The letter below is an open letter concerning the practice of non-consensual pelvic exams, about which you can learn more at yesterday's angry rant. Please leave a comment in support, as a virtual signature, and we'll circulate this everywhere and make a big stinky fuss until these policies get changed.
Dear Canadian Medical Association, Doctors of Canada, Ob-Gyns of Canada, Medical Students of Canada, Federal Minister of Health And Anybody Else Who Has Anything To Do With The Policy Or Practice Of Non-Consensual Pelvic Exams Performed On Women During Surgery:
A recent article in the Globe and Mail reports that that it is common and accepted practice in Canadian teaching hospitals for medical students to practice pelvic exams on anesthetized women undergoing surgery. No consent is sought from these women, and no consent is given.
This is deplorable. This is unacceptable. Non-consensual interference with another person's body in anything other than life-saving or life- or health-preserving circumstances is wrong. And for many women, interference with the sexual and reproductive parts of the body is interference of a particularly problematic kind. Many of us would experience this as violation. This is violation. If you do not have our permission to use our bodies for your own purposes, you must not so use them.
We demand that this practice be stopped immediately. We demand that the Canadian Medical Association and the boards of all Canadian teaching hospitals and medical schools change their policies and regulations regarding this practice, such that no pelvic examinations for the purposes of medical training are ever performed without the woman's express consent. We demand that the relevant Canadian laws be amended, if necessary, to reflect this, that they reflect every woman's – every person's – right to authority over their own body.
We never said yes to this. We are now saying loudly, NO.
And no means no.
Signed,
Women of Canada, their loved ones, friends and supporters.
Read more about the issue at Canada Moms Blog, where a few writers are giving their personal accounts of how this affects them. Also check out this post at BlogHer, which summarizes some of the discussion so far. And, of course, my rant from yesterday. If you've written about this, please leave a link in the comments. And if you tweet about this, please hashtag it #noconsent, so that we can follow it and get more online discussion going.
And please – leave a note of support below. This will function as a petition of sorts. Thank you!
About Her Bad Mother
Stop this – Horrible Practice
This is, in the most understated terms, an inexplicably reprehensible ethical misstep that must be corrected. What possible illusions of privilege could lead these transgressors to feel entitled to violate a woman’s rights? What possible leap of logic makes this ok for doctors and not for date rapists. Does consent to sedation make it ok? Is that the underlying message here? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE, and fundamentally an infringement on human rights.
This sickens me. I can’t believe we’ve never heard about this before.
CMA – most of us WOULD consent, if you bothered asking. But since you don’t ask, STOP allowing these subversive exams.
I’m so disgusted I can’t even comprehend that this is happening! To quote above “Had the article in the Globe and Mail said that men were being given prostate exams while under anesthesia, and without previous consent, there would be massive public outcry and law suits up the … well, you know.” This is precisely what came to my mind too!
Thank you for taking the time to start this. So disturbing. If there is some place else we are to sign, let me know, otherwise, consider this me signing. Thank you, KS
I have also blogged about this at http://www.pennythoughts.blog.ca and in a column on the Chatham-Kent Daily Post http://www.ckdp.ca because I believe the more women that know about this unacceptable practice, the more of us there will be that speak out against it and demand that “informed, explicit consent” is a pre-requisite to any surgery or medical student practicing. I have also sent an email to the Federal Minister of Health and Deb Matthews, the Minsiter of Health for Ontario. It is important that women speak out because if you read the comments on the Globe and Mail you will see that, as usual, there are also many men commenting and frankly, it isn’t their issue – it’s ours to deal with. Don’t allow men to control the agenda on a women’s issue.
If you touch a woman’s sexual organs without her EXPRESS consent, you are committing SEXUAL ASSAULT, plain and simple! Say, how about, since consent is “implied” by unconsciousness, we find an intern sleeping in an exam room on a 24 hr shift and jam a speculum up his ass?! It would definitely be educational, he’d actually understand what it means to be violated and might be a better doctor. Sounds like a good standard practice to me! Bend over trainees!
This is rape. It’s disgusting that anyone would do this to an unconscious woman.
This is terrible. I am disgusted! This needs to stop NOW.
Women are not property, chattel or toys. We have a right to authorize what happens to our bodies, especially when we are unconscious.
Keep the public out of my pubics, please. I just had a laparascopic hysterectomy and now I’m wondering what else I had.
Informed consent should not be considered an option – it is a basic human right.
This needs to stop.
STOP IT. STOP IT NOW!
this is a patriarchal and out of date attitude at work. we sign informed consent forms for a reason. not being informed that other procedures may be performed and for what reason is an absolute violation of a person’s human rights. is this reasoning being applied to unconscious men so students can learn to conduct prostate exams? i’d put good money on an uproar if that were so. this is disgusting and must stop NOW.
ASK for heaven’s sake!!! How dare they!
You’ve hit the ball out the park! Icndrieble!
Appalling and needs to be stopped IMMEDIATELY!!
This needs to stop, right now. I have happily consented to a medical student participating in a gynecological exam, but I was ASKED.
This is deplorable and unacceptable. Stop this practice now!!
It is a violation of a basic human right!
Must add: For the person who posted that this has to do with universal health care and why we wouldn’t want it in the States, one has NOTHING to do with the other. This is regarding teaching practices. Don’t pollute the issue please.
BEYOND SICKENING and all of the other comments posted by us, the horrified. This is also a frightening testimony of the state of the mind of Canadians, for any of them to ever even think that anything like this could ever be considered anything less than a criminal violation — frightening, very very frightening except for the fact that by the Grace of God, I am American ! ! ! !
I am speechless with horror. I would consider this rape and the fact that it is even consider by people who have sworn to “do no harm” makes me sick.
I can’t believe that a forward thinking nation would have this as legal. It needs to stop.
How is non-consensual sex rape, but non-consensual pelvic exams are totally legal and common practice? The bottom line is you are violating a womans body and her right to say yes or no. The law must be changed so that every woman is asked to give consent before proceeding with such a intrusive proceedure. Imagine, deceiving your patients for the sake of eductation. That doesn’t seem ethical to me at all.
Wait..Canada has “free” health care Right? Well, this Sounds like government sposored sexual assault to me.
This sounds terrible.
Deplorable. There are many appropriate and consensual methods for teaching medicine. This is violating to even read about.
The idea that someone can legally enter your body without your permission is revolting. I found myself skeptical of this story when I first read about it. I thought “SURELY, this must be one case of a single medical school gone wrong”, but no. According to the Globe and Mail article, this is a common occurrence! Female patients are not merely an assembly of parts put forth for student’s edification.
The fear that Canadian medical students would not be able to gain the knowledge offered when violating an unconscious woman is invalid. After all: do proctologists in that country ONLY train on unconscious victims? The means exist for medical students to practice on conscious, WILLING participants for every field.
This needs to be illegal, immediately.
I disagree with toyfoto. It is “rape” it is “medical rape”. It is not the intent of the students or attending that matter in the sense of it their intent is sexual, just the intent to perform the act of the exam suffices. By your logic, if one intention is to extract information from a person, then an act of intimate penetration might be torture, but not rape. Or if they thought that you would not mind and forgot to ask before you passed out, so to have sex with you now, well no harm. Besides, he could tell you really liked him. We do not have to read the mind of the actor, beyond the intent to perform the act itself, that is to perform a digital pelvic exam for example. It is the facts, (the lack of consent and the act) that matters. The problem is that we have been socialized in a sexist culture to accept men raping us if they wear a uniform, or at least raping other women. Doctors, police, hell even teachers are allowed to violate women, and men for that matter, in a way that can be called nothing but rape. Remember marital rape was not considered rape at one time either. As far as I am concerned unless you have committed a violent crime AND there is reason to believe you have a weapon in your possession, NO such violations should occur without a court order.
This is horrific. This needs to be illegal!
I have suffered medical rape by the U.S. Veterans medical system multiple times.
I was able to uncover some of the violations by reading my medical records, and talking to witnesses. It was rather ugly, as I had specifically said “no” and they did it anyway.
They convinced me it was a misunderstanding and then did it again.
It made no difference if I wrote on the consent form for them not to do so, they just asked me to sign another form right before surgery and after being given one of their date rape drugs. I still said, “no” and refused to sign, but they did what they wanted anyway.
We have no real rights in Nazi America. I have been complaining and the reception has been denial of care, political and police harassment/threats, and degrading verbal abuse.
We need to start a global effort to stop this practice. It is a violation of human rights and should be recognized as such.
This is not okay in Canada or anywhere.
This was absolutely SHOCKING!!! I can’t imagine how something like this goes on in a country so proud of our Human Rights…this is a major violation!
Stop it. It’s wrong.
This deserves some major medical malpractice lawsuits.
Disgusting!
There aren’t words that can appropriately discribe just how unethical this is. This is a slap in the face to women all across Canada, and a clear and obvious violation of the basic human right to one’s own body. It’s deplorable that such a thing can even happen in the 21st century, especially in the context of a medical examination!