As a follow up to the post in the first link below, here is a list of further related links on those wanting to know more. Thanks to a helpful anonymous reader of the What Sorts blog who provided most of the links below but who doesn’t wish to be identified. Folks in Oz: let us know if you have more information, are undertaking action, whatever.
- https://whatsortsofpeople.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/forced-sterilization-and-disability-in-australia/ Recent What sorts blog post on forced sterilization in Australia TODAY:
- 1997 & 2001: reports from the Human Rights Commission in Australia that discuss the practice.
- 1998– official document assessing situation, number of sterilizations per year, convenience of sterilizing disabled woman http://www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/resources/file/ebb8810487b4021/MURRAY.pdf
- 2001- Study and report from Women With Disabilities Australia. Thorough, including much relevant history, sterilization survivor testimony and narratives, as well as a talk given by Adrienne Asch, and references to the significance of the Canadian eugenic history here, and reports “The Sterilization of Leilani Muir” as one of two video source. http://www.ag.gov.au/Documents/HRPB%20-%20NHRAP%20-%20Baseline%20Study%20-%20Submission%20-%20Women%20with%20Disabilities%20Australia%20-%20Attachment%205.PDF
- Leilani Muir on The Current, with Anna Maria Tremonti http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2011/11/14/leilani-muir-successfully-sues-alberta-govt-for-wrongful-sterilization/ Here Leilani Muir talks about her case, a case referred to several times in the Australian literature on the ongoing sterilization of women with disabilities.
These are all relevant to the parliamentary inquiry mentioned in the first post. But there’s more that’s ongoing in Western Australia that concerns a draft bill on mental health, with cross-over to the issues above:
- March 2012 — news & link to draft of a new proposed law in Western Australia allowing sterilization &/or psychosurgery to kids with mental illnesses without parent consent; requisite is only the child’s & doctor’s consent. http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/australian-legislators-propose-sterilizing-disabled-children-without-parent/ & http://www.lifesitenews.com/images/pdfs/Discussion_Draft_for_Mental_Health_Bill_2011_%28v3%29.pdf This legislation draft has generated over 1200 responses, a selection of which are published at http://www.mentalhealth.wa.gov.au/mentalhealth_changes/mh_legislation/mhc_bill_submissions.aspx
It appears that this draft is “under revision”. But some background
- Mental health legislation in Western Australia http://www.mentalhealth.wa.gov.au/mentalhealth_changes/mh_legislation.aspx The Background and Resources link from that page is useful, even if one needs to remember that its presentation of material is not always neutral
- Human Rights Watch briefing paper on sterilization of women and girls with disabilities, November 2011, includes references to legislation worldwide http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/11/10/sterilization-women-and-girls-disabilities
- Paper and journal on the topic: Sterilization by Stealth, by Jessica Alicia Pintabona, 2009 and Sterilization in Australia, an online journal from the Advisory Research Council
- Moira Raynor and Judith Cockram, “The Response of the Law to Intellectual Disability in Western Australia 1829-1993”, in Cocks, Fox, Brogan, and Lee (eds), Under Blue Skies: The Social Construction of Intellectual Disability in Western Australia (Edith Cowan University Press, 1996). I haven’t been able to track an electronic copy of this yet that one can access without some kind of subscription / special status. If anyone has a link to it, please send it on.
