Category: Reproductive Rights

Women in this world were treated much like those in The Handmaid’s Tale — most, like my mom, didn’t have their own bank accounts, didn’t have their own email addresses, and couldn’t leave the home without permission from their husbands. They were called helpmeets, a word taken from the King James Version of the Bible, which refers to wives as created to meet the needs of their husbands and be helpers to them.

I even participated in a super-conservative worship church dance troupe for young women, called His Handmaids — again a term taken from the Bible, from the Virgin Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel telling her she’s going to be pregnant with the Messiah, which some translations open with “I am the Lord’s handmaiden, let it be unto me as you say.”

Just like Offred, women existed within the community to serve higher purposes than our own desires. Young girls who led the congregation wore white dresses and were stripped of identifying features — no jewelry, no nail polish, hair tied back and not in the face — while wives were submissive helpers to their husbands, with my mother used as the fertile ground for my father to breed a quiver full of Christian culture warriors.

https://theestablishment.co/i-grew-up-in-a-fundamentalist-cult-the-handmaids-tale-was-my-reality-fae2f77263d9

The United States currently has a hodge-podge of state-level legislation regulating surrogacy. High-profile disputes over surrogate pregnancies demonstrate this is not a workable solution. Regulating surrogacy does not protect women and children. It only commodifies them more.

Is a contract that involves the exchange of money for the gestation and delivery of a child against public policy? The debate over this question both fuels and is fueled by competing ideas on parenting, family configuration, women’s rights, and the human desire for children. In recent decades, a new, commercial, profit-making industry has emerged, making the regulation vs. prohibition debate ever more pressing.

The most troubling aspect of such contracts is usually not the nuts and bolts, but the addition of all the whims and wishes of the intended parents. The intended parents get to direct nearly every detail of the surrogate’s life up to the moment of birth and surrendering the child. This makes the commercial use of the woman’s entire body for the duration of the pregnancy very clear.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/11/20390/

In rural areas of western Nepal, many families follow the centuries-old practice of banishing girls and women from the home when they’re menstruating because they’re believed to be “impure”.

As well as being forced to sleep in huts, girls and women having their period have to do outdoor labour during the day. They’re restricted in who they can mix with, and only given limited food. Many are also banned from reading and writing. Most of them report feeling lonely and scared.

Women who have just given birth are also banished, along with their newborns. This contributes to a high mortality rate for both mothers and babies.

Chhaupadi is, in some ways, linked to the Hindu religion. Families who practice chhaupadi are said to fear that gods will be angered if the rules aren’t kept and women stay in the family home while having their period.

Officially, chhaupadi was outlawed by the Supreme Court of Nepal in 2005, but like many harmful cultural traditions, has proven difficult to eradicate. Last year, Radha Paudel from Action Works Nepal claimed that up to 95 per cent of women in some regions of the country were still practicing chhaupadi.

https://www.mamamia.com.au/what-are-period-huts/?

The Swedish capital’s metro, or tunnelbana, has been described as the world’s longest gallery, with art permanently on display at 90 of the 100 stations along the 68-mile tunnel system. The decades-old permanent works grapple with issues from women’s rights to inclusivity and deforestation.

But a provocative new exhibit has proved particularly controversial among commuters, sparking debate about the role of public art – and whether the wait for the train is the right time for breaking taboos.

Graphic artist Liv Strömquist’s series of enlarged felt-pen sketches have been on display at Slussen station for the past five weeks. The Night Garden shows cartoon birds, cats, trees, naked men – and women with unshaven legs and visible menstrual blood.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/02/enjoy-menstruation-subway-stockholm-art-row-liv-stromquist?

Evidence of the US’s medical (and social) priorities can be seen everywhere, including in the disproportionate amount of care a woman receives while pregnant compared to after she has delivered.

The majority of women reported holding back from asking questions of their providers because they felt rushed (30%) or they wanted a different kind of care than the one chosen by their doctors (22%), with 23% women saying they held back due to fear of being considered “difficult.”

Once the baby is born, new mothers in the US generally have to wait six weeks for their first post-delivery obstetrician-gynecologist (OB-GYN) appointment, so even if their doctor is trained to recognize symptoms of depression (which isn’t common) those first symptoms of depression that can follow delivery will be missed entirely. This contributes to a vast underdiagnosis of postpartum depression (only 50% cases are recognized in the US) and undertreatment of the condition (15% receive treatment). Suicide accounts for 20% of postpartum deaths.

Black mothers . . . are three times more likely to die or suffer serious illness from pregnancy-related causes than white women, with at least 40 deaths per 100,000 live births on average, compared to 14 for white mothers. Native-American mothers are nearly twice as likely to die as their white peers.

https://qz.com/1108193/whats-killing-americas-new-mothers/