39 an intention to request reversal of the tubal ligation, and (v) the fact that during the domestic investigations and proceedings, which I.V. had to promote and take part in, she experienced constant re-victimization and was confronted by the corporate cover-up that the doctors provided to their colleagues. 131. The State argued that I.V., by a “rational assessment and weighing up of her right to life versus her right to reproduction, with appropriate counseling, decided to safeguard her life in light of the imminent risk posed by a possible pregnancy, giving her consent to a tubal ligation, an autonomous decision, in which the State did not intervene.” Accordingly, the State considered that I.V.’s prior, free and voluntary consent meant that consent had been given to the tubal ligation and, therefore, the State had not interfered in the private sphere of her decisions or interfered arbitrarily or abusively in her private life, or with regard to her right to raise a family. In addition, the State indicated that no causal nexus existed between the procedure performed and the decision to raise a family because, at the time, I.V. had already founded a family. The State affirmed that the representative’s arguments were contradictory, because it contrasted the right of a man and a woman to raise a family, a decision that should be taken by both of them, with the right that allows a woman to have absolute autonomy and control over her body. The State did not refer explicitly to I.V.’s right to protection of her dignity. A.4 Arguments on the right to recognition of juridical personality (Article 3 of the American Convention) 132. The representative argued that the right to recognition of juridical personality was autonomous and it was not violated merely in cases of enforced disappearance. She considered that the medical team decided, unilaterally, to perform a tubal ligation on I.V.’s reproductive organ, without consulting her as to whether she consented to this procedure. The representative argued that I.V. had the right to be recognized as a subject of rights by the medical team, but this did not happen, because the team ignored the fact that the situation involved a woman with the right to decide autonomously about her private life, her humanity, her physical and emotional integrity, and her reproductive rights. The representative added that, even if the situation outlined by the State concerning I.V.’s verbal acceptance of the surgical procedure were to be accepted, this was given at a moment in which I.V., who was under the complete control of the doctors and in the stressful and vulnerable setting of the operating theatre, did not have the cognitive capacity to understand fully what was happening; in other words, her capacity to act freely was annulled, even though this capacity is one of the essential elements of the juridical personality; thus, the said consent was invalid. 133. The State argued that “in this specific case, I.V. was not annulled as a subject of rights and obligations, because she was able to exercise them at all times before public institutions (hospitals – in the exercise of her right to health) and jurisdictional organs, in order to denounce the perpetration of presumed offenses” and it considered that there were no grounds for analyzing “a presumed violation of I.V.’s right to juridical personality, as if the facts constituted an enforced disappearance.” 134. The Commission made no explicit reference to this right. A.5 Arguments on the prohibition of discrimination in relation to the alleged nonconsensual sterilization (Article 1(1) of the American Convention in relation to Articles 5(1), 11(1), 11(2), 13(1) and 17(2) of this instrument) 135. The Commission indicated that I.V. was the victim of sterilization without her consent in a public health institution and, as a result, permanently lost her ability to procreate and suffered psychological aftereffects, added to “the humiliation she was subjected to as the victim of a surgical procedure on her body for which her opinion was not taken into consideration, thereby violating her