Conor O'Mahony: Lifelong pain met with a wall of legal jumble

The rejection by the European Court of Human Rights has ignored core human rights issues in favour of procedural rules and technical arguments

Survivors of symphysiotomies and their supporters protesting outside Department of An Taoiseach in 2014.The European Court of Human Rights has ruled as inadmissible three complaints by Irish women that symphysiotomies conducted in the 1960s without their consent violated their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

Yesterday, the European Court of Human Rights ruled inadmissible three complaints by Irish women that symphysiotomies conducted in the 1960s without their consent violated their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court’s rulings focused largely on narrow technical issues. In many ways, they failed to address the fundamental question of whether conducting a controversial and outdated medical procedure on women without presenting them with alternatives and obtaining their express consent violated their human rights.

A symphysiotomy involves cutting into the fibres connecting the pubic bones to facilitate natural childbirth where it might not otherwise be possible. In most European countries, it was abandoned by the mid-Twentieth Century in favour of Caesarean sections (which were much safer). However, in Ireland, it continued to be used until the 1980s.