Archive for the 'breeding' Category

Pregnancy counselling and our ‘post-feminist’ world

Published by
Anna
at January 15, 2007 in Politics, abortion, breeding, choice, christianity and fundamentalism. 1 Comment

Apologies to all readers about the lack of updateliness over the festive season. I’ve had a bit of a break but it seems the patriarchy hasn’t.

As I’m sure most of you are aware, Minister for Health, Tony Abbott is up to his old tricks [link above]; restricting Australian women’s access to abortion in granting the Government funded Pregnancy Helpline contract to a company called McKesson Asia Pacific. What’s interesting about this is that McKesson is a company with no obvious bias towards faith-based healthcare provision and yet they have sub-contracted the training of counsellors out to the Catholic organisations, Centacare and the Caroline Chisholm Society. Organisations and individuals with ties to abortion providers were exempt from applying for the contract and yet here we have two organisations involved in the helpline with a most open bias in the opposite direction.

The Catholic stance on abortion is well-known. It has also recently been reported that Catholic hospitals refuse to provide Emergency Contraception/ The Morning After Pill to rape victims. It’s really not that surprising but considering Emergency Contraception prevents conception before sperm meets egg, if the doctors at those hospitals don’t know this, I really think their abilities to provide healthcare should be called into question. But as we all know it has never been about saving the bay-bees but punishing Eve, that wench.

One anti-choice organisation, the Australian Federation of Pregnancy Support Services (formerly known as the Australian Federation of Pro-life Pregnancy Support Services), which trades under the name Pregnancy Help Australia, has already received hundreds of thousands of dollars of Government funding. The AFPSS received $240,000 in 2003-04, $245,000 in 2004-05 and almost $300,000 in the last financial year. Considering their government funding seems to be rising and genuinely pro-woman counselling services are losing funding it seems the anti-choicers have achieved a monopoly over pregnancy counselling services in Australia.

Abbott says, “I hope that the availability of this kind of support service might, in the end, have some downward impact on the number of abortions.” Abbott’s continues to cite the bogus figure of 100,000 abortions each year. This figure is actually derived from a Medicare figure of 73,000 (exaggerating much?) for D&C which is a medical procedure performed for reasons including miscarriage which makes up two-thirds of that 73,000. So the actual number of abortions is closer to 25,000.

The demand for abortions has actually been falling steadily in the under-25 group (12 per cent in the past decade) and probably would continue to fall if faith-based organisations released their tenterhooks from women’s bodies. I wonder how many rape victims who didn’t get EC in time due to going to a Catholic hospital then had to seek an abortion?

Research by the Guttmacher Institute shows that abortion figures are much much lower in countries where it is safe and readily available and where attitudes to gender, sex and sexuality are much more progressive:

Most recent rates per 1,000 reproductive-age women

Legal

Belgium 7

Germany 8

Netherlands 9

Switzerland 9

United States 21

Illegal
Dominican Republic 47

Peru 56

Philippines 27

Uganda 54
Sources:Guttmacher Institute and WHO Regional Office for Europe.

As you can see in the countries where it’s legal the US leads the way in the number of abortions carried out, it also happens to be where the anti-choice movement is strongest. Coincidence? Or are pro-lifers killing the bay-bees?!

The theme for the next issue of Wo! is ‘Choice’ so if you have something to add to the discourse send to editor@wo-magazine.com . Features and articles don’t have to be focused on reproductive rights, the theme can be interpreted as broadly or creatively as you like.

Only Dr prescribing RU486 harassed by forced-birthers

Published by
Anna
at November 8, 2006 in abortion, breeding and christianity. 0 Comments

Police are investigating attacks on the far north Queensland home of the only Australian doctor authorised to prescribe the controversial abortion drug RU486.

Caroline de Costa has blamed pro-life protesters for throwing eggs at her house and car in Cairns “on at least three occasions” in the past month.

The Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at James Cook University’s Cairns campus began treating Cairns women with the abortion-inducing drug RU486 in July.

[Full story]

Abortion and control: Debunking myths about the “pro-life” agenda

Published by
Anna
at October 9, 2006 in abortion, breeding, choice, christianity, fundamentalism and sex. 14 Comments

One thing that deserves reiteration in the whole pro-choice v. anti-choice dichotomy is the true intentions of “pro-lifers”. What they claim as their main aim (i.e. stopping abortions) rarely, if ever, correlates to their actions. To you and me, the idea of reducing abortions has a simple solution: stop unwanted pregnancies. And how? By thorough, comprehensive and accurate sex education and available contraception on demand.

The anti-choice movement’s actions belie their true agenda, and that is control of women’s lives. It is a myth that they are “pro-life”. They could be considered “pro-foetus” I guess, but the foetus isn’t the only “life” that is on the line, especially when abortion is outlawed as I’ve explored before .

Exhibit A: Anti-contraception

The anti-choice movement rails against contraception. They view pregnancy and STIs as a punishment for “fallen” women, that she should be forced to endure as punishment for having sex. Their true agenda here? Stopping women from being independent and sexual human beings- that is the domain of men, and women should only have sex when the pleasure of their husband is wont to be met (and for the sake of pro-creation of course). Their “abstinence-only” education is a fast-track to increasing abortion rates, not to mention how psychologically damaging this virginity fetishisation can sometimes be to young girls.

Restricting contraception, including emergency contraception (the morning-after pill) results in higher instances of unwanted pregnancies and thus abortion. This isn’t hard to figure out so those out there who consider themselves “pro-life” surely realise this to be the case. So I will repeat: Their agenda is restricting sexual and reproductive freedom not saving babies. It is about hating women. It is about relegating women to their “proper” sphere, which to the downfall of society, they have departed from in the past few decades.

Exhibit B: The rape exemption

Many “pro-lifers” concede an abortion exception to rape and incest victims. Even the most fundie Christian variety of pro-lifer concede some sort of exemption for “pure women”. As one US fundie put it an exemption in abortion criminalisation could be:

Continue reading ‘Abortion and control: Debunking myths about the “pro-life” agenda’

Friday christian blogging…on Tuesday

Published by
Anna
at June 20, 2006 in breeding, christianity and indoctrination. 0 Comments

Holy breeding frenzy. This is the Duggar family. The Duggar’s have gained a certain amount of noteriety due to their larger than average family. Mrs Michelle Duggar has given birth to 16 kids. In the ‘Advice to mother’s section’ on their family webpage, she tells of having a breakdown over all the washing she has to do but have no fear god is here:

It was 1:00 AM in the morning as I stood folding laundry with tears streaming down my cheeks. Feelings of being overwhelmed flooded my mind. I cried aloud, ”LORD I NEED YOUR HELP, I can’t do it all! I feel so inadequate! Diapers, dishes, laundry, meals, cleanup, school lessons, baths, hugs, kisses, correction…” My list seemed to go on and on.

[…]

I said, “OK Lord, I will praise you even now! It really is a sacrifice!” So through the tears I began to sing, “The joy of the Lord is my strength”. In my heart there was a release as if a burden had been lifted. I finished the laundry at 2 AM and went to bed.

Days later, I was at our piano teacher’s home (at 7 AM) trying to catch up on paperwork while the children were taking their lessons. Instead, I kept drifting off to sleep! The teacher noticed and asked, “Are you OK?” I replied, “I’m fine, I’m just tired. I was up late finishing laundry.”

As we talked more she said that she actually enjoyed doing laundry and that she would be glad to come and help me! That weekend when she arrived we had mountains of dirty laundry, and when she left we had nice, neat, orderly stacks of clean laundry! For 10 years now, our piano teacher, whom we consider a part of our family and loving call “NaNa” has faithfully come (now twice a week) to help us with laundry! GOD sent “An angel” in answer to my cry for help.

Her husband sounds like a catch. I guess he’s too busy winning bread to help her out.

This woman has numerous pearls of wisdom on her site, ‘Biblical Womanhood’. Which is mainly taken up with how to be a good subservient mother and wife. I especially liked the post where she regrets not telling the telemarketer where to go after daring to call her the female head of the household. Here’s an excerpt:

The conversation went something like this:

Crystal: Hello!

Telemarketer: Hi, I’d like to speak with the female head of the household.

Crystal: I am a female, but I’m not the head of our household.

Telemarketer: Silence.

Crystal: My husband is the head of our household.

Telemarketer: Um, um, well… in my office we call you the female head of the household.

Crystal: In our house, my husband’s the head so I think you probably don’t want to talk to me.

Needless to say, the telemarketer was quite baffled and ended up hanging up. I wish I had been more quick to explain to her how important it was that my husband is the head of our household and that I am under his authority.

And this piece of advice on what to teach a son was a bit of a gem too. Number two on the list of 10 was this:

To guard his mind - If I don’t, the devil will gladly teach him to have an open mind.

I don’t want this post to come across as scoffing at ‘unliberated women’ (well let’s face it I am) but I must admit a certain level of amusement mixed with a pinch of woah! and a little (perhaps self-righteous) pity (which I’m sure they want none of) – shaken, not stirred – did come across me at the discovery of these things.

I take that all back. Christians are just nutters. Try cruising some christian blogs. For example, this woman, if she could do one thing in the world, would revoke women’s suffrage and tie voting to property ownership.