Fall 2011 - Lawrence Historical Society: Fill & Download for Free

In my opinion, prostitution in the U.S. should be legal.*Let me first start by issuing the following disclaimer:I have never been with a prostitute. If legalized, I would not visit a prostitute. I gain nothing by writing this. I am not affiliated with any organization or group that advocates for prostitution.I understand that many women can be offended by this so I ask you to please proceed with an open mind before you kill me with comments below regarding the ills of human trafficking or the morality of it all. First, four background points:A short history of prostitution[1] in ancient Greece and the U.S.The Federal government has left the legality of prostitution to the individual states to decide if it should be legal or not within their individual borders.The state government of Nevada is the only state in the U.S. that has legal prostitution and has left the decision of legalization to each individual county (In Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, it is illegal) rather than a state decision of where and where it is not legal.A review of any Nevada county law or ordinance regarding prostitution will show strict statutes that must be followed. It is a regulated industry. One such statute is that street prostitution is illegal and that prostitution must only take place in a controlled environment called a brothel and not in a residential neighborhood, and not near a school.All workers in a brothel must be registered with the county.All brothels must be licensed.All workers must get tested for STDs and HIV once a week.Legalization significantly reduces human trafficking and street walkers.Legalization significantly reduces underage prostitutionLegalization significantly reduces forced prostitution.Legalization may make it easier for police to find underage and human trafficking (#7–9 above). The legalized brothels are controlled and works to help get women off the street and in a safe environment. Many more streetwalkers will be off the street resulting in fewer ad’s for a “date.” Police may have an easier time and more success in finding human trafficking, underage, and forced prostitution.Police man power for sex crimes and task forces can be reduced due to fewer street walkers, pimps, and John’s to arrest, allowing the police to redirect more availability to more serious crimes .The courts will have fewer prostitution cases to process resulting in other cases being heard and resolved more quickly.Public defenders will have a lighter case load allowing them to spend more time on other, more serious defendants.Legalization significantly reduces men having to be concerned about arrest and having their lives and reputations destroyed.Men (customers) will be safer. No more driving to the “bad” part of town, risking getting robbed, assaulted, or ripped off by a worker.Studies that compare indoor prostitutes (as opposed to street walkers) with non-prostitutes find that they have similar levels of self-esteem, physical health, and mental health. Many indoor prostitutes even report a rise in self-esteem after they begin their indoor work (Weitzer, 2012).Kingley Davis, theorized that prostitution lowers the divorce rate. He reasoned that many married men are unhappy with their sex life with their wives. If they do not think this situation can improve, some men start an affair with another woman and may fall in love with that woman, threatening these men’s marriages. (Kingsley Davis was was an internationally recognized American sociologist identified by the American Philosophical Society as one of the most outstanding social scientists of the twentieth century.)Legalization significantly reduces the acts occurring in seedy motels and the activity that is seen around those neighborhoods.Legalization significantly reduces drug use. A brothel is a controlled environment where no such activity is tolerated.Legalization significantly reduces any guilt or embarrassment by either of the two parties involved.It creates a safe environment for the workers.All brothels are regulated and most follow strict code adherenceAll prostitutes must be tested for STD, HIV, etc once a week (Nevada has not recorded a single case of HIV in a brothel since legalizing Prostitution.)Condoms must be used. There is no option.The women can always choose to not participate with a customer if she does not want to do what the customer wants to do. The customer can choose another partner.All prices of all sex acts are clearly posted and/or menu’s are provided. No negotiations.Brothels provide a clean & safe environment for all parties involved.Creates a new source of tax revenue.“Let’s assume that 50 million acts of prostitution occur annually in the United States (it is closer to 70 million), and that each of these acts costs an average $30. Putting these numbers together, prostitutes receive $1.5 billion annually in income. If they paid about one-third of this amount (admittedly a rough estimate) in payroll taxes, the revenue of state and federal governments would increase by $500 million.” (resource)Removes “Red Light Districts” and moves everything into a controlled environment.Prostitution was legal in the U.S. up until 100 years ago (1920) when it became illegal due to the religious moral reasons. Are we still making laws based on religious reasons?Prostitution has long been illegal due to moral reasons. To that point consider this:Who is to say what is and is not moral in this day and age? Homosexuality, black/white relationships, and sodomy were all once illegal.Sodomy laws in the United States, were inherited from British criminal laws with roots in the Christian religion. Christian religion no longer dictates U.S. law and is a violation of separation of church and state.If we follow British rule of law (which is what U.S laws are based upon), prostitution is legal. Therefore, American law should follow, right? (I personally do not agree on this point.) There are certain restrictions however.In the case, Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), the U.S. Supreme court, in a 6–3 decision, struck down Texas State law (and therefore 13 other states) that made Sodomy illegal between consenting adults. This is significant because Lawrence v Texas overruled a previous Supreme Court decision, Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 that found a Georgia statute banning sodomy, was valid because the Constitution did not apply to constitutional protection of sexual privacy. By reversing the 1986 decision, the Court ruled that intimate consensual sexual conduct was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the 14th Amendment.Legalizing Prostitution would give the workers a right to unionize and be entitled to certain protections.The spread of STD’s and HIV could be significantly reduced (condom use).Worker injury (whatever that might be) would be covered under OSHA.Workers could possible be entitled to benefits such as sick time, paid time off, and even vacation and retirement planning.Workers would receive health benefits.Strip Clubs are legal and the activity in these clubs comes very close to a brothel. Why is it permissible to watch a woman (of her own free will) remove all her clothing in public and dance naked for money but she cannot, of her own free will, have human contact of her own free will.Two (or more) consenting adults, agree to have sex with each other, and get paid to have sex with each other. That’s prostitution, right? No, there is a loophole. XXX rated movies. These actors get paid to have sex but because they are being filmed for commercial purposes and claim it as an art form, then that’s ok, They are not breaking the law. Hmmm…Roe v. Wade. This might be a stretch but Roe v Wade gives a woman the right to choose what happens to her body and focuses on reproductive rights. It mentions personal autonomy. Personal autonomy is a key provision here. Can such an argument be referenced for what a woman decides to do with her body, such as participating in prostitution? (For more on personal autonomy, see Part IV of this John Marshall Law Review article. See also this Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository article.)“Corruption would be rampant.” This is a baseless statement. Lets be realistic. There is corruption with every single job on the planet including, Police, Politicians, Priests (and other religions), Judges, teachers, social workers, Stock Market (money managers), etc. Are all priests, police, or teachers bad? Of course not. The majority of all workers and professionals are good, honest, hardworking people. Just because a woman is a prostitute does not make her a bad person. I cannot say why a woman would want or need to do this sort of work, but the reason is not for any of us to judgeA U.N. report found "very low" rates of sexually transmitted infections among the sex workers of New Zealand, a country whose total decriminalization of prostitution many advocates consider to be the gold standard in sex work policy. NZ - it's a great place to be a prostituteFormer US Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders thinks it makes no sense to ban prostitution simply because it objectifies women: “Why are we so upset about sex workers selling sexual acts to consenting adults?” she asks. “We say that they are selling their bodies, but how different is that from what athletes do? They’re selling their bodies. Models? They’re selling their bodies. Actors? They’re selling their bodies.”Recently, in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, an appeals judge asked, why it should be “illegal to sell something that’s legal to give away?” Other judges have said the 14th amendment and Lawrence v. Texas does not apply to Prostitution because that is not what those who wrote the 14th amendment nor the Supreme Court Justices had in mind. Really? How is that known? The ruling references Personal Autonomy.Prostitution can be a controlled and regulated industry. Without regulations, we get what we have today….street walkers, drug addicts, abused women etc. This profession is known as the worlds oldest profession. It’s not, nor will it ever, go away. It was completely legal in all the U.S. until only 1920.We can waste tax payer money by continuing sting operations, arresting offenders who will only turn around and go right back to the street after posting bond or, we can provide a safe and regulated place for all involved and redirect police resources to truly hurtful and dangerous crimes.I cannot imagine anyone who would rather drive to a seedy part of town, risk arrest, getting robbed, contracting an STD, and embarrassment by arrest, versus going to a place that does not hide the truth and provides safety for all parties.I’m not an attorney or an advocate, but in my eyes, the only reasons prostitution is illegal is because nobody is willing to write the rules and because of those who define morality. Bt who defines morality? Does your morality have to be my morality? It is not the same thing to all people. I guess that falls to the court system…the same court that once outlawed sodomy, sex between two males, and black/white sex.In my opinion, the decision to have sex between two consenting adults, whether it be for money, food, or Winnie the Pooh stickers, is and should be, between the adults involved. There needs to be, like all other legal matters, rules and restrictions put into place to protect everyone. And no need to reinvent the wheel. We can use New Zealand, Amsterdam, and Nevada as the blueprint for policy. All objections such as STD’s, HIV, corruption, exploitation, etc, are really just from people who object to the activity and have no desire to make it legal and they are absolutely entitled to their opinion, but I don’t care for alcohol and there are some religions that forbid drinking it, but that does not mean we should outlaw alcohol due to moral and religious beliefs? We already tried that in the U.S. and it failed miserably, in part because all kinds of mobs and corruption materialized. Al Capone made his living from running illegal moonshine and secret “speakeasy’s.” Those speakeasy’s and running moonshine (all the illegal activity) vanished right after alcohol was legalized again.Human nature is such that if we want something bad enough, we will find a way to get it. That is why there is and has always been prostitution. We’ve legalized marijuana, alcohol, same sex marriage, abortions, segregation, sodomy, and so many other “once illegal” activities. The illegal fixation on prostitution pales in comparison to the benefits for all parties involved including the workers, the customers, the tax payers, the government, and the public at large.(Reed Saxon/AP)EDIT: The word. “Eliminates” used in my opinion are too definitive as Sean Patrick points out in his comment below. I agree. I am changing the word to “reduces.” Also, I added a TON more points to and links. My apologies to the first 18K readers who did not read this revised version that has more clarity.Edit #2:Human Trafficking has become a very hot topic lately which has created many non-profit organizations to help those who are involuntarily forced into being a “sex slave” with little hope of escape. I fully support & agree with such organizations to the point that modern day slavery of any type should not and can not be tolerated anywhere, in any country. While these organizations are doing a terrific service by building awareness of a problem that needs addressing, I do not agree with everything they advocate, specifically their attempt to keep prostitution illegal and that it is bad for everyone everywhere. There is research, commissioned by Human Trafficking groups, that show even legalized prostitution in Nevada is detrimental and is known to have forced labor and so I want to address that concern, that legalizing will not put an end to human trafficking and actually increases human trafficking (this is what some research reporting has concluded).First, everyone should always be wary of any research commissioned by groups that want to prove their point as valid. It almost goes without saying that these groups would bury the report if the research showed the opposite of what they theorize and want others to read.Second, brothels are regulated in Nevada and should be heavily regulated. Las Vegas does a pretty good job of regulating anyone working in a gaming environment by requiring every worker to obtain and carry a “Sheriff’s card” (also called a Work Card.)This card can only be obtained by a person who is sponsored by an employer who has agreed to hire them. You cannot obtain a card before being employed, only after being offered a job by an employer. This does not completely stop problems but certainly makes things more difficult for the illegal activity to occur. In fact, Las Vegas already requires that those working in brothels have such a card even though prostitution is illegal in Clark County (where Las Vegas is located.)As you can see from the following sample, the questions are specific and more detailed questions can be added including a private, in-person interview with a deputy or agent who can ask the worker specific questions such as “Are you being forced into this work?” “Do you need help with an addiction?” “Why have you chosen to do this work?” “Has anyone threatened your safety if you do not obtain this card or work in the profession?” The workers can be required to renew the cards annually with an interview.Here is a sample application for a Sheriff’s card.https://www.lvmpd.com/en-us/Documents/SampleWorkCardApplication.pdfWith proper regulations, many concerns are addressed and for those who continue to participate in trafficking, pimping and smuggling of humans, the penalties should be made more severe and as severe as possible.————————————————————————-Footnotes and Further Reading that might apply to this opinion:Federal MaterialSearch U.S. Supreme Court DecisionsSearch U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals DecisionsSearch LII Preview/ Analyses of Supreme Court Cases1st Amendment to U.S. Constitution4th and 5th Amendments to U.S. Constitution14th Amendment to U.S. ConstitutionSearch the Annotated Constitution of the United StatesU.S. Supreme Court: Historic Right of Privacy-Personal Autonomy DecisionsGriswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969)Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49 (1973)Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589 (1977)Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986)Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)Lawrence v. Texas(2003)State Judicial DecisionsN.Y. Court of Appeals:Commentary from liibulletin-nySearch N.Y. Court of Appeals DecisionsAppellate Decisions from Other StatesOther ReferencesGood Starting Point, including a short history of Prostitution and the following references:Turkington & Allen-Castellitto Privacy Law: Cases & Materials, West Group (2002)Barry, K. (1996). The prostitution of sexuality. New York, NY: New York University Press.Brewer, D. D., Potterat, J. J., Garrett, S. B., Muth, S. Q., John M. Roberts, J., Kasprzyk, D., et al. (2000). Prostitution and the sex discrepancy in reported number of sexual partners. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97, 12385–12388.Bullough, V. L., & Bullough, B. (1977). Sin, sickness, and sanity: A history of sexual attitudes. New York, NY: New American Library.Bullough, V. L., & Bullough, B. (1987). Women and prostitution: A social history. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus.Clinard, M. B., & Meier, R. F. (2011). Sociology of deviant behavior (14th ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.Davis, K. (1937). The sociology of prostitution. American Sociological Review, 2, 744–755.Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2011). Crime in the United States, 2010. Washington, DC: Author.McCaslin, J. (1999, October 13). Vaginal politics. Washington Times, p. A8.Meier, R. F., & Geis, G. (2007). Criminal justice and moral issues. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Ordway, R. (1995, May 26). Relaxation spas perplex officials. The Bangor Daily News, p. 1.Ringdal, N. J. (2004). Love for sale: A world history of prostitution (R. Daly, Trans.). New York, NY: Grove Press.Rosen, R. (1983). The lost sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900–1918. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Stanford, S. (1966). The lady of the house. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam.Weitzer, R. (2009). Sociology of sex work. Annual Review of Sociology, 35(0360-0572, 0360-0572), 213–234.Weitzer, R. (2011). Legalizing prostitution: From illicit vice to lawful business. New York, NY: New York University Press.Weitzer, R. (2012). Prostitution: Facts and fictions. In D. Hartmann & C. Uggen (Eds.), The Contexts reader (pp. 223–230). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.Footnotes[1] Social Problems: Continuity and Change

If the OP is interested, the History of Childhood is a major topic in social history. It’s not a field I’m intimately familiar with, but I close with an extract from the much longer bibliography of the Wikipedia article linked above.Before I do close, I should caution that the idea that one needs a particularly effective child-raising culture in order to “build an empire” seems completely unmotivated by anything more persuasive than a wild overrating of the value and importance of historic empires.Cunningham, Hugh. Children and Childhood in Western Society since 1500. (1995); strongest on BritaindeMause, Lloyde, ed. The History of Childhood. (1976), psychohistory.Hawes, Joseph and N. Ray Hiner, eds. Children in Historical and Comparative Perspective (1991), articles by scholarsHeywood, Colin. A History of Childhood (2001), from medieval to 20th century; strongest on FranceKimmel, M. S., & Holler, J. (2011). 'The Gendered Family': Gender at the Heart of the Home. In The Gendered Society (3rd ed., pp. 141–88). Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.Pollock, Linda A. Forgotten Children: Parent-child relations from 1500 to 1900 (1983).Sommerville, John. The Rise and Fall of Childhood (1982), from antiquity to the presentLiterature & ideas[edit]Bunge, Marcia J., ed. The Child in Christian Thought. (2001)O’Malley, Andrew. The Making of the Modern Child: Children’s Literature and Childhood in the Late Eighteenth Century. (2003).Zornado, Joseph L. Inventing the Child: Culture, Ideology, and the Story of Childhood. (2001), covers Shakespeare, Brothers Grimm, Freud, Walt Disney, etc.Britain[edit]Cunnington, Phillis and Anne Buck. Children’s Costume in England: 1300 to 1900 (1965)Battiscombe, Georgina. Shaftesbury: A Biography of the Seventh Earl. 1801–1885 (1974)Hanawalt, Barbara. Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History (1995)Lavalette; Michael. A Thing of the Past? Child Labour in Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1999) online editionOlsen, Stephanie. Juvenile Nation: Youth, Emotions and the Making of the Modern British Citizen. (2014)Pinchbeck, Ivy and Margaret Hewitt. Children in English Society. (2 vols. 1969); covers 1500 to 1948Sommerville, C. John. The Discovery of Childhood in Puritan England. (1992).Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500–1800 (1979).Welshman, John. Churchill's Children: The Evacuee Experience in Wartime Britain (2010)

Dr. J. Marion Sims (1813–1883) (J. Marion Sims - Wikipedia)Thanks Sean. I apologize for the length, but it is necessary to illustrate how someone so celebrated in the press and medical community became reviled.Dr. James Marion Sims, a pioneering American gynecologist, is often credited with establishing the country’s first women’s hospital in Manhattan in 1855[1] — but in fact the Woman’s Hospital in the State of New York was not the first institution he opened. In 1844, Sims had his slaves build a women’s hospital in Mt. Meigs, Alabama, expressly for experimenting on enslaved women who suffered from a common gynecological condition caused from childbirth injuries.[2]Vesicovaginal fistula was a catastrophic complication of childbirth among 19th century American women.[3]Sims’ surgical work in Alabama — performed with the assistance of other enslaved patients, whom he trained as nurses — helped to launch his career as one of the country’s most famous gynecologists. Celebrated as the “father of modern gynocology”[4] , his name appeared in the press and in medical textbooks, and his likeness was memorialized in statues throughtout the eastern seabord and south. He stands as the first person to successfully perform gallbladder surgery,[5] and he developed a groundbreaking technique to treat women with vesicovaginal fistula. He invented the modern speculum,[6] and the Sim's position for vaginal exams, both of which he tested on his female slaves.[7]Yet, despite the popularity and notoriety, that Sims attracted, there were a small group of contemporary detractors who questioned the doctor's methodology and ethics. Drowned out by the praise of thousands of upper and middle class Caucasian women whose lives and reproduction systems were saved by Sims’ techniques[8] , critics would not find a willing audience for their concerns for over a hundred years. From the late 1970s onwards, numerous modern authors have criticised and attacked Sims's medical ethics, arguing that he manipulated the institution of slavery to perform ethically unacceptable human experiments on powerless, unconsenting women.Marion Sims (called Marion) was born in Lancaster County, South Carolina, ,the son of John and Mahala (Mackey) Sims.[9] For his first 12 years, Sims's family lived in Lancaster Village north of Hanging Rock Creek, where his father owned a store. Sims later wrote of his early school days there.[10] After his father was elected as sheriff of Lancaster County in 1825, Sims was enrolled the newly established Franklin Academy, in Lancaster (for white boys only).[11]In 1832, after two years of study at the predecessor of the University of South Carolina, South Carolina College, where he was a member of the Euphradian Society,[12] After interning with Dr. Churchill Jones in Lancaster and completing a three-month course at the Medical College of Charleston (predecessor of the Medical University of South Carolina)[13], Sims moved to Philadelphia in 1834, enrolling in Jefferson Medical College, where he graduated in 1835, "a lackluster student who showed little ambition after receiving his medical degree".[14]As he put it,"I felt no particular interest in my profession at the beginning of it apart from making a living.... I was really ready at any time and at any moment to take up anything that offered, or that held out any inducement of fortune, because I knew that I could never make a fortune out of the practice of medicine."[15]Sims returned to Lancaster to practice. After his first two patients died, Sims left and set up a practice in Mount Meigs, near Montgomery, Alabama. He described the settlement in a letter to his future wife Theresa Jones as "nothing but a pile of gin-houses, stables, blacksmith-shops, grog-shops, taverns and stores, thrown together in one promiscuous huddle".[16]J. Marion Sims | Encyclopedia of AlabamaIn.December 1836, he married Theresa, also from Lancaster and the daughter of the wealthy widow of a local doctor, with whom he had nine children.[17] In 1840 the couple moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where they lived until 1853. In 1841, after suffering bouts of malaria and intestinal disorders, he moved his practice into Montgomery, trading in his pony for a four-wheeled cart with a horse and driver.[18] There Sims had what he described as the "most memorable time" of his career.[19] Within a few years he "had the largest surgical practice in the State", the largest practice that any doctor in Montgomery had ever had, up to that time, and was considered immensely popular, and greatly beloved."[20] The family owned 17 slaves, a house, and a building for treating 8 patients.It was in Montgomery that Sims established his reputation among rich, white plantation owners by treating their human property.[21] Sims’s practice was deeply rooted in the slave trade, building an eight-person hospital in the heart of the slave-trading district in Montgomery.[22] While most healthcare took place on the plantations, some stubborn cases were brought to physicians like Sims who patched up slaves so they could produce—and reproduce—for their masters again.[23] Otherwise, they were useless to their owners.Soon after, he developed a precursor to the modern speculum using a pewter spoon and strategically placed mirrors.[24] From 1845 to 1849, Sims started doing experiments on enslaved women to treat vaginal problems. He developed techniques that form the basis of modern vaginal surgery. A key component was silver wire, which he had a jeweler prepare.[25] The Sims vaginal speculum aided in vaginal examination and surgery.Sims' position - WikipediaWhen a woman came to him with an injured pelvis and retroverted uterus from a fall from a horse, he placed the patient on the left side with the right knee flexed against the abdomen and the left knee slightly flexed,.[26] Inserting his finger into the vagina triggered a full distention of the vagina with air. The distention inspired him to investigate fistula treatment.In Montgomery, between 1845 and 1849, Sims conducted experimental surgery on 12 enslaved women with fistulas in his backyard hospital. They were brought to him by their owners. Sims asked for patients with this fistula, and succeeded in finding six or seven women.[27]“I made this proposition to the owners of the negroes: If you will give me Anarcha and Betsey for experiment, I agree to perform no experiment or operation on either of them to endanger their lives, and will not charge a cent for keeping them, but you must pay their taxes and clothe them. I will keep them at my own expense.”[28]Sims took responsibility for their care on the condition that the owners provide clothing and pay any taxes; Sims provided food. One woman, Lucy, he purchased "expressly for the purpose of experimentation when her master resisted Sims' solicitations."[29]Sims referenced three enslaved women in his records: Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy; many others remain unidentified. Each suffered from fistula, and all were subjects of his surgical experimentation.[30] From 1845 to 1849 he conducted experimental surgery on each of them several times.[31] Sims performed these fistula repair operations without benefit of anesthesia but gave these women substantial doses of opium afterwards.[32] It has been alleged that Sims did this in order to addict them to the drug and thereby to enhance his control over them.Seventeen-year old Anarcha Westcott had a severe form of rickets caused by a lack of vitamin D and malnutrition , which had disfigured her pelvis, making it impossible for her to give birth.[33] She went into labor during June 1845 and after trying to give birth for three days, Sims showed up to assist her in her labor. The use of “forceps” was common in those days, but Sims had never used them before, and, according to one historian, Sims tried it repeatedly on other slave women.[34] Each of these attempts, however, resulted in an infant fatality. Sims blamed all of these deaths not on his own use of the forceps, but the slave mother’s inherent stupidity.[35]Remembering Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern GynecologyAnarcha had both vesicovaginal and rectovaginal fistulas, which Sims struggled to repair. operating on the young woman thirty times.[36] She was isolated from other slaves, separated from her infant and under the complete supervision of Sims.Notwithstanding repeated failures during four years' time, he kept his six patients and operated until he tired out his doctor assistants, and finally had to rely upon his patients to assist him to operate.[37] Unlike his previous essays, which included at least a brief description of his patients, the article issued in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences is devoid of any identifying characteristics of Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy.[38]Years after Sims claimed to have cured Anarcha's fistula, Anarcha traveled to Sims’ New York Woman’s Hospital to be operated on again by him. Anarcha actually had a double fistula when she first was sent to Sims—a rupture in the lining between vagina and urethra and between vagina and rectum. She was probably never really fully cured. While a decade later she was living in Virginia as a midwife, “she [appeared] to be living at a separate house from the main house.” While it’s unclear whether it was due to separate quarters for people enslaved generally or stigma, her separation could be explained as “what you would expect from a woman with an ongoing fistula condition.”[39]Although anethesia had very recently become available, Sims did not use any anesthetic during his procedures on these three women. According to Sims, anesthesia was not yet fully accepted into surgical practice, and he was unaware of the use of diethyl ether. [40] Ether as an anesthetic was available as early as the beginning of 1842, but not publicly demonstrated until 1846, a year after Sims began his experimental surgery.[41] While ether's use as an anesthetic spread rapidly, it was not universally accepted at the time of Sims' experimental surgery.In addition, a common belief at the time was that black people did not feel as much pain as white people. One patient, named Lucy, nearly died from sepsis. He had operated on her without anesthetics in the presence of twelve doctors, following the experimental use of a sponge to wipe urine from the bladder during the procedure.[42] She contracted sepsis because he left this sponge in her urethra and bladder. He did administer opium to the women after their surgery, which was accepted therapeutic practice of the day.[43]Dr. J. Marion Sims in Montgomery, Alabama (J. Marion Sims | Encyclopedia of Alabama)Sims moved to New York in 1853 because of his health and was determined to focus on diseases of women. He had an office at 267 Madison Avenue.[44] In 1855 he founded Woman's Hospital, the first hospital for women in the United States. His project met with "universal opposition" from the New York medical community; it was due to prominent women that he established it.They were visited by "prominent doctors, who endeavored to convince them that they were making a mistake, that they had been deceived, that no such hospital was needed, etc. I was called a quack.and a humbug, and the hospital was pronounced a fraud. Still it went on with its work."[45]In the Woman's Hospital, he performed operations on indigent women, often in an operating theatre so that medical students and other doctors could view his procedures as it was considered fundamental to medical education at the time.[46] Patients remained in the hospital indefinitely and underwent repeated procedures.At the onset of the Civil War in 1861, Sims left the United States and settled in Paris. He became internationally famous after ministering to European royalty, including the empress of Austria.[47] After the end of the Civil War, he returned to the United States until his death.In 1871, Sims returned to New York. He got into a conflict with the other doctors of the Woman's Hospital, with whom he carried on a dialogue by means of published pamphlets.[48] One issue was whether the hospital would treat women with uterine cancer, because the hospital was founded to treat diseases of women, and cancer was not a disease peculiar to women.[49] In addition, cancer was feared as contagious.[50] The second issue was how many outsiders (doctors or medical students) could observe any given operation, as was common at the time.[51] This meant they could observe the sexual organs of white women patients; there were no African-American patients.After a conflict with the hospital administration, Sims resigned from the Woman's Hospital of New York State in 1874[52] and maintained a successful private practice. In 1876, he was named president of the American Medical Association.[53]Women’s Hospital New York – Ephemeral New YorkIn 1880, Sims contracted a severe case of typhoid fever. Although Sims suffered delirium, he was "constantly contriving instruments and conducting operations".[54] After several months and a move to Charleston South Carolina to aid his convalescence, Sims appeared healthy by.June 1881.[55]After travelling briefly to France, Sims began to complain of an increase in heart problems. He had previously suffered two angina attacks in 1877. Sims was positive that he had a serious disease of the heart, resulting in a deep mental depression.[56] Halfway through writing his autobiography and planning a return visit to Europe, Sims died of a heart attack on November 13, 1883 in Manhattan, New York City.[57] After Sims’ death in 1883, the Mt. Meigs hospital continued to serve the local African-American population.[58]That Sims achieved all this has long won him acclaim; how he achieved all this—by experimenting on enslaved women—started being included in his story much more recently. And on a Tuesday morning in April 2018, in the face of growing controversy, New York City removed a statue honoring him from Central Park.[59]J. Marion SimsThe move came after decades of concerted effort by historians, scholars, and activists to reexamine Sims’s legacy. Sims’ critics have discounted the enormous suffering experienced by fistula victims, have ignored the controversies that surrounded the introduction of anaesthesia into surgical practice in the middle of the 19th century[60], and have consistently misrepresented the historical record in their attacks on Sims. Although enslaved African American women certainly represented a “vulnerable population” in the 19th century American South, the evidence suggests that Sims's original patients were willing participants in his surgical attempts to cure their affliction—a condition for which no other viable therapy existed at that time.[61]Sims’s defenders say the Southern-born slaveholder was simply a man of his time for whom the end justified the means—and that enslaved women with fistulas were likely to have wanted the treatment badly enough that they would have agreed to take part in his experiments.[62] But history hasn’t recorded their voices, and consent from their owners, who had a strong financial interest in their recovery, was the only legal requirement of the time.Critics say Sims cared more about the experiments than in providing therapeutic treatment, and that he caused untold suffering by operating under the racist notion that black people did not feel pain.[63] They say his use of enslaved black bodies as medical test subjects falls into a long, ethically bereft history of medical apartheid that includes the Tuskegee syphilis experiment[64] and Henrietta Lacks.[65]The first serious challenge to Sims’s lionization came in a 1976 book by the historian G.J. Barker-Benfield titled The Horrors of the Half-Known.Barker-Benfield juxtaposed Sims’s “extremely active, adventurous policy of surgical interference with woman’s sexual organs” with his considerable ambition and self-interest. The man who once admitted “if there was anything I hated, it was investigating the organs of the female pelvis,” took to gynecology with a “monomania” once he realized it was his ticket to fame and fortune.[66]In response, during the 1978 annual meeting of the American Gynecological Society, doctors took turns vigorously defending Sims against Barker-Benfield’s book. The most fervent of them was Lawrence I. Hester Jr., who said, “I rise not to reappraise J. Marion Sims, but to praise him.”[67] He then announced that his institution, the Medical University of South Carolina, which Sims also attended, was raising $750,000 for an endowed chair named after J. Marion Sims.[68]The Secret History of the SpeculumAnother physician, Irwin Kaiser asked the audience to consider how Sims ultimately helped the enslaved women he experimented upon. The surgery that he practiced on Lucy, Anarcha, Betsey, and the other enslaved women was to repair a vesicovaginal fistula—a devastating complication of prolonged labor. When a baby’s head presses for too long in the birth canal, tissue can die from lack of blood, forming a hole between the vagina and the bladder.[69] The condition can be embarrassing, as women with it are unable to control urination. “Women with fistulas became social outcasts,” said Kaiser. “In the long run, they had reasons to be grateful that Sims had cured them of urinary leakage.” He concluded that Sims was “a product of his era.”[70]This did not quell criticisms, of course. Over the next few decades, scholars continued to criticize Sim's practice of experimenting on enslaved women.[71] Medical textbooks, however, were slow to mention the controversy over Sims’s legacy. A 2011 study found that they continued to celebrate Sims’s achievement, often uncritically. In contrast to the vigorous debate of Sims’s legacy in historical texts and even in the popular press, medical textbooks and journals have largely remained static in their portrayal of Sims as surgical innovator.[72]In recent years, one of the most prominent defenders of Sims’s legacy has been Lewis Wall, a surgeon and an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis.[73] Wall has traveled to Africa to perform the vesicovaginal fistula surgery that Sims pioneered[74] , and he has seen firsthand what a difference it makes in women’s lives.“Sims’s modern critics have discounted the enormous suffering experienced by fistula victims,” he wrote in a 2006 paper. “The evidence suggests that Sims’s original patients were willing participants in his surgical attempts to cure their affliction—a condition for which no other viable therapy existed at that time.”[75]Wall also defended Sims on the charge that he refused to give anesthesia only to black patients.[76] Anesthesia was not yet widespread in 1845, and physicians who trained without anesthesia sometimes preferred their patients to be awake.There is debate over whether Sims’s specific surgical practices were unusually gruesome for his time. But his practice of operating on enslaved women was certainly not unusual. He wrote about it openly. It is this ordinariness that is noteworthy.Should women be standing alongside the 'father' of modern gynecology?Sims did not induce illness into his subjects, nor is there any evidence that he intentionally inflicted pain or even contemplated the loss of a life in order to find a solution to the problem. On the contrary, there is every indication that his attempts were purely to find a cure for a most debilitating malady and is well documented that all of his slave patients recovered, and we can assume lived better lives because of the surgery.[77] There are no reports of fatalities among Sims participants and it is widely acknowledged that his work aided tens of thousands of females, both black and white.[78]Sims was able to advance so quickly, because he had access to bodies—first enslaved women in the south, and later also poor Irish women when he moved to New York..[79] These institutions that existed in this country, which allowed easy access to enslaved and impoverished women’s bodies, allowed certain branches of professional medicine to advance and grow and to also become legitimate. The history of medicine has often been written as the history of great men, rather then their forgotten female patients.In 2006, the University of Alabama at Birmingham removed a painting that depicted Sims as one of the “Medical Giants of Alabama.”[80] In February, the Medical University of South Carolina quietly renamed the endowed chair honoring J. Marion Sims—the one announced by Hester after the publication of The Horrors of the Half-Known.[81] The minutes of the board of trustees meeting where it happened did not even mention Sims’s name—just the new name of the endowed chair. The decision was made in recognition of the controversial and polarizing nature of this historical figure despite his contributions to the medical field.[82]A worker removes the 19th-century statue of J. Marion Sims from New York's Central Park (Controversial statue of J. Marion Sims removed from Central Park)A bust of Sims on display at his alma mater, Thomas Jefferson University, was abruptly removed without explanation and placed in storage.[83] The J. Marion Sims statue that stood in Central Park is being relocated to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where Sims is buried.[84] Eventually, the statue will be demoted to a lower pedestal and displayed with a sign explaining the statue’s history. There may be an opportunity, now, to use the statue to tell the full story—to tell the stories of Lucy, Anarcha, Betsey, and the other enslaved women, who were the unknown “Mothers of Modern Gynocology”, assuring their place in the history of medicine.Footnotes[1] Women’s Hospital New York – Ephemeral New York[2] J. Marion Sims | Encyclopedia of Alabama[3] James Marion Sims's Treatment of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula[4] The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Slaves[5] J. Marion Sims, the father of gynecology: hero or villain?[6] The Secret History of the Speculum[7] Sims' position - Wikipedia[8] Peering ‘Behind The Sheet’ Of Gynecology’s Darker History[9] Marion Sims and the Origin of Modern Gynecology[10] Memorial sketch of the life of J. Marion Sims, M.D. : Wylie, W. Gill (Walker Gill), 1848-1923 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[11] SC-29-8 Franklin Academy[12] Euphradian Society - Wikipedia[13] From Midwives to Medicine[14] Scholars Argue Over Legacy of Surgeon Who Was Lionized, Then Vilified[15] The Story of My Life - Google Play[16] The Story of My Life - Google Play[17] From Midwives to Medicine[18] Savior or butcher? Doctor's legacy under fire[19] J. Marion Sims, the controversial "father of modern gynecology," conducted experiments on slaves and did not use anesthesia[20] Tribute to the late James Marion Sims ... by W.O. Baldwin ... November, 1883. [21] The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Slaves[22] Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology on JSTOR[23] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1003%26context%3Dlegacy&ved=2ahUKEwjFsbCZxPnmAhWQB80KHXx3BKwQFjAOegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw1oX8Z_yvGKGGu7ccqb96HK[24] Women as victims of medical experimentation: J. Marion Sims' surgery on slave women, 1845-1850.[25] J. Marion Sims: Paving the way | The Bulletin[26] J. Marion Sims: Paving the way | The Bulletin[27] https://as.vanderbilt.edu/archived/gfc/sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/files/dG8FJS/Kapsalis%202002.pdf[28] The Women Behind the Statue - Rewire.News[29] Public Privates[30] Scholars Argue Over Legacy of Surgeon Who Was Lionized, Then Vilified[31] Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey — Michelle Hartney[32] Did J. Marion Sims deliberately addict his first fistula patients to opium?[33] http://Washington, Harriet A. (2006). Medical Apartheid The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (1st ed.). NY: Doubleday.[34] Anarcha & Her Sisters in Slavery, Lucy & Betsey[35] Gifted Hands[36] https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3248[37] Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity[38] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://medium.com/%40Rondaisms/do-you-know-the-story-of-anarcha-lucy-and-betsy-fa1fb1a652ea&ved=2ahUKEwiV1quQkvjmAhWVPM0KHfMqBpEQjjgwBXoECAoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw23WVoOxow_RfmvgrWlARQJ[39] The Women Behind the Statue - Rewire.News[40] The medical ethics of Dr J Marion Sims: a fresh look at the historical record[41] Sept. 30, 1846: Ether He Was the First or He Wasn't[42] Remembering Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern Gynecology[43] As The Opium Trade Boomed In The 1800s, Boston Doctors Raised Addiction Concerns[44] History of the discovery of anaesthesia : Sims, J. Marion(James Marion),1813-1883 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[45] Women’s Hospital New York – Ephemeral New York[46] Public Privates[47] Life for this Bavarian princess was no fairy tale[48] National Library of Medicine[49] The Woman's Hospital in 1874 : a reply to the printed circular of Drs. E.R. Peaslee, T.A. Emmet, and T. Gaillard Thomas, addressed 'to the medical profession,' 'May 5th, 1877' : Royal College of Surgeons of England : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[50] Student guest post: Cancer isn’t contagious…or is it??[51] Reply to Dr. J. Marion Sims' Pamphlet Entitled "The Woman's Hospital in 1874"[52] Eponyms and Names in Obstetrics and Gynaecology[53] Women as victims of medical experimentation: J. Marion Sims' surgery on slave women, 1845-1850.[54] Memorial sketch of the life of J. Marion Sims, M.D. : Wylie, W. Gill (Walker Gill), 1848-1923 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[55] Dr J Marion Sims[56] Memorial sketch of the life of J. Marion Sims, M.D. : Wylie, W. Gill (Walker Gill), 1848-1923 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[57] A FAMOUS SURGEON DEAD; THE IMPORTANT LIFE WORK OF DR. J. MARION SIMS.[58] J. Marion Sims | Encyclopedia of Alabama[59] Why a Statue of the 'Father of Gynecology' Had to Come Down[60] Ether day: an intriguing history[61] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file%3Faccession%3Dosu1492473135829899%26disposition%3Dinline&ved=2ahUKEwiD18uP2vfmAhUObq0KHf_uAi0QFjAJegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0fCdrLnzKLMWtXXrDdt5KS[62] The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Slaves[63] Pain Sensitivity: An Unnatural History from 1800 to 1965[64] An Unethical Medical Study Took a Year Off the Lives of Black Men[65] Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal’ Cells[66] The Horrors of the Half-Known Life[67] Skin Deep, Spirit Strong[68] 'Father Of Gynecology,' Who Experimented On Slaves, No Longer On Pedestal In NYC[69] History of the Procedure[70] Reappraisals of J. Marion Sims[71] The medical ethics of the 'father of gynaecology', Dr J Marion Sims.[72] The Portrayal of J. Marion Sims' Controversial Surgical Legacy[73] L. Lewis Wall, MD, DPhil, MBioeth | Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis[74] Obstetric Fistula Is a “Neglected Tropical Disease”[75] The medical ethics of Dr J Marion Sims: a fresh look at the historical record[76] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/08/29/a-surgeon-experimented-on-slave-women-without-anesthesia-now-his-statues-are-under-attack/%3foutputType=amp[77] J. Marion Sims, MD: Why He and His Accomplishments Need to Continue to be Recognized a Commentary and Historical Review[78] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=James%20Marion%20Sims:%20some%20speculations%20and%20a%20new%20position#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DVwcwilNKUFUJ[79] Medical Bondage[80] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2006/01/29/a-19th-century-doctor-38/b7534292-bdce-45f0-b5e0-c01ec647bcc9/[81] J. Marion Sims, the controversial "father of modern gynecology," conducted experiments on slaves and did not use anesthesia[82] The Surgeon Who Experimented on Slaves[83] The controversial legacy of Jefferson University-educated 'father of gynecology'[84] City Orders Sims Statue Removed From Central Park