WUNRN
IRELAND - SYMPHYSIOTOMY - SURGICAL
PROCEDURE - RISKS - RIGHTS
Doctors who forced a medical procedure on pregnant women to widen the pelvis as recently as the 1990s did it to fight the crime of birth control, it has been claimed.
Victims of symphysiotomy, a practice in which doctors broke women’s pelvises to ease childbirth without their consent, have called for Dáil support in their bid for justice and compensation.
Campaigner Marie O’Connor accused medical professionals of depriving women of a caesarean section, which they regarded as an artificial form of contraception.
“Doctors were using a scalpel to control women’s reproductive ways, stopping them from having a much safer caesarean section,” said Ms O’Connor.
“Women can have no more than around four caesareans so doctors effectively saw them as birth control - a way of capping the family number.”
Women were left permanently disabled after the procedure of symphysiotomy, which was carried out on some 1,500 Irish women between 1944 and 1992. It has long been banished in the developed world.
Ms O’Connor, spokeswoman for the National Membership Organisation for Survivors of Symphysiotomy, was among some 20 victims in the Dáil today.
She addressed the Justice Committee, which was discussing the group’s draft Bill proposing to amend the statute of limitations, which could lift a bar preventing survivors from seeking redress through the courts.
“These cases go back 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years,” said Ms O’Connor, ahead of the committee meeting. “These were covert operations. Women were given no information prior to surgery, no information after surgery. These were involuntary operations. There was no informed consent.”
Women were left with permanent ailments, including incontinence, chronic pain, prolapsed organs, and neurological and psychological problems.
The symphysiotomy procedure was performed in preference to the safer and more standard caesarean section - as recently as 1994.
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DOCUMENTARY FILM TACKLES WOMEN'S
SYMPHYSIOTOMY
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Segment:
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Detailed Information on Symphysiotomy
as:
Symphysiotomy is a surgical procedure in
which the cartilage
of the pubic symphysis is divided to widen the pelvis allowing childbirth
when there is a mechanical problem......
The procedure is not without risk, including urethral and bladder injury, infection, pain and long-term walking difficulty. Symphysiotomy should, therefore, be carried out only when there is no safe alternative.[7] It is advised that this procedure should not be repeated due to the risk of gait problems and continual pain.[8]......
It is
estimated that 1,500 Irish women unknowingly and without consent underwent
symphysiotomies during childbirth between 1944—1992.[9]
Some survivors were left with severe lifelong after effects, including extreme
pain, impaired mobility, incontinence, and depression.[2][9]
Then-Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney,
ruled out a review on 19 February 2010.[10]......
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