Survivors of Symphysiotomy SOS protesting their treatment by the Irish state (Photo courtesy of SOS)
"There was an awful lot of young people there, ten at least. He told two young nurses to hold my arms, so I don't look at what he was doing. I felt being cut. I can feel everything, I said – I was screaming – 'it's not working'. I felt the pure instinct of death. The nurses were getting sick, they'd leave, I could see them looking horrified. I could feel all that pain, they were not mentioning the baby, I felt it tightening round me. The nurses let go of me and I seen him go and take out a proper hacksaw, like a wood saw, the same thing as for wood – a half-circle with a straight blade and a handle. He took it out of the black case … No nurses had the strength to hold me down. It was out of this world, the torture. The blood shot up to the ceiling, up onto his glasses, all over the nurses. 'I'll get you in the next world', I thought. Then he goes to the table, and gets something like a solder iron and puts it on me, and stopped the bleeding. It was death. I knew I was being killed, there was blood coming out of me."
Symphysiotomy and it's horrific variant, pubiotomy – a procedure that involves breaking the pelvic bone during childbirth – were carried out sporadically on pregnant Irish women from the late 1930s with the last reported case going through the courts in 2005. Its surviving victims are still waiting for real justice from the Irish state.Practiced in the 18th century, symphysiotomy was cast aside for the safer, less invasive practice of caesareans by the 20th Century. But in the 1940s, as the Irish republic grappled with forging its new identity, the dictum of the Catholic church was an invasive dogma in the lives of ordinary people. This oppression reached its zenith when it came to female sexuality. Women were warned of the evils of contraception from the pulpit and some doctors – fearing a rise in birth control – used symphysiotomy to widen the pelvis. The aim was to physically encourage multiple vaginal births in a woman's lifetime, unlike caesareans, which were seen to limit pregnancies. In fact, some doctors broke the pelvis after a woman had given birth to prevent further caesareans believing this would encourage women to bear more children.As a Catholic, you need to go through the pains of childbirth – if you had a Caesarean, you wouldn't. The baby is as big as yourself – why do small women marry big men? I'll have to stretch your hips and straighten your pelvis.
In a submission to the United Nations Committee Against Torture, symphysiotomy survivor called Hannah claims Dr De Valera – one of the most prolific perpetrators of the practice – told her it was part of being a "good Catholic"."De Valera said, 'but because you are such a good a Catholic, I'll do a symphysiotomy, you're a Catholic family, you'd be expected to have at least ten – if you have a Caesarean, you can only have three. And, as a Catholic, you need to go through the pains of childbirth – if you had a Caesarean, you wouldn't. The baby is as big as yourself – why do small women marry big men? I'll have to stretch your hips and straighten your pelvis'."Hannah adds: "I had no idea what a symphysiotomy was".Women like Hannah were also used to train doctors going to Africa, as symphysiotomy was a cheap Catholic practice in keeping with missionary ideology. One survivor, Cora, remembers being told, "Dr Sheehan was just back from Africa, and he flew up from Dublin to do this operation, he was two years in Africa, and his hands were blessed by the Pope". Terrified, she begged the nurses for information about what was going to happen to her. They said if they told her, they would be sacked.According to the UN committee, symphysiotomies were carried out in several hospitals throughout the country by zealous doctors; like Dr De Valera, Dr Sheehan, Dr Barry and Dr Spain – high-ranking medics often support by the Medical Missionaries of Mary, a Catholic medical institute.A symphysiotomy survivor protesting. The shoes are a sardonic reference to the difficulty walking that those who go through the procedure can experience (Photo courtesy of SOS)
