India "doctors" arrested for sterilizing women without anesthesia

GlobalPost

Three men posing as doctors were arrested for performing gruesome field sterilization surgeries on more than 50 women in rural Bihar, the BBC reported.

The men reportedly raced through the butchering in under two hours, without the use of anesthesia, in a gruesome parody of the tubectomy operations that India relies on as its main weapon in the fight against overpopulation, the news channel said.

More from GlobalPost: Is sterilization the answer to India's population woes?

What's worse: It appears that the group, known, ironically, as the Jai Ambe Welfare Society, has allegedly been conducting similar “family planning camps” in Bihar for some time, according to local police.

"The Jai Ambe Welfare Society has been regularly organizing family planning camps in Bihar, putting lives of innocent women in danger," the BBC quoted a local police officer as saying.

"When I reached the spot I was surprised to find that not a single qualified doctor was present there and even the saline bottles used for the surgery were well past their expiry dates."

As I wrote for GlobalPost in 2010, India relies heavily on female sterilization to curb its population problem, which has its own perils. Not only is female sterilization much more dangerous than male vasectomies, but so-called “incentive based” sterilization programs can often be abused.

More from GlobalPost: Injectable vasectomies

In this case: Women were paid a bit more than $10 to go under the knife, according to the BBC. 

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