Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Here we are again discussing another terrible crime against women that occurred in the not too distant past. Here we are again discussing the pain inflicted on women by society, but mainly by men. Here we are again discussing a brutality inflicted on women because of the moral stance taken by society, mainly by men.

In recent months, Deputies have spoken of their righteous outrage at what occurred in the Magdalen laundries. They have expressed their sympathies and regrets about what was done to the women imprisoned there. Tonight presents an opportunity to discuss the hurt and pain forced on the survivors of the barbaric practice of symphysiotomy. Not only do we have a chance to discuss this crime against women, but to right the wrong perpetrated on this group.

Symphysiotomies involve the sawing of a pregnant woman's pelvis to facilitate childbirth. As we have heard from women, it results in long-term health problems, including chronic pain and incontinence. This barbaric act was carried out in the State between the 1940s and the early 1990s, long after such operations had been discontinued in other countries. The process was secretive and women who underwent the procedure had to carry the burden alone, unable to speak publicly of their pain.

Symphysiotomy was a callous attempt to push religious beliefs and values on innocent women. Many symphysiotomies were carried out illegally and doctors failed to get the consent of their female patients. It appears that the procedure was only applied to public patients in hospitals with a strong Catholic ethos. It was viewed and performed by some as an alternative to caesarean section. Some viewed the latter as a cap on the size of families, since a mother who underwent it was restricted to having four children at most. During the decades in question, the Catholic Church expected women to give birth to as many children as possible. Restricting a family to "only" four children was regarded in some church circles as unnatural and an abomination. As contraception was not available to most women, symphysiotomies were used to allow women with difficult births to continue to reproduce.

I have worked with fellow Deputies on the victims of symphysiotomy all-party support group. I have met and spoken with many victims. They were hurt by the Walsh report, which was commissioned by the Government. It concluded that 97% of symphysiotomies carried out in Ireland were in line with acceptable medical practice. The survivors were not asked for their opinions, their stories or about what they had been forced to endure.

Tonight's Private Members' business gives us the chance to right the wrongs inflicted on these women and remove this whitewash of history. They were not medical exceptions. The Bill is modelled on the 2000 legislation to allow victims of child sex abuse in residential institutions to seek compensation. It would lift the two-year statute of limitation that prevents many victims from seeking compensation in the courts.

In recent months and years, we as legislators have debated and read about women who fell victim to the State's brutality. Approximately 1,500 women underwent this brutal procedure, fewer than 200 of whom are alive today. We should hang our heads in shame. In these now elderly women's fight for justice, they met barriers when they turned for help. They have mostly been let down by men.

The women have the simplest of demands, namely, the lifting of the statute of limitations so that they can get redress and receive proper recognition for what was inflicted on them. As Mr. Michael Clifford wrote in the Irish Examiner in November 2012: "The State broke their bodies not their spirit". Tonight and tomorrow night, the men and women of this House can begin to right the wrongs inflicted on these women.

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