[Voluntary female sterilization: legislation and jurisprudence in France]

Female sterilisation, widely used as a contraceptive technique in France for many decades, is now a cause for concern among clinicians in relation to the personal legal risks involved in such procedures. Questions concerning the position of insurers in relation to application of civil hability insurance in the context of these procedures and their possible complications reinforce this uncertainty. Sterilisation, in the absence of any therapeutic objective, which is at the centre of the current debate, can be considered to be a deliberate mutilation, performed as an illegal procedure and the insurer, on principle, cannot insure the consequences of such an intentionally concomitted act. As described in this paper, the absence of legislation concerning this procedure and the limited legal debate on this subject tend to perpetuate the ambiguity between what is prohibited by law, but largely tolerated in reality.