The High Court’s landmark approval of the sterilisation of a man with learning difficulties will not be a “green light” for other cases, the solicitor for the Trust involved in the case has said.
Mrs Justice Eleanor King ordered that it was lawful for doctors to perform a vasectomy on the man, DE, who lacks capacity to make decisions on contraception, as this was “overwhelmingly in DE’s best interests”.
The 36-year-old has an IQ of 40, equivalent to the mental age of a six to nine year-old child. He has a long-term girlfriend who also has learning disabilities and who became pregnant in 2009.
Neil Ward, partner at Browne Jacobson, who acted for the Applicant Trust, said: “It is a judgment which is very clearly restricted to its facts and should not in any way be perceived as giving a green light to large numbers of sterilisations of patients with learning disabilities.” (read full comment online at http://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/nlj/content/protection-matters)
