Should Kirsten Johnson be allowed to have kids?

Vera Howse thinks her 26-year-old niece Kirsten Johnson wouldn't be a good mother, so she's asked the Cook County Probate Court for authorization to sterilize her niece against her will. Johnson is cognitively impaired, and her aunt is her legal guardian.

This case has broad significance because Illinois, unlike other states, hasn't established when a court should grant a guardian authority to have a ward permanently sterilized.

Most cases like this are resolved in the doctor's office. Physicians at one Chicago hospital system estimate that it receives one to three guardian requests to sterilize their wards per month, usually from parents of disabled adolescents. After counseling, most eventually opt instead for long-term reversible birth control.

But in this case Howse continued to insist that her niece be sterilized permanently, and her internist and psychiatrist did not object. Johnson countered by contacting Equip for Equality, a disability rights organization that represented her in court. Johnson, who lives with her aunt in south suburban Matteson, is sexually active. She has always used birth control (her aunt currently helps her use the patch), but says if she were to marry a man who could help her parent someday, she would like to have a child.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/otherviews/cst-nws-sterile21.html