FW: Protest and Play

[Guest guest]

If you had told me six months ago I'd be attuned enough to care about a play

about hysterectomy, I would've never believe it.

And yet...

This play comes to St. Louis this weekend, and probably near lots of you

during its nationwide tour. Take a look.

amanda

------ Forwarded Message

Reply-To: info@...>

Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 13:46:33 -0700

To: info@...>

Subject: Protest and Play

PRESS RELEASE!!

For Immediate Release

ST. LOUIS, APRIL 26, 2004

PROTEST AGAINST DOCTORS SURGICALLY REDEFINING “WOMAN”

March Against Unwarranted, Unconsented, Unwanted Operations

It is no secret that hysterectomy is one of the most performed major

surgeries in the country and is also one of the least necessary and most

damaging. It is also no secret that there is widespread

hysterectomy-related abuse by gynecologists and that the hospitals,

legislators and other authorities who could rein in the maltreatment of

women have failed to do so.

HERS initiated a year long protest on March 27, 2004 in Birmingham, Alabama

which will be taken up by demonstrators in 51 cities throughout the United

States, taking place every day for a week in each city. The protest will

culminate in Washington DC the week of March 12, 2005 in conjunction with a

production of un becoming, Rick Schweikert’s play about the complex issues

surrounding hysterectomy.

In St. Louis the protest will begin on May 1 and will end May 7, from 11

a.m. to 1 p.m., daily, at the -Jewish Hospital South at Washington

University Medical Center, One -Jewish Hospital Plaza at Kings Highway

Boulevard. On Saturday May 1 at 4 p.m. there will be a staged reading of

the play.

An estimated 76% of women who are hysterectomized are castrated at the same

time. The removed uterus and ovaries, however, are commonly found to be

perfectly normal. What is worse, some women have never consented to the

removal of any of these organs. And according to the HERS Foundation Data

Bank, 99.7% percent of women in an ongoing study were given little or no

prior information about the acknowledged adverse effects of hysterectomy –

information that is a legal requisite of consent.

HERS president Nora W. Coffey makes the point that doctors often frighten

women into consenting and give them false and misleading information.

“When a doctor tells a woman who manifests no sign of disease or illness

that she will be protected against cancer by castration, he is using a

common scare tactic. And when a doctor tells an intact woman that after a

hysterectomy she will still be ‘the same as before – only better’ that is

false and misleading. Demonstrably so.”

According to Coffey, the conspiracy of silence regarding these and other

offenses that place women in harm’s way will be peeled away as abusive

doctors and the hospital staffs and executives who shield them meet

demonstrators on American streets everywhere who are protesting against this

unacceptable treatment of women.

Attached is the schedule for 51 cities in which demonstrators will protest

against doctors performing unwarranted, unconsented, unwanted hysterectomy

and the hospitals that enable them. The St. Louis Protest will begin May 1

and will end May 7, every day from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the -Jewish

Hospital South at Washington University Medical Center, One -Jewish

Hospital Plaza at Kings Highway Boulevard. On May 1 at 4 p.m. there will be

a staged reading of un becoming, Rick Schweikert’s play about the complex

issues surrounding hysterectomy.

HERS Foundation president Nora W. Coffey, playwright Rick Schweikert, and

other protesters will be available for interviews at the protest site on

Saturday May 1, Sunday May 2, and Monday May 3 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more

information please contact HERS at weekdays or

weekends or Rick Schweikert at . Visit us at

www.theprotestandtheplay.com

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