Sir, – We should welcome Prof Oonagh Walsh’s report on the operation of symphysiotomy in Ireland, as it may help our current population to at least understand the difficult situation pertaining, particularly in Ireland, which in all probability led to the Lourdes Inquiry, and the current scandals relating to this operation (Front page, June 12th). We may also come to understand the pressures on the patients, hospitals, doctors and nurses of the time, and the policies and decisions they made. Ireland was a devoutly Catholic country then. The hospital in Drogheda was the International Missionary Training Hospital, owned and run by the Medical Missionaries of Mary, founded to train nurses and doctors for work in Catholic missions all over the world.
Humanae Vitae had been published.
Even in State hospitals, sterilisation was virtually impossible to carry out, due to pressure from colleagues, the Catholic Nurses Guild and other sources.
It is easy nowadays to condemn the practice of those days, and the results of it are now plain to see and research, but we did not then have the resources or knowledge available now.
Many of us may remember the protest marches outside hospitals when sterilisations were found to have been carried out.
As time passes, we should gain a clearer understanding of the difficult choices surrounding the debates on abortion, contraception, divorce and sterilisation in Ireland, and the results these debates had on our medical practice and hospitals. I ask for a reasoned analysis and debate that concentrates on the environment that prevailed when these issues arose.
Until we have had this debate we should not rush to judgment of the individuals who became caught up in these issues. – Yours, etc,