I’m euphoric, says woman sterilised after four-year fight
A WOMAN who asked to be sterilised at 26 said she is “euphoric” at having it done after four years of campaigning.
Holly Brockwell, a writer, had originally informed doctors she would never want children but was repeatedly told by her GP she was “far too young to take such a drastic decision” and she could not get a referral to a specialist.
One doctor suggested a vasectomy for boyfriend Zack who, at 24, was two years younger than Miss Brockwell when she was told she was too young to “think of having my tubes tied”.
In March, Miss Brockwell, who was targeted with abuse online for her view that not all women are born to become mothers, won her four-year battle to be sterilised on the NHS and was put on a waiting list for surgery.
She has now described she has had the operation performed at St Thomas’ Hospital in central London.
Doctors put a metal clip on each of her fallopian tubes in a procedure that lasted less than an hour.
Miss Brockwell said she was “feeling nauseous, but delighted”. Writing in
The Mail on Sunday, she said: “By the time you read this, I will be just waking up – still a little groggy and sore, but euphoric. Because for the first time in my life, today I know for certain that I will never have children.”
Miss Brockwell said that while, for many women it might appear to be a “strange thing to be excited about”, it is “everything I’ve been fighting for. I’ve been patronised, ignored, harassed, judged and demonised but I’ve never wavered in my determination to be sterilised,” she wrote.
She said her case was part of a wider issue on how much say patients should have “over what happens to their bodies”. When Miss Brockwell, editor of online women’s magazine Gadgette, wrote about trying to be sterilised, she was hit by “crude” criticism. Previously writing for The Daily Tel
egraph, she said: “It’s something I’ve wanted for years, but that doesn’t mean it was an easy decision. It’s one I’ve researched, considered, weighed up and defended, over and over again. Not everyone who chooses to have kids can say the same but then they’re not questioned and belittled repeatedly.”