A recent article on the BBC website said that Uzbekistan
doctors have been sterilizing female patients without their knowledge as part
of a secret government initiative. Doctors were given quotas to sterilize as
many as 8 women per month, a practice that is simple to implement because of
the abundance of births by Cesarean section. Some doctors have taken the tact
of manipulating poor patients into sterilizations, saying that it fewer
children will benefit her health, but some cut out the middle man and perform
the operation in secret during the cesarean section. The idea behind the
program was to decrease infant mortality rates and control the size of the
population, as many of the problems of developing countries are severely
hampered by very high birth rates. This secret program is clearly a fundamental
violation of human rights, and the secrecy surrounding it seems unnecessary,
but the rationale behind such a directive raises an interesting question. Is an
aggressive population control program a legitimate next step for developing
countries? The benefits are clear: with a less explosive birth rate, public
services and infrastructural problems become more affordable to fix. In
addition, fewer children per family would lead to better overall care, and thus
fewer health problems for both the mother and her children. There were human
rights violations, but with revisions that prevented the secrecy and obligatory
nature of the Uzbekistani doctor, this could be a legitimate way to improve the
average quality of life of your country’s citizens.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17612550
2 comments:
Sterilizing a human being with his or her consent is wrong. No benefit to society can outweigh denying a human being the right to reproduce. Secret sterilizations is not the issue. As the author of this post points out secret sterilizations brings us to a more interesting debate: whether or not countries with exploding populations should create incentives for its citizens to undergo sterilization. Such incentives have already been implemented. For example, in India citizens who opt for a vasectomy are rewarded with perks ranging from motorcycles to color televisions to handfuls of cash. The side that supports the incentives argue that they will help control the population growth, which in turn will allow the state to provide its citizens with a better quality of life. My question is whether the money spent on these incentives could control population growth in other less invasive and more long lasting ways. I argue that it could. High birth rates are typically associated with low living standards. The high birth rates dilutes government services and so lowers living standards – which increases birth rates more and then cycle repeats. The India government choose to attempt to fix cut the cycle by throwing money at the high-birth-rate-part of the cycle. By doing this the Indian government is treating the symptoms instead of the underlining problem: which is the low standard of living. The money spent on incentive would be better used on improving the quality of life of its citizens. Studies show that more educated women tend to have less children. That being said, the money being spend on incentives would be better used on educating women – which acts as a double whammy by reducing birth rates while also improving standards of living.
Controlling birth rates is likely a very effective way of improving standards of living for poorer developing countries but the forced and secret sterilization of persons is not only unethical but also unnecessary. In a developing country it is likely that citizens would support lower birth rates if given better birth control options. Providing free birth control as well as education would likely result in a much lower birth rates. The cost of free birth control may be high but it is likely costly to pay doctors to secretly sterilize women as well.
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