The following "resolution" was presented to NOW on 7-3-99 at their national conference in LA. This resolution was not passed, but did create an atmosphere of questions and debate.

The women and men of NOW and thoses voting on this resolution, just as everyone else, has been lied to and mislead by the medical community and their propaganda that TL's are safe and with out side effects. Part of the CPTL Women's "educational" goal includes educating NOW as well as others about the issues of human rights that surround informed consent with TLs.

Please read the "resolves" to this resolution.

1. Solicit input.
2. Support women's rights.
3. Informed consent.

These requests are rather tame in nature, pro-women, and not unreasonable requests...

The full resolution is present below.

1999 NOW TUBAL LIGATION RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, the National Organization for Women (NOW) maintains the belief that women should have complete authority over their own reproductive lives, health care, and medical decisions and that each should have unrestricted access to all methods of birth control along with the full discourse and true understanding as to the risks and benefits; and

WHEREAS, tubal ligation (TL) is the number one choice of birth control for women over the age of thirty in the in the Untied States and it’s estimated that over 15 million in the US and over 153 million women worldwide have been sterilized for contraceptive reasons. TL is promoted world wide as being a safe “band aid” surgery that carries no serious long term health side effects and that it will enhance for the better women’s overall health and quality of life; and

WHEREAS, TL surgery does have known negitive side effects, commonly known within the medical community as “post tubal syndrome” (PTS), which is both physical and hormonal in nature. The risks of TL surgeries includes:
1. The risk of surgical menopause (castration) which if left untreated can develop into hormone shock, autoimune disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, and mental changes.
2. Increased risk of osteoporosis and increase risk of coronary heart disease (CHD)
3. Physical conditions to the uterus and reproductive organs that often require surgeries such as D&C and hysterectomies to correct; and

WHEREAS, the medical community’s action of intentionally withholding information constitutes coerced sterilization, surgical abuse and criminal fraud which has become a silent assault and battery that has negatively impacted women; and

WHEREAS, the gynecological community has with intent denied these problems in order not to expose themselves to charges of intentional fraud and misrepresentations they have perpetrated on hundreds of thousands of women; and

WHEREAS, post tubal women are discriminated against, are having their medical health and civil rights denied, and are being further injured and victimized by the ob-gyn medical community when they seek medical help after having had a TL surgery. This is demonstrated by:
1. The medical community’s standard of practice of putting post tubal ligation women on the “Pill” as a form of hormone therapy (HRT) with out first testing her hormone levels, with out explaining the reason why and by not informing her of other, safer forms of HRT.
2. Their standard of ignoring post tubal women’s hormonally based menopausal symptoms/conditions such as heart palpitations, increased anxiety, depression, loss of sexual drive, and hot flashes, as being caused by their natural aging process, or as being physiologic in nature, and their action of prescribing antidepressants and referring them to physiologic.
3. The medical community’s refusal to offer and prescribe hormone testing, even when a post tubal woman presents herself with a obvious hormonal condition and tells the doctor she’s been made aware that tubal ligations can cause hormonal imbalances and that she believes she’s suffering a hormonal condition and would like to be tested.
4. By the medical community’s hold fast stance that tubal ligations do not cause these types of side effects and conditions and by the medical community’s refusal to diagnosis a women with “Post Tubal Syndrome” (PTS).

WHEREAS, doctors, hospitals, and manufacturers of surgical equipment have profited and continues to profit from misleading and victimizing women;

BE IT RESOLVED, that NOW solicit input from Post Tubal Women on past and current health problems affecting them and encourage chapters to increase participation of post tubal women: and

BE IT FURTHER RESLOVED, that NOW support post tubal women’s medical rights to hormone testing and ensure that no physician refuse to treat or diagnose a woman because she has a tubal ligation; and

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that NOW lobby their legislative bodies to put in place proper laws that would ensure that women receive accurate information about tubal ligation surgeries prior to the procedure being done

- Respectfully submitted, Susan J Bucher, Will County IL NOW chapter.