Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Med Law Rev. 2023 May 25;31(2):205-225. doi: 10.1093/medlaw/fwac036.
How can caregivers' interests be balanced with disability rights in decisions about whether to sterilise an intellectually disabled person? This question is considered in the context of Singapore, a commonwealth country that lacks a test case. Singapore has a lesser-known history of eugenics, and has struck an uneasy compromise between communitarian values and obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in recent years. This article provides an overview of Singaporean law under the Voluntary Sterilisation Act 1974 and the Mental Capacity Act 2008, and compares this with the law in Canada, England and Wales, and Australia. This article also situates the CRPD in the context of Singapore's dualist view of international law and communitarian approach to disability policy. It argues that CRPD rights to bodily integrity can be presumptively upheld in best interests determinations on sterilisation, while caregivers' interests can be accommodated in a relational understanding of best interests. A decisional framework along these lines is proposed.
在决定是否对智力残疾者进行绝育时，如何平衡照顾者的利益和残疾权利？在新加坡这个英联邦国家，由于缺乏判例法，这个问题备受关注。新加坡有一段鲜为人知的优生学历史，近年来，它在社群价值观和《联合国残疾人权利公约》（CRPD）规定的义务之间达成了一种不安的妥协。本文概述了新加坡根据《1974 年自愿绝育法》和《2008 年精神能力法》制定的法律，并将其与加拿大、英格兰和威尔士以及澳大利亚的法律进行了比较。本文还将 CRPD 置于新加坡对国际法的二元论观点和残疾政策的社群主义方法的背景下。它认为，在绝育的最佳利益决定中，可以推定维护《残疾人权利公约》规定的身体完整性权利，而在对最佳利益的关系性理解中，可以照顾照顾者的利益。本文提出了一个沿着这些思路的决策框架。
