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Lobotomy of Rosemary Kennedy

Posted 33 months ago|10 comments|3,535 views

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toniface

I don't really know how to begin on this. I suppose it should be a statement about a friggin' lobotomy that was given to a beautiful young lady who by today's standards would at most be labeled with a mood disorder and given the standard rigamarole of drug therapy. And the cover-up of this is horrid. This woman was NOT born retarded.

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Out Of The Box

Moderator

33 months ago: I can't even imagine the level of depravity a parent would have to stoop to in order to do this to their child, especially if they just considered her an embarrassment. Wherever they are now, I hope they are.....Lord, teach me to forgive.

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zoolady

33 months ago: They did what they thought was right, after consultations with the "experts" of the day.

There was a time when children were wrapped tightly in sheets before they were put them to bed--so their hands wouldn't "stray" to "naughty parts."

There was a time when patients' clitorises were removed to protect them from "hysteria" caused by masturbation.

There was a time when people thought that masturbation made people crazy.

The Kennedys thought they were doing the best for poor Rosemary. It's hardly "depraved," considering changes in medical techniques and progress in psychology.

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Out Of The Box

Moderator

33 months ago: After having done 60 some odd lobotomies, the effects of it were known. There was no healing achieved from a lobotomy, nothing was gained except the ability to "manage" the person in question. Joe Kennedy thought he was doing what was best for his political aspirations, never mind that Rosemary could do all the things that "normal" people could do.

David Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy:
“She had a new pair of white shoes on,” David recalled later for the authors Peter Collier and David Horowitz. “The thought crossed my mind that if my grandfather was alive the same thing could have happened to me that happened to her. She was an embarrassment; I am an embarrassment. She was a hindrance; I am a hindrance. As I looked at this picture, I began to hate my grandfather and all of them for having done the thing they had done to her and for doing the thing they were doing to me.”

John White, claimed that Kathleen admitted to him the secret that Rosemary had learning problems—but what really concerned her father were "mood changes" and a "new neurological disturbance." She added that "the family considered Rosemary a disgrace and failure'"

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Out Of The Box

Moderator

33 months ago: It's just another glaring example of the socialist mentality, a person in power doing something horrible to achieve what he considers the good of the many.

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zoolady

33 months ago: "The socialist mentality?" What about the mentality of parents who used "commonly held wisdom of the time" to do something better for their daughter? People WEREN'T educated about what they called "retardation" at the time. You and I can't know what was in their hearts but they were parents whose daughter might've been helped. Certainly, things would be done differently today--and Eunice Kennedy grew up to do just that.

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Out Of The Box

Moderator

33 months ago: It's not important. The bootlegger, Hitler sympathizer and aspiring politician that Joe Kennedy was would never do something dastardly to prevent family embarrassment. Good grief, he was the progenitor of the Kennedy clan,the closest thing we've had to Royalty in our country. Of course he could do no wrong. Just as Teddy could never have left a girl in a car to drown, while he went home to safety.

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redstateguy

33 months ago: outabox:
Be careful, you're getting into the facts of history, and your mates may explode.

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zoolady

33 months ago: NOW I get it...you hate Joe Kennedy and it's coloring your thoughts about him.

Here's what I know about Joe Kennedy--he was a human being, never "all good" or "all evil," and just like Ted Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and billions of others we'll never know, some of the things he did might be done very differently today. Times, technologies and attitudes change.

If you live so long, in 50 years you, too, will be a very different person, living in very different technological times. Let's hope history doesn't "judge" everything you do by a few things you do now but which might be done very differently then.

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Out Of The Box

Moderator

33 months ago: I would hate anyone who could let a surgeon stick an eggbeater into his daughters head. It makes me physically ill to read the accounts of the process used in a lobotomy.

" Freeman and his associate drilled a hole in her skull and inserted a sort of spatula into her brain and began digging. They asked her to sing simple songs and perform basic addition and subtraction. As long as she could recite the doggerel, and handle third-grade arithmetic, they kept digging. Finally, though, Rosemary Kennedy fell silent, and the operation was over."

Now you tell me how that could have even remotely been intended to help Rose, or any other lobotomy victim.

I am the proud father of a beautiful young lady who, from the descriptions I have read, is much like the pre-butchered Rose. They are strikingly similar in appearance, coincidentally. She has minor handicaps, which make her who she is. There is no way on earth I would allow somebody with a knife anywhere near her brain.
I can't believe anyone could defend that.

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bklyn778
New York, NY

10 months ago: Yes. Back in the day there weren't a lot of options or treatment for mentally ill patients, and in some cases, families thought lobotomizing their children was for the best.

However.

Even in that day, lobotomizing someone that the parents claimed was mentally retarded would have been malpractice. If she was in fact mentally retarded, lobotomizing her was a far worse evil.

It's widely known her mood swings and average IQ in comparison to her siblings high IQs was an embarrassment to the family. Which is probably why she was depressed and acted out. They stuck her in a home, and never spoke of her again. If it weren't for sister Eunice, everyone would have forgotten about her.

It was an injustice and a cover-up. They weren't trying to help her, they were trying to shut her down and control her.

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