Full Text of HR0005 101st General Assembly
HR0005 101ST GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, James Marion Sims developed pioneering tools and | 3 | | surgical techniques related to women's reproductive health, | 4 | | including a surgical technique to repair vesicovaginal | 5 | | fistula, and is credited as the "father of modern gynecology"; | 6 | | the 19th-century physician has been lionized with statues in | 7 | | New York City, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania; and
| 8 | | WHEREAS, Because James Sims conducted his research on | 9 | | enslaved black women without anesthesia, medical ethicists, | 10 | | historians, and others have called for those monuments to be | 11 | | removed or to be reconfigured as tributes to the enslaved women | 12 | | known to have endured his experiments, whose stories have been | 13 | | erased from history; and
| 14 | | WHEREAS, James Sims believed that black people didn't | 15 | | experience pain like white people, and that African Americans | 16 | | were less intelligent than white people; his medical practice | 17 | | was rooted in the slave trade; he built an eight-person | 18 | | hospital in the heart of the slave-trading district in | 19 | | Montgomery, and while most healthcare took place on the | 20 | | plantations, some cases were brought to doctors like Sims who | 21 | | treated slaves so they could continue to reproduce for their | 22 | | masters; and
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, In 1845, James Sims began experimenting with | 2 | | surgical techniques to treat vesicovaginal fistula, a | 3 | | condition with no known cure, and for a long time, his | 4 | | surgeries were not successful; based on James Sims's medical | 5 | | records, the names of three of the female patients are now | 6 | | known, Lucy, Anarcha, and Betsey; the first one he operated on | 7 | | was 18-year-old Lucy, who had given birth a few months prior; | 8 | | she endured an hour-long surgery without anesthesia, during | 9 | | which she screamed and cried out in pain as nearly a dozen | 10 | | other doctors watched; it took her two to three months to | 11 | | entirely recover from the effects of the operation; after 30 | 12 | | operations and four years of experimentation on 17-year-old | 13 | | Anarcha, an enslaved woman who had a very traumatic labor and | 14 | | delivery, he finally perfected his method; afterward, he began | 15 | | to practice on white women, using anesthesia; and
| 16 | | WHEREAS, In 1850, James Sims moved to New York and opened | 17 | | the first-ever Women's Hospital, where he continued testing | 18 | | controversial medical treatments on his patients; when any of | 19 | | his patients died, he placed blame on the "ignorance of their | 20 | | mothers and the black midwives who attended them"; he did not | 21 | | believe anything was wrong with his methods, and these beliefs | 22 | | affected more than his gynecological experiments; he also | 23 | | tested surgical treatments on enslaved black children in an | 24 | | effort to treat "trismus nascentium," or neonatal tetanus, with | 25 | | little to no success; and
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, Today, James Marion Sims continues to loom large | 2 | | in the medical field and is celebrated as a medical | 3 | | trailblazer; currently, two of his statues remain, one in South | 4 | | Carolina and one outside of his old medical school; therefore, | 5 | | be it
| 6 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE | 7 | | HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that | 8 | | we oppose honoring James Sims or anyone who supports racist | 9 | | ideology.
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