mistersandman: How would you feel if you had to put on a really stupid hat? (comical hat)
[personal profile] mistersandman
Given the building consensus that shackling pregnant women is not only unnecessary--the vast majority are in prison for non-violent crimes in the first place--but degrading to say the least, it was a shock to find out this morning that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill passed by the California Legislature to end shackling of pregnant women in his state.

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When this issue last came up, it was under happier circumstances. I had hoped that out of all the male politicians in America today, Schwarzenegger would be one most sympathetic to reproductive rights, but perhaps you shouldn't believe everything you see on TV?  His veto message is such bullshit, too.  Fortunately, they'll be able to overturn this no problem.


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[personal profile] mistersandman
It's a horrifying thought: Is Sarah Palin progressives' fault? Could it be that we brought this on ourselves?

Anna Holmes and Rebecca Traister think so. As they argued in their New York Times op-ed yesterday, "If Sarah Palin and her acolytes successfully redefine what it means to be a groundbreaking political woman, it will be because progressives let it happen." By not doing enough to nurture their own women leaders, Holmes and Traister say, it was Dems who cleared the way for Palin and her raging pack of grizzlies to maul our politics. Progressives "have done nothing to stop an anti-choice, pro-abstinence, socialist-bashing Tea Party enthusiast from becoming the 21st century symbol of American women in politics."
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But, after being sidelined by the male-dominated McCain campaign, vilified by the left and ridiculed by the media, Palin found a warm embrace among conservative women, who were thrilled to see one of their own enjoy a taste of power for a change. "My experience with Palin's supporters left me alert to the fact that she was building an army of followers—not just scared and angry xenophobes…but women (and men) who felt that their support for this candidate was about an expansion of opportunities for women," Traister writes.

So who's to blame for Palin? Of course, there's no simple, single answer. Perhaps we're all a bit guilty. I'd lay much of the responsibility on the media, for casting her as the Republican starlet and then treating her to a spectacular tabloid meltdown, for celebrating her beauty and earthy charm and then glorying in her every humiliation, and now blasting her every inane tweet into a vast and thought-killing echo chamber. But it's we media consumers who can't stop looking and listening.

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[personal profile] treesahquiche


By Martha Nussbaum

In Spain earlier this month, the Catalonian assembly narrowly rejected a proposed ban on the Muslim burqa in all public places -- reversing a vote the week before in the country's upper house of parliament supporting a ban. Similar proposals may soon become national law in France and Belgium. Even the headscarf often causes trouble. In France, girls may not wear it in school. In Germany (as in parts of Belgium and the Netherlands) some regions forbid public school teachers to wear it on the job, although nuns and priests are permitted to teach in full habit. What does political philosophy have to say about these developments? As it turns out, a long philosophical and legal tradition has reflected about similar matters.

Let's start with an assumption that is widely shared: that all human beings are equal bearers of human dignity. It is widely agreed that government must treat that dignity with equal respect. But what is it to treat people with equal respect in areas touching on religious belief and observance?

Click for a coherent, objective, and secular defense of religious and expressive freedoms! )

[For more on this issue, visit the Times Topics page on Muslim veiling.]

Martha Nussbaum teaches law, philosophy, and divinity at The University of Chicago. She is the author of several books, including "Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality" (2008) and "Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities" (2010).

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This article is a bit lengthier than the ones that I typically post here, but it is definitely worth the read. As a minority woman, I've been uncomfortable with Europe's burqa-banning tendencies, which to me seemed like sexism and bigotry cloaked in something societally acceptable. (Think about it -- male politicians and the majority populace are restricting women's freedoms to dress and practice their faith as they choose "for their own good.") I'm not Muslim, but "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

I've never really been able to articulate my feelings properly, since all someone would have to say is something along the lines of, "Well, it's a security threat," and my argument would fall apart because "I should hope that it'd take more than some cotton covering someone's face to stump a security check if I have to pay all those taxes for Homeland Security" isn't a very solid rebuttal.

I'm glad that Dr. Nussbaum has said exactly what I have wanted to say to those who would pretend that their own intolerance is a noble cause for the greater good.
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[personal profile] mistersandman

When she became a mother, her body was shackled. She gave birth to her son with her ankles shackled to the hospital bed. Arnita remained shackled as she held her son for the first time and while she nursed him. Like Arnita, most mothers behind bars are restrained during labor, delivery and post-delivery as a matter of routine practice in our nation's jails and prisons.

Shawanna Nelson, who was also shackled during labor, brought a lawsuit against the Arkansas Department of Corrections for cruel and unusual punishment. Thanks to her courage and the common sense of a panel of judges, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the shackling of prisoners during labor is unconstitutional.
 

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By Malika Saada Saar, Founder and Executive Director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, a national policy and advocacy organization for vulnerable families.
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This story is almost a year old, I'm posting it because it's a lot more interesting than any I could find reporting the news that Ed Rendell signed a bill that forbids this practice in Pennsylvania.  As it stands, there are still 43 states that allow this barbaric practice.   If you do not live in Vermont, Washington, California, Illinois, New York, New Mexico, or Texas, please contact your local representative.
 

treesahquiche: (Default)
[personal profile] treesahquiche
Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle has moderated a host of policy positions in her transition from a primary candidate to general election contender battling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. One thing she has not backed away from has been her insistence that abortion should be outlawed universally, even in cases of rape and incest.

Click to read the full story. )

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Right, because being brutally violated -- especially by a parent -- is simply a lemon and carrying, giving birth to, and raising a child that has the DNA and face of your rapist is exactly like lemonade.

I call bullshit.
mistersandman: (Default)
[personal profile] mistersandman

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the personal is political. No more so than in the issue of personal appearance.


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[personal profile] treesahquiche
(Trigger warning: semi-graphic depiction of abortion, mention of violent physical and sexual assault)

Dr. X is a physician at a community health center and a medical school faculty member in the Midwest. Health Affairs does not normally publish articles under pseudonyms, but given recent murders of abortion providers and other violent attacks against them, we decided not to publish the physician's real name out of concern for her personal safety. As always, we welcome Narrative Matters essays from varying perspectives.



"This is a clinic where they kill babies!" A woman in a black beret stopped me as I entered an abortion clinic. Pamphlets in hand, she asked me with concern, "Are you pregnant? Do you need help?"

I wasn't pregnant. I was on my way to work.

I went to medical school to promote life. I defined that loosely: I wanted to do what I could to keep individuals healthy so we could be part of loving families and build healthy communities, supporting each other and enjoying being alive. While I was in medical school, a friend became pregnant after date rape, and I supported her through an abortion.

Around that time, I attended a talk at the medical school by the journalist Jack Hitt. He discussed "Who Will Do Abortions Here?" -- his powerful, eye-opening New York Times article from 1998 about the threat to legalized abortion in the United States because of the lack of providers.

Then, as now, the number of abortion providers was dwindling. The number went from 2,680 providers in 1985 to 1,787 in 2005, the latest year for which statistics are available. Hitt described the upcoming retirement of the generation of obstetrician/gynecologists (OB/GYNs) who had watched women bleed to death from botched abortions and had responded to those tragedies by staffing clinics when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.

But no new generation of abortion providers was being trained, Hitt told us. When teaching hospitals merged with religious hospitals where abortions were banned, abortions were no longer done -- or taught -- at the teaching institutions. Other programs began to make abortion training optional: OB/GYN or family medicine residents who wanted the training needed to add it to their already heavy loads of required courses. Threats to the lives of abortion providers and their families dissuaded some practitioners from providing these services, even though they were trained to perform them and the procedure is legal. More than half of all abortion practitioners were past retirement age, Hitt said. One elderly practitioner flew his own plane to reach women in four states -- he was the sole abortion provider in North Dakota -- despite regular death threats.

There are now an estimated 1.5 million abortions each year in the United States, making it the most common surgical procedure. Yet there are fewer and fewer abortion providers available. One-quarter of women needing abortions must travel more than fifty miles for the procedure; 6 percent must travel to another state. During my medical training, I saw many women with an unwanted pregnancy, and I witnessed wide variation in the options that doctors offered patients in that situation.

Click for the full essay. )

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Reposted from this community's LiveJournal counterpart.

This is an issue that's extremely important to me, not only because I'm a feminist. Even though I grew up after Roe v. Wade, I know too well what the consequences of not having access to safe and legal abortions are. My grandmother was a prenatal surgeon who was relocated by the Chinese government to a labor camp during the Cultural Revolution; my mother worked in one of the largest hospitals in Shanghai (the one where I was born in) and, as a pharmacist and clinician, assisted in several medical abortions. After immigrating to the United States, my life would have been very different if, while my family was still struggling to make ends meet as strangers in a strange land, my mother did not have access to a safe, legal, and affordable abortion.

It makes me very sad that a woman's right to choose is even an issue for political debate in this country, which touts itself as the land of the free and home of the brave.

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