Sterilisation, Disability and Wellbeing: The Curative Imaginary of the “Welfare Jurisdiction”

Steele, LR

Sterilisation, Disability and Wellbeing: The Curative Imaginary of the “Welfare Jurisdiction”

Steele, LR

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Publisher:: Routledge Frontiers of Criminal Justice
Publication Type:: Chapter
Citation:: Critical Perspectives on Coercive Interventions Law, Medicine and Society, 2018, pp. 149 - 163
Issue Date:: 2018

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Steele, LR https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6944-7888	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	Spivakovsky, C	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	Seear, K	en_US
dc.contributor.editor	Carter, A	en_US
dc.date.issued	2018	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Critical Perspectives on Coercive Interventions Law, Medicine and Society, 2018, pp. 149 - 163	en_US
dc.identifier.isbn	1138067377	en_US
dc.identifier.isbn	9781138067370	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/131594
dc.description.abstract	Court-authorised sterilisation of women and girls with disability has been widely criticised by disability rights advocates and international human rights bodies as a form of violence and discrimination. This chapter examines the Family Court of Australia’s power pursuant to its ‘welfare jurisdiction’ to authorise parental consent to non-therapeutic sterilisation of girls with disability. The chapter locates the Family Court’s welfare jurisdiction at the intersections of health law, family law and Australian Constitutional law, and draws on critical disability studies approaches to disability and critical legal approaches to jurisdiction in order to explore how the judiciary is positioned to legitimately permit the violence of sterilisation. The chapter engages in a close analysis of the majority judgments in two leading High Court of Australia decisions on sterilisation: Secretary, Department of Health and Community Services v JWB (1992) (Marion’s Case) and P v P (1994). The chapter argues that judicial authority to permit sterilisation both shores up limits and gaps in the scope of state authority vis-à-vis disabled girls’ bodies and individualises and privatises the injustices of sterilisation. This argument signals the need for greater engagement with discourses of humanitarianism, care and flourishing, particularly when these discourses are mobilised by law in coercive and violent contexts against people with disability.	en_US
dc.publisher	Routledge Frontiers of Criminal Justice	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Critical Perspectives on Coercive Interventions Law, Medicine and Society	en_US
dc.title	Sterilisation, Disability and Wellbeing: The Curative Imaginary of the “Welfare Jurisdiction”	en_US
dc.type	Chapter
utslib.location	UK	en_US
utslib.for	1801 Law	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Law
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - HJ - Health Justice
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.consider-herdc	true	en_US
pubs.place-of-publication	UK	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US

Abstract:

Court-authorised sterilisation of women and girls with disability has been widely criticised by disability rights advocates and international human rights bodies as a form of violence and discrimination. This chapter examines the Family Court of Australia’s power pursuant to its ‘welfare jurisdiction’ to authorise parental consent to non-therapeutic sterilisation of girls with disability. The chapter locates the Family Court’s welfare jurisdiction at the intersections of health law, family law and Australian Constitutional law, and draws on critical disability studies approaches to disability and critical legal approaches to jurisdiction in order to explore how the judiciary is positioned to legitimately permit the violence of sterilisation. The chapter engages in a close analysis of the majority judgments in two leading High Court of Australia decisions on sterilisation: Secretary, Department of Health and Community Services v JWB (1992) (Marion’s Case) and P v P (1994). The chapter argues that judicial authority to permit sterilisation both shores up limits and gaps in the scope of state authority vis-à-vis disabled girls’ bodies and individualises and privatises the injustices of sterilisation. This argument signals the need for greater engagement with discourses of humanitarianism, care and flourishing, particularly when these discourses are mobilised by law in coercive and violent contexts against people with disability.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/131594