My son is arranging his toys on the bed. Every five minutes, he interrupts me with another curious question. Each time, I hold him a little tighter than before. He laughs, puzzled by my affection.

I cannot tell him the harsh truth: that today I remembered how we survived an ordeal that nearly took him away from me.

It happened eight years ago in a gynecology examination room, when a doctor told me that the child now standing before me was “dead in my womb” and that we needed to carry out an immediate abortion and uterine evacuation procedure.

I do not know how I managed to forget that incident all these years, nor do I know why I never filed a police report against the doctor and the hospital. At the time, I was in my late twenties and struggling to process an overwhelming shock: first, being told that my long-awaited first child had died in my womb, and then, that very same night, the shock and relief of discovering that my son was alive. 

This was not merely a serious medical error. It was also a form of obstetric violence in a gynecology examination room, where I was treated, quite literally, like a refrigerator containing spoiled food that needed to be removed, followed by a quick clean-up. There was no consideration not only of the possibility of a misdiagnosis, but also of how a pregnant woman might receive such devastating news, or of the need for compassion when delivering a blow of that magnitude. 

Dr. Omnia Sweidan brought that painful memory to the surface, one I had unconsciously buried for years. It returned with all its weight after she spoke out about the abuses she witnessed firsthand while working as an intern doctor at El Shatby Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt.

For her testimony, she was subjected to 24 hours of questioning by prosecutors and still faces accusations of spreading false information, alongside attempts to portray her as mentally unstable.

The accounts shared by Omnia left many readers with the same impression: that maternity wards and gynecology examination rooms in public hospitals can sometimes resemble slaughterhouses.

Many questioned her account. But the testimonies that followed, from women who lost their fetuses as a result of obstetric violence, and from others who did not lose their children but lost a significant part of their dignity in the process, made Omnia’s testimony far more difficult to dismiss.

Cries into the Void: Why Don’t They Believe Our Pain?

Defying attempts at collective silencing, one woman shared her experience of being forced into a miscarriage as a result of a violent vaginal examination by a doctor at El Shatby Hospital. She says she was pressured into undergoing a transvaginal ultrasound during pregnancy, which led to the loss of her fetus. The witness recalls:

“The doctor performed the transvaginal ultrasound with extreme force. I started bleeding, and a piece of flesh the size of a lemon came out. It was small, but it was a baby. There was no compassion in their hearts. It was my first child, and they left me bleeding for three weeks.”

Another woman described violations of bodily autonomy in the emergency departments of public hospitals, particularly at El Shatby Hospital, where final-year medical students complete their internship training. She said:

“The emergency department felt like a punishment. Every five minutes, another male or female student would come in to perform a vaginal examination.”

She entered the hospital eager to hold her first child after nine months of pregnancy and longing for relief from the pain of pregnancy and childbirth. But, as she describes it:

“I left barefoot, carrying my dead son in a cardboard box.”

Another doctor recounted her experience during her internship at El Shatby Hospital, describing an obstetrician-gynecologist who routinely insulted women with the most degrading language and subjected them to sexually explicit abuse while they screamed through labor pains. She says that the doctor has since become well known, and that advertisements for his clinics can be seen throughout the city.

Perhaps the most shocking testimony came from a woman who was verbally abused while giving birth. She was berated with language implying that, having chosen to have sex and become pregnant, she had no right to complain about labor pain. The insults reflected a broader attitude of control over women and their sexuality, even within the context of marriage.

The Womb as a Site of Control

Part of the obstetric violence experienced by women in Egyptian delivery rooms stems from deeply ingrained patriarchal attitudes toward sex itself. A woman’s body, reduced to its reproductive or sexual function, becomes, in the moment of childbirth, the property of the medical institution.

In this context, the doctor is no longer dealing with a human being in pain, but with a body subject to the personal decisions of some practitioners. To the extent that certain medical practices are fundamentally aimed at restoring the body’s “sexual function” at the expense of a woman’s psychological well-being and lived experience, as though the body must remain “fit for sexual use.”

In doing so, they completely disregard the fact that this body is passing through a profound moment suspended between life and death.

In delivery rooms, women may also be subjected to a form of psychological dispossession and paternalism. Perhaps this is because childbirth, at its core, represents the height of female power, and controlling it becomes an attempt to tame that power and place it under the authority of the “white coat,” a symbol of both professional expertise and patriarchal authority.

What is both striking and troubling is the way this moment is often linked, even if unconsciously, to the sexual act itself. A woman’s reproductive system is treated in terms of its “function” rather than her humanity. A doctor who rushes to “clean” the uterus, perform an episiotomy, or carry out a cesarean section without necessity is treating the body as an object that must be restored to its previous state as quickly and efficiently as possible, disregarding the fact that this “object” is a human being with a memory of pain and an inherent right to have the sanctity of her body respected.

As for pain, the pain that is so often met with indifference or ridicule in hospital corridors, it is not merely a series of contractions that can be measured by medical devices. It is an all-encompassing, existential experience. Labor pain is the moment when the body’s immense strength and profound vulnerability reveal themselves at once. To belittle that pain, or dismiss it as exaggeration or attention-seeking, is to inflict a complete psychological injury.

Labor pain deserves respect and understanding, not abuse. It deserves to be heard, not silenced. It is not the price of womanhood, but evidence of an extraordinary capacity for endurance, one that should be met with support rather than condescension.

What makes the picture even darker is the response of the Doctors Syndicate, whose statements have largely served as a protective shield for the profession at the expense of those who say they were harmed.

Issued in a diplomatic and detached tone, these statements fail to address the heart of the crisis. They do not acknowledge obstetric violence as a systemic problem. Instead, they frame such incidents as isolated, individual cases, when the reality is that the violence is embedded within the system itself.

A statement that fails to unequivocally condemn the cries of women that go unheard in hospital corridors, and that does not establish meaningful mechanisms to safeguard women’s dignity behind closed doors, is a statement that contributes to the perpetuation of silence. 

Every woman has the right to be consulted before any medical procedure is carried out. She has the right to have her pain acknowledged and the right to refuse any intervention that makes her feel degraded or objectified.

The oversight that is needed means establishing independent committees that include legal experts and psychologists alongside medical professionals, so that women have advocates capable of standing up to the overwhelming authority of the medical establishment. It also means rethinking how doctors are trained, shifting medical education from a set of technical manuals for managing bodies to a philosophy of care that places respect for human dignity at its core.