The HERS Foundation’s “Say No ‘Til You Know” campaign is educating the public about female anatomy like never before, while gathering one million signatures on a petition to stop unconsented removal of the uterus and ovaries.
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — While most organizations celebrate their 25th anniversary, we at the HERS Foundation would like nothing more than for this to be our last. You are invited to join us at what we hope to be our final anniversary party.
Why? Can you imagine a country where the sex organs are removed from 622,000 mothers, sisters, daughters, lovers, and friends each year?[1] That country is not in Africa or Asia or South America. It’s the United States of America.
That’s more than 22 million American women alive today whose sex organs have been surgically removed. Every 30 seconds of every minute of every hour of every day another woman in America wakes up from anesthesia to discover what a doctor neglected to tell her: pregnancy is just one of the many functions of the uterus and ovaries, and those reproductive sex organs a surgeon removed were vital to her health and wellbeing.
An astonishing 99.7% of hysterectomies are performed without the information that is necessary for consent [2]. Even lobotomy was considered “warranted” one third of the time before it was all but illegalized in the 1970s. We intend to retire unconsented hysterectomy to the dusty shelves of medical history beside lobotomy on a long row of other medical atrocities.
Where:
http://www.hersfoundation.org/anatomy
When:
FROM: 9am EDT April 25, 2007
TO: 9am EDT April 25, 2008
Gifts:
We only ask for your signature, but we have a video gift for you.
Doctors must be compelled to provide HERS’ short educational video “Female Anatomy: the Functions of the Female Organs” to every woman who is told she needs a hysterectomy. Visit www.hersfoundation.org/anatomy to view the video and the petition. Hundreds of thousands of women and men are signing the petition in support of every woman’s right to know.
Notes:
[1] According to data from the Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health & Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[2] According to an ongoing study at the HERS Foundation begun in 1991.
[tags]unconsented hysterectomy, HERS Foundation, healthcare issues[/tags]
