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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, James Marion Sims developed pioneering tools and
3surgical techniques related to women's reproductive health,
4including a surgical technique to repair vesicovaginal
5fistula, and is credited as the "father of modern gynecology";
6the 19th-century physician has been lionized with statues in
7New York City, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania; and
 
8    WHEREAS, Because James Sims conducted his research on
9enslaved black women without anesthesia, medical ethicists,
10historians, and others have called for those monuments to be
11removed or to be reconfigured as tributes to the enslaved women
12known to have endured his experiments, whose stories have been
13erased from history; and
 
14    WHEREAS, James Sims believed that black people didn't
15experience pain like white people, and that African Americans
16were less intelligent than white people; his medical practice
17was rooted in the slave trade; he built an eight-person
18hospital in the heart of the slave-trading district in
19Montgomery, and while most healthcare took place on the
20plantations, some cases were brought to doctors like Sims who
21treated slaves so they could continue to reproduce for their
22masters; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, In 1845, James Sims began experimenting with
2surgical techniques to treat vesicovaginal fistula, a
3condition with no known cure, and for a long time, his
4surgeries were not successful; based on James Sims's medical
5records, the names of three of the female patients are now
6known, Lucy, Anarcha, and Betsey; the first one he operated on
7was 18-year-old Lucy, who had given birth a few months prior;
8she endured an hour-long surgery without anesthesia, during
9which she screamed and cried out in pain as nearly a dozen
10other doctors watched; it took her two to three months to
11entirely recover from the effects of the operation; after 30
12operations and four years of experimentation on 17-year-old
13Anarcha, an enslaved woman who had a very traumatic labor and
14delivery, he finally perfected his method; afterward, he began
15to practice on white women, using anesthesia; and
 
16    WHEREAS, In 1850, James Sims moved to New York and opened
17the first-ever Women's Hospital, where he continued testing
18controversial medical treatments on his patients; when any of
19his patients died, he placed blame on the "ignorance of their
20mothers and the black midwives who attended them"; he did not
21believe anything was wrong with his methods, and these beliefs
22affected more than his gynecological experiments; he also
23tested surgical treatments on enslaved black children in an
24effort to treat "trismus nascentium," or neonatal tetanus, with
25little to no success; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, Today, James Marion Sims continues to loom large
2in the medical field and is celebrated as a medical
3trailblazer; currently, two of his statues remain, one in South
4Carolina and one outside of his old medical school; therefore,
5be it
 
6    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
7HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
8we oppose honoring James Sims or anyone who supports racist
9ideology.