Critics want New York City to remove a statue in Central Park that honors a doctor who used slaves in developing a pioneering approach to treating physical problems women can develop after childbirth.
The call to remove the statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims has gotten louder and gained urgency in the wake of violence that followed recent a white nationalist rally in Virginia over the removal of a Confederate statue and sparked national discussions about what should be displayed and honored in the public square.
Sims was a 19th-century physician who is credited with developing a surgical technique to repair certain types of fistulas, or tears, which prior to that had been a seemingly insurmountable condition. He developed the technique through operations on enslaved black women in Alabama, without anesthetic.
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