Maternal Mortality, Population Control, and the War in Women's Wombs: A Bioethical Analysis of Quinacrine Sterilizations

Abstract:     
The drug quinacrine hydrochloride was developed to treat and prevent diseases such as malaria, giardiasis, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. However, despite not being approved for the use of sterilization by any government agency in the world, quinacrine has been promoted as a low cost, effective, and safe method for sterilizing poor and politically powerless women in developing countries. To date more than 100,000 women in developing countries have already been chemically sterilized with quinacrine. This article provides an historical account on the use of quinacrine as a sterilization agent and examines how three international codes of ethics governing human experimentation have been violated yet, have marginal utility in this case as they are either unenforceable or historically unenforced. Moreover, to shed further light on the nature of the quinacrine campaign, the author discusses how the campaign violates three generally accepted principles of bioethics – autonomy, beneficence/non-maleficence, and distributive justice. The article concludes, that since the quinacrine campaign does not conform to any of these basic bioethical principles, it should be denounced as an unethical and unacceptable medical experiment.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 50

Keywords: Quinacrine, chemical sterilization, female sterilization, bioethics, international law, autonomy, distributive justice

Accepted Paper Series