Eyes Closed, No Peeking

By Tracy Lynne Stout Meisky

“Dedicated to the governor of Pennsylvania, who suggested that women upset at being forced to have an unnecessary internal ultrasound should ‘close their eyes’, and to the Georgia legislator who wants to outlaw abortion even for a woman carrying a dead fetus because ‘cows and pigs do it all the time’ , and to the gentleman in Wisconsin who wants to outlaw divorce and says that women who are abused by their husbands should just ‘remember the good times’, and… and…. and….

“Just close your eyes” he said.

Close your eyes and maybe it won’t hurt so much. Maybe you can make the shame go away if you don’t have to look at it, don’t have to meet the eyes of the doctor who is ready to violate you, who is no longer allowed to address your pain and need.

Close your eyes and deal with it because from this point on, health care for you is nothing more than a power play, the political blood sport of men, drenched in your own desperate blood.

Close your eyes, ladies, and think of Jesus who wants you to know that you are a sinner- and a slut for having dreams beyond the ones given to you by your pastor, your employer, and your governor.

See, they are worried that you might get an abortion mistakenly thinking it’s a treatment for the flu or something, eager to brand you a wanton for having sex at all, a Jezebel for enjoying pleasure without consequence…the way that they get to.

Close your eyes and pretend that you are still a person with the right to make your own, most intimate decisions about your future.

Close your eyes and remember when planning your own family wasn’t considered dirty, when owning your body was still your birthright and the right to give birth also included the right not to.

Close your eyes and forget that you are supposed to be a mindless object of desire, to be salivated over and then dismissed, used by men to sell beer and shoes and laundry detergent, expected to exist only for their sexual pleasure, reviled for feeling it yourself, condemned for being what they so determinedly make you: a sexual being.

So come here, little girl, here’s a push-up bra, stilettos and a chastity belt. Learn now that sex is something for a man to do to a woman, not actually with her.

Understand that you must grow up to be either a slut, a dyke or a mother…and a mother, and a mother.

Close your eyes, girls, and enjoy your patent leather Mary Janes and princess dreams that don’t yet end in blood and probes and congressmen playing doctor behind the statehouse, insisting that the princess carry even death in her womb, all in the name of life.

Close your eyes and think of your grandmothers, and of their grandmothers owned by their fathers, traded to their husbands, needing permission to go to college.

Think of the days when the few lady-like jobs that existed were only for those un-natural old maids unable to join the ranks of the real women doing a woman’s real job of having babies.

Think of not even being allowed to learn or to help support yourself and your family, of depending on a man to feed and clothe you and your children, your own love and need to protect them a chain and an anchor that keeps you in the harbor of even a loveless, abusive marriage, your yards and yards of beautiful sail forever stowed belowdecks, because the open seas of life is no place for a woman.

Close your eyes, ladies, and think of England; and of Iran and Afghanistan where women are chained for their own good, beaten for showing their faces, stoned for going to school, sewn shut between babies, robbed of the ability to feel passion, used for a man’s desire but allowed none of their own; receptacles, incubators, cooks and maids.

So close your eyes, and shut your mouths, and be thankful that you live in such an enlightened, modern land.”

Brava Tracy! I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Religious Freedom Rights v. Women’s Rights to Life and Bodily Autonomy

Having a Vagina and Uterus is Not a Lifestyle Choice

By Jacqueline S. Homan, author of Divine Right and Classism For Dimwits

In the past 35 years’ onslaught on women’s basic human right to bodily autonomy (i.e. specifically to reproductive choice) under the “pro-life” banner, the anti-woman/pro-forced birth movement — 77% whom are male, 100% whom will never be pregnant — has never promoted any laws to protect women from unwanted pregnancies in the first place, thus eliminating about 90% of all early term abortions, which comprise 88% of all abortions according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute. As an aside, most early term abortions are due to birth control failure. The risk of death from pregnancy complications increases exponentially for women over age 35, and the time a woman spends vulnerable to pregnancy spans from menarche to menopause — about 40 years of her life.

The hazards, rigors, risks, side effects, pain and trauma of childbearing are rarely talked about in these abortion “debates.” Neither is the vulnerability of destitute and homeless pregnant women and the extra hazards that pregnancy imposes on them in their already precarious situation. The “pro-life” faction has never valued or protected the lives of vulnerable women, and for the most part, the majority of men never cared about women. Viagra is doled out like water at a marathon and is covered by almost all insurance plans, including Medicaid, to ensure that every selfish jerk who refuses to wear a condom can get it up but what about all the poor women that get pregnant as a result? Who takes care of them?

Reproductive abuse against women far out-ranks the number of women who get pregnant to “trap a man.” A study published by Dr. Elizabeth Miller in the September/October 2007 issue of Ambulatory Pediatrics confirms this — 25% of the young women surveyed reported incidents of abusive partners who tried to force them to get pregnant against their will by sabotaging their birth control and manipulating condom use.

The same mentality that thinks it’s perfectly OK to treat women as disposable reproductive chattel who should be forced to get/remain pregnant against our will with no concern for what permanent physical and psychological damage that such a traumatic thing poses for us — never mind care about how the reproductive “livestock” feels about it — is the same mentality that rationalizes that it’s OK “rent” a woman’s vagina for an hour and do whatever they want to that woman’s body since they “paid for it.”

Men as a class have all the money (because men get the lion’s share of all the good-paying jobs), sexual entitlements and political voice, and that gives them power as a class over women’s sexuality and reproduction. That power is tied to violence and force. When sugar-coating fails, violence in the form of misogynistic male-centric laws eliminating access to birth control and abortion clinic violence follows — it’s carrot-and-stick dominance. Men get to say who they fuck, when, and under what terms and conditions irrespective of how the woman feels about it or what it might do to her as a result (frequently couched in terms of “consequences” that only women “deserve”). Freedom and social justice for only half the citizenry is not freedom and social justice at all.

When men watch medical education videos of pregnancy complications and videos of live natural childbirths and they see the tremendous pain and trauma that women suffer trying to give birth, nearly ALL of them say “thank god I have a penis.” But what you will never hear any of them say is: “I don’t want my sister/niece/wife/girlfriend/daughter to be forced to go through that against her will just because she had sex.”

Newsflash: Having a uterus, ovaries, and a vagina is not a “lifestyle choice.”

Misogyny and the oppression of women as a class does not occur in a vacuum. The oppression of women happens because of consent through silence and indifference by those who have the most unearned privileges and who get to dictate all the rules, policies, customs, norms, and traditions in this society. The onus for dismantling oppression created in this system of unearned privileges rests on those who have privilege.

Since birth rates have jumped as a result of limited access to reliable contraception and abortion through “conscience clause” laws and “fetal personhood” laws enacted in many states, our maternal death and disability rates surpass those in some Third World countries — serving as grim reminders that women are the last to be taken care of in this society. People utterly disregard the pregnant woman as if anything she suffers as a result of being forced to give birth doesn’t matter, usually articulated as “you should have kept your legs shut” and “just have the baby and put it up for adoption” when it’s pregnancy and childbirth that are exactly what a woman seeking birth control and/or having an abortion wants to avoid — for very good reasons!

Since the passage of Roe v. Wade up until the recent Planned Parenthood clinic closings, 40 million women safely terminated unwanted pregnancies. During that same period, 21 million women died from pregnancy complications or during/shortly after giving birth. 400 million women have sustained debilitating permanent health problems, side effects, disabling childbirth injuries, and disfigurement which utterly destroyed their lives. A woman dies in childbirth every 90 seconds, according to WHO and Amnesty International. This is what male privilege costs women. Getting stuck in traffic is an inconvenience; being forced by law and public policy to go through pregnancy and childbirth against your will and having to suffer all the inherent risks and side effects is more than just a mere “inconvenience.”

According to obstetric specialist and colorectal surgeon Dr. Michele Thornton,  about 40% of all Western women who have given birth sustain pelvic floor damage, leaving them with permanent fecal and urinary incontinence — undermining their confidence, wrecking their sex lives (which destroys marriages), and eliminating their ability to function in any job. Dr. Thornton also states that the problem is underreported because many women are too ashamed and embarrassed to tell their spouses and partners, let alone tell their doctors. Even when the surgical repair of fistulas caused by obstructed labors, episiotomies and tears is successful, the permanent physical limitations and compromised organ tissue’s integrity remain permanent, costing women everything from being able to participate in society to being able to have a normal sex life to being able to keep their jobs or get hired at new ones. Maureen Treadwell at the Birth Trauma Association confirms this devastation and frequent occurrence of this “silent epidemic.” The trauma from the emotional and physical fallout left many women unable to contemplate another baby.

As to the argument that pregnancy and childbirth — particularly childbirth without pain relief — are “natural” to the female condition and that biology is destiny, there’s nothing logical about equating “natural” to “safe” and fate. The natural course for appendicitis without medical remedy is 30% chance of death from peritonitis. Who in their right mind would deny a person remedy for that natural infliction on the human condition?

And if it’s “only natural” to force women to endure pregnancy and childbirth against our will when we don’t want to or can’t handle it for whatever reason, then why the need for unnatural man-made laws to forcibly deprive women of access to contraception and abortion? If this was all so natural with everyone “in their place”, women would only have sex when pregnancy was the goal.

Many women’s bodies don’t handle pregnancy well.  Not all women  suffer the worst results of pregnancy and childbirth, but there’s no way to accurately predict which women will and which won’t — it’s a real crap shoot even under the best of terms and conditions.  Here is a short partial list of the permanent and often irreversible changes to a woman’s body caused by pregnancy and birth which really makes the shot-gun wedding or the 18 years of monthly child support checks (if she gets it), and inadequate, meager temporary welfare benefits look like a cheap kiss-off:

Normal or expectable side effects of pregnancy:

• exhaustion

• gestational diabetes – can remain permanent as Type II diabetes

• altered appetite

• nausea and vomiting

• heartburn and indigestion

• constipation

• weight gain

• hypothyroidism

• dizziness and light-headedness

• bloating, swelling, fluid retention

• hemorrhoids
• hematoma (usually on the vulva but can be on the inside of the vagina)

• abdominal cramps

• yeast infections

• congested/bloody nose

• acne and skin disorders

• skin discoloration

• mild to severe backache and strain

• increased headaches

• difficulty/discomfort with sleeping

• increased urination/incontinence

• gum disease (leading to premature tooth loss)

• pica

• breast pain and discharge

• swelling of joints, leg cramps, joint pain

• difficulty sitting/standing in later pregnancy

• inability to take regular medications

• shortness of breath

• higher blood pressure

• hair loss (this is a permanent side effect)

• anemia

• inability to participate in some sports and activities

• high susceptibility to infection (pregnant women have a much lower immunity to illness, infection and disease than non-pregnant women or men because the pregnant woman’s immune system has to literally shut down so her system’s antibodies don’t attack the implanted fertilized ovum)

• extreme pain during labor and delivery (which can last for several hours to several days)

• hormonal mood changes, including post-partum depression

• post-partum psychosis/birth related PTSD (caused by a birth that was traumatic for the woman)

• extended post-partum recovery period and exhaustion (a difficult vaginal birth or a C-section can take a year or more to fully recover)

Normal, expectable, and frequent permanent side effects of pregnancy and birth:

• stretch marks

• loose skin

• permanent weight gain or redistribution

• permanent change to pelvic skeletal and ligament structure — it is not uncommon for a woman’s hips to be 4” wider than normal for the passage of the fetus during birth as her pelvic bone opens and ligaments stretch, and often this change is permanent, leaving many women unable to EVER get back into their pre-pregnancy clothes even if they lose ALL their pregnancy weight (leaving poor women who are unable to afford to go out and buy all new clothes with absolutely nothing to wear except a couple pairs of oversized sweatpants and maybe one or two donated used maternity outfits)

• abdominal and vaginal muscle weakness that Kegels won’t necessarily prevent or fix

• pelvic floor disorder (causing urinary and fecal incontinence and severely diminished quality of life, try re-entering the workforce with a problem like that!)

• difficulty resuming employment due to lifting restrictions imposed by permanent pelvic floor damage from pregnancy stress and/or childbirth injuries.

• changes to breasts (saggy and “deflated”)

• varicose veins

• disfigurement/scarring from episiotomy or C-section

• other permanent aesthetic changes to the body (which can be devastating to a woman’s life chances for everything from finding a marriage partner to getting a good job in a culture that emphasizes women’s value on youth, thinness and beauty)

• hemorrhoids

• loss of dental or bone calcium (tooth decay/loss and osteoporosis)

Occasional complications and side effects:

• domestic violence (pregnant women are more at risk for being murdered by boyfriends and husbands than non-pregnant women)

• hyperemesis gravidarum (kidney failure, requiring surgery and kidney stent)

• obstructed labor (caused by fetal malpresentation, large babies, fetal shoulder dystochia resulting in internal pelvic organ tissues to necrotize)

• permanent injury to back (late pregnancy and delivery)

• severe lacerations, tissue scarring requiring surgery (especially after additional pregnancies)

• prolapsed uterus/vagina (risk increases tremendously after additional pregnancies and pelvic floor weaknesses)

• pre-eclampsia (the most common pregnancy complication — edema and hypertension associated with 10% of all pregnancies, mostly among older pregnant women; a precursor to eclampsia, which is fatal)

• eclampsia (convulsions, seizures, coma during pregnancy or labor, fatal unless pregnancy is aborted)

• gestational diabetes which often remains permanent in the form of Adult Type II diabetes – resulting in permanent debilitating health condition requiring medication, often leading to blindness and limb amputations (aggravated by lack of ability to afford healthy food low in starches and sugars)

• placenta previa (causes laboring women to bleed to death during delivery)

• thrombocytopenic purpura (causing women to bleed to death during/immediately after birth)

• severe cramping

• embolism (blood clots, air bubbles, amniotic fluid bubbles escaping into circulatory system causing stroke or massive heart attack; usually fatal)

• medical disability requiring total bed rest

• diastasis recti (abdominal muscle separation/tears)

• mitral valve stenosis (causes heart failure, stroke, and pulmonary edema)

• lack of resistance to highly infectious diseases

• hormonal imbalance (causes weight problems, depression, and breast and reproductive organ cancer)

• ectopic pregnancy (fatal unless medically aborted)

• broken bones (rib cage and lower spine from fetal pressure in late pregnancy and during delivery)

• hemorrhage

• refractory gastroesophegal reflux disease

• aggravation of pre-pregnancy conditions/diseases (epilepsy, diabetes, heart condition, high blood pressure, etc)

• permanently ruined sex life from injury to the nerves and tissues of the sexual organs (caused by 3^rd and 4^th degree vaginal tears, episiotomies, etc. during delivery often accompanied by permanent fecal and/or urinary incontinence)

• elevated risks for certain cancers

Serious complications causing permanent problems associated with pregnancy, labor and delivery:

• peripartum cardiomyopathy (weakened heart)

• cardiopulmonary arrest (fatal: irreversible brain damage and death occurs within 4 minutes)

• magnesium toxicity

• severe hypoxemia/acidosis

• massive embolism

• increased inter-cranial pressure, brainstem infarction (An Alzheimer-like forgetfulness from brain matter shrinkage called “mommy brains”)

• molar pregnancy/ gestational trophoblastic disease (a mass of abnormal/malignant tissue growth from the placenta)

• malignant arrhythmia ( coronary artery spasms)

• circulatory collapse

• obstetric fistula – (tear/hole due to tissue damage from pressure to the area separating the vagina from the rectum or the vagina from the bladder; causing urine and/or feces to pass through the vagina uncontrollably. Fistulas require surgery and are not always able to be repaired even after several subsequent surgeries)

• colostomy – caused by an irreparable obstetric fistula

More permanent side effects:

• future infertility

• autoimmune disease – caused by lingering Y-chromosomes from carrying a male fetus

• ovarian cancer – caused by elevated estrogen levels due to pregnancy

• breast cancer

• permanent disability

• death

If pregnancy was a drug, the FDA would have banned it decades ago. Instead of enacting any measures that enable women and girls to defend themselves from unwanted pregnancies, every “pro-life” measure is backdoor sexual prohibition against women — from the Hyde Amendment to the “fetal personhood” laws and “conscience clause” laws to discriminatory clinic zoning regulations and unaffordable (and invasive) mandatory vaginal ultrasounds — restricting or eliminating access to birth control and abortion, deliberately targets women to punish them with pain, physical and economic encumbrance, trauma, debilitating health problems, risk of disability or death, and disfigurement for the “crime” of having sex.

The “pro-life” bloc refuses to admit this. They trivialize the harm to women and even justify it in terms that preserve unearned male privilege at the expense of women’s human rights by claiming that it’s “all about the baby” and that we should “punish rapists, not the unborn” — as if this somehow makes it perfectly OK to subject women to torture, cruelty, disfigurement, enslavement, permanent bodily damage and possible death against their will without any regard for how the reproductive “livestock” feels about it, or if we survive the ordeal. The only ones “pro-lifers” are interested in punishing are not rapists, but those whose bodies incur 100% of the risks and side effects of pregnancy and birth: women.

Griswold v. Connecticut (passed in 1965) framed the right to access contraception as a “marital privacy” right. Roe v. Wade (passed in 1973) quite specifically made the balance between a woman’s human rights to life and bodily autonomy and the fetus very reasonable and fair. But the predominantly white male rapists’ rights political bowel movement persisted under the “morality” banner and succeeded in chipping away at Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut over the last 35 years to the point where a woman’s basic human right to have control over her own body exists in name only.

The pro-forced gestational enslavement movement never cared about “the unborn” except to use a fetus to shame and injure its “slutty” mother; otherwise an artificial stand-alone uterus would have been invented by now to facilitate the transplantation of a blastocyst/zygote from an unwilling female host with minimal risk to her, creating a win-win situation. But fascists rarely compromise.

Abstinence-only until marriage has been a major epic fail.  A marriage license is not contraception and doesn’t prevent any pregnancy that a woman cannot handle/does not want to carry, and abstinence in a marriage is not conducive to nurturing and preserving marriages and families in a nation that already has a 50% divorce rate. Adoption is not the solution to unwanted pregnancy; it’s the solution for those who don’t want to parent the child after it’s born. When a woman does not want to be pregnant, the drive to become un-pregnant is as strong, if not stronger, than the natural forces that want her to stay pregnant. And then she will seek an abortion and do anything to get one, whether it is safe and legal or not. That is fact.

Those cloaking their misogyny in the habiliments of “morality” say that sex is for procreation only, and should only be engaged in when childbearing is the plan. But that flies in the face of reality. Humans, unlike many other mammals, do not have seasons for going into heat. We can reproduce at any time of the year. As a highly social species, we have sex for purely pleasurable reasons and emotional pair-bonding most of the time without wanting to have a pregnancy result with each encounter. There is nothing “sinful” or “slutty” about that. That is reality.

As a bipedal species with large brains, pregnancy and childbirth is exceptionally hazardous for women. When you see a mother, you’re looking at someone who suffered through a physically grueling experience with permanent battle scars that aren’t a pretty Norman Rockwell picture. Pregnancy is not a benign health condition — a cold hard fact that has been sanitized and romanticized with too much quackery. Not too long ago, pregnancy and childbirth killed about one fifth of American women.

A ruined body is the least of the hazards, although aesthetics should not be downplayed in a society where a woman’s life chances for everything from job opportunities to finding a life mate to gaining/keeping social acceptance hinges on being thin and “attractive looking” enough — whether we like to admit it or not. And not all women are able to “snap back” after childbirth, even if they did “all the right things” during pregnancy and after giving birth. Often, pregnancy fat never goes completely away. This is non-trivial considering the devastating emotional effects of poor body image suffered by women and girls as a direct result of the pornification of advertizing in which an unrealistic standard of beauty is upheld as “normal” and males drive this by making cruel and cutting comments about women’s bodies that fail to meet this unreasonable criteria.

In addition to these personal expectations, husbands, family members, friends, and media images add to the pressure, warning that having a baby is no excuse for “letting yourself go.” Yet few women are able to regain their pre- pregnancy figures. Childbearing and the passage of time change bodies in irrevocable ways. According to the Department of Health & Human Services, eating disorders among pregnant women has reached epidemic proportions. Incidences of bulimia have tripled since the 1980s and anorexia incidences have also risen, according to studies collected by the National Eating Disorders Association.

Forced childbirth is tantamount to FGM and sexual torture, considering that 85-90%  of all women who give birth naturally suffer vaginal tears and/or episiotomies which are extremely painful and traumatizing, often resulting in long-term debilitating health conditions. Deprivation of my human rights would never be acceptable if I were a man. Who today would debate the “right” to own slaves?

Forced pregnancy and childbirth is no more moral than any other form of forced organ donation. No “pro-life” laws exist anywhere that force men to suffer trauma, pain, permanent damage to their bodies and risk of death from mandatory kidney donation surgery to save the life of another — even if the person in need of it is their own child who would otherwise die without it. No one has the right to the use of, or to coerce the use of, another’s body — in whole or in part — against their will.

Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy. Medical ethics and philosophy professor David Boonin framed the argument supporting a woman’s right to choose based on consent. A woman has the right to refuse use of her body to support another potential human’s continued existence if:

1. The cost is not trivial (even “good” pregnancies in healthy women of optimal childbearing age are non-trivial).
2. The woman has not previously consented to the exact conditions of use, or the conditions which she consented to have changed.
3. The woman does not owe the recipient (fetus) compensation for causing its worsened condition.

Boonin quite specifically excludes a woman who conceived following consensual sex from obligation to provide life support for that developing entity. The fetus would not have existed without this act and its accompanying male act, and is therefore better off — not worse off. The female host has not caused any harm to the fetus at all and is therefore not required to compensate it by being an incubator. The fetus on the other hand, is harming its host, and is therefore obligated to her. And the male that has caused the woman harm by impregnating her when she didn’t want to become pregnant is therefore obligated to compensate her.

Any woman who wants to gestate some “pump and dump” ungrateful prick’s genetic material for patriarchy’s benefit in almost a year of involuntary servitude is more than welcome to do so. But no woman owes such sacrifice and martyrdom to anyone — especially not to a society that has always treated women like garbage; a society that grants full personhood to 15 second old zygotes and corporations while denying that very status of personhood to the woman in whose body that zygote is being hosted.

Forcing women to get and remain pregnant against their will is a violation of human rights, period. The architects of the UN and Article 7(g) of the Rome Statute agree. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in addressing the “most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole” has provided an international legal definition of rape. The Rome Statute has acknowledged sexual assault as both a war crime and also as a crime against humanity. The Rome Statute was adopted and opened for signature on July 17^th 1998 and was entered into force on July 1^st 2002. There are 139 signatories and 89 state parties to the statute. The Rome Statute establishes a permanent ICC body with jurisdiction over individuals limited to the crimes within its jurisdiction to prosecute. The Rome Statute defines these serious crimes as the crime of “genocide; crimes against humanity; war crimes; and the crime of aggression.”

Article 7(g) of the Rome Statute states: “crimes against humanity means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population with knowledge of the attack: Rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.” Article 7(g) also includes the “persecution against any identifiable group or collectively on gender…or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law” as well as “other inhumane acts of similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”

Now, this War on Women did not occur out of the blue. It began with the concept of idolizing “invade and conquer” ideologies, male-centric cults of hero worship, and the promotion of wealth accumulation through deracination and turning everything (including women) in the natural world into disposable commodities for the sole purpose of converting them into dead capital.

What we have is a predator society based on misogyny, racism, and capitalistic competition and that predation fosters aggression and manifests itself in our “culture of rape.” That we lead the world in producing serial killers speaks truth to power about the casualties of male privilege, patriarchy and capitalism. It is not the perpetrators who are solely responsible for our inequality but also those who are sitting on the sidelines doing nothing about it except covering their own asses by excluding themselves from wrongdoing. Doing nothing in situations of injustice is the same as being an enabler. Silence is consent.

Are Women Citizens or Walking Incubators With Less Rights Than Livestock?

In this Rachel Maddow episode, Oklahoma’s new law that targets women and abortion providers for harassment and violence. No other similar laws are being passed that target men’s reproductive issues. No other laws are being passed that compromise men’s private and personal medical information.

Religion and the Price of Comfort

Jacqueline S. Homan, Author: "Classism For Dimwits", "Nothing You Can Possess", "Eyes of a Monster," and "Divine Right: The Truth is a Lie"

“Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” ~ Geneisis 3:16

Religion — especially the patriarchal monotheistic varieties — institutionalized sexism, racism, and classism in an architecture of aggression. It begins in Genesis with the “original sin” — a story about victim blaming, and a violent lust for power and control. In sum, the story in Genesis is used to legitimize cruelty, abuse, oppression, male abrogation of personal responsibility, dominance over women, and violent subjugation.

Whenever women tried to rise up and challenge this, men pointed to the Pope and to the Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin, citing the Bible as “proof” of their “divine right.”

The blaming of women for the entrance of sin into the world in Genesis 3:16 has led to more oppression of women than any other. Throughout history, men in societies dominated by Abrahamic religions got a free pass to be abusive assholes who were absolved of any responsibility for their actions — by a divine right which came from a religious doctrine centered on a male god.

Early church “doctor” Tertullian wrote regarding women: “And do you not know that you are each an Eve? You are the devil’s gateway. You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree. You are the first deserter of the divine law.”

Fiery charismatic reformer John Calvin described women as: “…more guilty than the man, because she was seduced by Satan, and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition. It is necessary that woman recognize this…This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears within her ignominy and shame.”

No wonder that rape remains the only crime where the victim becomes the criminal. And it is no wonder that many today feel perfectly justified in denying women access to reliable contraceptives and abortion, forcing women to submit to compulsory pregnancy and childbirth — this is somehow OK. No wonder the happiness, health, wellbeing, and lives of women are subordinated to that of the fetus (or potential fetus) — a potential human, in favor of an already born one (the woman).

Religion — especially patriarchal Abrahamic monotheism — has been a boon for men, but a real bust for women. Combining the “women as property” and “women as seducers” propaganda yields what? A sense of entitlement to dominate and censor female sexuality any way possible while being fully endorsed by patriarchal religion.

Words do not just communicate fact, they create fact. Language is the Rosetta Stone upon which a society is organized and structured; how norms and mores become codified within the culture. When weaponized language is used to normalize injustice, suffering results. Normalizing cruelty, abuse, and discrimination is how abuse is justified. And this is precisely what the most prominent dogmas and “holy” books to.

Consider These Statements:

1. Cancer patients do not have the right to safe and effective pain relief because pain is a natural consequence of cancer, and cancer is a naturally occurring human condition.

2. Those in burn units who are responsible for their injuries have no right to effective pain relief or compassion. If they don’t like it, they shouldn’t have burned themselves.

3. Encourage surgical patients to forego pain relief both during and after surgery. Instead, have a staff member provide one-on-one “coaching” and encouragement to not get effective pain relief. Patients should be counseled to think of their suffering as “good pain”, and be encouraged to “work with the pain”, and to embrace an **”altered state of consciousness.”** Infer that any patient needing pain relief is a weak-minded failure. [**This "altered state of consciousness" is dissociation and dissociative amnesia. It is a human response to severe physical and psychological trauma and should be avoided — NOT encouraged!]

4. Hospital policy should ensure that all palliative care patients ask at least twice before their request for pain relief is considered. If death is imminent, consider denying the request.

5. Trauma sustained during torture and food deprivation results in damaged bodies and damaged psyches. Depositing a large sum of money in their bank account will make them forget all about it.

6. Psychiatric studies show that pre-rape classes reduce the terror victims feel during and after rape.

In a civilized society, these statements and ideas would beggar belief and be ridiculed and loudly challenged. They are offensive, insensitive, and cruel. But because abuse and unnecessary suffering has been normalized for women, largely because of centuries of influence the words in the Bible have wielded, there’s a double standard.

Consider These Same Statements, ideas, and Policies Regarding the Care of Pregnant Women Before, During, and After Giving Birth:

1. Maternity patients do not have the right to safe and effective pain relief because pain is a natural consequence of childbirth and childbirth is a natural thing for women to endure.

2. Women who get pregnant should not expect choice in delivery options, nor should they get pain relief or compassion. If they don’t like it, they should have kept their legs shut.

3. Encourage maternity patients to forego pain relief during and after childbirth. Instead, have a staff member provide one-on-one encouragement to not get effective pain relief. Patients should be encouraged to think of their suffering as “good pain”, as “empowering”, and to “work with the pain” and to enbrace an **”altered state of consciousness.”** Infer that any woman struggling with labor who expects pain relief is a weak-minded failure.

4. Hospital and midwifery policy should ensure that all maternity patients ask at least twice before their request for pain relief is considered. If birth is imminent, consider denying the request.

5. Trauma sustained during childbirth results in damaged bodies and damaged psyches. As soon as you put her baby in her arms, the mom will forget all about it.

6. Psychiatric studies show that pre-natal/childbirth education classes reduce the terror women feel during and after childbirth.

These notions should beggar belief, but they actually reflect past and present obstetrical attitudes and policies, and have done so for the past several decades. In many obstetric circles in the US and other western nations, these ideas are still widely accepted. After centuries of this barbaric belief in a sick book written by sick men about a sick god, such beliefs became codified into laws and policies — even in the medical field.

A “prize”, no matter how wonderful, does not cure physical and psychological trauma in ANY situation. Offensive statements like those above isolate and further traumatize the trauma victims. Monetary compensation does not cure PTSD for torture survivors. You don’t tell someone who has lost his legs that he should be grateful he didn’t lose his arms. It is no different for women who have suffered trauma in childbirth.

The experience of the birth and the baby are two separate things. The attitude that a healthy baby makes women forget the trauma of their childbirth experience is bullshit. Women carry that experience with them for life. Fatalism and stoicism are not the same as “getting over it.”

Denying women ownership and control over their own bodies by denying them access to affordable reliable contraceptives and abortion; and denying women adequate pain relief during childbirth without a scientifically valid reason (and there really isn’t any) — is legitimized misogyny.

"Divine Right: The Truth is a Lie", by Jacqueline S. Homan

Systemic discrimination always involves the belief that a certain sub-group of the human race is not deserving of equal rights and humane treatment. They are considered inferior. What is unacceptable for other humans is considered acceptable for the group being discriminated against. Underlying all obstetrical bias is misogyny.

We can thank the influence in all aspects of life that the Bible wields for much of this. In the very first book, in the story of the “original sin”, we are told that women are predestined to have to suffer pain (along with possible permanent disability and death) in childbirth (whether a woman wants to be pregnant or not) in order to be redeemed for “loosing sin unto the world.”

No matter how you look at it, you cannot get equality out of the Bible. It’s a doctrine that begins with the premise that a perfect, all-knowing, ever-present and “loving” god created the world just for man to take dominion over. And everything was perfect until woman introduced “sin” into the world, so it is only just that this “god” punish her more severely than the talking snake and the man for his part in eating this forbidden fruit. And part of women’s punishment, according to the Bible, is to accept being condemned to second-class status and to accept having to endure pregnancy (whether she wants to or not) and suffer excruciating pain in childbirth.

Christians, Muslims, and Jews believe in this part of the Bible. And since Christians believe that the Bible is an inviolable truth, they believe this part of it too. And it is this belief in this part that is the most responsible for indifference to the suffering and abuse of women and girls across the nation.

For all the claims that religion brought comfort to so many such that the injustices and cruelties inspired by it don’t matter is offensive. hate speech books like “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and treatises on Holocaust revisionism also undoubtedly provide some people with comfort. But since when should the la-la-land denial that brings such “comfort” be permitted to trump the injustices and abuse it has posed for so many others who didn’t derive any comfort from it?

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The True Face of Christianity and the “Pro-Life” Movement

by Jacqueline S. Homan, copyright 2009. All rights reserved.

Why is it that it takes TWO to have sex, but only women are seen as undeserving whores who need to be punished with forced birth if an unwanted pregnancy results? Making men step up to the plate with miserly child support payments doesn’t begin to compensate for all of the negative permanent changes that pregnancy and birth does to women’s bodies, and that is IF she survives the ordeal.

Although pregnancy and birth are natural, they are medical conditions that do not occur without risk or without drastic permanent changes to women’s bodies and lives. Pregnancy and birth pose serious risks to women’s health and lives. Even with modern medical science and technology, women still suffer permanent maiming and disabling conditions as a result of pregnancy and birth. Women still die from complications in pregnancy and birth. So even if the co-conceiver actually pays his child support obligation every month for 18 years, it is not a lifelong consequence with a litany of physical problems to which he is sentenced to suffer for the rest of his life as punishment for having sex.

While some pregnancies are riskier than others, all of them have the chance of life-threatening complications. I don’t know how people can support forcing someone else to endure something that threatens their health and will alter their body permanently.

Here is a list of all the permanent and often irreversible changes to a woman’s body and life caused by pregnancy and birth which really makes the shot-gun wedding or the 18 years of monthly child support checks, and inadequate and meager temporary welfare benefits look like a cheap kiss-off:

Possible effect of pregnancy include:
————-
Normal, frequent or expectable temporary side effects of pregnancy:
exhaustion (weariness common from first weeks)
altered appetite and senses of taste and smell
nausea and vomiting (50% of women, first trimester)
heartburn and indigestion
constipation
weight gain
dizziness and light-headedness
bloating, swelling, fluid retention
hemmorhoids
abdominal cramps
yeast infections
congested, bloody nose
acne and mild skin disorders
skin discoloration (chloasma, face and abdomen)
mild to severe backache and strain
increased headaches
difficulty sleeping, and discomfort while sleeping
increased urination and incontinence
bleeding gums
pica
breast pain and discharge
swelling of joints, leg cramps, joint pain
difficulty sitting, standing in later pregnancy
inability to take regular medications
shortness of breath
higher blood pressure
hair loss
tendency to anemia
curtailment of ability to participate in some sports and activities
infection including from serious and potentially fatal disease
(pregnant women are immune suppressed compared with non-pregnant women, and
are more susceptible to fungal and certain other diseases)
extreme pain on delivery
hormonal mood changes, including normal post-partum depression
continued post-partum exhaustion and recovery period (exacerbated if a c-section — major surgery — is required, sometimes taking up to a full year to fully recover)

Normal, expectable, or frequent PERMANENT side effects of pregnancy:
stretch marks (worse in younger women)
loose skin
permanent weight gain or redistribution
abdominal and vaginal muscle weakness
pelvic floor disorder (occurring in as many as 35% of middle-aged former child-bearers and 50% of elderly former child-bearers, associated with urinary and rectal incontinence, discomfort and reduced quality of life)
changes to breasts
varicose veins
scarring from episiotomy or c-section
other permanent aesthetic changes to the body (all of these are downplayed by women, because the culture values youth and beauty)
increased proclivity for hemorrhoids
loss of dental and bone calcium (cavities and osteoporosis)

Occasional complications and side effects:
spousal/partner abuse
hyperemesis gravidarum
temporary and permanent injury to back
severe scarring requiring later surgery (especially after additional pregnancies)
dropped (prolapsed) uterus (especially after additional pregnancies, and other pelvic floor weaknesses — 11% of women, including cystocele, rectocele, and enterocele)
pre-eclampsia (edema and hypertension, the most common complication of pregnancy, associated with eclampsia, and affecting 7 – 10% of pregnancies)
eclampsia (convulsions, coma during pregnancy or labor, high risk of death)
gestational diabetes
placenta previa
anemia (which can be life-threatening)
thrombocytopenic purpura
severe cramping
embolism (blood clots)
medical disability requiring full bed rest (frequently ordered during part of many pregnancies varying from days to months for health of either mother or baby)
diastasis recti, also torn abdominal muscles
mitral valve stenosis (most common cardiac complication)
serious infection and disease (e.g. increased risk of tuberculosis)
hormonal imbalance
ectopic pregnancy (risk of death)
broken bones (ribcage, “tail bone”)
hemorrhage and
numerous other complications of delivery
refractory gastroesophageal reflux disease
aggravation of pre-pregnancy diseases and conditions (e.g. epilepsy is present in .5% of pregnant women, and the pregnancy alters drug metabolism and treatment prospects all the while it increases the number and frequency of seizures)
severe post-partum depression and psychosis suppressed immune system
**research now indicates a possible link between ovarian cancer and female fertility treatments, including “egg harvesting” from infertile women and donors
research also now indicates correlations between lower breast cancer survival rates and proximity in time to onset of cancer of last pregnancy
research also indicates a correlation between having six or more pregnancies and a risk of coronary and cardiovascular disease**

Less common (but serious) complications:
peripartum cardiomyopathy
cardiopulmonary arrest
magnesium toxicity
severe hypoxemia/acidosis
massive embolism
increased intracranial pressure, brainstem infarction
molar pregnancy, gestational trophoblastic disease (like a pregnancy-induced cancer)
malignant arrhythmia
circulatory collapse
placental abruption
*obstetric fistula (causing fecal or urine or both to pass through the woman’s vagina due to tissue damage to the area separating the rectum and the bladder from the uterus and vagina. *Fistulas are not always able to be corrected with surgery.)

More permanent side effects:
future infertility
permanent disability
death.

[Medical Data courtesy of research conducted by Becky Garcia, provided by ACOG, JAMA, BMJ, The Lancet, Dept. of Health & Human Services, Bureau of Vital Records]

There is no way anyone who claims to be “moral” and value human life can justify forcing women to suffer any of these permanent consequences of pregnancy and birth against their will. None.

You cannot realistically be “pro-life” if you hold a higher regard for a fetus than the woman whose life you want to jeopardize, and whose body and health you want to condemn with a life sentence of lifelong physically miserable results — and that is provided she even survives the pregnancy and birth process. And these are just the physical risks and results. That does not include the extreme emotional trauma that accompanies those physical results when those conditions were FORCED upon the woman against her will. [Does the case of Andrea Yates ring a bell?]

The more “moderate” anti-woman/pro-punishment crowd who are willing to make allowances for abortion in the case of rape are of the mindset that the rape victim should be allowed to get emergency contraceptives (Plan B) or even an abortion because the rape victim didn’t deserve to be punished with pregnancy. Yet they carry water for the politicians they’ve elected who pass “conscience clause” laws and “fetal personhood” laws that result in rape victims being denied emergency contraception, or abortion if need be.

Maternity should never be compulsory, and children should NEVER be used as a tool for punishment.

However conservative Christians, such as the Roman Catholic Church, are of the mindset that even the rape victim deserves this punishment of forced birth for somehow causing the rape, for being too free and careless with her body. Rape is the ONLY crime where the victim is put on trial and made into the criminal; expected to take responsibility for the perpetrator’s actions.

But women who get pregnant as a result of contraceptive failure, or from lack of access to available birth control (plus an over-abundance of male selfishness) are expected to suffer the sentence of extreme pain and permanent changes to her life and body caused by pregnancy and birth because if she’s not forced to suffer these consequences against her will, she’s somehow getting away with something. And that ‘something’ is embracing her sexuality and having sex for the same reasons men do: a natural human need and desire for pleasure.

"Divine Right: The Truth is a Lie", by Jacqueline S. Homan

And where did this idea of men being more deserving than women when it comes to sex originate from? It comes from the Bible — a misogynist and racist hate rag that is really a menagerie of Bronze Age myths flavored with Roman imperialist paternalism.
“The reason pregnancy and childbirth is glorified, in part, is because women die from it.” ~ Andrea Dworkin

The Bible and the theory of Intelligent Design are full of more holes than Swiss cheese. It hasn’t been proven to be an absolute truth anymore than mermaids, fairies, Santa Clause, or unicorns. It is the greatest bullshit story ever told that has been used to justify abuse, cruelty and oppression of women; an excuse for genocide, as license to invade and pillage other nations, and as license for men to brutally impose their will on women’s bodies and lives as punishment just for being women. It is social control with legitimized torture and cruelty cloaked in the questionable respectability of “divine providence.”

For all the rhetoric about valuing babies and life, “pro-lifers” have demonstrated time after time that they don’t give a damn about life. They certainly don’t care about the woman’s life. Their real agenda is about punishing women for having sex and maintaining a male-dominated family and a male-dominated society. They’re not even pro-life for the fetus if its host is a poor woman in need of financial support, good food, and good prenatal care. And if that fetus dies in utero but fails to expel, thus threatening the life if its host, the pregnant woman, these misogynist zealots claim that the doctor removing that dead fetus is performing a “partial birth abortion” or a “late term abortion.” They only pretend to be pro-life.

“More women have died in childbirth or killed themselves rather than submit to paternalistic ownership and rape IN THIS COUNTRY than the total number of African American males lynched by racist cops or KKK mobs.” ~ Larry Henry Carter Center

A 2007 WHO report proves what feminists and pro-choice advocates have been saying all along: criminalizing abortion will not end it. It only makes it far more dangerous and costs far more lives. The nations with the highest abortion rates are those with the most restrictive legal and medical access to abortion, and even to contraceptives. 13% of pregnancy and childbirth related deaths globally are caused by unsafe illegal abortions. Since illegal abortion makes women criminals, women are terrified to go to the hospital after a botched abortion attempt for fear of legal reprisal.

Doctors face even higher penalties for performing abortions than the women getting them in places where abortion is outlawed and regularly refuse to treat a woman who is hemorrhaging for any reason because they don’t want to be face criminal charges of performing an illegal abortion. As a result, women are dying from treatable conditions — women like Maria de Jesus Gonzalez of Nicaragua, a Catholic nation where abortion is not legal under ANY circumstances at all whatsoever.

Maria de Jesus Gonzalez was a 28 yr old poor single mother who was denied a medical abortion which she needed to save her life. She had an ectopic pregnancy where the zygote was lodged inside of her fallopian tube. Not getting an abortion and leaving the fetus to grow and rupture her fallopian tube would cause her and the fetus to die. But being forced to go seek clandestine help from a back alley abortionist instead caused both Maria and the fetus to die. Either way, no one’s life was saved. Maria’s first child is now an orphan.

Mainstream “pro-life” groups are opposed to contraceptives as well as abortion. They’re just quieter about contraception (except for Plan B) because they know it outs them as hypocrites and liars who place ideology over human life. They promote “abstinence only” sex education. They paint a false, rosy picture of pregnancy and birth, ignoring the very real risks and long-term health complications of pregnancy and birth.

Most “moderate” pro-lifers understand that full sex education and better access to affordable, reliable and effective contraceptives are the most effective ways to limit or prevent abortion. But those self-identified pro-lifers need to recognize what their leaders in pro-life organizations promote and what their movement stands for. The leaders of pro-life groups have been unresponsive to the dead bodies in their wake, while they work tirelessly to spread laws and policies affecting women’s health and lives (like in Nicaragua) far and wide.

They have been chipping away at abortion to get it outlawed here in the US, under any circumstances; while their well-heeled lobby is putting legislators in office who have de-funded access to effective contraceptives, and stonewalled the opening of women’s healthcare clinics such as Planned Parenthood in Aurora, Illinois.

These same “pro-lifers” are the base of the Republican Party which has eliminated welfare support for poor women and children with the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. They consistently oppose subsidized healthcare for poor uninsured women and children. Their real agenda has never been about protecting the “sanctity of human life” because their actions are contrary. And actions speak louder than words. Their message is clear:

Women are just collateral damage in their ideological Culture War, and our right to life is negotiable.

The “pro-life” agenda has nothing to do with babies. It has everything to do with getting women back under control and in their place where they belong. Pro-lifers don’t give a crap about women’s health; we can die in a back alley so long as we’re punished for any transgression dreamed up by the conservative “pro-life” Religious Wrong. And that transgression is “getting away with” having sex.

Their inflammatory propaganda about “partial birth” abortions and “late term” abortions are lies used to whip up a frenzy against the “murder” of viable fetuses. In reality, these fetuses either have already died or are not able to survive birth anyway. The fetuses that have died inside the uterus that were not expelled threatened the mother’s life since this decomposing fetal tissue causes fatal, toxic sepsis unless it is promptly removed. But “pro-lifers” don’t care if mothers die. All these Christian control freaks are out for is to control everyone else with an iron fist and to deliberately hurt women to punish them just for being women.

In the 1800′s when chloroform was introduced to the US to help ease the excruciating pain of childbirth for women, it was woman-hating Christian zealots who fought against its permitted use on the grounds that easing women’s childbirth pain was contrary to God’s will. They cited the book of Genesis where God punishes women with the curse of pain in childbirth for bringing “sin” into the world, and stating that women’s only salvation is in childbirth.

Anyone who argued that it was inhumane and barbaric to deny women pain relief in childbirth was prosecuted for being an atheist and jailed because atheism was a criminally punishable offense back then.

Without modern high-tech medicine, pregnancy and childbirth kills 1 in 5 women. And even with it, pregnant women and women giving birth STILL die anyway. And many women who survive pregnancy and birth are permanently maimed from it.

Ever wonder why all those chirpy ads for Depends adult diapers target women?

It’s because childbirth-related pelvic trauma leaves 35% – 50% of all US moms permanently incontinent.

Forcing women to risk permanent damage to their bodies, diminished ability to enjoy sex, early death or permanent disability due to childbirth benefits playboys and pedophiles by guaranteeing the merry widowers a fresh supply of trophy wives and pedophiles plenty of abandoned or orphaned children. Pro-lifers leave no “pious” playboys or pedophiles behind.

These same pro-lifers who attempt to rationalize their desire to inflict cruelty and punishment on women for having sex are the same folks that place no restrictions on Viagra. Pro-lifers who use fetuses instead of fists to maim or kill women deserve the Scott Peterson Award for misogyny.

The Best Kept Secret: The Truth About Giving Birth

The Fruit of Thy Womb:

One of the main reasons why men refuse to cede control to women the right to have control over their own bodies and lives — which necessarily entails access to contraception and abortion — is because if most women knew the whole truth about how pregnancy and childbirth changes your body and how traumatizing and excruciating the pain of childbirth really is for most women, more women would flat out refuse to go through pregnancy and birth. Many people call such women “selfish” for refusing to make the “sacrifices” that procreation and motherhood demands.

[Note the irony: it is mostly those whose bodies and lives that are not immediately impacted who routinely demand that such “sacrifices” be borne by someone else.]

Most women and girls know that birth is painful, but childbirth educators/coaches, other women, and the medical establishment gloss over it. They don’t tell you how bad it really hurts, and that the strain of pushing and the pain alone can bring on cerebral hemorrhage or coronary arrest. Even with tons of pregnancy books and the Internet with You Tube’s collection of actual birth videos, the full truth is not adequately and fully disclosed. There is precious little accurate information on the long-term or permanent post-partum changes to your life and body because no one wants to scare women out of reproducing and risk the diminution of the human race.

The truth is that childbirth is the most excruciatingly painful, humiliating, and horrific experience imaginable for most women. Chances are that your belly, your breasts, your ass, your hips, and your genitals will never be the same as they once were, nor have the same structural integrity and strength they had before pregnancy. But your mother, your aunt, your sister, your friends, your midwife or doctor, your Lamaze coach, and the media do not prepare you for this. Women who’ve experienced this firsthand are often intimidated into silence because of the personal value judgments society generously doles out to them.

Inordinate labor pain, lingering pregnancy weight, stretch marks, varicose veins, damaged genitals, etc., are blamed on the woman. She is told that she must have done something wrong during pregnancy and labor. She is scolded for “complaining” about it, and chastised with “you’re such an ingrate, you have a healthy baby and that’s all that matters.”

Is the potential fruit of our wombs really all that matters? Don’t women matter, too?

Men who have been through childbirth with their partners and witnessed the whole process won’t tell you the whole truth, either. Instead, they peddle stories that are all gummy bears and rainbows with the gravity of the full truth downplayed by euphemisms. This is not, by definition, affording women the ability to make fully informed choices.

Information on the Internet which addresses many of these conveniently overlooked truths about childbirth is actually rather hard to find, but it is out there if you’re a diligent full-time researcher and if you’re wearing your Bullshit Detection Unit.

Many educated, intelligent women who thought they were adequately prepared to endure pregnancy and childbirth were abruptly caught completely off guard by all the things that EVERYONE had conveniently neglected to mention. A lot of these things were bona fide deal-breakers.

Many women would have opted out of pregnancy altogether in the first place by diligently seeking out reliable contraception (or even abortion if necessary), if they had only known the full truth of how it would really impact them.

Meanwhile, other well-informed educated women have a genuine desire for children that overrides their disdain for what pregnancy and birth will do to them. Just as there will always be men who choose to become volunteer firefighters, risking their lives running into burning buildings to save people; there will always be women willing to choose to make the ultimate sacrifice to their bodies, health, and lives. [This is why access to “fully informed choice” is important.]

Privacy and Loss of Dignity:

The first secret is that your last shred of dignity and body integrity will get pitched right out the window. Everyone tells you that labor pains are like strong menstrual cramps. Truth: it’s more like having your body mangled in heavy farm equipment. You are not a “wuss” if you can’t cope without screaming your head off while in this degree of pain. Men and women who have endured less in military combat end up with PTSD.

So do a lot of women who have gone through childbirth. Especially those who have been scolded, yelled at, or even slapped for screaming from the pain while giving birth — even though they were denied pain relief after begging and pleading for it. Pregnant women in labor are the only people whom are viewed as undeserving of having adequate pain relief. For this reason, childbirth for many women amounts to torture that wouldn’t even be legal at Guantanamo.

If people don’t want to hear women screaming in agony from childbirth, maybe society should be encouraging science to develop better ways to reduce or eliminate that degree of traumatic childbirth pain rather than casting personal value judgments on the women going through it. Better yet, maybe society should be encouraging medical science to come up with a way that procreation does not physically encumber and damage women or humiliate them.

About water breaking:

You won’t wonder if you peed accidentally (since urinary incontinence goes hand –in-hand with pregnancy). Instead, you’ll wonder if you fell into a hot tub full of water without realizing it, or if you puncturing a waterbed mattress while sitting on it.

About birth plans:

You lose the right to privacy and genital integrity. You will be laying on a hospital or birthing center bed uncovered from the waist down with your legs spread wide open on public display while enduring the worst agony a human being can experience, while a team of about ten hospital staff members (mostly strangers) are staring intently at your vagina, handling  and prodding it.  I can’t fathom anything more demeaning than being exposed that way while being so unimaginably vulnerable with NO consideration for my feelings and need for privacy — except for suffering the additional indignity of uncontrollable defecation and urination during birth in front of everyone, too. 85% of all women experience this during the birth process, many without knowing it from being in too much pain to realize it.

Pre-emptively administered enemas do not eliminate this because passing an 8 lb baby through your cervix and birth canal compresses the intestines, pushing all fecal matter and urine out of your body. And there will probably be no fewer than ten strangers in the room watching it happen. But those who witness it will probably be too polite to say anything — except for inconsiderate jerks that use this as an emotional blackmail tool against their child’s mother by threatening to tell all their buddies about it, specifically to humiliate her.

So, not only is a generous “money shot” of you in the least dignified position of having your spread legs awkwardly placed in stirrups with your sore and swollen genitals publicly displayed very vulnerably for a herd of strangers to gawk at while you’re in your most vulnerable state and in tons of pain, you face the added indignity of losing control of your bodily functions in front of an audience who are making personal value judgments on you for your labor and childbirth coping ability (or lack thereof). I can’t fathom going through anything like that — not even for a child. I can’t fathom anyone presuming the right to force that on me in the name of being “pro-life.”

Christian conservative politicians (most whom are men whose bodies this will never happen to), are forcing women to go through this against their will in many states across the nation where access to reliable contraception is being denied under specious “fetal personhood” laws and “conscientious objector” laws.

Make no mistake: I am no prude. I have had an annual pelvic exam and pap smear since 14 without any ado (except for the time that an OB/GYN unexpectedly ushered in a dozen medical students that I unceremoniously ordered out of the room).  I am very uninhibited, for the most part.

But I would not cope well with being stared at by a herd of total strangers while going to the bathroom! There are certain things that are off limits. Anyone entertaining the thought of crossing that line with me better be prepared to duck from airborne objects at a speed of Mach-3 ranging from shoes to the anti-bacterial soap dispenser.

Unfortunately, the lack of privacy and the disregard for women’s dignity and genital integrity during birth has driven many women to the Unassisted Childbirth (UC) realm. UC means giving birth totally alone in the privacy of your home with no one else present, or perhaps only your partner. UC-ers claim that childbirth is a “natural process” for women, and that women do not need a medicalized birth environment. They point to the “good ole days” when women gave birth in the privacy of their homes, attended by only a trusted midwife or their husbands.

But those same “good ole days” saw one in five otherwise perfectly healthy young women die an untimely and undignified painful death during or shortly after childbirth. Just because something is “natural” doesn’t mean it’s healthy or good for you. In the “good ole days”, women rarely lived to middle-age because unmitigated and endless cycles of pregnancy and birth caused their bodies to prematurely wear out — causing women to die young.

Pain management options:

In the US, there are less pain relief options available than in the UK and Europe. But at least we have epidurals.

An epidural is the “mack daddy” of pain relief, but it doesn’t get administered without a catheter — just what a birthing woman whose genital area is already swollen and sensitive needs, the added pain of catheterization. But depending on the severity and longevity of your tolerance for pain, an epidural may be a really good idea.

The “natural” option is available, but be aware of the fact that foregoing pain relief will not earn you a Congressional Medal of Honor. Nor does it make you a better/stronger woman than the woman with a lower pain tolerance. Any stress and trauma endured by the birthing mother is passed on to the baby. If you are concerned about the effect an epidural will have on the baby you’re thinking of having, you might want to also thoroughly investigate the effects of traumatic and painful births experienced by moms on the babies. Studies published in the Lancet and the BMJ show a correlation between traumatic birth experiences for mothers and negative outcomes for the child. It is not “natural” to avoid ameliorating traumatic pain. How many people opt to have root canals or major surgery without pain relief? Just because it’s “natural” doesn’t qualify it as a “character builder.”

Episiotomies and/or Vaginal Tears:

Whether it is necessary or not, in the US and Canada 85-90% of all birthing women are cut just as the baby’s head begins to crown. Even if you don’t get one, there is an 80% chance that you will tear down there as a direct consequence of giving birth. Episiotomies and severe tears permanently change the muscular strength and structure and the tendon/ligament integrity of the pelvic region, the integrity of the vulva and perineal tissue; and are tantamount to genital mutilation. Even if you specifically draft a formal birth plan stipulating “no episiotomy”, you’ll most likely get one done to you anyway. Episiotomies and severe vaginal tears have caused long-term damage to many women’s genital tracts which caused long-term impairment of a sex life.

Dr. Marjorie Greenfield, a practicing board certified OB/GYN and fellow of the ACOG puts it this way: “With their first and second babies, a lot of women can have pain during sex for as long as six months to one year afterwards. Painful sex after childbirth can even occur if you have a C-section. Some of it comes from the general trauma to the vagina during childbirth or the fact that you may have had stitches after a tear or an episiotomy.”

Now, there are plenty of crackpots who will claim that these indignities and genital traumas only occur if you give birth in a medical environment. Some of these snake oil peddlers are even promoting the notion that childbirth is not traumatic for women and would be orgasmic if women only did it right (privately at home with no spectators). Nice thought and wishful thinking. The truth: it’s very rare.

But the fact is, no matter where women give birth, the act of straining to the point of inviting a stroke or heart attack due to embolism from pushing a baby (whose human brains are larger than other primates) through a pelvis that is too small (due to unintelligent design) leaves 85% of all birthing mothers with torn and maimed genitals and permanently weakened pelvic floors and impaired anal sphincters. This is not an experience that I as a woman would consider orgasmic. But nobody tells women and girls that inconvenient truth.

Internal damage from pregnancy and birth to the parasympathetic nerve system, tendons and ligaments that buttress the pelvic organs and muscles; severe tears and episiotomies, and permanent damage to the bladder, anal sphincter, genital tract region and coccyx tailbone;  leave many women with permanent pain, a permanently damaged body that never fully recovers, and a significant probability of diminishing their future ability to fully enjoy sex.

But women aren’t told this before deciding to endure pregnancy and childbirth. They’re told that “most normal women” give birth as easy as fish swim. They’re told that pregnancy and childbirth, which incapacitates women for a significant period of time, is “nothing.”

If more people knew the fully disclosed truth about pregnancy and childbirth, which leaves so many women disappointed and falsely feeling like failures from their bodies failing to meet the unrealistic expectations imposed on them by society, the war against women’s right to have control over what happens to their bodies and lives these past 30 years would have been stopped cold — people would riot over being denied access to contraceptives based on pharmacists’ religious beliefs that are protected under the 1^st Amendment — at the expense of women’s right under the 14^th Amendment to not be conscripted into childbirth chattel slavery.

Instead, countless people have been suckered. And most of it originates from 2,000 years of religiously-inspired misogyny that has permeated even the secular realms of our society, including the medical community.

Psychological aroma therapy bullshit sells better than the truth(like vaccination scares, ghost stories, and conspiracy theories). And so women and their partners buy it — hook, line, and sinker.

The Reason Those Chirpy Ads For Depends Target Women:

None of the health magazines, pregnancy and childbirth books, childbirth videos and childbirth education class materials ever mentions the long-term health ramifications like bowel and bladder dysfunction following pregnancy. Fact: 35-50% of all women (depending on age) will suffer permanent bowel or urinary (or both) incontinence following pregnancy and birth. This is the most heavily guarded secrets about childbirth that is swept under the rug and not talked about.

Most women suffering this are even too ashamed to discuss it with their doctors. Instead, they suffer in silence. Their relationships with their partners suffer. The psychological wellbeing of the women suffer. We live in a culture where women are shamed by their bodies’ failures to achieve high expectations, pushed largely by people with an agenda to enforce compulsory pregnancy and birth.

Incontinence is not a trivial matter since it severely impacts one’s ability to get and keep a job, hinders social participation, and impacts women’s sex lives. But the health magazines and childbirth books whitewash this. They lull women into a false sense of security and make women believe that pregnancy and birth is all gummy bears and rainbows. With the loss of your sexual womanhood and everything that made you feel beautiful and special, the loss of your ability to control bodily functions, no one cares about the degree of emotional angst this poses for you. It’s all about the baby now. You’ve created a chromosomal legacy, move over, you don’t count anymore. You don’t exist — except when some asshat humiliates you or ejects you from a public venue for discreetly breastfeeding your little “Miracle of Life” because in the ass-backwards US, a hint of showing breast is an abomination (except for thin and fit young college girls during Spring Break Week at Daytona Beach).  Violent Rambo movies, on the other hand, are perfectly fine for public viewing.

Getting Your Pre-Pregnancy Body Back:

Those Hollywood celebs that seem to “snap right back” to their pre-pregnancy bodies peddle books and videos telling you that you can do it too. For some lucky women, this may be true. But for most, it’s bullshit. Worse, it is bullshit that heaps blame and self-deprecation on women who didn’t “snap right back” — leading to additional undeserved feelings of self-blame and worthlessness.

Many women who have gone through childbirth downplay all of this. “It’s not really so bad”, they say. Bullshit.  Many women won’t admit that it is indeed really that bad because of the constant personal value judgments women get from society. Many won’t admit how painful birth really was, how embarrassing the procedure is, how humiliated and robbed of control over what’s done to your body childbirth really entails, how you never really get your pre-pregnancy body back 100% and how this is so not worth it for a significant number of women — hence, the demand for contraceptives and access to abortion in the event of contraceptive failure.

And the reason there is so much stifling of the full truth is because our society still tells us that women don’t matter — only the fruit of our wombs are valued. Women are still viewed by many — even by some men in the secular community — as merely “vessels to be worn out in childbirth” because that’s what our bodies were “naturally designed for.”  But unlike other primates, a human fetus takes up 100% of the room in its mother’s pelvis and abdominal region, bruising and compressing internal organs and frequently causing permanent damage to healthy young women’s backs. Fractured tailbones are not uncommon during a vaginal delivery (or attempted vaginal delivery). Nature “designed” a lot of other things, too — and many of them are not good for us:

poisonous snakes
hurricanes
earthquakes
tornadoes
shark attacks
flesh eating bacteria
botulism
tapeworms
infectious viruses (Ebola, HIV, polio, influenza, etc.)

….you get the idea.

Truth: if pregnancy and childbirth was really “all that”, every single last vagina-possessing one of us would be procreating like Quiverfull moms Michelle Duggar (mother of 18) and Wendy Jeub (mother of 15).  If pregnancy and childbirth really made women more attractive, it would be the post-partum bodies of FLDS and Quiverfull moms glorified as Playboy centerfolds and pin-up girls on Snap-On tool calendars — loose stomachs, stretchmarks, saggy boobs and all.

For many women, pregnancy and birth means the loss of their sex appeal. Anyone who tells you different is either damn lucky, delusional, or lying. If women’s ability to get pregnant and give birth were really what men see as “beautiful”, then flabby bellies with loose skin and stretch marks, varicose veins, and saggy deflated breasts would be what gets promoted on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition magazine and proudly displayed on Playboy calendars and centerfolds instead of the flawless and fit and slim young models with tight hard-bodies and perky breasts that we see.

Women have way more reasons to avoid having kids than men ever will. When you see a mother, you’re seeing someone who endured and survived a very grueling experience.

For all the hype about having a “positive attitude” and how “beautiful” and “wonderful” childbirth and pregnancy is for “most” women, no one can predict the degree of the awful things that can (and frequently do) happen. Few want to admit the stark reality of how common these negative, life-altering changes really are for a lot of women. Women are shamed into silence if they “whine” about any of this. Mostly, they’re shamed into quiet uncomplaining compliance by selfish men whose bodies will never experience any of these things, yet who demand that women sacrifice their bodies to reproduce the gene pool and perpetuate “family legacy.” Telling women who are having difficulty coping (because they found out the hard way about the negative impacts of childbirth) that they’re just being “irrational” or “hysterical” is nothing short of cruelty and deceit.

So no more lies. There is no Santa Claus. There is no God. And babies are too big and heavy for women’s bodies to carry, and definitely too big to fit through a cervix. Much too big. This is not Intelligent Design, it’s an evolutionary mishap gone awry.

Childbirth permanently changes your body from one of sexually attractive womanhood to one of not-so-sexy motherhood. Very few women are lucky enough escape with only a pouch of loose stomach skin and a few stretch marks. Most are not that fortunate. And only rich women with lots of money can access the benefits of “mommy make-over” surgeries to fix that. Once you’ve signed the mommy contract, you are agreeing to a permanent transformation from being that sexy-looking love goddess to that matronly epitome of motherhood.

In gratitude for sacrificing your body to give birth to some man’s progeny, you also have almost a 50% chance of finding yourself poorer after getting dumped without any claim on his retirement plan, his old age social security benefit, alimony (if he married you in the first place), or health insurance from his job the minute he discards you in favor of his hot young office assistant with perfectly perky breasts and a centerfold body — minus the stretch marks, damaged pelvic floor and genital tract,  and other permanent battle scars of pregnancy and childbirth.

If you understand all of this and still decide to become a mother anyway, great. At least your choice is a fully informed one. Believing something different or clinging to false hopes in order to make you feel better rather than knowing or understanding the truth is, at best, a consolation prize.

Sources:

Thomas Purdon, Preisdent, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG).
JAMA 2005; 293: 2141-8.
Agency For Healthcare Research and Quality Evidence Report/Technology Assessment: Number 112.
University of North Carolina, Center for Women’s Health Research
US Dept. of Health & Human Services, National Healthcare Quality Report, 2003
*HCUP, Statistical Brief # 74, May 2009.
BMJ 2000; 321:1043-1047 (28 October)
“Depression in New Mothers: Causes, Consequences and Treatment Alternatives“, Kendall-Tackett, 2005.
Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 11, 221-228
Fones, C. (1996). “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Occurring After Painful Childbirth“, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 18, 195-196.
Reynolds, J. L. (1997). “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder After Childbirth: The Phenomenon of Traumatic Birth“, Canadian Medical Journal, 156, 831-835.
O’Driscoll, M. (1994). British Journal of Midwifery, 2, 39-41.
Integrating Trauma Practice Into Primary Care, Banyard, V., Edwards, V., Kendall-Tackett, K.
The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood: Coping With Mothering Stress, Depression, and Burnout (Kendall-Tackett, 2005).
“It’s OK Not to Be OK…Right Now: How to Live Through a Traumatic Experience” (Lerner, 2006)
Medical News Today, 28 June 2007. Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ statement on Unassisted Childbirth.

[HCUP is a family of health data bases from hospitals, state agencies and the federal government set up to create a national database.]