Why I want to be sterilised at 29

Writer Holly Brockwell, from London, is insistent she doesn’t want kids. So why won’t anyone take her seriously?

"WITH my 30th birthday approaching, I’m a fully grown woman. In every way, I’m considered an adult, capable of and responsible for my own decisions. Except for one thing: deciding I don’t want kids, ever.
For the last three years, I’ve been asking the NHS to sterilise me. I’ve asked four times with three separate GPs since the age of 26, and been refused every time. Not because sterilisation, an operation that closes the Fallopian tubes, isn’t available on the NHS (it is), or because it’s medically inappropriate for me (it isn’t). Apparently, it’s because ‘I’m not old enough’ to make such a decision. And every GP I’ve spoken to – in addition to countless friends, colleagues and strangers – thinks I’ll change my mind.