Female sterilization not an answer to global contraception

The last week of September marks two days dedicated to improving reproductive health: World Contraception Day  (September 26) and Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortions  (September 28).  Both days are committed to improving the reproductive health and choices of women worldwide. With the vision of making every pregnancy a wanted pregnancy, World Contraception Day aims to help the estimated 225 million women in developing countries who have an unmet need for contraception.

Reports such as the UN’s 2015 Trends in Contraceptive Use Worldwide include somewhat promising data, such as 64% of married or in-union women use a modern contraceptive method. This figure is lower in developing countries, including 17 countries in Africa where modern contraceptive use is below 20%.

Sterilization is the most widely used form of birth control, accounting for a third of modern contraceptive use. Sterilization is heavily weighted toward female sterilization, 18.9% versus 2.4% male sterilization globally.  In certain countries, the prevalence of female sterilization as modern contraception is much higher.  Female sterilization of sexually active women aged 15 to 49 is most prevalent in Latin America.  The Dominican Republic leads the pack at 47%  followed closely by Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Puerto Rico.  China (29%) and India (36%) are also front runners.

Sterilization is a popular choice in the developed countries of Europe and North America, though male sterilization tends to be more prevalent than in the developing world. When practiced safely, sterilization offers many benefits because it is a one-time procedure with no follow-up or maintenance.  While sterilization might be the best choice for some individuals or couples, unsafe, involuntary, or otherwise coercive female sterilizations are altogether too common and an affront to human rights.

China’s “one child” policy  – perhaps one of the more infamous anecdotes in mandated family planning – has relied on sterilization to meet its goals.  In the heyday of the 1980s, neighbors became informants on so-called “out-of-plan” pregnancies.  Offending families were fined and possessions stolen, and local bureaucrats oversaw countless forced abortions and sterilization. 1983 alone saw over 20 million sterilizations. China’s Communist Party has recently relaxed its one-child policy  to allow each couple two children, but many in China, including activist Chen Guangcheng don’t see the difference as stated in this tweet:

This is nothing to be happy about. First the #CCP would kill any baby after one. Now they will kill any baby after two. #ChinaOneChildPolicy

Lesser known is an Uzbekistan policy that assigns gynecologists a sterilization quota of up to 4 per month.  In a report by the BBC, rural women who have had two or more children are the main target of this campaign.  It is estimated in 2011 alone that 70,000 Uzbek women were sterilized, some voluntarily and some involuntarily.  Unlike China’s policy to slow population growth, Uzbekistan’s goal is to manipulate its once abysmal infant mortality ratings.  Fewer infants means fewer infant deaths, and Uzbekistan’s infant mortality rate in 2012 is half of what it was in 1990.

India has received much attention for its sterilization camps.  The name alone conjures images of the Nazi eugenics movement.  In 1951, with Malthusian ideology in mind, an Indian demographer set out across rural India to complete a census.  His prediction – that India’s population would reach 520 million people by 1981 – was both incorrect (India’s population in 1981 was 683 million ) and the catalyst for a mass sterilization program.  This led to compulsory sterilization in 1976  that lasted for 21 months and effectively sterilized 12 million men and women, often rural, poor, and of low caste.  Employment, wages, and even running water were withheld from individuals and whole villages until 100% compliance was met.

Today, while technically voluntary, sterilization in India is incentivized. In the past, men were promised transistor radios in exchange for a vasectomy.   Male sterilization is now considered culturally unacceptable.  Women are the target of sterilization campaigns and can receive up to $23 US – a month’s income – to submit to a tubal ligation.

Indian women arrive at sterilization camps by the jeep load.  In makeshift operating theaters –  with no electricity and running water – neither gloves nor equipment are changed between the five-minute operations.  Expired antibiotics given to some women are found laced with rat poison.  In 2014, Dr. R.J. Gupta, self-described as performing 300 tubal ligation in one day, was arrested after women he and an assistant sterilized either died or were hospitalized.  The current government regulation is that no one doctor should perform more than 30 sterilizations a day.  On the day in question, Gupta’s six-hour spree resulted in 83 tubal ligation.  It is believed that Gupta was trying to reach a government-set target of 220,000 sterilizations in one year.

On September 14^th of this year, India’s Supreme Court ordered a close of all sterilization camps within three years.  That is an unsettling time span in which over a half a million more women could be sterilized and many more deaths and hospitalizations could occur.  Even after the dissolution of government-sanctioned sterilizations camps, women will continue to be subject to this dangerous procedure.

What are low cost, accessible, and humane forms of birth control for the developing world?  A promising alternative might be Sayana^® Press, a lower-dose presentation of the three-month injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera^® in the Uniject™ injection system.

Original trials of the injectable contraceptive were successful in Florida, New York, and Scotland, and the same seems to be holding true in Uganda.  Most women were able to self-administer the drug after just one training session and again at the next dose, three months later.  Designed for single use, Sayana^® Press reduces reliance on needles and needle sharing  which is essential in the fight against HIV/AIDS and women only need to travel to a clinic once to get a year’s supply.

There is so much to consider when it comes to global family planning.  It would be remiss not to mention the impact that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has on sterilization rates in some regions of the world and you can read more here, here, and here.  Organizations such as USAID have been implicated  for funding so-called fertility reduction programs that include mass sterilization.  What can be done to ensure all women have access to contraception?