I think that many people don't realize that not all available long term birth control methods work for everyone. Not all women respond well to the pill. Not all women respond well to IUDs. Not all women can be on hormonal contraceptives.

I currently have a copper IUD, because hormonal contraceptives caused negative side effects that I couldn't handle anymore. But the copper IUD has side effects of it's own; longer, heavier periods (so I'm anemic) and extremely painful cramps that doctors have never treated properly for me (I've been through several rounds of prescription meds with no success).

So instead of being able to easily access permanent sterilization, I can look forward to years of painful menstrual cycles. And then the possibility of having to change the IUD at some point, and I nearly fainted and threw up from pain when I had mine put in the first time. Plus I get pressured by doctors fairly frequently to switch to a hormonal IUD.

Another point is that some women don't want to pump hormones into their bodies constantly. Also, there's a huge impact to the environment; water from waste treatment plants contains the hormones women excrete from their bodies through urine, and we don't have the technology to remove those hormones. Then they get pumped into natural environments where they affect aquatic wildlife, even causing animals like fish changing gender.

So I think that for some people, sterilization is the best option for taking control of their reproductive organs. I know for me, sterilization would be far more better than the pain I have to go through every month that sometimes is so bad that I'm out of commission for a few days. It would be better than the negative side effects hormonal contraception has on my body. It would be better than one more women urinating biology-altering hormones into the water system.