                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

STERILIZATION OPERATIONS FOR CERTAIN ADULTS INCAPABLE OF INFORMED CONSENT (§
54.1-2976)

It shall be lawful for any physician licensed by the Board of Medicine to
perform a vasectomy, salpingectomy, or other surgical sexual sterilization
procedure on a person eighteen years of age or older, who does not have the
capacity to give informed consent to such an operation, when:

1. A petition has been filed in the circuit court of the county or city wherein
the person resides by the person&#8217;s parent or parents, guardian, spouse, or
next friend requesting that the operation be performed;

2. The court has made the person a party defendant, served the person, the
person&#8217;s guardian, if any, the person&#8217;s spouse, if any, and if there
is no spouse, the person&#8217;s parent with notice of the proceedings and
appointed for the person an attorney-at-law to represent and protect the
person&#8217;s interests;

3. The court has determined that a full, reasonable, and comprehensible medical
explanation as to the meaning, consequences, and risks of the sterilization
operation to be performed and as to alternative methods of contraception has
been given by the physician to the person upon whom the operation is to be
performed, to the person&#8217;s guardian, if any, to the person&#8217;s spouse,
if any, and, if there is no spouse, to the parent;

4. The court has determined (i) that the person has been legally adjudged to be
incapacitated in accordance with Chapter 20 (&#xA7; 64.2-2000 et seq.) of Title
64.2 and (ii) that the person is unlikely to develop mentally to a sufficient
degree to make an informed judgment about sterilization in the foreseeable
future;

5. The court, to the greatest extent possible, has elicited and taken into
account the views of the person concerning the sterilization, giving the views
of the person such weight in its decision as the court deems appropriate;

6. The court has complied with the requirements of &#xA7; 54.1-2977; and

7. The court has entered an order authorizing a qualified physician to perform
the operation not earlier than thirty days after the date of the entry of the
order, and thirty days have elapsed. The court order shall state the date on and
after which the sterilization operation may be performed.

HISTORY: 1981, c. 454, § 54-325.11; 1988, c. 765; 1997, c. 921.