News + Politics

OZY Investigation: Breaking the Silence on Croatia’s Rising ‘Womb Violence’

Rising conservatism and a shortage of doctors are combining to turn the surgeon's table into a theater of violence against women in Croatia.

Croatian parliamentarian Ivana Ninčević–Lesandrić was struggling with the trauma of a first-trimester miscarriage, and nothing could've prepared her for what came next. At the hospital, she was tied to a table as a surgeon performed curettage to scrape out tissue from her uterus — all without administering anesthesia. “Those were the 30 most painful minutes of my life,” she recalls. “And I can recall every second of it.”

It’s an experience that’s all too familiar to an increasing number of Croatian women. A confluence of rising conservatism in Croatia and an exodus of doctors — including many anesthesiologists — is turning the operating table into a theater of violence against women undergoing procedures related to childbirth. But women are fighting back, shining a light on what they’re being forced to endure, and hoping it becomes impossible for authorities to ignore.

Click to watch this stunning OZY video investigation.

Need to Know

Lamar Alexander, the Impeachment Vote Everyone’s Watching

With legacy in mind, this man is the most intriguing Republican in the Senate.

While giving the eulogy of his longtime political hero, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) mapped out the impact impeachments could have on one’s legacy. Of the Watergate hearings, “the most famous words were Howard Baker’s: ‘What did the president know and when did he know it?'” Alexander recalled in 2014. “The exposure made Baker a national hero.”

It isn’t ironic that Alexander now sits in the shoes of his old boss and fellow titan of Tennessee politics. Anyone who sits in as many seats of power, and for as long, as Alexander has — a two-term governor in the 1980s, U.S. secretary of education in the ’90s and U.S. senator since 2003 — is expected to face critical choices. As the Senate prepares to consider whether to allow witnesses such as former national security adviser John Bolton at the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Alexander is by all accounts the crucial linchpin. If he crosses the aisle, the soon-to-retire senator would send this trial down an unpredictable path.