🚀 go-pugleaf

they please, on
    _suspicion_ that she is not a moral woman, and to register her
    name on a shameful register as a prostitute. She is then forced to
    submit to the horrible ordeal of a personal examination of a kind
    which cannot be described here. It is an act on the part of the
    Government doctor such as would be called an indecent or criminal
    assault if any other man were to force it upon a woman. And it is
    the _State_ which forces this indecent assault on the persons of
    the helpless daughters of the poor.

    "If a woman refuses to submit to it, she is punished by
    imprisonment, with or without hard labor, _until_ she does submit.

    "If, after she has endured this torture, she is found to be healthy
    and well, she is set free, with a certificate that she is _fit
    to practice prostitution_; but observe, she is never more a free
    woman, for her name is on the register of Government prostitutes,
    and she is strictly under the eye of the police, and is bound to
    come up periodically,--it may be weekly or fortnightly,--to be
    again outraged.

    "If she is found to have signs of disease, she is sent to a
    hospital, which is practically a prison, where she is kept as
    long as the doctors please. She may be kept for weeks or months,
    without any choice of her own. When cured, she is again set free
    with her certificate. During the first years of this law, a
    certificate on paper was given to every woman who had passed
    through this cruel ordeal; on this paper was the name of the
    woman, and the date of the last exami