ABSTRACT
While consensual sterilisation remains popular among competent adults, particularly, but not exclusively, females, as a form of contraception or as a symbol of their independence, non-consensual sterilisation retains the potential for controversy despite enhanced protection in England in the form of a Practice Note and the judicial exhortation that court approval should usually be sought before carrying out this sort of procedure. However, other countries have taken great strides in exorcising the spectre and history of eugenic sterilisation and this is surely a positive tendency, although the laws themselves are, as ever, open to interpretation. In this area, the USA, Germany and Australia have certainly shown the way forward to other countries of the world. The price of protection of the vulnerable, however, is constant vigilance and mechanisms must be in place to ensure that, as long as there are mentally incapacitated persons, they will, particularly in these sorts of situation, continue to receive the protection of the law.
