When women are denied abortions
They adjust, yes, to their circumstances of raising children they did not want to bear. But they’re more likely to be poor and face other significant hardships.
...read moreIs it unfair to force men to support their children?
In what’s actually a pretty reasonable and thoughtful piece, one woman says yes: That abortion rights given women an out from being parents, and we shouldn’t tell men that having sex means taking on the responsibility to have a child:
...read moreA peek into a pro-life paradise
I’m sure many Feministe readers have been closely following the story of Beatriz, a young Salvadoran mother with lupus who was pregnant with an anencephalic fetus. The pregnancy, which was doomed because the fetus had only a brainstem but no brain, was killing her. Her kidneys were shutting down, and the longer they were under stress, the higher the likelihood that if she didn’t die, she would need to be on dialysis for the rest of her life — a major hardship and almost definitely a life-shortener for a woman living in rural El Salvador with very limited access to health care. Doctors said Beatriz needed an abortion, but El Salvador has some of the strictest pro-life laws in the world, and their courts refused her the procedure under the logic that her life wasn’t imminently threatened (apparently since she would die in a few days or weeks, not minutes) and that it’s never ok to prioritize a woman’s life over a fetus’s life. Doctors in El Salvador got around the law by waiting until the 26th week of pregnancy and then performing a Cesarean section — a procedure everyone knew would result in the death of the fetus (which it did) but which can be construed as a “birth” instead of an abortion, even though the end result is the same. Of course, a C-section is significantly more dangerous than an abortion (and especially more dangerous than an earlier abortion, which Beatriz could have had two months ago if she didn’t live in a “pro-life” nation). C-sections are invasive surgical procedures, which are significantly more complicated than early abortions, and pose much higher risks of infection or complication, especially when performed on someone whose health is already compromised by lupus and potential organ failure. They take longer to recover from, and they’re more expensive. Beatriz, thankfully, seems to be doing fine. But she was still legally compelled to undergo a more dangerous, invasive and complicated procedure — and forced to have her body suffer through declining health — so that ideologues could feel better about the intent of a more dangerous procedure that everyone knew would have the exact same outcome as an earlier, safer one.
...read moreWhy Partnerships Were All the Buzz at Women Deliver
Does the private sector have a role improving health systems? According to some participants at this year’s Women Deliver conference on maternal health, absolutely.
The conference, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, brought together thousands of health care providers, advocates, politicians, journalists, activists and human rights workers to discuss the challenges, victories and potential solutions in the maternal health field. One of those solutions: Private sector involvement.
...read moreNARAL supports immigration reform
An important and awesome step from a major pro-choice organization: Coming out in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, because it’s good for women and good for public health:
...read moreMemorial Day
Hope those of you in the U.S. are having a pleasant one. I am currently in Malaysia for the Women Deliver conference, and will be blogging some updates from here. So prepare for a few days of maternal health news! Also please prepare for slightly slower moderation over the next month, as Malaysia time is 12 hours ahead of the east coast of the United States, so I’ll be asleep while many of you are commenting. On the Memorial Day tip: As long as we’re honoring fallen American soldiers, we should maybe also honor those who are currently serving by having a real zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sexual assault. When 26,000 soldiers were sexually assaulted last year — up from 19,000 in 2010 — there’s clearly a cultural problem in the military.
...read moreThe brutality of reproductive control
A must-read op/ed in the New York Times about the dangers in state control of reproduction:
...read moreShould birth control pills be available without a prescription?
The New York Times wonders. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists thinks they should be over the counter. The Catholic Medical Association and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists disagree, of course, because their religious beliefs should obviously dictate the kind of health care that the rest of us are able to access.
...read moreThe Gospel of Adoption
Journalist Kathryn Joyce has a new book out called The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption
Today in Badass Young Women
A high-school senior and her classmates speak up for accurate information and against a terrible abstinence-only speaker. An eight-year-old girl chases down a Tennessee state senator to get some answers. And an Oscar nominee shows she’s more than just an exceptionally talented young actress. Today, on Today in Badass Young Women.
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Purity Culture and Sexual Assault
Caperton covered the Elizabeth Smart speech about abstinence already, and my Guardian column this week is on a similar topic: How an emphasis on purity is bad for women, bad for men and bad for rape survivors:
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