The Court of Appeal has rejected a woman's claim that there was no justification whatsoever for a symphysiotomy carried out on her in a Dublin maternity hospital in 1963.
The procedure was carried out on the now 77-year-old woman, when she was 24, 12 days before her first baby was born.
The woman's case was seen as a test case for around 30 other actions relating to symphysiotomies. However, the Court of Appeal stressed that each case must be decided on its own particular circumstances.
The woman was in court and was visibly upset at the court's decision.
Symphysiotomies were sometimes carried out instead of casearean sections, to address "disproportion" - where a baby was considered too big to pass through the mother's pelvis.
The procedure involved cutting the fibres joining the pubic bones to increase pelvic capacity, to allow babies to be born vaginally.
The woman claimed the antenatal symphysiotomy carried out in her case, without a trial of labour, was unnecessary, unjustified and done without her knowledge.
She said she suffered lifelong consequences, including incontinence, back pain and mental health difficulties.
The High Court had accepted that she had a range of physical and psychological difficulties caused or contributed to by the symphysiotomy but rejected her claim it was done without any justification.
The three-judge appeal court upheld that decision unanimously.
Ms Justice Mary Irvine said the type of symphysiotomy carried out on the woman had long since been abandoned and for good reason.
She said assessed by present day standards, in a country where women could better control their own fertility, it would today be considered inherently defective.
But she said the mechanics of labour were not as well understood in 1963 as they are now and the circumstances of women of childbearing age have changed substantially.
Even by the late 1960s, there was a much greater understanding about a mother’s ability to deliver a baby which appeared disproportionately large for her pelvis.
The judge ruled that by the standards of 1963, and the “very particular” circumstances of this woman, it simply could not be said there was not credible evidence to support the High Court’s finding she had not established her symphysiotomy could never, in any circumstances, have been justified.
