One of the first, if not the first mantras learned by aspiring doctors (and, most likely, others in the medical profession) is First of all, do no harm. This so

One of the first, if not the first mantras learned by aspiring doctors (and, most likely, others in the medical profession) is First of all, do no harm. This sounds like a simple and logical rule but implementing it is not as straightforward as it may seem. Does sterilising a man or woman who has a 25% chance of later in life wanting this procedure reversed [1] - which, in contrast to what is commonly thought is not easily reversible if at all - do harm to this person or not? For the ~60% who will not come to regret their decision it clearly does not but those who come to regret their decision will have to come to terms with their self-induced infertility. Unsurprisingly the younger a woman gets sterilised, the bigger the chance that she will come to regret it later in life [2]: Study results showed that the younger women were at the time of sterilization, the more likely they were to report regretting that decision. Women undergoing sterilization at the age 30 years or younger were about twice as likely as those over 30 to express regret. They were also from 3.5 to 18 times as likely to request information about reversing the procedure and about 8 times as likely to actually undergo reversal or an evaluation for IVF. Results of studies that examined risk by continuous age showed a consistent inverse relationship between women's age at sterilization and their likelihood of regretting having had the procedure. Given these facts it would be surprising if young people did not face resistance when requesting sterilisation. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6203343/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6203343/ [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16413851/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16413851/