An author named Audrey Farley recently spoke with Inside Edition about her book, which tells the heartbreaking and tragic case of Ann Cooper Hewitt. It was a case that made headlines at the time and still acts as a painful reminder about the regulations placed on women's bodies.
Back in the 1930s, an heiress named Ann Cooper Hewitt was deemed "feeble-minded" by her own mother. Her father, Peter Cooper Hewitt, had died when she was a little girl.
Peter was a renowned inventor who was born into a very rich family. As soon as Ann entered adulthood, she stood to inherit some of his fortune.
However, Ann's mother treated her to a life of abuse and neglect, beginning when she was just a baby. Her mother wanted to prevent her from inheriting any of her father's fortune.
Just before Ann's 20th birthday, she was having dinner with her mother when she started to feel severe pain in her stomach. A doctor was waiting for her back at home and, without even examining her stomach, told Ann she had appendicitis.
Ann was then ushered into yet another room where a psychologist was waiting to administer an intelligence test.
Days later, she went in for her appendectomy.
But as it turned out, her appendix wasn't the only thing the doctor removed …
