Laws restricting, regulating, or banning circumcision, some dating back to ancient times, have been enacted in many countries and communities. In modern states, circumcision is generally presumed to be legal, but laws pertaining to assault or child custody have been applied in cases involving circumcision. There are currently no states that unequivocally ban infant male circumcision for non-therapeutic reasons. In the case of non-therapeutic circumcision of children, proponents of laws in favor of the procedure often point to the rights of the parents or practitioners, namely the right of freedom of religion. Those against the procedure point to the boy's right of freedom from religion. In several court cases, judges have pointed to the irreversible nature of the act, the grievous harm to the boy's body, and the right to self-determination, and bodily integrity.
Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectually disabled, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court has never expressly overturned Buck v. Bell.
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, programs are government policies which force people to undergo surgical or other sterilization. The reasons governments implement sterilization programs vary in purpose and intent. In the first half of the 20th century, several such programs were instituted in countries around the world, usually as part of eugenics programs intended to prevent the reproduction of members of the population considered to be carriers of defective genetic traits.
E (Mrs) v Eve, [1986] 2 S.C.R. 388 is a judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada regarding a mother's request for the consent of the court to have her disabled daughter sterilized. This was a landmark case which is influential in Canadian legal decisions involving proxy-consented, non-therapeutic medical procedures performed on people of diminished mental capacity.
Secretary of the Department of Health and Community Services v JWB and SMB, commonly known as Marion's Case, is a leading decision of the High Court of Australia, concerning whether a child has the capacity to make decisions for themselves, and when this is not possible, who may make decisions for them regarding major medical procedures. It largely adopts the views in Gillick v West Norfolk Area Health Authority, a decision of the House of Lords in England and Wales.
In re A.C. was a 1987 District of Columbia Court of Appeals case. It was the first appellate court case decided against forced Caesarean sections, although the decision was issued after the fatal procedure was performed. Physicians performed a Caesarean section upon patient Angela Carder without informed consent in an unsuccessful attempt to save the life of her fetus. The case stands as a landmark in United States case law establishing the rights of informed consent and bodily integrity for pregnant women.
Barbora Bukovská is a Czech-Slovak human rights attorney and activist, known for her work on racial discrimination of Romani people in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Before anti-discrimination laws were adopted, she initiated the first Czech strategic litigation cases concerning discrimination against Romani people in access to public services, housing, employment and within the criminal justice system, and used the courts to bring a change in the law.
According to the last census from 2011, there were 105,738 persons counted as Romani people in Slovakia, or 2.0% of the population.
Compulsory sterilization in Canada has a documented history in, at minimum, the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. In 2017, sixty indigenous women in Saskatchewan sued the provincial government, claiming they had been forced to accept sterilization before seeing their newborn babies.
The Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC) is an international human rights organisation founded in Hungary in 2002. It is headquartered in Budapest.
K.H. and Others vs. Slovakia is the first in a series of cases before the European Court for Human Rights dealing with the subject of forced sterilisation of Romani people or Gypsy women from Slovakia. The case did not deal with sterilization directly but it concerned access to medical records of forcibly sterilized Romani women for the purpose of litigation of their rights.
Madrigal v. Quilligan was a federal class action lawsuit from Los Angeles County, California involving sterilization of Latina women that occurred either without informed consent, or through coercion. Although the judge ruled in favor of the doctors, the case led to better informed consent for patients, especially those who are not native English speakers.
After World War I, the Romani people in Czechoslovakia formed an ethnic community, living on the social periphery of the mainstream Czechoslovakian population.
V.C. vs Slovakia was the first case in which the European Court for Human Rights ruled in favor of a Romani woman who was a victim of forced sterilization in the state hospital in Slovakia. It is one of many cases of forced sterilization of Roma women brought to the Court by the Slovak feminist group Center for Civil and Human Rights from Košice.
LM & Others v Government of Namibia is a legal case regarding coerced sterilisation of three women. The woman argued they had not properly consented to sterilization due to not being informed of the contents of the consent form, not understanding the medical staff, or coercion by being told their Caesareans would not be performed unless they consented to the sterilization. All the women were HIV-positive and believe they were targeted for sterilization based on this. In 2012, the Namibian High Court held that the women had been coercively sterilised. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Namibia upheld the High Court decision on 3 November 2014.
I.G. and Others vs. Slovakia is the third case decided by the European Court of Human Rights against Slovakia concerning forced sterilization of Romani people or Gypsy women. Although the case was the third decision on the practice, it was actually the first case brought to the European Court by the Slovak feminist organization Center for Civil and Human Rights already in 2004.
Sterilization law is the area of law, within reproductive rights, that gives a person the right to choose or refuse reproductive sterilization and governs when the government may limit this fundamental right. Sterilization law includes federal and state constitutional law, statutory law, administrative law, and common law. This article primarily focuses on laws concerning compulsory sterilization that have not been repealed or abrogated and are still good laws, in whole or in part, in each jurisdiction.
No Más Bebés is an American documentary film that tells the story of immigrant women who were sterilized upon going into labor. Having been sterilized without knowing at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, the mothers sued county doctors, the State of California, and the U.S. government. Having collected hospital records from a whistleblower, Chicana lawyer Antonia Hernandez led the lawsuit against powerful institutions.
Elena Gorolová is a Czech human rights defender. She works as a social worker in Ostrava and is of Roma origins.
The Legal Assistance Centre is a human rights organization in Windhoek, Namibia. The organization was established in 1988 during the apartheid era to litigate on behalf of people who were oppressed by the government and continues to operate today.
