statue of racist gynecologist who experimented on black women removed from central park

For more than the past year, questions of whether monuments erected to honor Confederate figures should continue to be displayed in public spaces across the country. A lesser-known monument, the statue of the “father of gynecology,” J. Marion Sims statue which sat in Central Park, had been defaced by activists on at least one occasion in the wake of Charlottesville last summer.

And finally, Mayor Bill de Blasio has decided that there is no celebration to be had for historical figures like Sims, who also founded the first women’s hospital, because of his dehumanizing actions against black slaves, and the statue has been removed.

Sim’s advancements in medical sciences as a gynecologist were made through experimentation on enslaved black women. His groundbreaking series of treatments for vesicovaginal fistula, “an abnormal opening between the bladder and the vagina”, were discovered via torturous experimentation that was performed on enslaved women, presumably against their will, and without anesthesia. As The Atlantic pointed out, Sims’ methodology was one of many ways in which wealthy whites benefited from slavery, regardless of whether they owned slaves or not.

NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 17: Parks Department workers place a harness over a statue of J. Marion Sims, a surgeon celebrated by many as the father of modern gynecology, before it is taken down from its pedestal at Central Park and East 103rd Street on April 17, 2018 in New York City. A New York City panel decided to move the controversial statue after groups demanded its removal as many of Sims medical breakthroughs came from experimenting on black slaves without anesthesia. The statue will be relocated in Green-Wood Cemetery in Windsor Terrace, where Sims is buried. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 17: People gather to watch the removal of a statue of J. Marion Sims, a surgeon celebrated by many as the father of modern gynecology, at Central Park and East 103rd Street on April 17, 2018 in New York City. A New York City panel decided to move the controversial statue after groups demanded its removal as many of Sims medical breakthroughs came from experimenting on black slaves without anesthesia. The statue will be relocated in Green-Wood Cemetery in Windsor Terrace, where Sims is buried. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 17: The empty pedestal stands where a statue of J. Marion Sims, a surgeon celebrated by many as the father of modern gynecology, was taken down from its pedestal at Central Park and East 103rd Street on April 17, 2018 in New York City. A New York City panel decided to move the controversial statue after groups demanded its removal as many of Sims medical breakthroughs came from experimenting on black slaves without anesthesia. The statue will be relocated in Green-Wood Cemetery in Windsor Terrace, where Sims is buried. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)