ABSTRACT
A person who is sterilised is unable to conceive naturally unless the process is reversed. The process of sterilisation may be voluntary or involuntary, the latter being generally associated with acquired or congenital disease, the proximate causes being more varied in women than in men. The main argument against the practice is that found in the orthodox Roman Catholic teaching that non-therapeutic sterilisation is a permanent mutilation which deprives the subject of a natural function and, as such, is morally unacceptable. Non-therapeutic sterilisation is a relatively simple operation in both the male and the female involves obliteration of the lumina of the tubes through which the sex cells pass to the uterus in the female. As the records of the various medical defence societies shows, actions in negligence for wrongful pregnancy following an operation for sterilisation in either the male or female partner are common – and certainly only a minority of cases are officially reported.
