I've Been Trying to Get Sterilized For a Decade. The UK Won't Allow It.

"Wouldn't an IUD be a bit more suitable?" The doctor across the desk looks at me with kind concern. "A lot of young women do change their minds, you see, when they get older."

A different doctor, a different room: "Really the pill is probably the best option for you at this stage of your life." The same condescending smile. 

Another year later: "Condoms do also protect against STIs, you see?" Encouraging nodding is aimed at me from across the nurse’s desk.

Now five years later: "It's very unlikely that we would allow such a permanent procedure at your age." The nurse smiles at me like I am seven years old and have just asked for a pet scorpion, not knowing the harm it will cause me. 

Except I am not seven, and I am not asking for a pet scorpion. I am 33. I have been taking hormonal contraceptives since I was 14 years old, I have been pregnant once, and I have had one abortion. I have never wanted children. I have had nine conversations with various NHS doctors about getting permanently sterilized.

As of today, I have been trying to get medically sterilized for more than 10 years. The NHS will not allow it. Despite my medical records showing that I have not changed my mind for a decade, I am still told by strangers in the health care sector that other forms of contraception would be more appropriate for me and that many women think they don't want children and then change their minds afterwards. 

I do not want children. I do not want to be pregnant. I do not want to adopt. I do not want to be a parent.

Many women also buy lottery tickets and get Botox and enjoy modern art. Am I now, too, obliged to do the same because I am a woman?

I do not want children. I do not want to be pregnant. I do not want to adopt. I do not want to be a parent. This has never changed for me. 

For all of our progress it is still the case that, even in 2024, the idea that a woman doesn't want children is seen as deviant. There is overt gender-essentialist misogyny at work here. It’s the belief that motherhood lies at the center of womanhood: Any woman who rejects motherhood must be sick or insane and cannot be allowed to act on her feelings and preferences.

You might also want to consider my desire for permanent sterilization in the context that there is no constitutional right to abortion in the UK. Not a lot of people know this. In England, abortions can be granted up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, but only if two different doctors agree that continuing the pregnancy would pose a greater risk to the physical or mental health of the pregnant person than the termination. Abortions after 24 weeks are only permitted in very limited and “exceptional” circumstances—things like if the pregnancy poses a risk to the life of the pregnant person. 

In the eyes of the law, I cannot decide on my own that I want an abortion. Two separate doctors—two strangers who do not know me or my life—have to agree between themselves that carrying the pregnancy would have to cause me more harm than having the termination. 

Lately, UK courts have been much more aggressive in prosecuting abortion. Last year, a 44-year-old woman in England was sent to prison for an abortion prescribed to her by the NHS that went horribly wrong. She was prescribed abortion pills over the phone during COVID when face-to-face appointments weren’t possible, but it turned out that she was much further along in her pregnancy than she had told ​​the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. The judge sentenced her to 28 months, but made sure to say that the maximum sentence was life imprisonment. Life. In prison. For an act of desperation that, according to a court of appeals judge who shortened the woman’s sentence, called for “compassion, not punishment.”

Northern Ireland, historically famed for its Catholic oppression of pregnancy health care rights, now has better, stronger laws in place to ensure someone's right to choose than England. Since 2019, abortion is now unconditionally legal up to 12 weeks in Northern Ireland.

England’s refusal to allow permanent contraception and unconditional abortion access exposes a deep-seated misogyny and authoritarian control over women's bodies. I will keep demanding to be sterilized, and pray that I don’t fall pregnant in the meantime and risk facing jail if my abortion goes wrong.