Incentivised sterilisation: lessons from India and for the future

Family planning programmes in India have historically been target-driven and incentive-based with sterilisation seen as a key component of controlling population growth. This opinion paper uses India as the backcloth to examine the ethics of using incentive policy measures to promote and secure sterilisations within communities. Whilst we acknowledge that these measures have some value in reproductive health care, their use raises specific issues and wider concerns where the outcome is likely to be permanent and life changing for the acceptor.