Israel gave birth control to Ethiopian Jews without their consent
Source: The Independent
Israel has admitted for the first time that it has been giving Ethiopian Jewish immigrants birth-control injections, often without their knowledge or consent.
The government had previously denied the practice but the Israeli Health Ministry’s director-general has now ordered gynaecologists to stop administering the drugs. According a report in Haaretz, suspicions were first raised by an investigative journalist, Gal Gabbay, who interviewed more than 30 women from Ethiopia in an attempt to discover why birth rates in the community had fallen dramatically.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gave-birth-control-to-ethiopian-jews-without-their-consent-8468800.html
No comment. The article speaks for itself.
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madrchsod
(58,162 posts)
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)One of out biggest allies practicing eugenics while we sit back an do nothing is unacceptable.
brush
(61,033 posts)Hate to say it but this is off-the-deep-end stuff, slow motion genocide. What's going on in Israel, how is this allowed to happen?
MADem
(135,425 posts)"Israeli culture" and those Ethiopians don't "measure up" as far as the decision makers are concerned. They don't want "foreign" babies being born in Israel if they can help it.
This is horrific.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)
PerceptionManagement
(486 posts)
psychopomp
(4,668 posts)Just remember, the Nazis got it from the Americans.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)
Laurian
(2,593 posts)I'm surprised and saddened by this revelation.
tanyev
(49,297 posts)1/2.....1/4.....1/8......
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)are all thinking. Especially immigrant n-----s.
I, OTOH, am ready to see Israel dropped like a BF some girl just found out has the clap.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)All the pro-Israel at any lengths supporters on this forum assure me that Israel is a liberal, secular democracy that must be protected at all costs. I've either been lied to or they've had the wool pulled over their eyes.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)
FleetwoodMac
(351 posts)Even the original report in Haaretz was not clear about this.
The JDC operates in over 70 countries around the world, and as far as I can see, this is an isolated, though horrific, incident.
aquart
(69,014 posts)Because Jews have never agreed about anything. And we have racists among us just like the Muslims of the Sudan who limited their black population by displacement and murder.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)It was done by a corrupt right wing state who hides behind Judaism.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)in an advanced industrialized western country. In this day and age, incredibly.
Epxosed by activists and journalists.
U4ikLefty
(4,012 posts)another_liberal
(8,821 posts)What in the world are the "Pro-Life" people who are also Christian Zionists going to say? It's not like Far-Right-Wing Israel supporters who want to outlaw all forms of birth control (other than abstinence) are all that uncommon.
My guess is that they will deny the facts and try to make sure the story gets hidden in a deep, dark place forever.
Response to another_liberal (Reply #11)
libdem4life This message was self-deleted by its author.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)on the sly to various groups, so we don't have much room to point fingers.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)I'll find plenty or room to point fingers at whoever tortures, participates in eugenics, violates basic human rights, etc. I don't care if they're American, Israeli, European, whatever. Wrong is wrong and should be called out.
robthomaseyes1
(2 posts)Watch how fast people who complain about this get called "anti-semitic". Of course, it's okay to for Israel to be anti-semitic against its Ethiopian Jewish community; just don't dare point it out as such!! That would make YOU bad, not them! /s/
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Only to the woman. Unlike America, Israels' healthcare system provides birth control to anyone who wants to use it. And they do NOT ask husbands permission either.
I would think many wives may not want a daily birth control medication around the house and op for the 3 month shots. Even in here in the USA, a lot of men do not want their wives on any birth control.
condoleeza
(814 posts)
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)30 of those women were interviewed by Gal Gabby. The gynaecologists have been ordered to stop administering the contraceptive drugs.
I would like to know how much the birth rate in the Ethiopian Jewish community fell.
While it is abhorrent if even one woman was given birth control injections against her will, there is nothing in this article to suggest that this practice by itself resulted in some drastic change in the birth rate of the Ethiopian immigrants.
I have read several articles on this, and none of them state from what rate to what rate the birth rate fell. Ethiopia has a birth rate more than twice as high as Israel. It would not surprise me if Ethiopian women chose to use birth control once they could in Israel. On the other hand, it may be that some Ethiopian women did not understand why they were being required to take the injections.
This is not a story to be hysterical about or hateful about especially since Israel has remedied the situation and ordered gynecologists to end the practice.
Response to JDPriestly (Reply #18)
Post removed
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)The Haaretz article clearly states the birth rate fell almost 50 percent.
And they remedied the situation ONCE THEY WERE EXPOSED!
Keep covering your ears and going "lalalalala".
The women’s testimony could help explain the almost 50-percent decline over the past 10 years in the birth rate of Israel’s Ethiopian community. According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-admits-ethiopian-women-were-given-birth-control-shots.premium-1.496519
Enrique
(27,461 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Thanks. I still don't know 50% of what number, the average birth rate for Ethiopian women in Ethiopia or the average for Ethiopian women in Israel or the average for Israel?
What does 50% mean? 50% of what?
On edit, for example, my birth rate is 50% of that of my mother. And my daughters' birth rates are less than 50% of mine. Now does what does that tell you? Not much.
harmonicon
(12,008 posts)Care to describe how they did that? What would you consider to be a remedy for someone controlling your biological functions against your will for years?
Is this even something that can be remedied? I suspect not.
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)Who will know the private stories? The woman who desperately longed for a child but could never conceive, a marriage that ended because of the stress or ? The people who deprived these women of control over their reproductive lives should be jailed.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Didn't the women have access to doctors who understood their language once they were in Israel?
There are a lot of questions that are unanswered here.
How long did the women take this drug?
And how much was the birth rate reduced?
I have a lot of questions. Women should not be given birth control without their consent, but just what happened is unclear to me. Was it a problem of language? Or was it really a problem of racism? I have difficulty believing that birth control was given for race reasons. But it is possible. I would not first believe that explanation. Rather, I would suspect there was some sort of other problem.
And to what extent was the birth rate reduced? Below the average for Ethiopia? Below the average for Israel? Did a minority of Ethopian women in Israel have a lower birth rate than other Ethiopian women in Israel? The article is incomplete. It does not provide enough information to understand the situation.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)detail in the article. Before I judge I want to know how long this practice continued in addition to a lot of other things. You seem to assume it went on for years. What do you base that on?
harmonicon
(12,008 posts)How do I assume it went on for years? Because I can do math. Birth rates dropped, for one. Do you know what the typical gestation period for a human is? I do. Also, it's stated that the injections were given every three months.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)The birth rates dropped, but from what to what?
I ask that because if the birth rates dropped from those of Ethiopian women in Ethiopia to the rates of women in Israel that would be a 50% drop. If the rates dropped from the rates of Israeli women in general 50%, then that would be pretty horrible. That would be almost as low as the birth rate of German women which is 8% per 1000 people. And that is lower than the rate in Israel.
So, the article just does not have enough information. 50% of what number. There is no context. It is wrong to force or trick women into taking birth control, but then I don't know how easily Israeli doctors and the Ethiopian women could communicate. I note that the article says that the Israeli government is now offering translators.
It looks to me like groups representing Ethiopian immigrants complained about this, the government investigated and is taking care that nothing like this happens again. But we don't know what really happened. Sounds to me like the government is being very careful and that this was not an institutional or planned campaign to deprive Ethiopian women of babies but rather mistakes made by doctors.
harmonicon
(12,008 posts)How many women?! How does it fucking matter?! It's SO WRONG to be done to anyone. Do you think it's more wrong if it's done to two women compared to one?!
Please just give this up and do some self reflection.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)It may be wrong, and it may not be wrong. We know nothing about the health of the women involved. The article provides utterly no information. I might be more horrified than you if I had the information to draw a conclusion about what happened. But I don't.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)Why aren't you getting this? They were forced to take these birth control shots.
THAT IS WRONG! THERE IS NO GREY AREA!!!!
MADem
(135,425 posts)How about if you had a bad case of psoriasis, and some doctor made sure you couldn't reproduce without your knowledge because psoriasis is a pesky condition that is tough to treat?
Would that be OK with you?
uppityperson
(116,020 posts)No consent=wrong.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Doing everything possible to minimize and avoid the real issue. They gave those women birth control drugs without their knowledge because of their ethnicity. Period. No matter how many diversionary hand-springs you do.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)These were human beings who's right and bodies were violated based upon their race, their ethnicity. I have to wonder why any progressive would give this a pass. Is it because is it Israel, our ally? Does that make it okay? What if we were doing it here, to a minority race now, as we have done similar things in the past, would that be okay? Would you brush that off?
I am confused and saddened to see a logn time Duer take this stance.
Friend, ally... it does not change the fact that what they were doing is a gross and horrible violation of a woman's body without her knowledge or consent. And it was done to the women of one race, one ethnicity.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I can't read the Haaretz article. I don't subscribe.
Ethiopian women were given the treatments but we don't know how many women were involved, how long they received the treatments, whether Israeli women were also given the treatments, whether perhaps this is a commonly used birth control method in Israel.
I don't approve or deny the method. Women clearly should not be given any medication of any kind against their will, especially not birth control. But the information in the articles I read is, while inflammatory, very incomplete. I have no context to place the information in. Yes. The article talks about Ethiopian immigrants to Israel. But it really leaves more questions unanswered than answered. If I knew more, I might be quite angry. But the articles I have found to read just leave me with questions.
TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)Haaretz isn't the only available resource on the internet. You've repeatedly used your lack of a subscription to Haaretz as an excuse for ignorance of the facts; as if Haaretz was the only online news resource reporting on this story. I'm starting to feel embarrassed for you. Google is your friend. Use it.
Mekonen-Dego -- a social worker by profession who was born in Ethiopia -- said "the suggestion Ethiopian women can't be trusted with responsibility for their own health is outrageous."
In 2009, a local feminist group named Isha L'Isha researched the prescription policy in Israel and found that 60% of the injections in one HMO were prescribed to Ethiopian women. The other high-use group: women in various forms of custody.
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-israeli-health-authorities-issue-guidelines-on-controversial-birthcontrol-shots-20130128,0,7037665.story
TYY
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)Seriously? Did you forget the sarcasm thingy?... 
TYY
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)
tblue37
(68,436 posts)I am on a Nook, so I can't copy paste the URL of the article, but it was the very first link when I googled " birthrate drop Ethiopian jews Israel," so you can google for it too. The paper was the Atlanta Daily World.
My guess is that the drastic birthrate drop was the red flag that aroused suspicions that led someone to investigate the situation.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)What did it drop to? What number?
Because 50% of 40 per 1000 is quite different from 50% of 20 per 1000 in this situation because of the huge difference in the birth rates in Ethiopia and in Israel.
Some of the women may have not known what was being given to them. Others may have. The story does not have enough facts so that anyone can know what happened.
As I pointed out, my birth rate is 50% less than my mother's and my daughters' birth rate is 50% less than mine. Does that tell you whether there is a problem? No. It does not. Maybe I wanted my birthrate to be less than my mother's. Maybe my daughters want theirs to be less. I would need to know more details.
ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)except for the fact it was the drop in birth rate that raised the red flag. Who cares how much it dropped? That's not the damn point.
lovuian
(19,362 posts)and who will get PROSECUTED
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Lions_fan
(174 posts)These were Ethiopians brought to Israel by the Israeli government. The effects of the shot lasts anywhere from 9 months to a year. They were only administered these shots while the women were in the immigration center and before they were granted refugee status. The shots aren't permanent and weren't given once the Ethiopian women were granted refugee status. The Israeli government didn't want the women to get pregnant while still in the immigration centers.
brush
(61,033 posts)TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)January 28, 2013
<snip>
Immigrant women told the reporter this was the standard practice in the transit camps run by Jewish and Israeli agencies in Ethiopia in the last decade. Many women continued the course of treatment in Israel, where a sharp decline in birth rate has been noted among the Ethiopian community over the past decade.
Depo-Provera, the brand name of a long-acting contraceptive injection, is a highly effective method of birth control but possible side effects include a decrease in bone density that puts women at increased risk for osteoporosis and fractures later on. That and other side effects are not immediately reversible, and returning to fertility can be a lengthy process. In addition, withdrawal symptoms can be acute.
Relatively few healthy women in Israel choose the injection without specific medical reasons.
<snip>
Depo-Provera is sometimes the preferred method of birth control chosen for institutionalized women or recommended for individuals deemed incapable of following a daily regime.
Mekonen-Dego -- a social worker by profession who was born in Ethiopia -- said "the suggestion Ethiopian women can't be trusted with responsibility for their own health is outrageous."
In 2009, a local feminist group named Isha L'Isha researched the prescription policy in Israel and found that 60% of the injections in one HMO were prescribed to Ethiopian women. The other high-use group: women in various forms of custody.
<snip>
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-israeli-health-authorities-issue-guidelines-on-controversial-birthcontrol-shots-20130128,0,7037665.story
TYY
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)According to the report, the women were given the Depo Provera injections in the family planning workshops in transit camps, a practice that continued once they reached Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/why-is-the-birth-rate-in-israel-s-ethiopian-community-declining.premium-1.483494
But lets not let the facts get in the way.
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)Now that this has been exposed and given the standard feeble apology, what little behind-the-scenes, "No official knowledge," social engineering experiment will they employ next? Because we KNOW it's coming...
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Was it well meant and got out of hand?
Did they ask the women if they wanted to have more babies and the answer was not understood? The article raises more questions than it answers.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)You're sick.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)women had already had, what their health diagnoses were. We don't know anything. The doctors may not have meant to harm the women at all. They may have been thinking about the women's health and nothing else. That so many DUers jump to negative conclusions without facts is interesting.
I don't know whether to be horrified by what happened or whether it was a relatively small matter. I just don't have that much information about it.
Occulus
(20,599 posts)What the fuck is wrong with you?
Seriously. Get help. You need it.
Badly.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)Its really disturbing. Either that poster isn't capable of putting 2 and 2 together or he/she is completely apathetic to this outlandish violation of basic human rights.
We know this much:
The government lied to some women saying the shots were vaccinations.
The government forced some women by threatening to deny entry into Israel.
The government continued these shots after the women became Israeli citizens.
The birth rates dropped dramatically.
The Israeli government didn't stop until they were confronted by an investigative reporter.
If you support Israel fine. If you support racist eugenics projects just because they're done by Israel, you're sick and have a lot of soul searching to do.
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 29, 2013, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/113429471
Response to JDPriestly (Reply #70)
Post removed
uppityperson
(116,020 posts)Ian Iam
(386 posts)This is atrocious!
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)I guess being racist against Arabs wasn't enough.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)giving birth? It could not possibly have anything to do with the fact that Ethiopians tend to be dark skinned Africans, could it? The Israeli government could not possibly think that some Jewish people are better than other Jewish people, could it? I mean, Israel keeps trying to frame its internal conflict as a religious one. So, are you trying to tell me that Israel's internal conflict is actually an economic one, with race as a marker of socio-economic status?
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)harmonicon
(12,008 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)There probably is a racist and religious problem/issue, with some immigrants being resented by some of the citizens of Israel. Not really Jewish and/or a racist issue due to skin color.
Education is the key here..people of Jewish background escaped/moved/traveled/settled around the entire world. Even well before Hitler exterminated 2 million Jews, this was a religion that traveled, escaped, spread out across the world for thousands of years. Some had to hide practice of their faith to survive.
Notice how fast the Israel Leadership worked out the issue. Very different than the history of countries like america,germany,UK, what they did to races or people they didn't want to reproduce stayed for decades.
I think Israel as a whole will work this issue out inspite of the popular media bought out by outside interests. Outside interests who would profit huge if Israel got nuked, if the middle east became another WW zone, or we had global race wars.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)Some people will defend anything. You can lie and skirt the facts all you want. Its more of a reflection of you as a person than anyone else.
When Israel is caught red handed putting into place racist eugenics policies and you try to tell us what a wonderful liberal open society it is you just look ridiculous. THEY ACTED FAST BECAUSE THEY WERE EXPOSED!!! They denied it in the past.
And this has nothing to do with Israel being nuked so drop that nonsense right now.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)sounds like you could be of the same ek who made years of noise over a picture of 2 black panthers.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)Eugenics disgust me and racism makes me sick and that makes me an Israel hater? You need to grow up and re-evaluate your priorities. What you're saying is truly disturbing. Shame on you.
And their leadership didn't correct the issue right away. This went on for years. They denied allegations for years. It wasn't until proof was thrown into their face and they were exposed that they did something about it. AFTER THE DAMAGE WAS DONE!
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)"Women who immigrated from Ethiopia eight years ago say they were told they would not be allowed into Israel unless they agreed to be injected with the long-acting birth control drug Depo Provera, according to an investigative report aired Saturday on the Israel Educational Television program "Vacuum."
The camp is now closing and the last 2,000 Jewish Ethiopians are moving to Israel. They have strong protection of Jewish civil rights groups. The Minister of Health has clarified the policies and any long term effects will be monitored.
Heck of a lot faster/better job than Americans did with their forced sterilization surgeries, covert venereal disease test labs, lobotomies of thousands.
lib87
(535 posts)Considering their history, you'd think they would know better than to commit such horrible acts.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)...it seems. 
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)a few decades ago. I never agreed to fund a racist country! To the US government: You do NOT have my permission to give away my tax money to any country that tries to racially purify their people.
NickB79
(20,357 posts)"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."
All Jews are Jewish, but some are more Jewish than others 
Ian Iam
(386 posts)RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israel is breaking its own rules of engagement by using deadly force to disperse unarmed Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli rights group B'Tselem reported on Monday.
Israeli forces have killed 56 people since 2005 in clashes with rock-throwing Palestinians, said B'Tselem, which accused the military of having "extensively and systematically violated" rules barring deadly retaliation for non-lethal assault.
"The Israeli military's standing orders explicitly state that live ammunition may not be fired at stone-throwers," it said.
In the past two weeks, Israeli forces have shot dead two Palestinians in unrest that Israeli officials said may foreshadow a third Palestinian uprising. Peace talks have been frozen since 2010 and Palestinian anger is running high against expanding Jewish settlement in the West Bank, captured along with East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights in a 1967 war.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16733185-rights-group-israel-using-deadly-force-against-unarmed-protesters?lite
On edit: Should anybody wish to post this as a separate thread, feel free.
whiteroses
(187 posts)TEL AVIV, 28 January 2013 (IRIN) - The director of the Ministry of Health in Israel, Roni Gamzo, has issued a formal directive instructing that gynaecologists should not inject women with the contraceptive Depo-Provera without their knowledge or consent.
The directive, issued last week, comes after around 30 Ethiopian Jews who had emigrated to Israel said they had been told that they would not be allowed into the country without receiving the contraceptive drug.
Within Israel, Ethiopian Jews make up the majority of those given the drug, according to a report published in 2010 by Isha le'Isha, a women’s rights organization; 57 percent of women who had received the drug in Israel are Ethiopian Jews, although they account for less than 2 percent of the overall population.
“We believe it is a method of reducing the number of births in a community that is black and mostly poor,” Hedva Eyal, the author of the report, told IRIN. “It is indeed the first time that the state actually acknowledged that this procedure of injecting immigrant women with this drug, when they do not know the side effects and are given no other choice, is wrong.” ...
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97352/Furore-in-Israel-over-birth-control-drugs-for-Ethiopian-Jews
hughee99
(16,113 posts)not a doctor. I guess I was wrong.
LiberalLovinLug
(14,689 posts)They are in fact The Choosing People
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Sometimes medical personal take advantage of patients no matter the country or religion.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)It almost certainly wen't higher up than that.
whiteroses
(187 posts)On Sunday it was reported that Israel has finally admitted to systematically depressing the fertility of the Ethiopian immigrant community (information first reported five years ago) by injecting Ethiopian-Israeli women with the long-acting birth control drug Depo-Provera without informed consent.
In some cases, women were first given the drug while still in transit camps; in other cases, it seems women were regularly injected after arriving in Israel. Some women apparently knew they were being given birth control but were told they wouldn’t be let into Israel if they didn’t agree; others report being told the shots were “inoculations.”
While this story is horrifying enough unto itself, it cannot be removed from a larger and equally disturbing picture.
Primarily, the Depo Provera story reflects the broader Ethiopian Jewish experience of coming home only to find themselves to still be strangers: Many Ethiopian Jews were made to undergo HIV testing before immigrating, and though no other group of Israelis has ever been so tested—meaning that health officials had no way of knowing how the Ethiopian findings compared to HIV rates among other groups—Ethiopian blood donations were routinely discarded from 1984 to 1996.
...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/28/israel-s-ethiopian-birth-control-story-reflects-a-broader-problem.html
brush
(61,033 posts)whiteroses
(187 posts)An Israeli government official has acknowledged that a number of Ethiopian women who were immigrating to Israel were injected with a long-acting contraceptive without understanding the consequences of the treatment.
Haaretz reports that Health Ministry Director General Prof. Ron Gamzu banned Israel's health maintenance organizations from injecting Ethiopian women with the contraceptive Depo-Provera "if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.”
Reports of forced birth control shots have been around for years, but government officials had always denied the practice. A documentary that aired in December on Israel's Educational Network also shed new light on the reports.
Haaretz wrote in December that 35 Ethiopian women who immigrated to Israel eight years ago claimed on the show "Vacuum" that, as they understood, they would not be allowed to move to Israel unless they agreed to the Depo-Provera shots.
...
tabasco
(22,974 posts)WTF?
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)I hope that the people of Israel rise up in anger and demand answers and accountability.
Cynicus Emeritus
(172 posts)and very appropriately I might add.
TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)1/28/2013
<snip>
That Israel should allegedly engage in this activity is particularly shocking, considering the practice was widely used by the Germans throughout the Shoah. While the scale and effects of these operations cannot be compared, Israel’s implicit intent to limit ‘burdensome’ (read: undesirable) portions of the population recalls the dark eugenics experiments World War II.
Immigration, legal and otherwise, is a difficult and invariably sticky issue for developed nations. Israel, like the United States, has struggled to find a way to secure its borders and its population while dealing with a constant stream of immigrants from neighboring countries and, increasingly, the African continent. While admitting the difficult security issues that Israel faces, the international community must loudly and unanimously rebuke the systematic violations of human rights inflicted on women immigrants of African origin.
From a sociological perspective, this incident shows the strain between Israel’s religious heritage and its modern political agenda. “Behold, the heritage of the Lord is sons, the reward is the fruit of the innards. Like arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the sons of one’s youth. Praiseworthy is the man who has filled his quiver with them,” the Torah proclaims. The involuntary sterilization of African immigrants suggests that the Jewish moral code (inextricably connected with Israel’s domestic legal codes) can be selectively applied to those with ‘desirable’ backgrounds. It is hard, indeed almost impossible to believe that an American Jewish woman immigrating to Israel would be forced to take birth control.
<snip>
http://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseknutsen/2013/01/28/israel-foribly-injected-african-immigrant-women-with-birth-control/
TYY
Fearless
(18,458 posts)Serious question. How would the world act? Same numbers, same everything else. Why should it be any different in this case?
Cynicus Emeritus
(172 posts)and be able to view all actions done by the USA or by other countries and evaluate them objectively, is completely lacking in today's political and media manipulated and information saturated world. If something is inherently unethical or counter to societal interest, the acceptability of it shouldn't be based upon the nation that does it.
Fearless
(18,458 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)My advice? Look at the scumbags floating to the surface to defend it, and show them the fucking door.
RandiFan1290
(6,710 posts)I am surprised this one is still up. They are trying to stash this little inconvenience away into the I/P forum. 
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,186 posts)Some people are more equal than other and there are somethings I guess we're just not suppose to talk about. This story makes me physically ill.
A few folks have definitely unmasked themselves, and have continued to dig themselves deeper despite several opportunities to back out and save face...
The banhammer on the "old" DU was swift and merciless; usually rendering judgment in a couple hours...These days, the about-to-get-banned get to wallow in their own shit for days before any action is taken, if at all...
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)Cynicus Emeritus
(172 posts)We already know the racist Likud in Israel runs their show.
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)whiteroses
(187 posts)(Reuters) - Israel's Health Ministry has ordered doctors to review how they prescribe a birth control drug, after accusations it was being used to control the population of Ethiopian immigrants.
Suspicions that Ethiopian women had been coerced into receiving Depo-Provera arose in Israeli media a few years ago and most recently in a TV documentary linking the community's falling birthrate to over-prescription of the injectable contraceptive.
After a civil rights group accused it of racism, the health ministry ordered doctors not to renew Depo-Provera prescriptions unless they were convinced patients understood the ramifications, according to a letter from the ministry posted on the group's website on Monday.
Ministry Director-General Roni Gamzu said the decision did not imply he accepted the allegations by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).
...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/28/us-israel-contraceptives-idUSBRE90R0SN20130128
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)...and compare that to the headline in the OP, which is closer to the truth. Never stop being right-wing toolbags, Reuters bigwigs.
whiteroses
(187 posts)Wonder if we'll ever see this story on CNN, MSNBC, etc.??
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/middleeast/2013/01/2013130145259573156.html
Israeli government admits it had used birth control drugs without consent on some Ethiopian Jews.
Ethiopian Jews in Israel are expressing outrage over revelations that the Israeli government gave some of them long-term birth control injections.
This week the Israeli government admitted it had used the drug on some Ethiopian women without their consent.
Many of the women say they now feel the state has been controlling their fertility.
Cynicus Emeritus
(172 posts)is critical to an honest and non corrupt democracy.
If our media in general reports certain issues through the same rose colored glasses, then stuff is covered up or soft pedaled. The media should report all facts instead of pruning some facts and coloring others in either direction. Having Al Jazeera providing a non-traditional perspective only gives us balance. I'd like to see them on Comcast cable TV.
TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)Ethiopian women who moved to Israel eight years ago claimed Israeli officials coerced them to receive injections of Depo-Provera, a long-acting birth control drug, as a prerequisite to immigration.
Speaking to reporters on an episode of Israel Educational Television’s investigative show “Vacuum” that aired on Saturday, several immigrants described the intense pressure placed on them to keep their families small. The women claimed Israeli representatives from the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Health Ministry told them that raising large families is especially difficult, that it is for hard people with many children to find work and support their families, and that many landlords would not be willing to rent apartments to large families.
<snip>
A hidden camera in a local health clinic recorded a Ethiopian woman being told by a nurse that this shot is given “primarily to Ethiopian women because they forget, they don’t understand, and it’s hard to explain to them, so it’s best that they receive a shot once every three months… basically they don’t understand anything.”
Israeli authorities denied all of the allegations. However, Gabbai revealed an official letter that she uncovered from the Health Ministry to Dr. Rick Hodes, the director of the JDC Medical Programs in Ethiopia. The letter praised the doctor’s work, noting that whereas fewer than 5% of Ethiopians use any form of birth control, Hodes achieved a rate of 30% among the patients he treated.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/ethiopian-women-claim-israel-forced-them-to-use-birth-control-before-letting-them-immigrate/
Especially damning is the official letter from the Health Ministry...which, among other things, shows that Ethiopians don't traditionally use (fewer than 5%) birth control of any kind.
Cross posted from I/P for the record.
TYY