On Thursday, the Saeima supported in the second reading amendments to the Law on Sexual and Reproductive Health, stipulating that consent for surgical contraception can only be given by the patient themselves, no one else.
Currently, it is established that surgical contraception in Latvia can be performed on a patient over the age of 25 with their written consent. For medical reasons, the procedure is also permitted for patients under 25 — with written confirmation from a medical board and the patient themselves.
Surgical contraception is a medical operation aimed at permanently preventing pregnancy. In other words, it is an irreversible method of contraception, whereby a person loses the ability to conceive. For women, the operation is called tubal sterilization. For men, it is called vasectomy.
If the patient's legal capacity is limited by a court decision, the operation can be performed with the written consent of the guardian and the patient or only the guardian. These conditions are proposed to be changed to align with the Civil Law, which states that legal capacity can only be limited in property matters.
However, the most public resonance was caused by proposals from deputies who demanded mandatory consultations for women who decided to terminate a pregnancy voluntarily.
The deputies also proposed to supplement the law with the term "unborn life," which would refer to "human life beginning at the moment of fertilization, when the reproductive cells of a man and a woman unite."
As a result, the majority of Saeima deputies rejected all these proposals.
Leave a comment