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Parents win permission to sterilise their profoundly disabled 11-year-old daughter

Updated: 19:22 EDT, 10 March 2010



The parents of a profoundly disabled 11-year-old girl have won the right to have her sterilised after a landmark court case in Australia.

A judge in Queensland's Family Court said it was in the best interests of the girl, identified only as Angela, to have a hysterectomy.

The youngster, known only as 'Angela',  suffers from Rett syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder. Decision: The decision was handed down in Queensland's Family Court which sits in the state capital, Brisbane

Girls with Rett syndrome are prone to gastrointestinal disorders and up to 80 per cent have seizures.

Angela entered puberty at the age of nine. Her parents believe that her periods trigger epileptic fits.

The couple were forced to ask a court for permission in the wake of a 1992 decision which ruled that parents could not sign off on serious, invasive, irreversible medical procedures for their children.

Yesterday judge Paul Cronin said he made the order to improve Angela's quality of life.

Angela cannot talk and does not have the co-ordination to use sign language.

She 'acts as a three-month-old baby would'. She has a special walking frame into which she has to be strapped because she cannot stand supported alone.

Angela's mother told the court that epileptic seizures appeared to be triggered by Angela's periods, which also caused her pain and fatigue.

Three of Queensland's leading gynaecologists agreed a hysterectomy was the best treatment.

Disability organisations immediately branded the forced sterilisation of any girl as an abuse of human rights.

Carolyn Frohmader, chief executive of Women with a Disability Australia, told the Australian newspaper: 'It is only ever the disabled girls - when you go through the cases, there is never a boy, no matter how intellectually disabled, who has to be sterilised.'

National Council on Intellectual Disability chief Mark Patterson admitted the issue 'is a very difficult one'.

He added: 'We take the pragmatic approach. It doesn't help families in their day-to-day lives if we say we are not going to allow sterilisation.'

Parents of disabled children in online forums were strongly in favour, with one mother saying: 'I am totally with Angela's parents on this one, I have a severely disabled daughter and I am still to this day fighting for her to have a hysterectomy.

'She has outburst behaviours and becomes very violent during her menstruation times.'


Australian court allows parents to sterilise 11-year-old daughter



