54.1-2974 - Sterilization operations for persons eighteen years or older capable of informed consent. - Virginia Statutes

§ 54.1-2974. Sterilization operations for persons eighteen years or oldercapable of informed consent.

It shall be lawful for any physician licensed by the Board of Medicine toperform a vasectomy, salpingectomy, or other surgical sexual sterilizationprocedure on any person eighteen years of age or older, who has the capacityto give informed consent, when so requested in writing by such person. Priorto or at the time of such request, a full, reasonable, and comprehensiblemedical explanation as to the meaning and consequences of such an operationand as to alternative methods of contraception shall be given by thephysician to the person requesting the operation. No such operation shall beperformed prior to thirty days from the date of the written request thereforupon a person who has not previously become the natural or adoptive parent ofa child.

(1981, c. 454, § 54-325.9; 1988, c. 765.)