Tubal Ligation | “I want to have a choice over my own body”

Elizabeth Emond, 29, does not want children. She never wanted it. Since she was an adult, she has tried to obtain a tubal ligation about 30 times, which she is systematically refused. “I don’t feel like I’m being taken seriously. To sterilize a woman, it seems like something tragic. »

William Theriault
The Press

Access to tubal ligation, an operation that renders a woman permanently infertile, seems strewn with obstacles for women under 30. In response to an article by The Press on vasectomy published on Monday, dozens of them testified on Facebook.

Child, Elizabeth Emond “did not want to play with dolls like the others”. For her, it was already a sign. She started the process very early, just 18 years old. In ten years, she received about 30 refusals from various medical specialists.

Unlike men who request a vasectomy, she was almost never allowed to take a formal test to see if it was an informed decision, she says in an interview.

” It looks like [les réponses des médecins], it’s dictated by their personal values, believes Elizabeth. The healthcare system should be based on logic, not emotions. I get the feeling they don’t want to do that on women who have never had children. »

“I sincerely don’t think that I would be able to raise another human being,” explains the young woman. I couldn’t thrive by having a family. I have anxiety issues, and I’m also basically neurodivergent… I don’t see how I could be a good mother. »

In 2021, 144 of the 1,398 Quebec women who underwent tubal ligation were under the age of 30. This is a proportion of 10.3%.

“Our reasons can be valid and logical,” adds the main interested party. “It is not because we are women that we will change our minds. I don’t see why they force me to remain fertile. »

A persistent issue

In 2004, Geneviève Miller was 27 years old. For three consecutive years, she discussed the issue of tubal ligation with her family doctor.

The response has always been quick and negative. “I was told that I had a beautiful young girl’s neck,” she says. Discouraged, she interrupted her efforts.

“I was tired of asking and being told that it didn’t look good or that I was surely going to change my mind,” recalls Geneviève. After three years, I had an unwanted pregnancy. And it was clear to me that I didn’t want children. It’s not the doctor’s fault that I got pregnant, but the ligature would have allowed me to be constant in my contraception. »

Another contributing factor, according to Miller, is that the word “hysterectomy,” a surgical procedure that involves removing a woman’s uterus to treat various health issues, is semantically related to “hysteria,” madness. . She thinks it fuels prejudice.

“It seems that this old mentality is unfortunately still present today,” she laments.

Geneviève, who is now 45, has never had a tubal ligation. But she is now in menopause and will therefore no longer be fertile.

Other means of contraception

Tubal ligation is a “major operation under general anesthesia”, recalls the D^D Guylaine Asselin, who has been an obstetrician-gynecologist at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital since 1993.

“The surgical risk is greater than [pour la vasectomie chez] man, explains the D^D Asselin. It is still a non-essential treatment that can be replaced by other methods of contraception often denigrated by patients. »

“The implant [contraceptif] still has a failure rate of 0.5% and the IUD, 1%,” adds the doctor.

The D^D Asselin understands that doctors can refuse a ligature to the youngest women “because the risk of regret is very great at [leur] age “.

But she believes that “if the case is settled” in the mind of the woman who is asking for the operation, that she has “really gone around the question” and that she has “understood what the others contraceptives could be of benefit”, this woman should be entitled to a tubal ligation.