པོའ་ཝཱ

Cords Cut In Cleveland or ...

Tubes Tied In Texas

I am a resident of Cleveland Heights and the mother of three children of whom I am very proud. Being a mother is not an easy job and I think I have done my job well, although housework is unpaid labor.

In 1968 I had an abortion in the city of Cleveland at Mount Sinai Hospital. At that time there were no liberalized abortion laws in the U.S., and to secure a safe abortion was difficult. Those women who obtained them were either financially well-off or well educated. Of course, thousands of unsafe abortions were performed at that time, generally on poor, uneducated women, and countless unsafe abortions will be performed once more if women are again denied abortion rights.

In my particular case, although I was lucky enough to have a safe abortion, it was not without the extraction of special payment1) the humiliating procedure of having to obtain a psychiatric recommendation and 2) sterilization by tubal ligation.

The subject of sterilization was introduced to me when I first spoke to the doctor who would do the abortion. Immediately I felt pressure from him to be sterilized. "I want you to have the baby,” he said, "and then I'll tie your tubes." "No," I answered, I would not have a baby. He then agreed to do the abortion, "BUT," he said, "I want you to think about having your tubes tied." Confused and upset, I thought: “On the one hand, I don't want to be sterilized. On the other hand, I will do practically anything for a safe abortion."

The psychiatrist who signed my abortion papers advised me not to have the tubal liga tion when I asked him about it. Personally, I am the type of individual who always shuns excessive use of medicine, doctors' offices and operations. I was skeptical of the possible side effects of tubal ligation and tried to gather information, but none was available. I had heard frightening stories about the side effects of hysterectomy and I was afraid that these same side effects might accompany tubal ligation. I also wanted to do first things firsthave the abortion, and then think with a clear head about sterlization. But the doctor again brought the subject up, over the phone, just before I went into the hospital. He was very insistent. I was terrified that I might not get the abortion.

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In the hospital, my husband and I agreed that he (my husband) would sign the sterilization card in anticipation that the doctor would demand it, but that I would express my desire not to be sterilized. (The card must be signed by both husband and wife.) At the end of visiting hours, my husband left. The doctor on the floor, to whom I expressed my anxieties that evening, advised me not to have the tubal ligation. But when my own doctor arrived later that night, and I told him that I had decided against sterilization, he said, "Mrs. no one will ever help you again. I want you to sign this card." He provided the pen.

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I had the abortion and sterilization early the next morning. When a woman does not have the right to choose abortion, nor the right to control her own reproductive lifechoosing to have children or not to have childrenthen she is at the mercy of the kind of practice I have described, and such practices become commonplace.

from LNS

According to "The Health Research Group," a non-profit public interest group in Washington

D.C. in their "...Study on Surgical Sterilization, Present Abuses and Proposed Regulations," by Drs. Bernard Rosenfeld and Sidney M. Wolfebeing young, deciding under stress, and having the idea initiated by the doctor rather than the woman herself are all circumstances in which sterilization is most often regretted later on. What all these facts add up to is the difference between consent under duress versus informed consent.

To bring the story up to date, in the summer of 1973, widespread sterilization of black and welfare women by federally funded agencies throughout the south was revealed. There was a public outcry that forced the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to suspend its sterilization programs and start to draw up new regulations. In October, 1973, HEW proposed new but woefully inadequate regulations, which only demand a signature on a piece of paper to authorize sterilization, with little regard to how or when it is obtained.

However, according to "The Health Research Group:" "Legally adequate consent to a sterilization procedure demands nothing less than a consent which is voluntary, competent, and knowing. No person should be influenced or forced in any way to consent to sterilization. Voluntary consent is meant to prevent any

pressures on the patient, such as making sterilization a condition for receiving welfare."

The complete lack of protection provided by the new regulations is shown in a survey of 20 women at the Baltimore City Hospital, all of whom had signed papers to have tubal ligations. Five of these women (25%) either believed that tubal ligation is reversible or that no other effective alternatives were available. After further explanation, all five women c chose other methods of contraception,

In an informal survey of more than 25 interns and residents at Los Angeles County, more than half of them admitted that there was considerable "pushing" of elective sterilization and "hard-selling" of these procedures to women. A partial list of cities or medical centers from which these residents came includes: Charity Hospital in New Orleans, University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago, University of California in Irvine, and Boston City Hospital.

"The Health Research Group" suggests that a properly obtained, informed consent should include: 1) a booklet containing full informa-

WASO

tion of the available choices and alternatives to sterilization and of the benefits, dangers and risks, both physical and psychological. An audio-visual presentation of the same would be important, too.

2) A consent statement summarizing the information presented to the person to be signed both at the time of the presentations and immediately before the sterilization.

3) A written and oral assurance from the doctor or program official to the patient that all questions regarding sterilization and other forms of contraception will be answered.

4) A thirty-day waiting period between the time a patient is approved for sterilization and is actually sterilized-this time will permit a person to ask questions and to free herself from a program's inevitable pressures to under. go a sterilization as soon as possible.

The truth of the matter is that the right to abortion and an end to forced sterilization are opposite sides of the same coin-a woman's right to control her own body. Feminists in the abortion rights movement are raising both demands simultaneously.

page 7/ What She Wants/October 1974-