IL HR0005

Expresses opposition to honoring James Marion Sims, a 19th-century physician credited as the "father of modern gynecology," due to his unethical medical practices on enslaved Black women without anesthesia

Documents that Sims conducted multiple surgical experiments on enslaved women including Lucy, Anarcha, and Betsey to develop techniques for treating vesicovaginal fistula, causing severe pain and trauma

Notes that Sims held racist beliefs that Black people did not experience pain like white people and were less intelligent, and later used anesthesia when practicing on white women patients

States that two statues of Sims remain standing—one in South Carolina and one outside his former medical school—despite calls from medical ethicists and historians for their removal or reconfiguration to honor the enslaved women victimized by his experiments

Opposes honoring James Sims or anyone who supports racist ideology