Aggregated News
The secretive Court of Protection will rule on the woman’s case on Tuesday, in a rare open hearing scheduled because of the overwhelming “public interest” in understanding the case.
She is due to give birth by caesarean section on Wednesday and could undergo an operation to sterilise her at the same time, if the court agrees.
Disability campaigners described the prospect of such a “drastic” step as “quite wrong”.
The woman will be represented by the official solicitor, a government lawyer who represents those who cannot instruct their own legal team because they lack capacity.
The patient’s local NHS trust and council have made an application to the Court of Protection to decide whether she lacks the capacity to make decisions about contraception for herself - and if so, whether she should be sterilised by means of “tubal ligation”.
The “non therapeutic sterilisation” operation would involve severing and sealing her fallopian tubes and would take place at the same time as the caesarean.
Critics argue that forcible sterilisation is too radical a procedure to be conducted without consent while other...