Child sterilisation
It cannot be said that the statement by Dr David Owen, the Minister of Health, on the subject of sterilisation of retarded or otherwise inadequate children, was at all satisfactory. It was the discovery of a proposal to sterilise one young girl which revealed that, albeit on a small scale, the practice of sterilising minors was already established in the National Health Service. Dr Owen now proposes that the Government should publish a Code of Practice for doctors in this extremely difficult and dangerous field. What is distressing about his statement, however, is his clear acceptonce of the principle of sterilisation in the c vent of abnormality; it is this principle du t has clearly guided doctors who, in the past, have carried out the operations. To many, that principle, especially as the minor in question cannot possibly be regarded as having given his or her consent, will be unacceptable.
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