Mother of Nine Sues Massachusetts Hospital After Unauthorized Sterilization

Jan. 5, 2010— -- A Massachusetts mother with nine children who had asked a hospital for post-delivery birth control was sterilized instead without her consent, according to a lawsuit against the Springfield hospital and several doctors and nurses.

Tessa Savicki, 35, claimed that doctors at Baystate Medical Center had agreed to insert an intrauterine device, or IUD, that she brought to the operating room, but instead performed a tubal ligation that effectively ended her chances of having more children.

"They've done something. They cannot correct this," she told ABCNews.com. "You think you're safe at the hospital. You're not."

Savicki's attorney, Dr. Max Borten of Waltham, Mass., a licensed obstetrician-gynecologist who practiced for 30 years, said his client was devastated when she found out about the tubal ligation shortly after a December 2006 Cesarean section.

Awake with only spinal anesthesia, Saviciki "realized that when she was still on the table," he said.

Savicki's children range in age from 3 to 21 and she is a grandmother of one with another grandchild on the way. She had her first child, a boy, at age 13 after being raped, she told ABC News.

Getting back on her feet after a rough start -- two of her children are on welfare and she is unemployed -- Savicki said she's working toward her GED.

Her three youngest children are with her fiance, Angel Tirado, who she said was hoping for one more baby. Their youngest, Manuel, was recently diagnosed with autism.

"He was talking about trying for another boy," she said.

She understands that she would not be able to adopt, given her financial situation.

Borten said the chances of Savicki being able to become pregnant again, even if an attempt to reverse the procedure was performed, would be slim.

"The issue here is a little broader and more involved than what people think," Borten said, noting how sterilizations have been used throughout history to control populations deemed unsavory. "The issue is, who has the right to permanently sterilize a woman? Or a man?"

Savicki said she believes the doctors intentionally sterilized her without her consent. "I honestly think they thought I had enough," she said.

Jane Albert, a spokeswoman for Baystate Health, declined to comment on the lawsuit or Savicki's own medical care, citing federal privacy regulations.

But speaking in general terms, it is "absolutely not" normal procedure for a woman to carry her own IUD into the operating room, Albert said.

"It is not our practice for a patient, it is not our practice to insert an IUD into a woman who has just had a C-section," Albert said.