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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/europe/europe-disabled-women-sterilization.html
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| Despite Bans, Disabled Women Are Still Being Sterilized in Europe | Despite Bans, Disabled Women Are Still Being Sterilized in Europe |
| (about 20 hours later) | |
| Anita cannot speak or comprehend complex information. At 28, she communicates mostly with facial expressions and baby-like sounds. When excited, she washes her hands. When her periods cause cramping and pain, she moans and agitates, unable to understand. | Anita cannot speak or comprehend complex information. At 28, she communicates mostly with facial expressions and baby-like sounds. When excited, she washes her hands. When her periods cause cramping and pain, she moans and agitates, unable to understand. |
| To eliminate this monthly discomfort and ease the burden of caring for her, caregivers at an assisted-living home in Reykjavik, Iceland, proposed an unusually aggressive step. The home’s manager recommended that Anita undergo a hysterectomy, a major surgical procedure to remove her uterus and end her periods. | To eliminate this monthly discomfort and ease the burden of caring for her, caregivers at an assisted-living home in Reykjavik, Iceland, proposed an unusually aggressive step. The home’s manager recommended that Anita undergo a hysterectomy, a major surgical procedure to remove her uterus and end her periods. |
| Eirikur Smith, an official in Iceland’s disabilities office, discovered this plan last year during a routine visit to the home. | Eirikur Smith, an official in Iceland’s disabilities office, discovered this plan last year during a routine visit to the home. |
| “Does she even know if she wants children later?” he recalls asking. | |
| The manager, he said, was stunned. “She just laughed in my face.” | |
| “‘Of course not,’” he said she replied. “‘Why would she ever want children?’” | |
| Forced sterilization, with its history of racism and eugenics, is banned under multiple international treaties. Thirty-seven European nations and the European Union have ratified the Istanbul Convention, which declares, without exception, that nonconsensual sterilization is a human rights violation. |