Thousands of women sterilised in Sweden without consent

doi:10.1136/bmj.315.7108.563

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Claire Armstrong

Stockholm

The Swedish government is to investigate why thousands of women were forcibly sterilised on eugenic grounds from the 1930s up to the 1970s.

Margot Wallström, the minister of health and social affairs, condemned the acts as barbaric and said that a committee would investigate why the practice went on for so long and why it continued even after the horror of similar policies in Nazi Germany was revealed. The committee will also look into why many sterilisations were performed without consent on women who were having abortions.

The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter revealed that up to 60000 people were sterilised on the grounds …