Pregnancy, Politics and the Policing of Women's Bodies
Standing in line at a DC coffee shop, I wonder if I will get a dirty look. I'm pregnant and I remember a friend who told me that she was once scolded by a fellow customer for having caffeine while pregnant. Another friend, a doctor and an avid runner, was pulled aside while running and asked if her doctor knew she was doing that. Still, bothersome moments like these barely scratch the surface of a grave truth in this country - women's bodies are under constant control.
While pregnant, I have been amazed by the unsolicited advice that I get on a weekly basis about what to eat and not eat, how much sleep to get, whether or not to have sex, if I should carry my toddler who loves to say "up up, Mommy" and asks me to "twirl, twirl." But I am lucky. I have not been drug tested in order to utilize a safety net program, nor have I been randomly drug tested while still in recovery in the maternity ward. I have not been jailed because I was in pain and used medication, nor have I been locked in a psychiatric ward because I refused treatment for gestational diabetes.
While the rights and dignity of pregnant women are further eroded, forced sterilization and laws that cap the number of children a woman can have if she uses public assistance continue a shameful history in this country of dictating who gets to add to their family. Indeed, lawmakers play a dangerous game when they think they should decide whether a woman becomes a parent, instead of ensuring that every woman can make her own decision based on what is best for her and her family. This is especially true when it comes to the decision to seek an abortion.
In recent years, hundreds of laws were introduced with the goal of making it harder and more expensive to get an abortion or closing clinics to shut off availability of care. Many of these restrictions make the news (hello, North Dakota) and cause a big uproar among advocates (think Virginia's mandatory ultrasound law) and rightly so, but there are efforts that are just as widespread, but simply do not get the same attention - legislation that effectively withholds abortion care altogether.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/16243-pregnancy-politics-and-the-policing-of-womens-bodies
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)It is also about no birth control at all. I am willing for them to have their opinion as long as it does not infringe upon my freedoms to choose. There has been movement of the sharia law types which has started in many states with repub governors and legislative bodies to remove choices. Unless we get these movements stopped I wonder if it will come down to having the decision of whether to have children removed from women. Barefoot and pregnant might be the norm from these radical bunch. Are they going to provide for these children, no.
I can also understand taking advice from medical professional but not everyone on the street. Maybe we should start charging those who advise without asking them.
niyad
(112,426 posts)Days of the Theocracy
(Kristin Lems)
July 15, 2007
Written and recorded in 1979.
1. First they fight abortion, birth control is next,
Then comes sex if youre not married, finally, out goes sex!
Put the prayers back in the schools, install "parochiaid,"
Allow for corporal punishment, and then you got it made!
Chorus: Were going back, back to the good ole days
When men were really men and women knew their place
Back, back a couple of centuries
And welcome back the days of the theocracy
2. The family is so holy, there must be no divorce
And if a wife is not content, she must adjust, of course
And if hes forced to beat her, its all for her own good
She must know what her limits are, as any woman should.
(chorus)
3. The next to go is daycare, its all a commie plot!
What could be more fulfilling than a child, wanted or not?
A womans world is housework, God wanted it that way
A salaried job degrades her since she never works for pay
(chorus)
4. They teach us womens lot is "love honor and obey"
And while their crusty notions seem like jokes to us today,
Theyre sitting in the Capitol, theyre voting on our lives
If we dont stop them now, our freedom will not long survive!
No going back..to the bad ole days...
(chorus)
let's go ahead, ahead for future centuries,
And build a world thats based on true democracy
And build a world thats based on true equality ~ Ah person
midnight
(26,624 posts)"They've promised to introduce every bill on the extreme, anti-women group's agenda. That means ignoring medically-proven best practices, forcing women to view their ultrasound before an abortion, and putting themselves squarely between a woman and her doctor."
Sandy Pasch
Wisconsin Assistant Assembly Democratic Leader
niyad
(112,426 posts)you hate, despise, and ultimately try to destroy the life-giving half of the population? and how long do they think they can do this before the women rise in justified anger?
many years ago, I thought the lysistrata tactic might work, but what we need now is a complete revolution.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)In the US, more adult females are single than ever before in the history of our country. The traditional family where dad is king of the house and mom and the kids are mere serfs has gone. Woman no longer put up with working all day outside the home than come home to chores while hubby puts his feet up. They want equal partners not rulers and so they are staying single or have live-ins who are equals, not bosses.
The traditional family where dad rules and everyone else obeys is almost extinct. A few hold outs, mostly in religious communities, remain but even in the deep South, woman are NOT marrying or re-marrying. They may have children or not but the majority of adult women today are NOT married and are remaining single.
The US has the highest rate of divorce than any other developed country. When women find themselves being mere serfs to their husbands they are leaving the marriage.
It's a quiet revolution that no one seems to notice. But the right wing crazies and the religiously controlled fear this and are doing their best to put those uppity serfs and peasants, err women, back in their place.
You kind of feel sorry for the men who have lost their well paid middle class salaries and soon find their marriages falling apart. But it's the structure of the traditional household that has failed. They sent the women out to work and still expected them to do all the work at home too. But the women found out they don't have to take it anymore. And this huge change is the scariest thing the right wing has ever faced.
And very few people are talking about it.