Aug 21, 2025
Anarcha Westcott was a young Black girl enslaved in Alabama. After a traumatic childbirth, she developed vaginal and rectal fistulas, a condition that left her in constant pain and shame.
Instead of receiving care, she was experimented on over 30 times by Dr. J. Marion Sims, who operated on her without anesthesia. He used her body to develop a surgery that would later be used to treat white women, with pain relief, dignity, and consent.
Anarcha didn’t agree to any of it. She wasn’t a patient. She was a victim of medical violence.
Today, she is finally being remembered, not as a statistic, but as one of the true Mothers of Modern Gynecology, alongside Lucy and Betsey.
