Violence in Medicine

I've said it time and again... Hysterectomy is medical abuse of women. Over half a million women undergo hysterectomy each year in the U.S., yet only about 90% are medically unnecessary. Therefore, healthy organs are removed from women on a "routine'"basis. This is not acceptable! Unsuspecting women agree to hysterectomy because gynecologists do not tell them the truth about the consequences of removing their sex organs. In other words, they lie to women. There, I said it. They lie to women. There, I said it again.

They don't tell them that hysterectomy will place them at risk for bone loss, heart disease, brain diseases, various cancers, pelvic organ prolapse, serious eye problems, sexual dysfunction, etc. They don't tell them that by removing their ovaries, they are 'castrating' them. Although 'castration' is the correct medical term for removal of the ovaries, doctors purposely don't use it. They don't use it because they know that women know what 'castration' means. They know women would run. Hysterectomy is big business for gynecologists. Gynecologists know that women would not so readily agree to hysterectomy if they told them the truth about the life-long adverse consequences. Telling the truth would interfere with the gynecologist's biggest money-maker - hysterectomy.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment to surgically castrate convicted sex offenders. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, even convicted sex offenders do not deserve to be treated less than human. "Requiring castration for rape means we have decided it is acceptable to treat prisoners less than human." Gynecologists evidently believe it's okay to treat women as less than human! Where is the outrage! There should be mutiny in the streets! Yet, there is silence. Only silence.

There are thousands upon thousands of innocent women living in a 'castrated state' via the barbaric and mutilating surgery called hysterectomy. The surgical castration of women in the U.S. absolutely constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment! It's past time that we, as a civilized society, recognize that hysterectomy and castration is unethical, immoral and altogether wrong. It's past time that we recognize hysterectomy for what it is. It is cruel in most cases! Hysterectomy is a horrific injustice that's been inflicted upon women for far too long. It must end. I created a petition on Change.org regarding this issue. Please don't remain silent about the medical abuse of women. Sign my petition. (See link at bottom of page).

While testifying in Indiana regarding hysterectomy informed consent a few years ago, I met a woman from Michigan who was unnecessarily hysterectomized and castrated without being informed of any of the adverse consequences. Her name is Susan Urquhart and she wrote a book titled 'Uninformed Consent' which includes a chapter titled 'Violence in Medicine'. Following is an excerpt from that chapter in Susan's book:

"Victims of violence are often trusting of the person who commits the crime. Keynote speaker Dr. Lopa A. Meta's presentation at the 21st HERS Conference was about violence in medicine, specifically gynecologist's role in aiding and abetting it. She explained, "In India, there is much less gynecological intervention; and statistically women do just as well, maybe better." Those were strong words! I thought about the validity of her comments and how they particularly pertained to my own personal experience. It had taken all of this time for me to recognize the scope of all of my new limitations, disabilities and losses and to fully comprehend that I was victimized.

After listening to other victims of this violence, I began to see similarities in what they experienced after the crime and my reaction to discovering deliberate unnecessary surgery. We share a loss of status, a sense of betrayal, rage, the inability to move past the transgression and we are unable to forgive the perpetrator. I am convinced I am suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); I wonder if it may be the cause of my nightmares.

Be it a date-rape or a pedophile priest sexually abusing a child, the victims are often trusting of the person who commits the crime, making it even more difficult for the victim to sort out the reasons for the assault and betrayal. I can't help but see the parallels. I consider what happened to me to be analogous to the pedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church. I see little difference to the harm done to the young victims of sexual abuse and women who are exploited by having had essential body parts unnecessarily removed for profit.

Like the young molested children, women - gynecologists' victims - can only begin the healing when this practice is exposed for what it is and the violators become contrite, apologize and step down. I cry out in the night from my nightmares. I am suffering still. (Susan wrote her book twelve years after her hysterectomy). These are horrible things that gynecologists do to women. Can you imagine removing a man's testicles, shortening his penis, removing nerve endings and a major blood supply to his genital area and expecting him to function sexually again, to feel that he is a man, even with supplemental male hormones!

Yet gynecologists do this to woman every day and send them home to sort it all out; to live the rest of their lives without experiencing orgasm, emotionally, physically and intellectually bankrupt. What makes this realization, the nightmares, the losses so incredulous to me is to see my former gynecologist resume this practice, unscathed. There was no justice!

Apparently, the doctors at my former gynecologist's hospital still view hysterectomy as the 'solution' to women's health problems. The doctors and the administrators at the hospital lent no credence to my complaint regarding the egregious treatment by my former gynecologist. How are women ever going to get the medical profession to change a standard of care that is so permissive to the gynecologist; one that absolves atrocities and critical acts performed upon women for profit.

Susan went on in the next chapter to say "What happened to me was like a date-rape! I was the victim of a violent act perpetuated by somebody I trusted. Since this unfortunate event, in order to make some sense of my life, I reached out to other women who were at risk of incurring the same violence. It was a direction in life I would not have chosen to follow but it was one which I now found I had no choice but to follow.

Like Susan, I would never have chosen the future that was chosen for me by my former gynecologist. I would never have chosen to spend my every waking moment talking about hysterectomy, writing about hysterectomy and, most of all, warning other women about hysterectomy. I feel as if I have no choice but to follow this new direction in my life. I am not the kind of person who can remain silent about injustice or unnecessary suffering... Hysterectomy has forever changed who I am, how I think, how I feel or more appropriately 'how I don't feel'. The woman I knew for forty-six years is gone. She died on the operating room table behind surgery doors at Mercy Hospital Anderson in Cincinnati Ohio on September 27, 2007.
 
Please click on the following link to sign my petition on Change.org http://www.change.org/petitions/help-stop-unnecessary-hysterectomy-and-castration