stillbirth

No Wonder We Have Nothing in Common: Anti-Abortion Activists Think Fetuses are People But Their Own Living Children Aren't

Posted by figleaf on Tue, 2011-04-26 08:48

Robin Marty produces yet another demonstration of the complete lack of seriousness of the "pro-life" movement.  (Emphasis mine.)

I've read enough anti-choice literature now to know that if you are against abortion, at the moment of conception you now have a separate and unique individual.  That's how personhood works, and those are the words that doctors are expected to recite to you if you want to obtain an abortion in certain states.

But that only counts inside the clinic.  On the sidewalk, it's a different story, one clinic escort shares:

"Yesterday, the clinic had to call the police (again) because the protesters had (again) violated the terms of the injunction. There were four women on the sidewalk and together they had three kids in strollers. In my world, four plus three equals seven. When told they were violating the injunction, they argued that "four people" did not include children."

Source: RHRealityCheck.org

Oh, and speaking of failures to take "life begins at conception" seriously, I still haven't heard back from the smug "fetal harm" vigilanties and "fetal death" execution proponents about whether their draconian penalties intended to terrorize abortion providers would apply to those who harm fetuses via dispersal of pollutants, pesticides, or manufactured products that cause fetal defects and/or death.

I wasn't holding my breath, of course, because their opposition to abortion has nothing at all to do with concern either for fetuses or (as in the case of the clinic demonstrators who don't even see their own, born children ad people) considerations of personhood.

This is actually perfectly consistent once you get that their opposition to abortion is all about confining and controlling women: Since children are literally the "wages of sin" for that crowd, and since abortion in their eyes is a way for women to avoid their just deserts, thinking of their own children as people instead of punishment isn't really part of their frames of reference.

The mistake, I think, is believing them when they say they're "pro-life."  Their utter disregard for born children as human beings is one example.  A more telling one is their complete and utter indifference to miscarriage, spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, and so on, which generally only "stops a beating heart" of wanted children.


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Two Million Stillbirths Worth Only Two and a Half Lines to "Pro-Life" Bloggers

Posted by figleaf on Thu, 2011-04-21 04:25

So a bunch of clowns at something called "ProLifeBlogs" gives a whole two and a half lines, plus a link to another website, for a new report about stillbirth.

More than 2 million babies are stillborn every year worldwide and about half could be saved if their mothers had better medical care, according to research estimates published Thursday in the medical journal Lancet. ...

Source: "ProLifeBlogs"

Two and a half lines? Is this the best a "pro-life" organization can do?

Their blog's search feature turns up exactly four other posts about stillbirth, only a handful about miscarriage, none more recent than 2007. None are actually relevant to the millions of unanswered stillbirths every year, the tens of millions more unanswered miscarriages and spontaneous abortions, and... just all kinds of stuff about how "pro-life" those folks imagine they are.

There's only one way to measure whether someone's interest is authentically "pro-life" or if instead they just want to control women: what they do about stillbirth, miscarriage, and spontaneous abortion. If they don't do anything about it, but still call themselves "pro-life" they're liars.

You know why the pro-choice movement calls itself "pro-choice?" Do you know why it fights against forced abortion in places like China even as it fights for the right to choose to terminate an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy in the United States? Because it's not about forced pregnancy, and it's not about forced abortion (and it's sure as heck not about the "sanctity" of forced sex!) Instead it's about *choice!*

A stillbirth stops a *wanted* beating heart. A miscarriage almost always stops a wanted beating heart too. Miscarriage, spontaneous abortion, and stillbirth are almost as prevalent worldwide as induced abortion and yet "pro-life" organizations do, what? Nothing!

You know that old quip about the pro-life movement? "Caring about children from conception to birth but not a minute after?" That's not even true is it? Because they're doing exactly what? Sure, they're willing to gun down a doctor in his church or kitchen, willing to waive banners, splash blood, "ex-communicate" honest legislators, put out vaguely racist ads, to celebrate this imposition on a clinic, that imposition on women, the other "tough minded" choice to extend a rape victims nightmare from minutes to nine months.

But a minute later they're willing to... waive bye-bye to two million stillborn babies a year with a flipping two and a half line post?  Yeah, that's "pro-life" alright.

You know what will happen to the "pro-life" movement when the Supreme Court overturns Roe V. Wade? Every last one of them (those who don't turn their attention to outlawing condoms) will pack up their bags, say "that'll teach those hoors and floozies" and never again trouble their little brains with another thought about "unborn life."

Meanwhile? Two million unanswered stillbirths will still happen every year. Between tens and hundreds of millions of unanswered miscarriages and spontaneous abortions a year will still happen every year. Every one of them an "unborn life" that not a one of them ever has, or ever will care about.

Because really? If they did care then someone, somewhere in the "pro-life" movement would have already stepped up their game.

If you follow the link in that casually tossed-off post you know who it turns out helped fund that Lancet Stillbirth study? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. You know who were still pro choice last time I looked? Bill and Melinda Gates. You know why they're putting time and money into this instead of a "pro-life" organization? Because unlike "pro-life" agitators they aren't just into this to punish women. They're not into this "pro-life" business to use fetuses to smack women back into line. Unlike some people. They're into it because they believe that if you make the choice to have a baby, as most people actually do, then we should all do everything we can to support that choice. Just as we should support every reproductive choice.

Instead of la-dee-daing two million stillbirths into oblivion with a miserly two and a half lines. No surprise though. That's is about what one ever expects from a bunch of lazy, immoral, unethical, inconsiderate, and hateful liars.

Update: My mistake!  A bit more research suggests that "pro-life" organizations have been agitating to... send "birth" certificates to grieving parents after stillbirth.  Because, after a hard day of defunding prenatal-care providers and imposing capricious restrictions on women's healthcare decisions what else could one possibly do about stillbirth?


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"Pro-Life" War on Polluters Escalating? South Dakota Wants "Justifable Homicide," Georgia Says Death Penalty

Posted by figleaf on Sat, 2011-02-26 23:42

Speaking of draconian "fetal protection" laws with unintended spillover effects, Jen Phillips says they're at it in Georgia too.

Under [Georgia] Rep. Franklin's bill, HB 1, women who miscarry could become felons if they cannot prove that there was "no human involvement whatsoever in the causation" of their miscarriage.

Source: Mother Jones

And... if she can prove that she lived downwind of, say, a peanut, peach, or cotton farmer who sprays chemicals known to cause miscarriage, spontaneous abortion, or even failure to implant, or, oh, say, a paper plant that emits other chemicals known to do likewise does Rep. Franklin propose merely letting her off the hook and go after the party now guilty (under his terms) of either negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter?

Somebody's got to start asking these questions. If not of the likes of Rep. Franklin in Georgia, or Rep. Phil "justifiable homicide" Jensen in South Dakota, or all the wannabes and copycats in Nebraska, Iowa, and elsewhere then perhaps manufacturers, distributors, and users of those chemicals might be able to help out with an answer.

Because it seems to me that if they can't prove the pesticides, pollutants, and industrial materials to which their "human involvement" exposed any woman who miscarried then... shouldn't they then be subject to Mr. Franklin's death penalties and Mr. Jensen's "justifiable homicides?"

Again, has anyone contacted them do see if they support these initiatives?


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Seriously, Any Bill That "Protects" Unwanted Fetuses from Abortion Also Makes Polluters Liable When Wanted Pregnancies Miscarry

Posted by figleaf on Thu, 2011-02-17 18:15

Note: this is a more level-headed version of yesterday's highly-nettled post about cynically anti-choice "fetal harm" legislation. The upshot remains: I don't believe anti-choicers can come up with a "fetal protection" bill that protects unplanned, unwanted pregnancies from termination procedures without also protecting wanted, planned pregnancies from polluters, pesticide users, and unregulated industrial chemical users.  --fl

Chris Cassidy says proponents of the recent South Dakota bill to make it "justifiable homicide" for anyone including random passers by assassinate an abortion provider or anyone else the assassin might believe was acting to "harm a fetus" have backed off.

"Clearly the [assassination] bill as it's currently written is a very bad idea," said a spokesman for Gov. Dennis Daugaard. That wasn't the position of the governor's fellow Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, who advanced the very same bill by a 9-to-3 party-line vote last week.

Source: TAPPED

Keep in mind that pretty much no matter how they frame it (including their new "only the mother can do it to protect her fetus" rewrite) any blanket-style laws that provide "protection" from fetal harm by abortion providers necessarily means a pregnant woman can take the same steps to protect her pregnancy from, say, exposure any of the several thousand agricultural, industrial, and waste-byproduct chemicals known to cause fetal harm in the form of possible birth defects, spontaneous abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, or (taking the 'winger point of view) even simple failure for a fertilized egg to implant.

While I'm much relieved that Jensen and his cronies have backed off the outright assassination provision I don't see how they could massage it to prevent a pregnant woman from, say, taking a potshot at a crop duster or unregulated polluter working upwind of her.

To be honest I've always been surprised that anti-choice types don't recruit clean-environment and natural-childbirth types to help backup their fetal protection tactics. I suspect it's because unlike their passion for fetal "protection" their enthusiasm for pollution is unfeigned.

But that cuts both ways -- I'm equally surprised that pro-choice folks haven't done more to drag polluters, pesticide users, and farmers into the mix. If life begins at conception then under 'winger definitions exposing pregnant passers by to known tetrogens becomes negligent homicide or even manslaughter.

More to the point, I don't really see how they can write "fetal protection" laws that protect unplanned, unwanted pregnancies but not planned, wanted ones.

Anyway, point being that if the intention of Jensen's law is to create confusion and fear it just doesn't seem that hard to turn that fear confusion and fear onto the kinds of manufacturers, miners, and farmers who tend to back this kind of 'winger legislation in the first place.


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Matt Yglesias on Mistaken Thinking About Preventable Deaths

Posted by figleaf on Mon, 2010-01-11 21:58

Matthew Yglesias thinks instructively about why people imagine some kinds of preventable deaths are more important than others.

It’s quite true that human beings do not have a great intuitive grasp of statistical arguments or a great love for them. But the world would be a better place if people thought of these things in a more statistically informed way. Likewise it’s true as Jon Chait says that people generally think differently about intentional murders than thinks like car crashes. But this, though it’s definitely a fact of life, is also a problem that it would be good to ameliorate over the long run. People tend to view threats stemming from identifiable, individual villains as more problematic than impersonal ones. But while this is a fact of life, it’s also a mistake. If we do something to very slightly reduce the risk of a terrorist attack that has the inadvertent consequence of causing a large number of additional highway deaths then that would be a mistake.

Read the quote in context here.

I’m… fairly confident many of the same principle applies to matters of sex, choice, reproduction and contraception, agency and autonomy, etc. Opposition to hormonal contraception, for instance, not because of the small but real risk of embolism or thrombosis in the woman who takes it but instead an infinitesimal-to-the-point-of-imagination risk that ovulation and fertilization of a hypothetical “life” might somehow magically occur… and yet somehow not implant. To name one. To name another, fanatic willingness to murder healthcare providers in church over abortion but absolute zero, nothing, none interest, at all, in parting a hair to prevent about approximately equal numbers of miscarriages (environmental- or stress-induced or otherwise)... or to do anything at all about stillbirths, infant or maternal mortality, or prevention of childhood deaths from, say, asthma.

But again it’s a general principle. Although expand the scope just a teeny tiny bit and you’re left wondering about the “moral” hesitation in the early 1980s that allowed HIV to become a global epidemic instead of a relatively isolated outbreak, where squeamishness about thousands of “h-word” people (hemophiliacs, heroine users, and homosexuals) mainly in the U.S. allowed it to spread to tens of millions of “pa-word” people (pretty-much anybody.)


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"Pro-Life" Movement Silent as Usual on Deaths of 3.2 Million Unborn Each Year

Posted by figleaf on Sun, 2009-05-10 06:06

Not the best possible holiday timing but Megan of Jezebel says

About 3.2 million women, mostly in the developing world, gave birth to stillborn children last year, and one-third of those women lost their children during labor. Little research is done to address the problem. [UPI]

Read the quote in context here.

All you need to know about the “pro-life” movement is that we heard about this from the feminist politics desk at Jezebel instead via deeply concerned press releases from every single “pro-life” on the planet.

Oh wait! How callous of me. Of course the “pro-life” movement cares when a wanted child dies before or during birth. Just the other day Alaska’s Governor Palin signed a bill authorizing… birth certificates for stillbirths! (Quoth the Governor: “I’m thankful that Alaska’s legislature recognizes how important a step like this is as Alaska embraces a culture of life and respects precious babies, including babies stillborn…”)

But if you were to search Google News with the keywords “stillbirth pro-life“ you’ll get… well, you’ll find nothing at all indicating that men and women who care enough about “unborn life” to commit assault, vandalism, arson, and murder for hire have anything to say at all about stillbirth.

Again, that’s all you need to know about the “pro-life” movement. Period. At all.

Fuck them and the horse they rode up on.


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And Along Those Same Lines: Further Silver Linings?

Posted by figleaf on Thu, 2008-08-21 21:34

While they must surely have been asked, and possibly even answered elsewhere, here are a few more questions about my previous post about those new "conscience" clauses Bush flacks in Health and Human Services cooked up:

1) Further Questions:

  • Does that mean doctors may now in good conscience ignore Supreme Court rulings about withholding life-saving care for women who's health or lives are threatened by late-term complications of pregnancy?
  • Does that mean doctors may now in good conscience ignore everyone-but-Oregon's laws that require them to let their patients suffer lingering, painful death?
  • Does this mean doctors (and don't forget pharmacists) may now in good conscience dispense Plan-B emergency contraception over the counter to women of all ages even when the law says otherwise?
  • Does this mean federally- and state-funded doctors, pharmacists, and other caregivers including teachers may now in good conscience ignore "gag law" policies preventing them from mentioning anything but abstinence when counseling their clients?
  • Does this mean doctors, pharmacists, and other caregivers in good conscience are now protected from employers that insist they deny or withhold care, medication, or information about all options for dealing with issues of contraception, pregnancy, and STIs?

Just curious.

2: Proactive Activism Opportunity

Oh yeah, and while we're at it if those "life begins at ejaculation"* types get their way, especially if they get their way with the broad language they all shoot for then here's an other question. There's an extraordinary correspondence between "pro-lifers" and major polluters and opponents of occupational health and safety and product-safety regulation. So I wonder how happy they'll be when anyone from mainstream environmentalists to consumer activists to a revived EPA to the anti-vaccination/anti-fluoridation crowd starts throwing everything from civil lawsuits to criminal complaints to shareholder activism to survivor's benefits claims for nominal "life" that was "cut short" by exposure to, say, spontaneous-abortion-inducing, miscarriage-inducing or even implantation-inhibiting chemicals, manufacturing byproducts, and toxic waste?

And remember, according to the Bush "administration" appointees it's enough to imagine a product causes the "loss of a human life" at the fertilized-egg stage so science? Who's going to need science to back up their claim of irreparable (if possibly also undetectable) carnage caused by mine tailings, sediment dredgings, pesticide oversprays, plastic-packaging outgassings, packaged-food preservatives, food-coloring agents, "sick building" workplaces, and on and on and on?

Note: now obviously it would be pretty terrible if the 'wingers finally landed a "life begins at conception" ruling from, say, the Supreme Court. But there's no reason, at all, at all, for a nice, healthy group of pro-choice-oriented legal activists to set up a highly-visible operation issuing (or even just promising to issue) white papers detailing all exciting new ways activists could use a "life begins at conception" against asbestos producers like Dick Cheney's old Halliburton-Dresser subsidiary to liquor distillers to air fresheners manufacturers to oil refiners to non-organic farmers. A heck of a lot of "pro-life" money comes from sources in those industries and I think it would be wonderful if they were taken to task for their support.

[* The "you stick it you own it" scoring method they really believe in. --fl]


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Carrying miscarriage to those who only claim to be pro-life

Posted by figleaf on Fri, 2007-10-19 11:33

Inside of a wonderful, sweeping review of reasons why abortion should always remain legal, Jill of Feministe brings up an issue that’s been on my mind for over a decade.

And then there’s the question that Dianne continually raised over at Vox Nova: If life begins at conception, what are pro-lifers doing about the 70 percent miscarriage rate?

Yes, you read that correctly: If you apply the pro-life definition of pregnancy — which isn’t the one applied by the medical community — the majority of pregnancies never make it to term. Pro-lifers argue that life begins at the point of fertilization, and that as soon as the sperm squirms its way into the egg, a new life has begun and any purposeful termination of that life is murder. The medical community, on the other hand, doesn’t generally weigh in on when life begins, but does say that pregnancy begins at the point of implantation — that is, when the fertilized egg implants in the uterine lining. That’s the first point at which pregnancy can be detected. It’s also an important point because more than half of all fertilized eggs naturally don’t implant. So, if you go with the anti-choice definition of life, more than half of all “unique human beings” never implant, and get naturally flushed out of the woman’s body.

To borrow again from Dianne, if there was a disease that was killing 70 percent of all infants, wouldn’t you be demanding funding to research it? Agitate for a cure?

As far as I can tell, there is not a single organization dedicated to ending pre-implantation “miscarriages.” Not a single pro-life organization lists it as an item on their political agenda.

I know the whole natural vs. purposeful death argument will come in here, but the point still holds: If a disease were killing 70 percent of all Americans, we’d be more worried about that than the murder rate.

And so I submit, once again, that anti-choicers don’t actually believe that an embryo is a human deserving of the same rights that you and I are entitled to. They see embryos as something less than born people. They’ll never admit it, but their actions speak pretty loudly.

Read the quote in context here.

I hadn’t previously heard about Dianne or about the way she’s been carrying the issue to pro-life groups. With, I might add, the predictable results of evasion, denial, quibbling, relativizing, conditionalizing, and generally mealy-mouthing you’d expect from anti-choice, anti-abortion, anti-sex activists who masquerade behind the “pro-life” facade. (Note: honest, conscientiously pro-life, as opposed to “pro-life,” activists would affirmatively engage with Dianne and work with her to, y’know, actually do something about pre- and post-implantation miscarriage and stillbirth. Let alone do anything about post-partum and early childhood life. Instead, not surprisingly, we see the National Right to Life Committee doesn’t support the children’s-life-saving S-CHIP bill.)

Earlier posts on this matter: – Miscarriages of injustice – Just for the record, ok? – In a nutshell, morality of abortion vs. miscarriage – How miscarriage matters in the debate over choice – Pro-life or only anti-abortion? A new test – “Pro-life” choices – Chip, chip, chipping away at reproductive rights


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Question for the candidates, round two

Posted by figleaf on Tue, 2007-07-24 09:37

Tom Shaller of the non-sex blog TAPPED, reflecting on some of the uncomfortable questions CNN selected for Democratic candidates on the famous YouTube debate last night, wondered if they’d select similarly uncomfortable questions for any remaining Republican candidates when it’s their turn in September, and then proposed some of his own.

Among his sample questions was one very dear to my heart:

Of every hundred conceptions, 50 end in natural abortion without a mother ever knowing she is pregnant and, of the remaining 50, about 10 end in known miscarriages. If life “begins at conception,” abortion is a sin, and God is all powerful, why does God terminate six of every 10 conceived lives?

Read the rest of Shaller’s piece here.

As you probably know the term “pro-life” is a marketing-oriented term of art coined by abortion opponents who recognized how few Americans support forcing a woman to carry an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy to term — when it’s put to them in such stark language. So they focus-grouped and test marketed (or did the marketing equivalent for the late 1970s) till they found a term that, while technically a bald-faced lie, makes people think they’re motivated by love of life rather than suspicion, fear, or outright hatred of sex.

More by coincidence than anything else, the idea that “life begins at conception” just naturally shakes out of the (artificial, marketing-driven) decision to re-label the anti-abortion movement “pro-life.” And since they’re nearly all of those who coined the term, though of course not all their fellow travelers, are also anti-contraception.

Shaller’s question goes right to the heart of their problem, however. If their claim is true that life begins at conception… if they’re willing to hold that the Constitution of the United States of America should be interpreted by the Supreme Court, or amended by Congress and the Several States, to uphold that position… then they really need a better answer for why it’s perfectly fine for 60% of all fully-fledged sovereign American Citizens to “die” unmourned before birth but not some other fraction.


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