Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff made the following statement on the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day:
"100 years ago tomorrow, the first International Women's Day was established in 1911 to campaign for women's rights to work, vote, hold public office and end gender discrimination.
"Today, International Women’s Day celebrates the economic, political and social achievements of women across the globe..."
Belleville police chief Cory Mulligan's McMullan's husband David, a retired cop, today pleaded guilty to beating his wife in a jealous rage because he thought she was having an affair.
In an agreed statement of fact, crown attorney Robin Flumerfelt told court the attack on Cory McMullan two months ago was triggered by suspicions she was involved with Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis.
David McMullan later admitted his fears were “irrational and unfounded,” Flumerfelt said.
A retired police officer, McMullan became verbally abusive to his wife when he felt the demands of her job took her away from their home life.
On the evening of Aug. 6 he threw her to the ground and hit her several times on the roadside and again later in their garage.
On one of the times when he threw her to the garage floor her arm was broken.
<SNIP>
Outside court McMullan’s lawyer Dick Boriss said his client hopes to reconcile with his family.
“And indications are she feels the same way. He feels terrible about it, no question,” Boriss said.
As Flumerfelt read the statement McMullan, wearing a dark suit and white shirt and tie, wiped his eyes and blinked rapidly.
Boriss said McMullan was under a lot of stress struggling with retirement and having to move to a new community from Peterborough last year.
I can't tell you how many ways this kind of domestic tragedy happens.
And, of course, we already went through all the victim-blaming as well as the scary incidence of domestic violence in police relationships, as I noted here. Lots of facts and figures to be found in that blogpost.
Meanwhile, pressure's on NDP leader Jack Layton to whip his caucus members' votes or otherwise the bill may pass when Parliament resumes next month.
I have lots more to say on all of these matters but I'm holding my fire for a few more days as I am working on a major piece for the weekend paper.
That said, I did want to bring this story to your attention. It's about why Sault Ste. Marie's police chief Bob Davies supports the long gun registry. I added the boldface.
City police officers checked the registry 2,853 times in 2009.
Those inquiries included responding to a 911 call about a suicidal man. By checking the registry, police learned he owned eight weapons. They were removed to protect the man from harm.
When police executed a search warrant at an apartment, they found stolen property including two weapons. Because they were registered, the long guns were returned to their rightful owner who lost them during a break-in.
"Without the registry, we would have no way of knowing whether or not they were stolen," said Davies.
"Without the registry we'd have no proof, and no authority, to seize the firearms from that residence."
Most often, the registry is used when domestic assaults go to court. If an accused appears likely to reoffend, police will request the Crown attorney ask for weapons to be surrendered while the person is on bail.
"They won't volunteer that information," said Davies.
"Without the registry we wouldn't know if they had firearms."
Now let's consider those last few lines, shall we?
It's true that domestic homicides have been declining for years, even before the gun registry came into effect in the mid-90s. That's mostly to do with how women have gained greater independence, gaining the resources to get out of a bad situation. Also, the legal system has recognized the problem and deals better with it. There are more shelters. There's greater awareness.
But the statistics tell another story about guns.
Femicides by long guns have declined while, by handgun, they are fairly flat. This signals that the registry has had a major effect. In fact, the murders have dropped drastically since 1996.
More guns plus more isolation equals more bang bang.
Now, given that more people in the country have long guns -- and more of them too -- than people do in the city, the long-gun registry appears to be saving women's lives out in the hinterland.
According to the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women's Equality,
In 2008, in Ontario the RCMP’s Annual Report
on the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (DVDRC) stated there
were 165 women and children were killed in domestic violence. The figure
increases to 230 when you add male victims of domestic violence – the
majority of which were suicides by the domestic violence perpetrator.
A woman is 12 times more likely to be murdered if a gun is in the house.
Not that the HarperCons seem to care about women's lives, unless they are female fetuses.
Just saying, you know?
Image: By Botero, of course.
Ooopsy Date: Almost forgot this bang-on op-ed by The Montreal Gazette's Peter Wheeland!
I thought it was just me but, judging from comments on my Facebook page, it's not.
There is indeed a lot of victim-shaming going on in the alleged domestic assault case involving Belleville, On. Police Chief Cory McMullan.
To recap quickly, two weeks ago, Chief McMullan, whose arm is still in a cast, admitted that she was the
victim of domestic violence. The small town was rife with rumours of the incident and, basically, she had no choice but to come out.
Without going into specifics, she said, “I do wish to let the citizens of Belleville know that the incident did result in injuries which required medical treatment.”
Her husband David McMullan, a 53-year-old retired police officer, has been charged with assault and released on a promise to appear in court Sept. 30. The couple has two teenaged children.
Residents in this city of 50,000 were busy trading tales on Wednesday about what triggered the incident last Friday.
Mayor Neil Ellis lashed out at those who would spread “gossip and innuendo.”
“We have a victim who needs community support and that’s where this should be going,” he said during an interview in his office.
Gossip is common in any politician’s life, he said. “I don’t pay attention to rumours.”
Surrounded by pictures and mementoes of his wife and three children, Ellis said he doesn’t know McMullan well and only “as the chief of police.” The 24-year policing veteran has held the position for just over a year.
“It is shocking,” he said of the attack. “No one can really make sense of any type of abuse, especially if it causes physical injury. This shows it can happen in any household.”
“The important thing here,” he added, “is Cory, er, the chief and the chief’s family. We have to support her and stand behind her.”
Now the buzz is Chief McMullan and Mayor Ellis were doing the horizontal mambo -- which could have been what, for lack of a better word, provoked husband David. Here's one account:
Mayor Neil Ellis admitted he was with Chief Cory McMullan the night she was allegedly attacked by her husband, but said it was completely innocent.
After two weeks of rumours circulating the town, Ellis said he had to speak out because it was starting to take a toll on his family.
<SNIP>
Ellis, who shows no signs of having been attacked, admitted he was with McMullan the night of the alleged assault, but that she was just giving him a ride home.
On Aug. 6, a Friday night, he said he took his daughter to the movies and returned home shortly after 9 p.m., before driving his car back to the theatre and leaving it there for his son who works at the mall.
He began walking to a friend's house, when the chief pulled up and asked if he wanted a ride. He said she wanted to discuss city business.
The mayor said as they were driving, he looked in the rearview window and "someone just came flying in at about 90 miles per hour."
Ah yes, the proverbial loaded question. Here's what I mean: When headlines say somebody ''denies'' doing something, the implication is that the somebody was doing it -- ''doing it'' being the operative phrase in this case.
Now, I ask you. What was the point of these stories? Titillation? Justification?
Judging from some of the discussion on my Facebook page ... well ... here ...
Sounds to me like the Mayor was crewing (sic) the Police chief behind her husbands back, he found out, she pushed his buttons causing him to do something stupid and now they pretend nothing happened. What am I missing here?
And my response, expletive and name deleted:
Ah so she deserved to have her arm broken, xxx? She ''pushed his buttons?''
She ''caused'' him to do something stupid?
And you ask what you are missing?
xxx almighty.
The old crime of passion line. The one that justified murder once upon a time. She supposedly is responsible for having her arm broken because he presumably thought she was cheating on her.
Okay.
Rather than conduct some real journalism, or delve into the very real problem of high rates of domestic violence in police families, the media preferred to get into that were-they-or-weren't-they scenario, as if it was in any way, shape or form relevant.
Two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, (1, 2) in contrast to 10% of families in the general population.(3) A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24% (4), indicating that domestic violence is 2-4 times more common among police families than American families in general. A police department that has domestic violence offenders among its ranks will not effectively serve and protect victims in the community.5, 6, 7, 8 Moreover, when officers know of domestic violence committed by their colleagues and seek to protect them by covering it up, they expose the department to civil liability.7
The female officer is under intense pressure to conceal any trouble in her personal life, especially domestic violence. There is a strong cultural stigma against an officer being a victim. It may be rare that advocates receive a request for assistance from a female officer. When they do, however, they should see this as an indication that the abuse has escalated to an extremely volatile point, as many police officers would approach an advocate only as a last resort....
Let's face it. Police work can be highly stressful, and it can also be very violent. Cops can develop some very bad coping mechanisms.
Would that not have been better reporting?
Or am I just overly sensitive to how violence against women gets brushed aside, or to the back pages, unless there's a celebrity element to it?
While we're on the subject, Here's a brand new campaign in the U.K. It urges people not to ignore domestic violence but to call the police.
When you think about it, the issue of domestic violence has been ignored this month -- by the media.
UPPITY WOMAN DATE: I suddenly remembered where I found all that research about violence in police households. My friend Jude posted on my Facebook profile two weeks ago. Thanks GF!
Longtime readers -- and I do appreciate your loyalty and patience during my absence from the blogosphere
-- know that I have bitched loud and often about how US/Canada/NATO have used and abused women and their (human) rights as an excuse to continue the war in Afghanistan.
Oh, it's never about the oil, the pipelines, the mineral rights, the regional hegemony, or anything like that. No no. It's always about the women. Save the women. Think of the women. Even though Afghan women themselves have decried the current corrupt regime as well as the continued oppression of women which appears to have been stepped up because of the war.
Even though there have been numerous occasions when NATO has allowed women to be sold out.
The Taliban pounded on the door just before midnight, demanding that Aisha, 18, be punished for running away from her husband's house. Her in-laws treated her like a slave, Aisha pleaded. They beat her. If she hadn't run away, she would have died. Her judge, a local Taliban commander, was unmoved. Aisha's brother-in-law held her down while her husband pulled out a knife. First he sliced off her ears. Then he started on her nose...
Now you would think I would be all for the exposure of the terrible treatment of women in Afghanistan, and that I would be cheering on the NATO foot soldiers who are dying because they believe they are fighting to make things right in that blighted country.
The thing is that I am all for these things and more. Much more.
But here's the other bigger thing. If the west gave a rat's tail about women's rights, it would also be in the Congo where women are being gang-raped daily in the fight for, among other things, the minerals that go into our iPods and mobile phones. It would not be in bed with the Saudi Arabian sexist apartheid state where women are chattel. It would not be bombing Afghan women and children, making the occupation worse and worse for them everyday.
And besides, wasn't the ostensible real purpose for going there in the first place to find the terrorist masterminds behind 9/11? (And let's not forget Prime Minister Stephen Harper's March 2006 speech about how our soldiers were also there to halt the drug trade.)
I don't know what the answer to Afghanistan's problem is but I do know that it doesn't come in the form of drones, tanks and fighter jets.
My principle -- and principal ;-) -- objection to this cover story is how it EXPLOITS the mutilation
of a beautiful young woman to promote the continued war that really,
let's not kid ourselves, has nothing to do with women's rights. I mean,
come on. And I am not the only one who says that.
... worth mentioning: the girl on the cover was attacked not in long
ago days of Taliban rule but with tens of thousands of U.S. troops in
the country.
I have to ask: In Time's mission to really "illuminate
what is actually happening on the ground" has it ever put on its cover
close-up images of 1) a badly wounded or dead U.S. soldier 2) an
Afghan killed in a NATO missile strike 3) an Afghan official, police
officer or military commander accepting a bribe from a Taliban war
lord. Alison Kilkenny has her own examples here.
No one makes light of the plight of women and children in Afghanistan
under the Taliban--and, contrary to (Time editor Rick) Stengel's claim, many Americans do
know about it. Indeed, liberal women's groups in the U.S. have raised
the issue often and expressed mixed feelings about staying (or even
escalating) in Afghanistan because of it. It's a serious issue. And
please see the response to Time by the Feminist Peace Network. Jezebel with another good take here.
Something tells me that no one at a the magazine's editorial meeting suggested a "What Happens if We Stay in Afghanistan" cover headline, which would have been accompanied by a photo of the corpse of an Afghan child killed in an airstrike or a house raid.
Finally a few words from, you know, an actual Afghan woman, Sonali Kolhatkar, author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. She is also co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a U.S.-based nonprofit that supports women's rights activists in Afghanistan. (via The Institute for Public Accuracy).
This is the same type of justification that the Soviets used (among
others) to explain why they should remain in Afghanistan: to save Afghan
women from the 'backward' fundamentalists. Foreign armies have always
sought to protect Afghan women from violence by fomenting violence
themselves. But in the end, just like the Soviets did backroom deals
with radical misogynist groups, the U.S. has been empowering non-Taliban
misogynist fundamentalists since the start of this war. There are
incidents happening every day in Afghanistan of women and girls being
harassed, raped, flogged and killed by pro-U.S. warlords and local
commanders that are not working with the Taliban -- these incidents are
rarely covered by the Western media. In many ways the U.S. occupation
has actually made things worse for Afghan women. Afghan women activists I
work with prefer to resist two threats to their security (the Taliban
and the U.S.-backed central government) instead of three (the third
being the U.S./NATO occupation) and have long called for U.S. forces to
leave. Time magazine is playing to age-old racist stereotypes: that
brown women need a foreign white army to save them from their men.
What a difference it would make in Afghanistan if, instead of spending hundreds of billions on bombs, we just gave all the money to the women and let them build a better society for everybody there.
For those who have not kept up with this sordid story, the former megastar (Braveheart) -- who already has been in trouble several times for using his mouth as a Lethal Weapon -- has been apparently caught berating his former girlfriend Russian musicianOksana Grigorieva, the mother of their baby daughter, in the most abusive and profane language imaginable.
In the course of the nearly four minute recording, Gibson also says, “Yeah, you know what mean is now, don't you? So don't call me mean when I'm nice to you. Because I'd like to show you what mean really is. Bitch, [expletive], whore, gold digger! All true! You [expletive] proved it to me! If you're ever interested in proving otherwise, let me know. If you don't care, I know you know what you are too."
He allegedly goes on: “Look at yourself. And look what you've done. Look what you've [expletive] done! … You [expletive] excuse for a mother. You're a [expletive] bitch!"
I'd link to the YouTubes but my Star overlords would have my bleep-bleep. So let Google be your guide. it won't be difficult, I can assure you.
What's been bugging me about all this is that, judging from these tapes, I see Gibson as just another woman abuser, albeit one who is famous and has a lot of money. The celebrity trash media however have not been connecting the dots, treating this as some kind of oddity, as if Chris Brown never bashed Rihanna, as if Charlie Sheen hasn't been attempting to plead out charges of battering his ex Denise Richards, as if O.J. Simpson ... oh you get the point.
I wasn't gonna say much about it but then I got this email from Dr. Molly Dragiewicz, Assistant Professor of Criminology in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
The release of the tapes of (what appear to be) Mel Gibson's abusive and threatening speech is an opportunity to have an informed and serious discussion about woman abuse.
As anyone who works with battered women will tell you, these tapes are a snapshot of garden-variety woman abuse.
Gibson's comments are explicitly based in patriarchal attitudes toward women. He expresses his feelings of entitlement to sexual service, his belief that Grigorieva's resistance to his abusive behavior justifies the abuse, and uses every sexist and dehumanizing slur in the book. At the same time, he sees himself as the victim due to Grigorieva's failure to "treat him like a man" in a submissive way that is satisfactory to him. Far from being extraordinarily monstrous, such comments are typical for men who abuse women. What is exceptional is that this kind of abusive comments have been publicly broadcast when they are usually kept private.
The tapes are a perfect opportunity for those who have never been abused to begin to understand the many reasons that abused women often don't report the abuse: threats of violence & death, financial dependency (especially for abused mothers who have taken time out of paid employment to take on the majority of child care), victim blaming from others, and the threat of losing custody of a child to an abuser.
This is what domestic violence looks like. This is why we need to continue to fund shelters for battered women and address the widespread cultural attitudes and structural factors that continue contribute to men's violence against women in 2010.
This story has been getting a lot of play in the entertainment sections and gossip blogs. it's been treated as titillating and amusing.
But it should be dead serious.
It should be on the front page.
UPPITY WOMAN DATE (19/7/10): Ooops. Got the wrong Charlie Sheen wife. This one is Brooke Mueller.
It just gets worse and worse for the women in Haiti. But, fortunately, some men are stepping up.
Incidentally, Michael Petrou of Maclean's reports that Canadian donations to Haiti relief are not freely flowing. In fact, they're not even dribbling to that disaster zone. Boldface is mine.
“CIDA officials are in close contact with the Government of Haiti and
our humanitarian and development partners to determine the optimal use
of these resources as relief, recovery and reconstruction needs are
further identified. In keeping with its mandate to manage Canadian aid
effectively, CIDA will disburse funds from the HERF as this process
takes place.”
There's been plenty of emailing, tweeting, Facebook posting, blogging and more about International Women's Day, now marking its 100th anniversary. No question women in the west have considerably advanced from being nothing more than chattel to citizens ostensibly enjoying equal rights. (Although, the fight really never ends.)
But the human race and the planet would be far better off if women everywhere had access to reproductive choices and maternal healthcare, education and land and property rights. Instead, they suffer forced marriage, devastatingly early pregnancies, multiple births, crushing burdens of having to look after small children while also walking miles for food, water and kindling ...
Over the past couple of years, since this blog was birthed, I've been pleased to see some of these notions gain traction beyond the usual NGOs. There's a lot of talk. But there seems to be little political action.
Political action is what is needed.
And so, for International Women's Day, I would like to propose you do one thing to help women in one country where we already investing so much blood and treasure.
Orzala Ashraf, a women’s rights activist in Kabul, blames the government: “Laws are clear about crimes but we see big criminals thriving and being nurtured by the state for illicit political gains,” she told IRIN, pointing to the government’s alleged failure to address human rights violations committed over the past three decades of conflict.
“Because no one is put on trial for his crimes, a criminal culture is being promoted: violators have no fear of the law, prosecution and a meaningful penalty,” said Ashraf.
Deep-seated ambivalence to women’s rights is evident from a law signed off by President Hamid Karzai in early 2009: The Shia Personal Status Law, dubbed a ‘rape legalizing law’, was amended after strong domestic and international pressure.
“The first version [of the law] was totally intolerable,” said Najia Zewari, a women’s rights expert with the UN Fund for Women (UNIFEM). “Despite positive changes in the final version, there are articles that still need to be discussed and reviewed further,” she said.
Another example of this ambivalence is the case of the men who threw acid in the faces of 15 female students in Kandahar city in November 2008: Karzai publicly vowed they would be “severely punished” but court officials in Kandahar and Kabul have said they are unaware of the case and do not know where the alleged perpetrators are.
“Judges say the men were wrongly accused and forced to confess,” Ranna Tarina, head of Kandahar women’s affairs department, told IRIN.
Today RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan put out this statement:
Today, on the 8th of March, Afghan women are mourning for the gang-rape of Bashiras and Saimas, for being flogged by most lowed elements, for being auctioned in open market and for their young daughters who put an end to their miserable lives by self-immolation. But the perpetrators of all these crimes are forgiven; therefore they enjoy complete immunity, are still holding their official positions and tightening it through plundering our people and country.
Though we don’t expect anything different from the most corrupt and dirty puppet regime of the world, the pain of Afghan women turns chronic when the world believes that the US and NATO has donated liberation, democracy and human and women rights for Afghanistan; whereas, after eight years of the US and allies’ aggression under the banner of “war on terror”, they empowered the most brutal terrorists of the Northern Alliance and the former Russian puppets – the Khalqis and Parchamis – and by relying on them, the US imposed a puppet government on Afghan people. And instead of uprooting its Taliban and Al-Qaeda creations, the US and NATO continues to kill our innocent and poor civilians, mostly women and children, in their vicious air raids.
<SNIP>
RAWA is eager to get united in solidarity with individuals and forces that are ready to fight for democracy in an independent front against the occupation, the Taliban, Jehadi and Khalqi and Parchami homeland-sellers.
While women of Afghanistan are experiencing a new era of captivity and are in the grip of the fundamentalist monsters, RAWA sends it heartfelt salutations to struggling brave women of Iran, Palestine, Kurdistan, Sudan, Nepal, India and the rest of the world and announces solidarity with them.
So, this is the kind of thing our tax dollars are supporting.
Do I advocate abandoning these people? No. But I do think that we can let our politicians know that this is not acceptable, not under Canada's flag.
Let's begin in the Sunshine state of Florida where Southern Baptist theologian, father of eight and Republican rep Charles E. Van Zant proposes all citizens, especially of the wombanly persuasion, share his upright way of thinking.
Here's his way of thinking though: Rather than punish the maternal units, go after the doctors who perform the evil abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.
An expansive measure to make most abortions illegal in Florida has been filed for the 2010 Legislative session, challenging federal protections in place for more than 40 years.
Both anti-abortion advocates and abortion rights supporters agree the 53-page proposal is an attempt to directly challenge the 40-year-old Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortions in the United States in 1973.
“The Legislature finds that there have been 50 million abortions in the United States since the Roe decision,” the bill reads. “ The Legislature further finds that every life lost to abortion was sacred and of the highest value.”
Sponsored by Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Palatka, HB 1097 would criminalize most abortions now allowed under state and federal law, increase penalties for physicians who perform such services and require pregnant women to receive more information on adoption. The bill was filed Wednesday, the same day that right to life groups made the trek to Tallahassee to meet lawmakers and rally support.
Except in cases where a woman’s life is considered in danger, doctors who perform abortions would face first degree felonies punishable by up to life in prison and civil fines.
Now, it's doubtful this bill will get very far. But you can bet Van Zant will have back-up in the House. And, if they don't succeed this time, they'll try another way to crack this.
By the way: You'll find the comments over at Feministing rather amusing.
On Friday an Oklahoma judge declared a controversial law
unconstitutional that would have enacted a host of new abortion
regulations, including one mandating that detailed demographic and
personal information about women seeking abortions be posted online.
Though pro-choice activists are applauding the decision, it was not
indicative of a dismissal of the regulations themselves. Instead, the
judge knocked down the law due to the fact that it violated Oklahoma’s
"single-subject" rule, which states that each law can only cover one
subject.
The law, which was initially scheduled to go
into effect on Nov. 1, 2009, would have required a woman seeking an
abortion to fill out a 10-page questionnaire asking everything from her
age and marital status to the date of the abortion to the county in
which it took place. That information would then be posted on the
state’s Department of Health website. Proponents of the law say that
names would not have accompanied the statistics. But opponents say the
law was a scare tactic that infringed on women’s privacy, and that
people in small towns in Oklahoma could easily draw conclusions about
identities from even seemingly anonymous information.
Undaunted, the forced birthers are back at the drawing board, drafting, count 'em, four new laws that will get around the technicality.
In other action, the panel passed
four separate abortion measures that previously had been declared
unconstitutional because they had been combined in one bill.
Bills must deal with only one subject.
The panel passed HB 3290 by Rep. Skye McNiel, R-Bristow. It would
require a doctor to be in the room when the abortion pill RU486 is
administered.
The panel also passed HB 2780 by Rep.
Lisa Billy, R-Lindsay, which would require women who seek an abortion
to have an ultrasound and have its contents explained to them.
Rep. Ryan Kiesel, D-Seminole, said the
Legislature should focus on preventing unintended pregnancies rather
than bringing further disgrace and shame to women facing the most
difficult decision of their lives.
Billy responded: “This bill is about
choice for women. It is an opportunity for her to understand what is
growing inside of her and the consequences.”
The panel passed HB 3110 by Rep. Pam
Peterson, R-Tulsa, which would allow health-care providers who object
to abortion not to participate in the procedure.
Peterson’s other abortion bill, HB 3284, also passed.
It would require women who seek abortions to provide a host of information about themselves to be posted on a public Web site.
As if there aren't bigger things to worry about in Oklahoma -- like how one in five actual children live in poverty.
A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this
week
and waiting for the governor's signature, will make it a crime for a
woman to have a miscarriage, and make induced abortion a crime in some
instances.
According Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of National
Advocates for Pregnant Women, what makes Utah's proposed law unique is
that it
is specifically designed to be punitive toward pregnant women, not
those who might assist or cause an illegal abortion or unintended
miscarriage.
The bill passed by legislators amends Utah's criminal
statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for
inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion. The
basis for the law was a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who
was seven
months pregnant, paid a man
$150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. Although the girl
gave birth to a baby later given up for adoption, she was
initially charged with attempted murder. However the charges were dropped because,
at the time, under Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for
attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful.
The bill passed by the Utah legislature would change that. While
the bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, it criminalizes any actions
taken by women to induce a miscarriage or abortion outside of a doctor's care,
with penalties including up to life in prison.
In addition to criminalizing an intentional attempt to
induce a miscarriage or abortion, the bill also creates a standard that could
make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by "reckless" behavior.
Using the legal standard of "reckless behavior" all a district
attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to
cause miscarriage, even if she didn't intend to lose the pregnancy. Drink too
much alcohol and have a miscarriage? Under the new law such actions could be cause for prosecution.
"This creates a law that makes any pregnant woman who has a
miscarriage potentially criminally liable for murder," says Missy Bird,
executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Utah. Bird says there are
no exemptions in the bill for victims of domestic violence or for those who are
substance abusers. The standard is so broad, Bird says, "there nothing in the
bill to exempt a woman for not wearing her seatbelt who got into a car
accident."
Such a standard could even make falling down stairs a
prosecutable event, such as the recent case in Iowa where a pregnant woman who
fell down the stairs at her home was arrested under the suspicion she was trying to terminate
her pregnancy.
Because, Lady, when you're preggers your body is nationalized by the state.
Take Kenya. For 20 years, Kenyans have been working fitfully to
revise their constitution and are now mere weeks away from possibly finalizing
the document. But this milestone in the nation's slow move towards real
democracy may be marred by another human rights calamity. If the constitution
is approved in its current form by the Kenyan Parliament sometime this year,
Kenya will join the inglorious ranks of three nations -- Northern Mariana
Islands, Uganda, and Zambia -- that have prohibited abortion within their
constitution.
The most recent draft of the constitution had solid human rights
protections for women. However, a review by a parliamentary commission resulted
in the evisceration of many of the core democratic constitutional provisions.
This included amending Article 25, which in its original language guaranteed
that "Every individual has the
right to life" (emphasis added).
The wording choice for Article 25 is hardly revolutionary. In
fact, it reflects the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
is consistent with the majority of national constitutions in the world. But
conservative religious groups are not partial to international legal precedence
and many lobbied Kenyan parliamentarians to amend Article 25. Which they did,
and then some.
Article 25 still protects life, but life is now defined as
beginning at conception. Moreover, Article 25 also outlaws abortion. Phrases in
the draft guaranteeing the right to healthcare, including reproductive health
care, and that no one may be refused emergency medical treatment (say, for an
unsafe abortion) were also eliminated from the draft text.
A pregnant 27-year old Nicaraguan woman, "Amelia," with metastatic
cancer has been denied medical treatment on the grounds that it might
harm her baby.
Nicaragua passed a draconian anti-abortion law in 2008 which
criminalizes abortion even in the case of rape or incest or when the
mother's life is in danger. Nicaraguan doctors are prohibited from
treating pregnant women with cancer, HIV/AIDS, malaria and cardiac
diseases, and threatened with prison sentences for providing health
services or information related to abortion.
Amelia has effectively been handed a death sentence by her
government. Each day she is denied treatment, she edges closer to
death; in a tragic irony, she will most likely die before the baby is
even born. Her 10-year old daughter will be left without a mother,
since the Nicaraguan government values the life of an unborn fetus over
that of a mother.
And doesn't that just put the ''life'' in ''pro-life?'' (And if you want to do something to help, please go here.)
... it's not just the preventable deaths of these women,
but the bloody suffering they go through. And their families. And their
soon-to-be-orphaned children.
Yet this is the kind of no-family-planning, no-contraception, no-abortion, misogynist healthcare Steve is promoting.
It's unconscionable.
Indeed.
And, finally, something completely different. Angie the Anti-Theist is having an abortion -- and is documenting it. (Follow the Twitter debate here.)
Prior to conceiving my son five years ago, I was told I would never carry a child to term because of sexual abuse that happened when I was 7- and 8-years-old — and I barely did. I didn’t find out I was pregnant with him until the 21st week, roughly halfway through my pregnancy. When I did find out, I was underweight for the duration of the pregnancy, and I had several other high risk indicators. I did my best to gain weight (it helped that my ex-husband worked at a pizza store).
Even still, I made several trips to the emergency room throughout my last two trimesters. During my eighth month of pregnancy, I actually lost ten pounds due to a pretty horrible stomach virus. It was as if I had no immune system at all while pregnant. I went from having never received IV fluids in my life, to being intimately familiar with the feeling of cold fluids dumping into my veins. And let’s not even get into the other causes of dehydration.
When my son was born, I decided I didn’t want any more kids, in part because I’d learned during my pregnancy that I was a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis, a fatal and painful disease (of which my son was fortunately spared). I don’t regret that decision. My son is happiest when he’s getting one-on-one attention from an adult — he has even manipulated the system at school so that he gets to hang out with his teacher while she eats lunch and the other kids nap! I honestly don’t believe siblings are always a blessing, always friends, or always best for a family.
I know that I can be a damn good mom to the one special needs child I have — he had many health problems when he was younger and he is speech delayed and has a short attention span now — but I don’t know if I could be a good mom to two kids, one or both of whom would have special needs. I know my mom had more children than she could afford or care for, and I don’t want to make the same mistake.
Now, considering all that, I think Angie is entitled to make her own decisions about her own health and well-being, as well as those of her son. But you can be sure that there are millions of people who believe that they have the right to colonize her body.
The U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that out of nearly 1,000 sexual abuse and over 1,500 domestic violence cases reported in Sierra Leone last year, there wasn't a single conviction.
"By the end of her lifespan, nearly all Sierra Leonean women will suffer some form of sexual or gender-based violence," says UNDP's deputy country director Samuel Harbor.
At the same time, nearly 250,000 child soldiers have been recruited in various conflicts worldwide, with girls at particular risk of becoming sex slaves, says the U.N. children's agency UNICEF.
"Violence against women and girls is found in all countries," he says, pointing an accusing finger at all 192 U.N. member states.
Let's just focus on Congo, shall we?
KAIROS has fought long and hard to help rape victims in Congo, pushing for counselling and medical treatment while advocating for the distribution and use of emergency post-exposure contraception as well as anti-retroviral treatment for HIV.
But the Harpocrats fail to see the connection between contraception -- never mind abortion -- and maternal health.
So, as far as they are concerned, those women and girls in the Congo are just going to have to stand and deliver, even if it kills them.
But yeah. Canada's government really cares about maternal health.
Antonia Zerbisias has been a Star columnist since 1989 but has been telling people what she thinks ever since she could open her mouth. Her career ambition as an opinionator dates back to Grade 9 when a cartoon commentary on a teacher resulted in her suspension from high school. The principal sent her home with a note calling her "rude, obstreperous and bold." Her parents were neither amused, nor surprised. Once she was punished for being that way. Now she makes it pay. And, because she can take it as well as dish it out, she wants to hear what you have to say. Fire away!
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