Dear Linda:

Sterilization is a grave sin according to the Church. There is a good article about the nature of female sterilization, its effectiveness, its health effects and dangers, as well as alternatives. The article is on the Couple to Couple website called Tubal Ligation: Some Questions & Answers by Keith Bower that I would recommend. The percentage of serious complications is extremely high, by the way:

"Depending on the sterilization technique used, between 800 and 2,000 women per 100,000 can expect a major complication..at the time of operation," according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

In addition, as mentioned in the article linked above:

Apart from these immediate complications of surgery post-tubal problems are so frequent they are now called "post tubal ligation syndrome." A review of the literature on post-tubal ligation problems by Drs. Joel Hargrove and Guy Abraham revealed an incidence of long-term complications in as many as 22 to 37% of sterilized women.

Dr. Vicki Hufnagel, a surgeon who specializes in restoring women?s reproductive organs, has written "Many post-tubal patients who come to my office seeking relief complain bitterly if more severe cramps, heavier. longer periods, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, pain with intercourse, and pelvic pain or pressure."

It is beyond me that a "good" husband who loves his wife would subject her to such high risk so unnecessarily and contrary to moral goodness and prudence?

Anyway, the solution for this couple is not to commit an evil, but to use Natural Family Planning.

I cannot see any justification to commit a moral evil because the husband insists upon it. Rather, the husband should have been educated on Natural Family Planning and if he loves his wife he would accept that approach.

Now that the deed is done, in my opinion, she should have her husband educated on NFP and have the procedure reversed, if possible, regardless of whether or not the husband converts.

God bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary