Doctors Are Examining the Vaginas of Unconscious Women Without Their Consent
Informed consent and informed refusal are cornerstones of medical ethics. They’re also constitutional rights. A person can even refuse life-saving medical treatment. Doctors who ignore competent patients when they refuse medical treatment have committed a criminal assault.
But some doctors are ignoring this fundamental right when they treat women. According to several investigative reports, doctors are performing pelvic exams on women without their consent, and often against their will, when they go in for surgery. The practice doesn’t just apply to women who have gynecologic surgeries. A woman who goes in for a tonsillectomy or gallbladder removal might be subjected to a doctor probing around in her vagina, and never even know it.
The New York Times details the story of an Arizona nurse who checked into a hospital for stomach surgery. She told her doctor she did not want students involved in her procedure. After she awoke, doctors told her she had gotten her period. They knew because they had performed an invasive pelvic exam without her permission. Another woman told a hospital that she did not consent to a pelvic exam during routine, non-gynecological surgery. The hospital told her she had to consent to the surgery, and that if she didn’t, she should seek care elsewhere.
These incidents are not anomalous. At teaching hospitals across the country, students practice pelvic exams by performing them on unconscious women, even when those women do not consent or specifically state that they do not want an exam. Most women never know that they have been violated. But some, like science teacher Sarah Wright, report complications such as pelvic pain.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/26/1922213/-Doctors-Are-Examining-the-Vaginas-of-Unconscious-Women-Without-Their-Consent?detail=emaildkcc
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