The Life of the Mother

In 2012, people were horrified when a woman named Savita Halappanavar died in an Irish hospital from infection as a consequence of miscarriage at 17 weeks.  There was no question that the fetus would not survive, but Irish law was adamant that until the fetus was actually dead, or the mother nearly dead, they could not terminate the pregnancy.  Mark you, there was no chance of survival for the fetus at this point. But still they waited, until the infection from the dying fetus became sepsis and killed the mother.

In court, this was ruled "medical misadventure".  One specialist said that if they had terminated the pregnancy a day or two earlier, it would have saved the mother's life.  This disdain for a woman's life sparked calls for reform of Irish abortion laws.

Turns out that Roman Catholic hospitals in this country  do the same thng.  This report from Michigan details 5 women in similar condition to Savita.  It's just lucky none of them died. My emphasis:

All five women, the report says, had symptoms indicating that it would be safest for them to deliver immediately. But instead of informing the women of their options, the report says, or offering to transfer them to a different hospital, doctors – apparently out of deference to the Mercy Health Partners’ strict ban on abortion – unilaterally decided to subject the women to prolonged miscarriages.  

As a result, the report claims, several of the women suffered infection or emotional trauma, or had to undergo unnecessary surgery. None of the women were pregnant beyond 24 weeks, when an infant can survive outside the womb. 

The report has not previously been made public. And it offers a disturbing look at how religious restrictions may interfere with emergency care. Catholic control of US hospitals has ballooned in the last 15 years, and with it, patient advocates warn, the risk that the US Bishops’ bans on abortion, contraception and sterilization will prevent thousands of women from receiving critical healthcare.

What these tragic cases all have in common is a Roman Catholic mandated disdain for the lives of women over a dead or dying infant--and in all cases, this a wanted child.  It ultimately treats women as a container and if she dies along the way (along with her fetus, we might add, because the baby's death is inevitable in these cases), oh so sad too bad.  Better that, than a woman survives a tragic loss and perhaps has another child.  Better that, than she survives to take care of her other children.  And it's this disdain that is so frightening.

Now, people of good will can reasonably disagree about limits on abortion (vilifying one another is not helpful so behave yourselves in the comments).  The majority of Americans agrees that abortion should be legal, at least under some circumstances, even if they personally do not think it's moral. Generally, people are more comfortable with abortion in the first trimester,  as early as possible, or in case of rape or incest.  (Aside: The rape-incest exception is logically inconsistent if you are a pro-lifer, however:  a baby is a baby, right?  However, the majority is very clear that abortion in this case is okay). Most are comfortable with increasing restrictions later on.  And, Americans strongly believe that it should be legal if the woman's physical life is endangered. So then, I guess the question is, how endangered does endangered have to be?  And the answer is, ask Savita's husband.

I don't think women get abortions on a whim.  Some of the most heartbreaking abortion stories were collected by Andrew Sullivan about women whose most wanted child turned out to have life-ending defects, or who had severe medical challenges to the mother, that made abortion a necessary and very painful medical choice. These should be read.  I would never, ever want the government to interfere with a woman's right to that choice and her own bodily integrity.   (Aside:  Of course, if you want to reduce women choosing abortions for other than health reasons, then reduce unwanted pregnancy by providing decent sex education and contraceptive access, and provide educational and economic opportunities for women and their families.  Family leave and day care,  decent jobs and education for example.  Otherwise, as Sr Joan Chittister writes, you are pro-birth, not pro-life.)  

Meanwhile, there's another tragedy blooming in South and Central America, where Zika virus is linked to increased microcephaly:  children born with abnormally small heads. (BTW, it is not caused by a pesticide; so don't go there.)  This may have little effect on the child, or lead to profound developmental defects-- impossible to tell.  Countries like El Salvador have recommended that women not get pregnant till 2018, which is not realistic in a poor predominantly Roman Catholic country with poor contraceptive access, and criminalization of abortion.  You really think the men of El Salvador are going to forgo sex for 2 years? And impoverished women with poor healthcare access, just how will they raise a disabled child? And so terrified women who are already pregnant are seeking chemical abortions. 

You know, here's the challenge for the pro-birth side to prove that they're really pro life.  Don't want to see abortion?  Get boots on the ground in Central and South America to provide contraception. (Even the Pope agrees.)  And provide care for pregnant women and support for raising potentially severely disabled children.

Otherwise, both of these examples simply show religiously-justified disdain for the rights, health and lives of women.

The Politics of Abortion

Two news notes for today.

First, a New Mexico lawmaker (a woman, no less) proposes that women who conceive from rape cannot have an abortion because the conception is evidence.

House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence."

“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime," the bill says....

“The bill turns victims of rape and incest into felons and forces them to become incubators of evidence for the state,” [Pat Davis of ProgressNow New Mexico] said. “According to Republican philosophy, victims who are ‘legitimately raped’ will now have to carry the fetus to term in order to prove their case.“

Then, in Annals of Hypocrisy, the lawyers for a Catholic hospital have declared that 7-month fetuses are not persons...not if the hospital is being sued for their wrongful death, that is.

Toward those ends, Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Those rules have stirred controversy for decades, mainly for forbidding non-natural birth control and abortions. ...

But when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

So, if you don't want the baby it's a person, and if you do want it, it's not....at least, not if it costs the Church money.

Head spinning?

Republican misogyny is revealed (updated)

I continue to be shocked at the deep misogyny expressed by the Republican right wing and their elected officials.  It's a complete disdain for women.

We've had to deal with the repulsive language of Rush Limbaugh in describing a woman with whom he disagreed.  The disdain for women in the fallout from that, in the views of his supporters, is palpable.    They really see us as nothing but sexual receptacles.

And then,  if it is not bad enough that the Republicans want all employers to be able to deny insurance coverage for contraception  (see "Blunt Amendment"), now in Arizona, lawmakers propose a rule where a woman can be fired if she wants to buy contraception unless she exposes her medical history to her employer.

Arizona legislators know that whether or not her insurance covers it, a woman may get the prescription she needs to prevent an unintended pregnancy. They want to give her boss the right to control that too. The bill they are pushing would not only allow employers to take the insurance coverage away, but it would also make it easier for an employer who finds out that his employee uses birth control to fire her. You heard me right . . . to fire her.

This is a breathtaking invasion of privacy and personal dignity.  It is not my employer's business how I comport myself in my personal life--except, apparently, in Arizona.

But why are we surprised?  Laws proposing mandated ultrasounds for women seeking abortion exist (and are being proposed) in many states, including transvaginal ultrasound in some cases.  That's right, before seeking a legal medical procedure, these states demand that a woman undergo an invasive procedure in which a hard plastic wand is thrust inside her, whether she wants it or not.  We have a word for that:  it's rape, and its intention is to inform women that their uterus belongs to the state, not to her,  and to shame her.  As one editorial wrote,

This isn't about whether abortion is right or wrong. 

This is about the scope of government. Even those opposed to abortion should have qualms about the government mandating medical procedures and waiting periods. 

Under any other circumstances, forcing an unwilling person to submit to a vaginal probing would be a violation beyond imagining. Requiring a doctor to commit such an act, especially when medically unnecessary, and to submit to an arbitrary waiting period, is to demand an abrogation of medical ethics, if not common decency.

Never mind that data show women given ultrasounds prior to abortion do not change their minds. As with the discredited myth that abortion is linked to breast cancer, opponents have no problem ignoring actual data.  The outcry has even reached the Doonesbury cartoon.

In Kansas, a law is proposed to protect doctors if they lie to a woman about the health status of her fetus.  In otherwords, don't tell her if she has a severely disabled child.  Don't give her any reason to consider a legal medical procedure to terminate a pregnancy.  But there's nothing in the bill to provide support to a family who discover their child has a devastating permanent disability.  Hey, those are the breaks, right?

But as a Georgia lawmaker points out, women are like cows and pigs.  So what if her fetus is dead? She should still carry it to term, just like happens out on the farm.  Yup, even if she knows her body is harboring a corpse, she can't do anything about it.  No matter that

recommending continuing a non-viable pregnancy is a violation of the standard of care, meaning the Georgia Representative would like to legislate medical malpractice standards

Then there's the constant battle against Planned Parenthood, an organization that is the primary caregiver for many women in this country, providing cancer screenings and contraception in addition to birth control.  The Komen fiasco was a wakeup call, but "defunding Planned Parenthood" remains a Republican litmus test and rallying cry (which would-be nominee Mitt Romney just joined).

But it's not enough we should be barefoot and in the kitchen, pregnant. The Republicans are also opposing renewal of the Violence Against Women Act because they don't think women, immigrants or same sex couples should be protected from domestic violence.

At a closed-door Senate Republican lunch on Tuesday, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska sternly warned her colleagues that the party was at risk of being successfully painted as antiwoman — with potentially grievous political consequences in the fall, several Republican senators said Wednesday.

Gee, ya think?

The party that opposes government involvement in nearly anything actually endorses government intrusion into the lives of women.  Because, after all, we're only women.  The outrageous efforts continue to add up.  And the deep misogyny all this expresses is also supported by paternalistic conservative Christian denominations.  It's all very Handmaid's Tale, isn't it?

Heck, they even brought out SWAT teams in Virginia to deal with a non-violent protest against the attack on women's rights.  Funny, no SWAT teams when the Tea Party shows up with guns threatening violence against the president.

I'd like to see powerful women on both sides of the aisle, as well as men and women of faith, speak out vocally against these attacks on the dignity and self-determination of women.

Women have had the franchise to vote for less than100 years in this country.  Let's make sure we exercise it before they take that away as well.


Update:  It keeps going on.  Texas (land of Rick Perry) refuses to allow funding to go to Planned Parenthood.  Since they are not allowed to discriminate between providers, this means that TX will lose its entire medicaid funding for family planning.  But hey, they're  women, right?

[T]he state broke federal Medicaid rules by discriminating against qualified family planning providers and thus would be losing the entire program, which provides cancer screenings, contraceptives and basic health care to 130,000 low-income women each year.... 

According to Medicaid law, Mann said, a state cannot restrict women's ability to choose a provider simply because that provider offers separate services -- in this case, abortion -- that aren’t even paid for by the Medicaid program.

(Cartoon from here)

Who really defends the Constitution? (update)

Following upon on Chris Christie's veto of marriage equality in New Jersey, and the remarkable idea in contravention to the Constitution that a minority should have its rights voted on by the majority: Andrew Sullivan points out how the minority opposed to marriage equality keeps changing the rules, and can't even manage to be consistent in their "pro-Constitution" views. (My emphasis)

They moved the goalposts on us. When we actually began to win in state legislatures, such as California (twice!), or New Hampshire, or now Maryland and New Jersey and Washington State, that process became suddenly unacceptable - and undemocratic! - as well. Even on an issue many hold to be a core civil right, we were told the courts were irrelevant and now that the legislatures were irrelevant. This was particularly odd coming from conservatives who at one point in time were strong believers in restraints on majority tyranny. But this is what a legislative debate can do that no referendum can, and it's why the founders established a republic not a pure democracy:

...But the way in which a tiny 2- 3 percent minority seeking basic civil equality has been forced now to be subject to state referendums, even after winning legislative victories, strikes me as revealing. It's basically an attack on representative government, a resort to the forms of decision-making which maximize the potential for anonymous bigotry and minimize the importance of representative government, a core achievement of Anglo-American democracy, that can help enhance reason of the accountable against the sometimes raw prejudice of the majority.

Christie is a man whose candor I admire in many ways. But this was an act of cowardice and unfairness and a misguided disregard for representative democracy. How many other duly enacted laws must now be sent to the referendum process for final judgment. Why have a legislature at all? And this from the party that claims to defend the Constitution.

Live your life by your own values. Set an example if you choose. But do not, in a representative democratic republic, presume that you can force your views on those who equally passionately, believe differently.

Update: Meanwhile, the Prop8 case will have its next level of appeal to the 9th circuit en banc. And gay couples still can't marry in CA.

The hypocrisy of "religious freedom" in the attack on women

Last week, we were treated to an image from a House hearing on contraception, in which nearly all the speakers were male, and all were opposed to contraception. This battle should have been over 40 years ago, but apparently, men still want the right to decide if women get to control their bodies.

Of course, in keeping with the current right-wing meme, this isn't framed as an issue about contraception, but about "religious freedom". And this applies not just to contraception, but marriage equality and abortion. But it's not about freedom at all. It's about elevating one faith group's views over every other. Not content with expecting their own congregants to live by their doctrine, they want the government to force the rest of us to do so. (Read Catholic writer Gary Will's take down here)

And while we're looking at the disgusting situation of men in Washington deciding what women can do with their bodies, Dahlia Lithwick tells us what the men in Virginia did. (My emphases-- and please do go read the whole thing.)

This week, the Virginia state Legislature passed a bill that would require women to have an ultrasound before they may have an abortion. Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced. Since a proposed amendment to the bill—a provision that would have had the patient consent to this bodily intrusion or allowed the physician to opt not to do the vaginal ultrasound—failed on 64-34 vote, the law provides that women seeking an abortion in Virginia will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. I am not the first person to note that under any other set of facts, that would constitute rape under state law.

And the juxtaposition is striking, as Alex Koppelman writes.

This all makes for an odd spectacle: Republicans in Washington are up in arms over the violation of religious liberty they say is involved in forcing a religious institution to offer insurance that completely covers birth control. But, not far away, their colleagues are working to pass a law that forces a woman to undergo an invasive procedure in order to have an abortion—a law which clearly violates that woman’s liberty, not to mention her person. On that, they seem to be silent.

David Frum sees the same problem,

Freedom for some must be freedom for all, and the rights of churches are most convincingly upheld by those who also uphold the rights of women.

Let's be very clear on the inconsistencies of the fetus fetish brigade. They are not "pro-life" if the life is that of a woman. Here's a searing story from a woman whose placenta ruptured during pregnancy leading to a massive and life-threatening hemorrhage. The only way to save her is to terminate what is an inviable pregnancy.

Everyone knew the pregnancy wasn’t viable, that it couldn’t be viable given the amount of blood I was losing, but it still took hours for anyone at the hospital to do anything. The doctor on call didn’t do abortions. At all. Ever. In fact, no one on call that night did. ….

A very kind nurse risked her job to call a doctor from the Reproductive Health Clinic who was not on call, and asked her to come in to save my life....The doctor who didn’t do abortions was supposed to have contacted her (or someone else who would perform the procedure) immediately. He didn’t. Neither did his students. .... I don’t know if his objections were religious or not; all I know is that when a bleeding woman was brought to him for treatment he refused to do the only thing that could stop the bleeding. Because he didn’t do abortions. Ever.

My two kids at home almost lost their mother because someone decided that my life was worth less than that of a fetus that was going to die anyway. My husband had told them exactly what my regular doctor said, and the ER doctor had already warned us what would have to happen. Yet none of this mattered when confronted by the idea that no one needs an abortion. .... After my family found out I’d had an abortion, I got a phone call from a cousin who felt the need to tell me I was wrong to have interfered with God’s plan. And in that moment I understood exactly what kind of people judge a woman’s reproductive choices.

This "religious freedom" argument is not about freedom at all. At least, not for women.

As the old saying goes, if you can't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?

Redefining rape and attacking women: the Republican Agenda

People elected the Republicans to Congress because they wanted attention paid to jobs and the economy. Instead, the Republicans have voted to eliminate Medicare as we know it, eviscerate government, and are perilously close to defaulting on our debt. Not satisfied with that swatch of attacks on our nation, they have also waged significant attacks on women and women's rights. ThinkProgress tells us that yesterday,

House GOP Unanimously Passes Anti-Abortion Bill That Redefines Rape, Raises Taxes, And Creates Rape Audits.

They claim this prevents federal funding of abortion, but the Hyde amendment assures there is no federal funding. Instead, this bill does the following: redefines rape to require physical violence (because otherwise, she wants it....?) using legislative tricks, increases taxes on women and small businesses by taking away tax credits if they have a health plan that supports abortion; requires the IRS to audit women to prove that any abortion they have is actually due to rape or incest, and bans abortions in DC.

Abortion is a legal medical procedure in this country. People can, and do, passionately disagree on the subject, but it remains a legal medical procedure.

How about in Indiana, where the Republicans in the statehouse say there shouldn't be a rape exemption because women would lie about it.

Lets also see another recent decision about rape, which is sickening-- and not covered in the US Press.

A teenage girl who was dropped from her high school's cheerleading squad after refusing to chant the name of a basketball player who had sexually assaulted her must pay compensation of $45,000 (£27,300) after losing a legal challenge against the decision.

The United States Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a review of the case brought by the woman, who is known only as HS. Lower courts had ruled that she was speaking for the school, rather than for herself, when serving on a cheerleading squad – meaning that she had no right to stay silent when coaches told her to applaud.

She was expelled from the team for refusing to applaud her attacker.

She was 16 when she said she had been raped at a house party attended by dozens of fellow students from Silsbee High School, in south-east Texas. One of her alleged assailants, a student athlete called Rakheem Bolton, was arrested, with two other young men.

In court, Bolton pleaded guilty to the misdemeanour assault of HS. He received two years of probation, community service, a fine and was required to take anger-management classes. The charge of rape was dropped, leaving him free to return to school and take up his place on the basketball team.

We really are moving into the territory of the HandMaid's Tale, where we are required to cheer our rapists and even bear their seed. THis case may turn on the details of the timing, but at the very least, there is a startling amount of insensitivity. More here.

Are these just a few examples, or is there a real anti-women trend in the New Republican (Tea) Party? It seems the latter. Remember the tea party is heavily Evangelical Christian. As Alternet points out,

the press and political watchdogs have been duped into whitewashing the religious zealotry that underlies the GOP's legislative goals. Without a full understanding of those religious beliefs -- and how those beliefs define women and their role as wives and mothers -- we have only a surface understanding of the motivation behind the anti-Planned Parenthood efforts. It is not solely about shutting down Planned Parenthood's federal funding because the organization provides abortion services (indeed federal funding of abortion is already banned by the Hyde Amendment). It's about shutting down Planned Parenthood because it provides contraceptives. That is a target because, as Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has put it, "an arrogant corrupt Washington elite" has "declared war on marriage, on families, on fertility, and on faith." (Emphasis added.)

Even more examples here. Where the Republican party sees women: barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.

Pharmacist denies care to bleeding woman in Idaho

In some states, pharmacists are allowed to refuse to fill a prescription for a drug that may be used for birth control, or for abortion. Technically, they are supposed to provide a referral.

Now, in and of itself, I have a problem with a state licensed professional being allowed to insert THEIR conscience into filling a legal prescription. If you have a state license, seems to me, you agree that you will fulfill the requirements of the position, which is to fill legal prescriptions. Otherwise, we allow a pharmacist to insert their own opinion in giving treatment to blacks, Jews, gays, as well as women. I particularly am aware of this as I have in the past used birth control pills for medical reasons that had nothing to do with contraception--and because I'm a lesbian, contraception is clearly not a concern. SO in some states, a pharmacist could deny me such a prescription even though their "concerns" are completely without foundation.

Be that as it may, nevertheless, some states have decided that pharmacists can opt out of these particular prescriptions.

But now it gets worse. In Idaho, a woman took a prescription used for excessive uterine bleeding to a pharmacist who refused to fill it, because the patient might...might...have had an abortion. She might also have had postpartum bleeding, a "natural" miscarriage, fibroid tumors, or excessive menstrual bleeding for other reasons. And no referral was provided, so she was left without.

The pharmacist is basically saying it's better this woman bleed out just in case she had an abortion. No evidence either way (and under privacy laws, it's none of this pharmacist's business).

Technically, pharmacists are NOT supposed to be allowed to refuse to fill drugs used for treatment, only abortion inducing drugs, and birth control pills. So there may be some consequences.

But doesn't it strike you that this kind of thing starkly highlights a very fundamentalist view of punishment and retribution? It's a version of the death penalty, which denies the possibility of redemption and of forgiveness. And it seems to me that is a very, very dark place for a putative "Christian" to be.