Paul MoloneyThe link to Catholic beliefs is extremely clear in the mind of the very doctor implementing the policy.
on June 13, 2012 at 5:44 pm said:
Some extracts from Ferriter’s book make the link clear:
http://www.politics.ie/forum/oireachtas/184092-statements-symphysiotomy-post5071805.html?highlight=ferriter#post5071805
“Alex Spain revived symphysiotomy at the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) in 1944. By then, symphysiotomy had long fallen into disrepute. Spain himself admitted that symphysiotomy was ‘an entirely new procedure … that has to be faced against the weight of the entire English-speaking obstetrical world’. By 1944, Caesarean was well established in that world as the treatment of choice for obstructed labour.
Contrary to what the Institute of Obstetricians and Gymaecologist would have us believe, symphysiotomy was never a norm. It was shunned––also on the continent of Europe–– because of its dangers, which had been amply described in the medical literature. In addition to the prospect of a dead or damaged baby, there was the certainty of a severely injured mother. As far back as 1803, the procedure had been damned by Prof James Hamilton of Edinburgh: ‘in no case whatsoever’, he said, should it be resorted to.
Spain’s successor, Arthur Barry, championed the practice in the 1950s. But it was attacked by British doctors, who counted the number of babies left dead and brain damaged as a result of the surgery. Donal Browne of the Rotunda also pointed out that Caesarean would result in fewer infant deaths and less maternal injury.
Symphysiotomy was preferred to Caesarean section for ethical reasons. Barry described Caesarean as ‘the chief cause of the unethical procedure of sterilisation’. Caesarean also encouraged the laity ‘in the improper prevention of pregnancy or in seeking termination’, he told a Catholic medical congress in 1954. ‘If you must cut something, cut the symphysis’, he urged”
"Ireland was the only country in the developed world to practise this discarded surgery in the mid to late 20th century.Gerry Adams (himself not noticeably anti-Catholic) called this institutional abuse:
At least 1,500 of these 18th century operations were performed here from 1944 to 1992, mostly in Catholic hospitals.
Around 150 women survive today, many of them permanently disabled, incontinent and in pain. Some lost their babies during the procedure."
"The revivalists were driven by a desire to control women’s reproductive health. Caesarean section was associated with what Archbishop McQuaid termed the “crime of birth prevention”. Four such operations were widely seen as the upper safety limit.
Leading Catholic doctors saw symphysiotomy as a gateway to child-bearing without limitation, one that did not lead women into ‘temptation’ - that is, the practice of family planning."
"The Catholic Church vehemently opposed birth control methods and the use of Caesarean sections limited the number of children a woman could have. It was generally accepted that the maximum number of these that could be used on a woman was four....how do you not see that the choice of operation was explicitly due to Catholic doctrine? Outside of that, I'm unsure why you wouldn't think their own hospitals would have vicarious liability even if it wasn't motivated by doctrine; the sexual abuse of children by the clergy and teachers in Irish schools and churches wasn't motivated by doctrine either but I don't notice people trying to claim that wasn't a matter of negligent policing by the Church itself.
The use of symphysiotomy was one way of ensuring that women didn’t look to birth control."
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“Irish doctors’ acceptance of an increased foetal death toll in those pregnancies for which they performed symphysiotomy in order to avoid CS in hypothetical future pregnancies was ethically dubious."
It seems medically and rationally dubious as well.
posted by Segundus at 3:18 AM on January 3 [3 favorites]