You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Fetus Fetish’ tag.
This is a snippet from the Raw Story. Go there and read the full article about how the republican party of the US want to happily join impoverished nations in destroying female autonomy. The fetus-fetish crew never seem to key on the fact that women are alive and are actually fully human being with the full status we accord to autonomous individuals. Facts I guess, get in the way of screaming “what about the baaaaaaaaabeeeeeeee!!1!!!”, till either they or their opponents are rendered unconscious.
“A study published in The Lancet last January shows that the countries with the most stringent restrictions on abortion also have the highest rates of unsafe abortion.
The rate of unsafe abortion in Africa was 28 per 1,000 women of childbearing age and 31 per 1,000 in Latin America, regions where abortion is highly restricted in almost all countries, according to the study led by Gilda Sedgh at the Guttmacher Institute in New York, using the most recent data gathered in 2008. That compares with less than 0.5 per 1,000 in western Europe and North America.
Unsafe abortions result in 200 deaths for every 100,000 abortions performed globally, or 350 times the current rate in the United States, according to the study. Legalizing abortion in South Africa (1997) and Nepal (2002), resulted in a 91 percent reduction in abortion-related deaths in the former country and a 50 percent decline in the rate of abortion-related complications seen in hospitals in the latter.”
Behold, the fetus fetish.
Unfortunately, the torrent of burning stupid never stops (the republican primary debates are ample evidence), not even for the new year. Brazil has just passed a piece of legislation making compulsory to register if you happen to be pregnant. How nice. Winnowing away of the rights of women has not gone away in the new year and it looks like the pace is increasing in South America.
“In the dead of night on December 27, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff enacted legislation that will require all pregnancies to be registered with the government. Provisionary Measure 557 (PM 557) created the National System of Registration, Vigilance and Monitoring Women’s Care during Pregnancy and Post Childbirth for the Prevention of Maternal Mortality (National Registration System).
She used a provisionary measure—intended only for urgent matters—that allows the president to pass a law without congressional approval. Congress only gets to debate and approve the law once it has been enacted. Rousseff claims that PM 557 will address Brazil’s high rates of maternal mortality by ensuring better access, coverage and quality of maternal health care, notably for high-risk pregnancies.”
Kinda spooky. No debate, no discussion just poof! and you get to watch your rights disappear in the rear view mirror of misogynist public policy.
“Both public and private health providers must report all pregnancies—providing women’s names—with the National Registration System so the state can then track these pregnancies, from prenatal to postpartum care, presumably to evaluate and monitor health care provided.
How does simply monitoring pregnancies reduce maternal mortality? There is no guarantee that care will be available to all pregnant women and no investment in improving health services included in the legislation.”
Of course registering women having birth might be considered a first step if there was more medical aid forthcoming, but nothing like that is in the legislation.
“And what’s the benefit to women? PM 557 does authorize the federal government to provide financial support up to R$50.00 (roughly US$27) for registered pregnant women for their transportation to health facilities for pre-natal and delivery care. However, to receive the stipend women must comply with specific conditions set by the state related to pre-natal care. Let’s face it, that paltry sum may not even cover the roundtrip for one appointment depending on where a woman lives.
In fact, PM 557 does not guarantee access to health exams, timely diagnosis, providers trained in obstetric emergency care, or immediate transfers to better facilities. So while the legislation guarantees R$50.00 for transportation, it will not even ensure a pregnant woman will find a vacant bed when she is ready to give birth. And worse yet, it won’t minimize her risk of death during the process.”
So, bad for women, bad for their life expectancy, bad for their chances to die in pregnancy. It would seem to be a fairly raw deal for women all the way around.
“Last but certainly not least, MP 557 violates all women’s right to privacy by creating compulsory registration to control and monitor her reproductive life. In fact, it places the rights of the fetus over the woman, effectively denying her reproductive autonomy. A woman will now be legally “obligated” to have all the children she conceives and she will be monitored by the State for this purpose.”
Ah, there we go the real reason for MP 557, those unruly women need less autonomy. Why does that always seem to be the answer when it comes to many programs dealing with women’s health? Rhetorical questions aside, Brazil needs to get this bill back in front of the assembly and rework it into less a monstrosity, stat.
The RCC. Always open, always deluded and always anti-woman.
The Catholic Church is mired in yet another anti-woman scandal.
via NBC – “PHOENIX – A nun and administrator at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix has been reassigned and rebuked by the local bishop for agreeing that a severely ill woman needed an abortion to survive.
Sister Margaret McBride was on an ethics committee that included doctors that consulted with a young woman who was 11 weeks pregnant late last year, The Arizona Republic newspaper reported on its website Saturday. The woman was suffering from a life-threatening condition that likely would have caused her death if she hadn’t had the abortion at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center.”
Wow, do we need another reason to shit-can the mystical bullshit that pervades our society? Yet another case of backward, unhinged, delusional thinking attempting to corrupt and trump reality in the 21st century. The Nun in question, followed her own personal ethics, as opposed to the rancid 2000 year old wisdom of burning bushes and talking snakes. She made the correct evidence based decision. Her commitment to reason is to be commended, and of course free thinking in the musty halls of religion gets you punished:
“Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese, indicated in a statement that the Roman Catholic involved was “automatically excommunicated” because of the action. The Catholic Church allows the termination of a pregnancy only as a secondary effect of other treatments, such as radiation of a cancerous uterus.”
“I am gravely concerned by the fact that an abortion was performed several months ago in a Catholic hospital in this diocese,” Olmsted said in a statement sent to The Arizona Republic. “I am further concerned by the hospital’s statement that the termination of a human life was necessary to treat the mother’s underlying medical condition.”
Ah yes, because of your funny hat and the rotten sepulchre of a religion that supports your fantasy based point of view enables you to punish people for saving lives. The Bishop of Bullshit continues:
“An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother’s life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means.”
Huh, well if then this is not a pillar for Catholic women to frakking rally around then let us distill it down a bit further to ‘clarify the message’.
“If a woman grows weary and at last dies from childbearing, it matters not. Let her die from bearing, she is there to do it.” –Martin Luther.
Now this is a quote that women can get behind. All aboard the train straight back into the shitz and giggles known as the Dark Ages! We need to get back to a time where Bishop Frothing in the Mouth Crazy has some real power. The malodorous drivel oozing from this rectal polyp of human being is matched only by the unctuous waves of support for his position wafting through the spinelessly uncritical anti-choice wankosphere . Okay okay, I digress. Back to the real world where evidence does matter…
“The patient, who hasn’t been identified, was seriously ill with pulmonary hypertension. The condition limits the ability of the heart and lungs to function and is made worse, possibly even fatal, by pregnancy.
“This decision was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee, of which Sr. Margaret McBride is a member,” the hospital said in a statement issued Friday.”
Thank you medical science, thank you rationality, for showing us the correct solution in this case. We need to banish the fucking voodoo magical crap that masquerades in our society as religion. This case finely illustrates how morally bankrupt the RCC is and how out to lunch religion is in general.
H/T to Pharyngula.
Women having rights to their own bodies, radical I know.
It is nice to see that women are being treated more like human beings in Ethiopia. Reproductive freedom is a cornerstone of womens rights and needs to be fostered and protected wherever possible. The Guttmacher Institute has just publicized a study done in Ethiopia. It is still not a completley rosy picture over there however:
“Only 14% of Ethiopian women of reproductive age use contraceptives. The low level of contraceptive use leads to high levels of unintended pregnancy, the root cause of abortion: Some 42% of all pregnancies are unintended. The study also found that the majority of women seeking treatment for complications of unsafe abortion—81%—were married. By contrast, only 46% of women seeking induced abortions were married. The vast majority of both groups—92% of women seeking postabortion care and 79% of women who had abortions—were mothers. The average age among both groups was 28.”
Funny how facts actually dispel the tripe anti-choice activists like to throw around. Darn irresponsible women (already mothers) just doing it because they can.
“The study estimates that, in 2008, 382,500 abortions were performed in Ethiopia, for an annual rate of 23 per 1,000 women aged 15–44. Despite women’s expanded legal access to abortion, only 27% of these—103,000—were legal and safe procedures performed in health facilities.
The study also found that, in 2008, 58,600 women were treated for abortion-related complications, primarily resulting from unsafe procedures. Among these, 100 women died from their complications, and many more suffered from related injuries or illnesses. Four out of 10 women showed signs of infection or invasive injuries when they arrived at health facilities for postabortion care. Many women with complications never reach health care facilities, because they live too far from services, they avoid seeking help because of fear and stigma, or they die before reaching a facility.”
The negative consequences of not having access to reproductive health services is quite clear. So when you hear the fetus fetishists go on about how women are ‘just fine’ once stripped of their reproductive rights, you know it is pure bull-cookery.
“Global data show that expanding legal abortion access reduces death and illness from unsafe abortion. For example, South Africa saw abortion-related maternal mortality decline by more than 50% after expanding access in 1997. Many stakeholders throughout the region are looking to Ethiopia as a model for addressing a crisis in maternal mortality. The current study will serve as a baseline for assessing the country’s progress in reducing maternal deaths as the government continues to expand services.”
A big thanks to the Guttmacher Institute for reporting on such important issues.
I had the intention of making this a post about how to diffuse some of the arguments anti-choice people make. The quoted bits are good examples that take down some of the toxic memes that have formed around the debate. I swear though, if I hear what about the baaaaaaaby one more time I will blow a lobe because that is not arguing, but rather, a complete denial of the woman in the whole process of reproduction. Women are not mere vessels meant only for reproduction, but fully autonomous beings that have the right to determine what goes on in their body.
I’m constantly updated on how far the rabbit hole goes when it comes to anti-woman vitriol and hate. Of course it is cloaked in the odious trappings of religion, why not?
It is nice we have people like Ms.Rose around, to show how religion can really stunt your intellectual and moral development as a human being. I am beginning to worry that I will wear out the ‘fail’ tag if this level of crazy continues.
H/T to JJ over at Unrepentant Old Hippie for introducing me to the lovely Ms.Rose.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…