How a Request For Permanent Birth Control Became an Investigation

I was in my early 20s when I realised that having children wasn’t something I wanted for my life. It wasn’t a dramatic moment, or a bad experience. When it comes to Life Lessons and Life Decisions - I like to learn by observing and learning from people's stories and experiences. And so over time I built a very clear understanding of what that choice actually means.

It’s not just about having a child — it’s a lifetime commitment to a way of living that revolves around someone else entirely. It’s constant responsibility, constant negotiation, constant concern and worry about their wellbeing, their future, and the world they’re growing into. I understood that fully, and I knew that it wasn’t the life I wanted to build. There was (and still is) too much I wanted to explore, create, and contribute in my own way, and I was certain enough in that to start asking how I could make that decision permanent.

What followed was years of being passed around the system without answers. Sexual health clinics would tell me to speak to my GP, my GP would send me back to sexual health, and when I asked directly about permanent contraception, I was either told I was too young or that no one really knew what the process was. It was never a clear “no,” just a constant deflection that went on for close to a decade.

Eventually I stopped asking, not because I had changed my mind, but because I got tired of going in circles and not being taken seriously. When I finally tried again years later, I happened to have a GP who approached it differently. He said he respected my decision, that I seemed to know myself, and that while he didn’t know the process either, he would look into it and come back to me.

When he did, he didn’t come back with a pathway or a referral — he came back with a policy. That’s when I found out that female sterilisation had been defunded in my area years earlier.

The only option left was to apply for individual funding, without any clear criteria or guidance as to what would actually qualify. He submitted the application anyway, and it was rejected in a way that felt procedural rather than considered. When I asked for clarity and challenged the decision, I was simply referred back to the same policy. That was the point where I stopped assuming this was just a complicated system and started questioning whether the decision itself was justified — because it became clear that this wasn’t just about access to a procedure, but about a policy that was interfering with my ability to make an informed decision about my own healthcare.

Up until that point, I was still operating under the assumption that there must be a system that makes sense. That there must be a rationale that holds up, that if I just understood it better, I’d see the logic.

So I read the policy.

And I remember thinking — Wait…!

This is overstepping.

This is not just a funding decision. This is a decision that interferes with my ability to make an informed choice about my own body. My own life. This doesn’t just affect me.

And that’s when I stopped being just a patient trying to access a procedure… and started becoming someone investigating a system that didn’t add up.

Unfortunately, this is not my first time dealing with a system built on nothing more than ridiculous and even unsafe decisions that impact millions of lives daily.  So, I started digging and pressing for answers.