its scope will be extended and its operation made compulsory. (a) Once the principle of eugenic sterilization is admitted, wh}^ should it not be applied to physical as well as to mental defectives? The recent Report of the British Medical Association is not enthusiastic concerning the sterilization of mental defectives, but it remarks : sterilization is almost invariably discussed as though it had applicability only to mentally defective persons. This is not