38 in a prior, free and informed manner. The State alleged that, now, it has various documents, including the 2008 “Protocol to obtain informed consent,” which have incorporated the relevant standards of international law, as it has evolved over the years. A.2.b The right to know the truth 126. The representative asserted that the State’s assertions that seek to show that I.V. was consulted in the peri-operative period and that, in July 2000, the prior, written, free and informed consent of the patient who was going to be subjected to a tubal ligation was not required, were erroneous. She argued that those assertions “are inexact, to say the least, [and are] not in keeping with the truth, or the ‘right to the truth’ to which I.V. is entitled.” She also indicated that I.V. hoped that, through its jurisdiction, the Court would allow the comprehensive, complete and public truth to be known about the specific circumstances of the facts that occurred on July 1, 2000. 127. The Commission and the State made no express mention of this point. A.3 Arguments on the rights to dignity, to private and family life, and to raise a family (Articles 11(1), 11(2) and 17(2) of the American Convention) 128. The Commission indicated that the sterilization of I.V. was performed in an arbitrary manner and without informed consent, even though there was no immediate risk to her life or health, which would only have been affected if she became pregnant in the future, and this could be prevented by less restrictive measures, such as the use of non-permanent contraception methods. The Commission argued that non-consensual sterilization resulted in the permanent loss of I.V.’s reproductive capacity and, consequently, affected her right to reproductive autonomy, which included the capacity to decide freely and autonomously the number of children and the interval between births, which formed part of the most intimate sphere of private and family life, pursuant to Article 11(2) of the Convention. Also, according to the Commission, non-consensual sterilization violated the right of I.V. to have the possibility of having more children, a decision that was protected by the right to raise a family, recognized in Article 17(2) of the Convention. The Commission did not refer explicitly to the right to protection of I.V.’s dignity. 129. The representative agreed with the legal grounds and conclusions developed by the Commission in relation to the violation of Articles 11(2) and 17(2) of the American Convention and emphasized that, after July 1, 2000, I.V. was never able to decide, either alone or with her partner, on whether to become pregnant again, and that the violation of these rights was constituted even though I.V. already had children and had founded a family. She added that the fact that the authorization for the caesarean section was signed by I.V.’s partner and not by her, even though she had the possibility of dong this during the five hours she waited before entering the operating theater, involved a violation of her right to privacy and her autonomy of decision in relation to her reproductive rights. 130. In addition, the representative stressed that, although the Commission had merely established a violation of Article 11(2) of the American Convention, Article 11(1) of this instrument had also been violated, in the understanding that the State failed to recognize I.V’s dignity due, above all: (i) to the fact that even though Bolivian Health Regulation MSPS-98, was in force, I.V. was subjected, without consulting her, to a highly invasive and irreversible procedure, as if her decision “was unimportant or of no value”; (ii) the fact that the medical team tried to obtain the written consent of I.V.’s partner when I.V. was in the operating theater also constituted a “very serious offense to the dignity of [I.V.],” because the decision on the tubal ligation corresponded only and exclusively to her, based on her reproductive autonomy; (iii) the fact that on the day following the operation, a doctor told I.V. very casually and unconcernedly, that she had been sterilized; (iv) the fact that during the procedure before the Commission, the State argued that I.V. had not indicated