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Child Rape: Not As Bad As Contraception
Raping children is better than using contraception? Raping children is better than ordaining women priests? Raping children is better than using fertility treatments? Raping children is better than aborting a child to save a woman’s life? And priests raping boys is better than homosexuality and gay marriage?
It appears the Vatican thinks so, raising a furor over everything but child rape. That’s right, a nun was excommunicated for saving a woman’s life by allowing an abortion while pedophile priests were simply transferred to new parishes to abuse new children or were, at best, defrocked. Pretty sad when Vatican officials, including the future Pope Benedict, failed to defrock a priest who had molested a couple hundred deaf boys.
When the crimes of pedophile priests are investigated a nation may be rebuked for stifling church autonomy, as happened in Belgium. Or church leaders become defensive, as when Cardinal Timothy Dolan begrudged a global shaming, since only a few priests were involved in the scandal.
Most recently the Vatican admonished nuns for spending too much time caring for the poor, supporting health care reform, confronting bishops and questioning teachings on male-only priesthood — and not spending enough time fighting abortion and homosexuality.
Interesting that, as the Times’ Maureen Dowd put it, “Church leadership never recoiled in horror from pedophilia, yet it recoils in horror from outspoken nuns.”
Most anyone would find the moral priorities outrageous. Nonsensical even.
Yet one thing makes sense of it all (logically, not morally) and that is patriarchy: rule of the fathers, or here, church fathers.
In its earliest manifestation patriarchy meant the rule of old men over young men, boys, girls and women. This is the world that now stands behind Vatican walls. Old men do as they please and young boys take what they get. Old men who know little of the lives and hearts of women allow them no power over parishes, their bodies, or even their own lives should they become threatened by pregnancy. Anything that imperils the patriarchy must be battled. Anything that sustains the patriarchy is just fine.
Old men control all. And in a manner that is not very Christ-like.
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Forced Births in the Bad Old Days
By Mijita @ Daily Kos
Judy was born in 1950 to an Irish Catholic family. When she was 12 her uncle began molesting her.
Like a lot of girls of that time, Judy didn’t understand sex, or what was happening to her. She liked the attention, but felt ashamed and couldn’t talk to her mother. At 13 she started getting sick, not just in the mornings, but all day long. Her mother took her to the doctor, and she learned she was pregnant.
As the doctor and her mom questioned her the truth came out. Judy remembers the doctor being very kind, and as he left he asked the nurse to “talk to her mother.” The nurse told them there was an option to childbirth. Judy’s mother felt that would be the right thing, but wanted to pray about it.
So they went to their parish priest, where her mother tearfully recounted what happened, and warned that if her husband found out, he would kill her brother. She also told the priest about the “other option.”
The priest, who had been kind and comforting, now turned harsh. He warned that abortion was both illegal and a mortal sin. It could not be considered.
And he told Judy that if her father learned of the molestation and hurt or killed her uncle, she would be responsible.
The priest then announced that Judy would be sent to a St. Anne’s, a home for unwed mothers in a city fifty miles away. She would have her baby and give it up for adoption.
Judy was terrified. She didn’t want to have a baby and she didn’t want to be sent away. She cried and begged her mother to let her stay at home. The priest said there was nothing else they could do and that it would be alright.
That night, Judy waited upstairs as her mother told her father the news. He yelled at her mom but never asked how she had gotten pregnant. And in fact, Judy wasn’t entirely sure — her body and sex were outside her understanding.
After the conversation Judy began pleading to see the nurse who had promised to help because she did not want to leave her home. When that failed she threw herself down the stairs, trying to kill herself or the baby. She only broke her arm.
She was sent to St. Anne’s. But because she was suicidal she was not permitted above the ground floor, was not allowed anything long or sharp, and was watched all the time.
But one day she heard some of the girls talking about self-abortion. Desperate, she tried pushing her hand as far inside herself as she could. When she was caught she was made to sleep tied to the bed. And because she was sick, she was kept in bed for most of the last two months.
Giving birth without her mother, in pain and among strangers was agony. She screamed so much that the doctor finally put her under. When she woke up the baby – a boy – was gone. She told the nurses she didn’t want to see him.
After she recovered and went home the pregnancy was never spoken of. And she never felt close to her mother again.
Judy left home the week she graduated from high school, moving as far away from her family as she could get. She never returned and never spoke to them again. She even missed her parents’ funerals.
Her son eventually contacted her through an attorney, but she refused to see him. She didn’t want to tell him he was the product of child rape, incest and forced birth. “Whatever he thinks can’t be as bad at the truth,” she said.
As terrible as the molestation had been, Judy feels that being forced to give birth against her will was far worse. And something, she believes, she will never get over.
She worries about the trend in politics today against contraception and abortion. She does not want other girls to undergo her ordeal.
As Judy told me, “Never, ever again.”
This edited piece was originally posted on Daily Kos and reprinted with permission. Go here to see the full original version.
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Spilling Sperm Harms Unborn, Law Says
by Aviva Dove-Viebahn @ Ms.
Political and cultural debates over contraception and abortion loom large in the news these days, with a notable new twist. Instead of feminists being the butt of ridicule, the tables have turned. Comedians, pundits and even legislators are satirizing the extremism and sexism of anti-woman bills by flipping the gender script. Here are some recent legislative counter-proposalsby women lawmakers:
–In late January, Virginia state senator Janet Howell tacked on an amendment to the proposed transvaginal ultrasound bill requiring that men seeking erectile dysfunction medication submit to a required rectal exam and cardiac stress test at their own expense (mirroring the ultrasound bill’s mandating of an unnecessary medical procedure women seeking an abortion would have to pay for out of pocket). The amendment failed, but only by a narrow margin of 21-19.
–In early February, Oklahoma state senator Constance Johnson, added a “spilled semen” amendment onto the state’s proposed “personhood” bill. Obviously a sardonic protest rather than a true piece of legislation, it would deem “any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina … an action against an unborn child.”
–A week ago, Georgia state representative Yasmin Neal, backed by a group of other women legislators, authored a bill proposing that vasectomies should be made illegal, also in response to legislation restricting women’s access to abortions.
It is patently unfair,” Neal writes, “that men can avoid unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such matters is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly, while women’s ability to decide is constantly up for debate throughout the United States.
What’s particularly smart about these legislative interventions is how they call into question the government’s ability to infringe upon the rights of an entire class of individuals based on the idea that they’re not fit to make decisions for themselves. Remarkably, faced with these inversions of their own restrictive policies, many in the anti-contraception crowd still don’t see the irony. Let’s hope, though, that most Americans do.
This was originally posted on the Ms. Blog
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Rush’s War on Women is No Fluke
Women’s right to contraception has been challenged by Catholic Bishops and members of Congress who voted on a “Blunt Amendment” allowing employers to deny healthcare, like contraception, that they deem immoral. (The amendment was defeated in the U.S. Senate by a mere three votes!)
When Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke told Congress that contraception should be covered by insurance, Rush Limbaugh called her a whore:
What does it say about the college coed Susan Fluke [sic], who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex… she’s having so much sex she can’t afford her own birth control pills and she agrees that Obama should provide them, or the Pope.
If Rush is so vexed at supporting other people’s sex lives, why doesn’t he tackle insurance-covered Viagra too?
By attacking Ms. Fluke as a slut, Limbaugh reveals that he – and other right-wingers — are not concerned with shielding Catholic Bishops’ conscience. No. They seek to control women’s sexuality.
But if Rush can’t limit it, at least he wants to watch (another sort of control). Even as he claims to uphold “conservative values,” he rants:
If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I’ll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.
Since when were “traditional family values” pro-porn?
Rush is all about silencing women: Be afraid of slut-shaming. Be very afraid!
Men can speak out. And Viagra-infused men can enjoy sexuality. But women must not.
Bishops, and employers more generally, must be free to follow their conscience. But women must follow the conscience of Bishops and their employers.
Conservatives claim to guard individual freedom.
Apparently, women aren’t actual people. They don’t count.
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Why Do Right-Wingers Hate Sex?
Why do right-wingers hate sex? And why don’t they want the rest of us to get any? Okay, not all of them. Newt Gingrich, for instance, seems to be a fan. But what he likes isn’t something he’d necessarily want anyone else to do.
Rick Santorum is the reigning sex-hating champ – unless it leads to procreation, of course. He once warned that Satan was using sensuality to attack America and he disagrees with the Supreme Court decision to allow birth control. As columnist Maureen Dowd explains,
(Santorum) believes that America’s soul wounds include men and women having sex for reasons other than procreation, people involved in same-sex relationships, women using contraception… (He feels) contraception is “not O.K. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
Actually, those who lack contraception but don’t want pregnancy could still do anal and oral. Or, men could simply ejaculate on woman’s faces. So a lack of contraception may only encourage sodomy and other “perversities.”
And then there’s Santorum spokesperson, Foster Friess, who insists:
Back in my day, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees.
Or, conservative columnist Ross Douthat helpfully explains, “Monogamy, not chemicals or latex, is the main line of defense against unwanted pregnancies.”
So if a married couple only want two kids, how often should they have sex sans chemicals or latex?
Or how about this guy who responded to a post I wrote saying women should be able to follow their conscience on birth control, and not be bullied by Catholic Bishops:
Where’s the discussion of men’s responsibility to do what they can to control their own passions? Are men just dogs who cannot control themselves?
And does all this repression make the right-wing sex drive reemerge in creepy ways? One bill sought to force women seeking abortions to undergo ultrasounds via vaginal probe. Democratic Delegate Lionell Spruill says this is tantamount to rape: inserting objects into vaginas without consent. Women’s advocates say the procedure is meant to shame women, which is similar to a motive of rapists: degrade the victim.
But why so anti-sex?
Are these just church-going folk who’ve been warned against sexuality their whole lives?
Some worry uncontrolled passions will harm the social fabric: children bearing children… unwanted babies. But that’s what contraception is for. As conservative columnist David Brooks admits, despite more sexually liberal attitudes, teen pregnancy rates are down, abortion is down, and crime is down. “There are problems with the social fabric,” he says, “but they no longer have to do with the sexual revolution.”
Others think right-wingers simply cling to clarity and order, and crave control (a common bent among extreme conservatives). And indeed, some may feel a sense of power in controlling women’s bodies. They may gain a sense of control by reigning in the flesh and wild sexuality of themselves and others. And, they can gain a sense of clarity and structure by seeing women and men as different, each in their separate spheres with men on top and women below, barefoot, pregnant, and obeying men.
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Rick Santorum: Über-Religious but Lacks Humanity
Presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, thinks contraception is a danger to the country. He apparently feels the same about federal aid for the disabled. And the government should place limits on our wants and passions, he says. After all, gay sex is the same as incest or “man-on-dog” sex.
Other candidates bait the extreme right with nutty social issues but as Maureen Dowd points out, they do it “because it’s good politics; Santorum sincerely means it. His political philosophy is infused with his über-Catholicism but lacks humanity.”
Santorum wants to cut back on federal aid for the disabled. Instead, family, friends and neighbors can help.
But what if friends and family can’t afford the cost? Or refuse? If some suffer and die, well, too bad.
On another note, gays and lesbians must live lives of loneliness because God created marriage for procreation. Aside from the fact that many straight people have not procreated, what good comes from inflicting widespread loneliness?
And few Christians agree with Santorum on birth control. More than 99% of sexually active women have used contraceptives at some point. Birth control can even save lives when women’s bodies cannot tolerate pregnancy.
Many pursue religious ideals without humanity. The Spanish Inquisition tortured those who dissented. European and American religious zealots burned, crushed, and hung thousands of women accused of being devil worshiping witches. In parts of the Middle East today women are eagerly stoned to death.
I know some who are downright mean, but they won’t play cards, and especially not on Sunday, because that’s against their religion.
These individuals follow the letter of the law without catching its spirit, as if a selfish concern for their own rule-bound salvation trumps loving their neighbor.
Yet the greatest commandment of the Christian faith is to love God and second is like unto it: love your neighbor. I don’t see a whole lot of love in Santorum’s pious mindset.
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Should Organized Religion Have More Rights Than Women?
Right now Catholic Bishops, charities, schools and universities are demanding exemptions from new rules requiring that insurance plans cover contraception for women, free of charge.
And President Obama is listening, even as Congressional Democrats object.
The demand for exemptions is based on moral and religious grounds. Religious rights, it’s claimed. But about women’s religious rights? When women’s moral and religious beliefs conflict with the Catholic Church, why should the church win out?
Free contraception leads to healthier babies, too. The Institutes of Medicine recommended free birth control due to compelling evidence that it leads to healthier women and babies.
Women with unintended pregnancies are more likely to receive delayed or no prenatal care and to smoke, consume alcohol and be depressed during pregnancy. Unintended pregnancy also increases the risk of babies being born preterm or at a low birth weight, both of which raise their chances of health and developmental problems.
And when birth control is free, abortion rates drop too.
Then there’s the whole matter of financial survival. Poor women might want to avoid the poverty that can come from extra mouths to feed. And those who are better off might want to have only the number of children that they can afford.
Looking at the country’s finances, free contraception is a good deal, as well. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned, and one factor is the high cost of birth control. And unplanned pregnancies cost U.S. taxpayers more than $11 billion a year. Because of this, every dollar spent on birth control by California’s Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment program resulted in approximately $4 savings.
But returning to the question of religion, aren’t we supposed to sacrifice for our own religious beliefs, rather than asking everyone else to sacrifice for our religion?
So I ask again:
Why should organized religion have more rights than women?
Reposted on the Ms. Magazine Blog, Daily Kos, The AlterNet, Democratic Underground and Political Mosaic.
Also republished on Daily Kos by Feminism, Pro-Feminism, Womanism: Feminist Issues, Ideas, & Activism and Street Prophets .
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Corporations Are People; Women Not So Much
Mississippi’s measure seeking to grant a fertilized egg the status of “person” was defeated at the ballot box last week. Unfortunately, personhood advocates still plan to put the matter up for vote in five more states. Perhaps the next step should be granting women personhood.
Because as it is, personhood advocates feel that fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses should have more rights than women.
If a fetus threatens its mother’s health and she aborts (in self-defense) to save her life, she should be called “murderer”? But if the fetus is linked to her death, that’s okay? Why not prosecute fetuses, too?
Factories have excluded women from earning a living so that no harm will come to an embryo. But if a woman starves from lack of income, that’s all right?
And why are women prosecuted for poor nutritional choices if pregnancy ends in stillbirth, yet when actual women lack proper nourishment, many of the personhood advocates back cutting nutritional assistance?
Why must a woman be forced to undergo surgery for the sake of her fetus, and risk prosecution if she doesn’t, yet if she can’t afford surgery to save her own life, well, too bad?
When a fetus, embryo or a fertilized egg’s rights conflict with a woman’s, why does she lose?
A pal of mine who goes by the name, lineatus, recommended that women regain control by incorporating their uteruses. The Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people. Why not women?
Plus, “It would be easier to get insurance,” lineatus continued. “You could get a nice group rate for your corporation, rather than the extortionate individual plan.”
“True,” I interjected, “And if women were people like corporations, and were thought to require the same level of freedom that extreme right-wingers think markets do, then women could finally be free.”
If corporations are people, and if some are struggling to make fertilized eggs people, shouldn’t women be recognized as people, too?
Crossposted @ Daily Kos and republished by Feminism, Pro-Feminism, Womanism: Feminist Issues, Ideas, & Activism and Abortion
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Markets Must Be Free; Women Must Be Constrained
Right wingers adamantly proclaim that free markets are necessary for freedom. So why do so many of these liberty lovers insist that women be constrained?
The right has been relentlessly pushing laws that limit women’s autonomy. The most extreme measure is on the November ballot in Mississippi. There, voters may amend the state constitution to define a “person” as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”
If this law passes, a woman would not be able to get an abortion even in cases of rape, incest, or if her life were in danger. Miscarriage could become a police investigation. And at least some (possibly all) forms of contraception would become illegal.
Similar measures are being planned for future elections in Florida, Montana, Ohio and at least five other states.
Slate’s XX Factor reports on the consequences of such a law being passed in Mexico:
The main result has been a doubling down in the criminalization of women who have abortions, or even miscarriages… The penalties for a woman who has an abortion range from six months to four years.
XX Factor goes on to report that one woman got a 23 year sentence for what she says was a miscarriage. Now consider that about one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage. (In the U.S. today women are prosecuted for stillbirths, even when prosecutors lack direct evidence linking poor health choices to the stillbirth.)
Personhood activist, Ed Hanks, says society isn’t comfortable yet with punishing women and their doctors for abortions, “because abortion has been ‘normalized.’” He hopefully adds, “As the Personhood message penetrates, then society will understand why women need to be punished just as surely as they understand why there can be no exceptions for rape/incest.”
When women aren’t being limited by penitentiary walls – or by their own deaths – another prison arises when contraception is banned – a goal pushed by plenty of conservatives. Some abusive men even destroy contraception hoping to trap wives or girlfriends into dependency by their need to care for children.
Last summer I wrote of despots who controlled women’s reproductive rights. But it bears repeating:
The 20th century’s most loathsome regimes focused on controlling women’s reproduction. The Nazis closed family planning centers and outlawed abortion, eventually making it a capital offense, says Steven Conn, Associate Professor of History at Ohio State. Stalin banned abortion. Ceausescu outlawed contraception and made miscarriage subject to criminal investigation. Today China forces abortion and sterilization. Conn observes:
The day after the evil Ceausescu had been executed, the National Salvation Front issued two decrees; it lifted the ban on the private ownership of typewriters, and it repealed the laws that policed pregnant women.
America’s right-wing extremists look eerily similar to these despots, lending an ironic twist to their claim of being all about freedom through free markets.
Markets must be free. But women must be controlled?
Reposted on Daily Kos November 7, 2011
Also republished in Daily Kos by Feminism, Pro-Feminism, Womanism: Feminist Issues, Ideas, & Activism, Pro Choice, and Community Spotlight.
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Sources of Power in Relationships
There are many sources of power in relationships, but a few stand out:
1. Higher education, income, and occupational status, especially in marriage relationships when men make more money. Both partners tend to feel that a man should have more say since he contributes greater resources to the family.
When wives are economically dependent and fear they can’t support themselves, husbands can become especially powerful. Some abusive men purposely get their wives pregnant (by destroying their birth control) to increase their wives’ dependency – and their control over their partners.
Women are less likely to become more powerful when they make more money because they generally don’t want to diminish their partners.
2. Relationship options. Perhaps a woman is economically dependent, but she is beautiful and she knows it. She also knows that if she leaves the relationship, she can quickly find someone else. This gives her a lot of clout.
3. Traditional gender roles. People who hold traditional notions about gender are more likely to accept male authority. While our society has achieved greater equality, men still typically have a bit more power in relationships.
Interestingly, young men today more often say they prefer equal partnerships.
4. Strong personalities. Even among the traditional-minded, some women just have stronger personalities. The couple will often deem the man, “head of home” when really, the woman is in charge.
5. Whoever cares least about the relationship has more power because the partner who cares more is more likely to cave in.
There are two ways of looking at this. On the one hand it may simply be a sad, but true, fact of life.
Yet there may be some poetic justice. If one person is poorly treated, he or she will be more likely to leave. And this can create an incentive to change. If the relationship moves back into a better balance of happiness, equality can be regained.
This was origninally posted Sept. 22, 2010
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