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If it's related to abortion and contraception, women in developing nations, refuges, domestic violence, rape (only certain kinds), equity, disabilities, pron, reproductive technologies (only certain kinds) refugees, perceived minorities (only certain kinds), misogyny, footballers, maternity leave, childcare, sole parents, equal party political representation, indigenous women, depictions of women in the media, fashion, sexuality, the environment, animal rights, FGM, people trafficking, prostitution, women on the front line, women in the clergy? Then it's a feminist issue. (Not an exhaustive list, mind you, just a quick grab bag) And rightly so!
This year's Sydney Reclaim the Night tells me:
Our demand this year is Stop Violence against Women at Home, on the Streets, in School and at Work.
So in hospitals it's not violence against women to make a birth look like a pack rape or in Parliament to legislate women's bodily autonomy out of existence while implementing the personhood of the foetus. Hello anyone listening out there?
In the meanwhile, we're all being sold down the river because birth isn't a feminist issue.
Why isn't birth a feminist issue?
Is it only performed by women?
So explain to me why birth isn't a feminist issue then?
If I conceive an embryo because of a rape, it's a feminist issue.
If I desire to discontinue a pregnancy because I simply wish it, it's a feminist issue.
If I want to put the children in state-run childcare when my paid maternity leave finishes and I rejoin the paid workforce, it's a feminist issue. If I want to avoid bearing children, it's a feminist issue. It is appropriate that these concerns are feminist issues. But that bit in the middle when the embryo turns into a foetus and the foetus leaves my body and becomes my child is not a feminist issue.
At the rally in Canberra I looked out over the crowd from my vantage point next to the stage where I was privileged enough to actually be able to hear the speakers, and pondered if I'd asked many attendees "Is this rally a feminist issue?" what they'd have responded.
Probably stuff like "Well you know, I'm not a feminist but...." or "No of course not, feminism's gone too far, you know!" or maybe "Well I don't really call myself a feminist because I'm not hairy, angry or lesbian." Note to self: look at next lesbian sighted and see if she's a. hairy b. angry and c. feminist. There might have been a few of us who'd have said "Hell yes! This is the greatest dismissal of women's human rights in this country since a bunch of whitefellas drew alongside and started oppressing the locals." A few more of us may have wept because a crowd of several thousands should have been swelled by all those who also support our right to abortion which is just another reproductive freedom but not the only one.
It's time to move on from this idea that children are the enemy and that breeding makes us collaborateuse. Plenty of childless folk are quite capable of pushing Big Daddy Patriarchy onto us, and having children can actually be a pretty radicalising experience for some of us. When you realise your parents trained you to heteronormativity, to pink and being saved by a prince, to believing your vagina stank and must be Kept Nice for a husband, and you have children in front of you who you know deserve better, you may start making serious changes in your life.
See here for some thoughts around feminism and parenting which really made my heart sing!
Some of us have been radicalised by the knowing and naming of the trauma inflicted on us by the birth hierarchy which should be the object of much hissing from feminists who care about equal rights and safety in all places.
Supporting women to birth safely doesn't mean supporting a mindset that raising children and making families is all women do. I'm not a forced birther, I learnt feminism from working abortion action campaigns in my early 20s!
Supporting women to birth safely doesn't mean I think childless women are weird. I actually admire women who can recognise the desire to remain childless in themselves and act on it despite the enormous pressure on women to do what's deemed "normal" and produce babies in an appropriate way, with an appropriate person with whom one has a legal arrangement. I don't particularly like the pressure on me to honour this childlessness just because somehow my experience of parenting means I have some privilege in the eyes of patriarchy. I wish!
Here's news: no one but men really have privilege in patriarchy.
The sick feeling in the gut as you dismiss me for my politics, my commitment to birth or feminism, is the knife you've just plunged into your own back for we are all on the same team here, sister whether you like it or not.
We are the Not Men and our bodies are up for discussion here.
We seem to be trying to move away from being women who birth because that way lies the road to really revealing we are the Not Men and we don't want to go there. We want to be on the level playing field with men, we don't want to be treated differently when we bleed. We want equal pay,
But this can only be the problem when we posit the male body as the norm from which we deviate. This is not how I see women. As a woman I deserve all that stuff that men have but I deserve to do it while living in this body which is marked Woman.
As I once noted when reading about breastfeeding and drugs, doctors are often eager to tell women to wean in order to imbibe certain drugs but this is because we view the male, nonlactating body as the norm. If we could open our minds to having not one, not two, but many bodily norms in our world how much simpler would it be? Why must we be like men by ignoring the realities of our bodies and their potential?
I don't mean in some creepy essentialist way, I just mean my body has the potential to do things men's bodies don't, and so there are a few things men experience differently. Just because my body has the potential to grow people and then feed them for years at a time doesn't mean I think every woman must do this, that it is morally superior, that it makes me a better person, or that life is lacking for those who choose not to use that potential. It's just the reality of my life and the lives of most women in the world for I figure that most women do bear children. Men's bodies don't do what mine has the potential to do, fact.
Some of us do it under truly vile conditions, in places where we're enslaved, in households where our lives are not our own because of abuse. A very small number of us do it joyfully, with full embrace and try also to improve the world while we do it.
Regardless of this, it is because it is done by women that it must be a feminist issue.
We have institutionalised abuse of women occurring in this country in maternity hospitals and no general outcry. My personal experience of raising it in feminist groups has been to dismiss it because clearly I'm deranged, everyone just knows birth is dangerous and has to be the violent struggle it is in labour ward. To dismiss the violence as "medical violence" and no different from being harassed at work as if this is acceptable... To dismiss the idea of birthing at home because it might "make women feel bad". To dismiss birth as a topic because it makes the childless "unsafe".
Inadequate responses, each and every one.
What is it when we dismiss the voices of those women who say they are violated by a powerful system which supports patriarchy at every step?
What dialogue is needed, what logic leap needs to be overcome? Germaine had it worked out in the 1980s in "Sex and Destiny", Dr Sarah Buckley's "Gentle birth and gentle mothering" opens with the statement that birth is a feminist issue. Sheila Kitzinger and Robbie Davis Floyd have written compellingly about the violence done to women in the medical model of external careprovision. You can read in the newspaper of women dying after caesareans in this country. And yet?
I invite women who work in reproductive rights to join this struggle because my right to birth autonomously is on a par with my right to terminate a pregnancy and whittling away at one is an attack on the other.
If the personhood of the foetus comes upon us via birth, what will abortion providers do? I've written before about how the possible new guidelines for homebirth and the speeches of parliamentarians and the press releases of doctors all tell us that women are not to be trusted and outside authorities have to be responsible for overruling women's wishes and forcing us into hospitals and surgery if they deem it.
...I am aware that there has been some concern and some opposition to these bills because, as the measures contained within them do not apply to homebirthing, mothers wrongly believe that they are being denied choice. I just want to speak about the issue of choice, because it is an interesting matter. I ask those people who talk about choice: what choice does the newborn child have in the birthing and what rights should that child have? On other matters, I frequently hear members opposite talking about the rights of the newborn or unborn child. Today I have not heard one single member opposite talking about the rights of the newborn child. I accept and respect that mothers have choice, but I think that as a society we should also accept and respect the fact that the newborn child should have rights. If the newborn child is not in a position to express those rights then we collectively, as a society, also have an obligation and a responsibility to that newborn child. It is my view that every newborn child should have the right, wherever possible, to the best birthing services available at the time.
Tony then quotes Dr Lavender, head of the AMA in SA:
Home birthing is a dangerous choice, which pays no regard to the rights of the unborn child to a safe and healthy birth with the best care available. Are we really willing to let this happen to each other? I'd lay my body on the line, and have done so many times, in the struggle against forced birthers and yet who is speaking for me when the same lobby groups invade birth?
See my previous blog entry for the kind of rules the government is seeking to place around women birthing at home for more places the foetus is becoming a separate legal entity from women and to be protected in the eyes of careproviders.
This reworked poem speaks so well to me of the ways in which patriarchy tries to divide those who are natural allies.
First they came for the unassisted birthers, but I did not speak out, because I do not free-birth. Then they came for those who birth at home with lay midwives, but I would would not speak out, because I would not have a home-birth with a lay midwife. Then they came for those who birthed with Certified Professional Midwives, and I would not speak out, because I would not have a home-birth with a CPM. And then they came for those who birthed in birth centers and with Certified Nurse Midwives, but I would not speak out because I would not have a birth in a birth center or with a CNM. And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
Who among us is going to be left bereft of sisterhood because she saw no connection with those who went down before her?
Women and children pollute the nation's capital with our puny concerns!
Actually, a bunch of men, women, children, consumers, birth professionals, interested parties and others, went to Canberra to stand out the front of our Parliament House in the freezing weather and tell each other we weren't alone in our anger over the abuse of our human rights.
I could write about it but someone/s already did so enjoy!
Over two thousand women, men and children gathered in Canberra on Monday to protest the Australian government's attempt to outlaw homebirth midwifery. My toddler and I were just two amongst the pack. We all woke to a very wet capital city and grey skies. Though inconvenient, it felt fitting that the weather should be so dark and gloomy when so many of us were in the same place feeling angry, sad, hurt and afraid for our birthing futures and those of our daughters.
Consumers are not stakeholders, it would seem, when birth is discussed.
What should I do?
Nothing dear, you're not qualified.
Welcome to how homebirth will look at your place - if you're allowed to have one.
Some homebirth advocates (Wingnuts, Bernard, in case you don't know what an Advocate is) met with the minister and learnt some interesting things. I quote from the report done up by Homebirth Access Sydney:
We asked the Minister for a commitment that consumers would be part of the discussions and agreement of a framework of practice or protocols. The Minister stated that she would not include consumers in this process and that it would be negotiated with the professional bodies.
Got that? Doctors and midwives (only certain midwives, not the ones who actually support homebirth) are going to make the decisions about where I get to give birth. Not me, not other women whose bodies are up for discussion, just Professionals. I guess they're Qualified, right? Sure they're qualified, they're qualified to provide a service to those women who require or request their services. Just like a plumber, builder or other tradesperson. If I need plumbing or building done, I'm happy to hire a builder. If I need surgery, or care from a midwife, I'm happy to hire them.
But here's the clincher: as a sentient, adult, woman I, and only I, will make the decisions about my own healthcare.
Could it get more basic? I'm a human with the basic human right to bodily integrity.
The minister thinks maybe the South Australian guidelines around homebirth would a nice starting point.
http://www.health.sa.gov.au/PPG/Portals/0/planned_home_birth_policy_SA.pdf
It's quite a treat. It opens with this:
The woman should be aware that all births carry an inherent risk, with some situations involving greater degrees of risk for herself and/or her baby. She may need transfer to a health unit if complications arise. It is the woman’s responsibility to seek information about all aspects of giving birth at home.
The woman must be aware that plans to give birth at home may need to be reconsidered at any time, depending on changes in the woman’s or baby’s condition during either pregnancy or labour. Moreover, the woman must have given signed informed consent for a planned home birth. The Planned Birth at Home information brochure has provision for the woman to sign her consent.
The Department of Health policies First Stage Labour in Water and Birth in Water also must be followed if a woman also decides to use water for pain relief and have a water birth at home.
The Chief Executive Officer of the health unit providing planned home births must advise the Department of Health’s Insurance Services of that intention. This advice must arrive before starting the service to ensure compliance. There must be an annual report to the Department of Health of the number of home births undertaken in each financial year.
Of course in the interests of parity, all women who turn up at their local maternity hospital are called upon to sign a piece of paper which documents their acceptance of the risks of birthing in a hospital (higher rates of neonatal mortality, higher rates of complications, likelihood of surgery with excessive rates of morbidity and mortality, likelihood of PTSD and PND) and that they are solely responsible for researching madly the risks of that birthplace, right? Uh yeah. As if.
It includes this too:
The woman’s wishes for childbirth should be respected within the framework of safety and clinical guidelines. The autonomy of pregnant women is protected in both law and jurisprudence, and it is the duty of health professionals to accommodate that autonomy in as safe a manner as possible for both woman and baby.
The United Nations states that the human rights of women include their right to have control over, and to decide freely and responsibly on, all matters related to their sexual and reproductive health (United Nations 1995).
Obviously all that can be read and interpreted any way you like. In Australia it means "You have this list of options we deem suitable because no one with a vagina could ever make their own sane, safe decisions."
A woman can be supported to give birth at home only if she fits the criteria for a low-risk, singleton pregnancy at term, and the qualified practitioners are confident and competent to assist.
No, here's the thing you don't get: any woman has the right to choose for herself where she wants to give birth and with whom. Low risk is bullshit. Asking surgeons to define who's allowed to give birth is insane. Unless you're all about controlling women and then it makes perfect chilling revolting sense.
Leaving aside the guff in the middle but which even uses the totally discredited Bastian study, then we get to this bit:
It is inevitable that some women planning to have a home birth will need transfer to a health unit after labour has started, even with a careful selection process during pregnancy (Davies et al. 1996; Wiegers et al. 1976; Parratt & Johnston 1998). This transfer is more likely to happen for women giving birth for the first time than for women who have given birth before. Where such transfer occurs in a timely fashion and in a spirit of cooperation, it typically has no negative effect on the woman’s birth experience (Davies et al. 1996; Wiegers et al. 1998a).
Crock, all crock. Transfers are traumatic because people who believe documents like this are valid, treat homebirthing women and their midwives like shit on their shoes in the hospital. Of the many women I've known who've transferred over the years I've done this job I can name a handful who were treated well, not abused, sneered at, raped, punished. I can tell you the many midwives who've transferred with clients who were happy with the care they've received and yet some third party arsehole in the hospital has made a baseless complaint about the midwife and resulted in her deregistration.
It's not homebirthers and midwives who need to co-operate. It's the staff in hospitals under the misguided apprehension that they have the right to punish women who choose not to birth with them.
Now here's some more chilling stuff:
The qualified practitioners, in facilitating a planned home birth, will: 5.1 be aware of the possible benefits, hazards and contraindications including the current literature about giving birth at home; 5.2 be aware that they have a duty of care to the woman, but also and separately to the baby; 5.3 inform the woman of the Department of Health policy on Planned Birth at Home, the precautions necessary and the contraindications; 5.4 provide the woman with the information brochure on Planned Birth at Home and be confident that the woman has read it;
Get that bit? Babies cannot be trusted to their mothers, we need to have the practitioners deemed appropriate by the state making decisions on behalf of the baby, not a parent. A foetus is not a person. It does not have legal personhood in this country - yet. But when we start saying that careproviders should be looking out for babies separately from their mothers, we head down that road in a de facto manner. Chilling. Obviously perfectly fine in the minds of all the tossers who don't get that a vagina doesn't make you a dunce or a danger to your babies.
So who's allowed to have a homebirth? I believe the qualified persons are men, closely followed by about 5% of women who've been lucky enough to avoid intervention in previous births which has a surprising follow on effect of moving them from the Low Risk basket to the High Risk basket.
CONTRAINDICATIONS The qualified practitioner will conduct a careful screening to ensure that the woman’s condition is suitable for giving birth at home, that she has no fetal or maternal contraindications, and that she has the capacity to make informed consent. 6.1 The prerequisite for a home birth is that the woman should have an uncomplicated singleton pregnancy with a cephalic presentation between 37 and 42 weeks of gestation (259 to 294 days). 6.4 The following conditions preclude a woman giving birth at home. Obstetric history—previous: caesarean section; postpartum haemorrhage in excess of one (1) litre; shoulder dystocia; baby requiring intensive or prolonged special care; perinatal death. Medical history (as identified in the SA Pregnancy Record): any significant medical condition; alcohol or drug dependency; female genital mutilation. POLICY – PLANNED BIRTH AT HOME - 8 - Current pregnancy: body mass index >35 or maternal weight greater than 100 kg; antepartum haemorrhage; abnormal placentation (including placenta praevia); hypertension and/or pre-eclampsia; gestational diabetes; suspected intrauterine growth restriction or small for gestational age; suspected fetal abnormalities that require paediatric attention at birth; polyhydramnios or oligohydramnios; pre-labour rupture of membranes (see 6.4); and post-term pregnancy ( 42 completed weeks; that is, 294 days).
Most of us give birth at home in order to avoid being dictated to about how we can birth. This list is just the same hospital bullshit that sees all the normal women in hospitals get fucked over. Evidence based practice? Sorry? What's that?
During labour: need for continuous fetal monitoring; evidence of infection or maternal temperature >37.6° C; lack of engagement of the fetal head; meconium-stained liquor; fetal heart rate abnormalities; intrapartum haemorrhage; absence of progress in established labour; active first stage labour in excess of 18 hours. Home environment: more than 30 minutes travelling time from the support health unit; lack of easy access (in case transfer during labour is warranted); lack of clean running water and/or electricity; lack of cleanliness and hygiene; domestic violence; recreational drug use. 6.3 Situations may arise at or after birth that require referral to a health unit; these include: retained or incomplete placenta; postpartum haemorrhage; third or fourth degree tear; Apgar score < 7 at 5 minutes; neonatal respiratory problems; neonatal convulsions; congenital abnormalities; low birthweight (< 2,500 gms).
So it's a hospital at home, ok? Got that?
And don't try lying about anything because you have no right to privacy. If you can't produce your medical record to demonstrate that you haven't been sliced or lost a baby previously, you don't get a homebirth anyway. And if you don't have the record they've all been assiduously writing on when you're in labour they want to transfer you to the hospital then too.
The absence or otherwise non-availability of the woman’s SA Pregnancy Record during labour constitutes a contraindication for giving birth at home.
Of course midwives, those professionals qualified to offer care to pregnant women can't be trusted to know anything about women so this is essential too:
The woman should be advised to have a general medical examination from a general practitioner of her choice before deciding on a home birth to eliminate previously undiagnosed disorders; this assessment should occur early in pregnancy.
I'd laugh if it wasn't going to degenerate into a weep. Since when do GPs know anything about pregnancy? Since when?? And yet the actually qualified practitioners - midwives - who do know about pregnancy are only allowed on a woman's case once she has the all clear from a GP. G stands for General, not specialist.
It is advisable that a woman intending to have a home birth is booked with a health unit in early pregnancy. In the event of complications during pregnancy, labour, birth or the postnatal period, transfer to a health unit may be necessary. 7.6 The woman’s chosen general practitioner and booked health unit should be informed of the woman’s decision to have a home birth.
You know what? It's no one's business but mine where I plan to birth. No one's. Fucking nanny state.
Pharmacological pain relief is not available during labour at home. The qualified practitioners should ensure that the woman is aware that transfer to a health unit is necessary if pharmacological pain relief is required.
No shit, Sherlock. It might come as news to you but that's one of the many reasons women birth at home. Because people who think labour is an illness aren't there to force "pain relief" on us. Pain relief causes injuries to women and babies. Do some goddam research, homebirthers do!
The woman should be advised of the need to reassess her suitability for home birth later in pregnancy and again after the onset of labour. So you could go your whole pregnancy thinking you're having a homebirth and then get forced into hospital if you don't fulfil all their ridiculous criteria at the last minute. Nice. Classy.
7.10 The woman should be referred to her general practitioner or an obstetrician if medical complications arise during the woman’s pregnancy. If the qualified practitioner is a midwife, the ACMI National Midwifery Guidelines for Consultation and Referral (2004) should be used as a reference. Again with the GPs? Who have what training in pregnancy and its complications??
7.11 If a woman chooses to continue with plans for a home birth contrary to the advice of either of the qualified practitioners, the situation should be documented and formal notification should be distributed to all support practitioners and the booked health unit. Yes here's the nitty gritty. Punishment for noncompliance. No privacy, no right to make your own decisions about your birth and your baby.
7.12 The qualified practitioner should visit the woman’s home before 37 weeks into the pregnancy to ensure that the home is a safe environment for a home birth. The qualified practitioners should meet the support persons who intend to be present during labour, at this time or at any other time before the onset of labour. More nitty gritty now. They get to visit your home and vet it (presumably if you can raise children in it, you can birth in it, right? You probably got up the duff in it but they haven't started policing that just yet.), they get to vet who YOU want from your own goddam family there! Why isn't everyone outraged at the paternalistic invasion of women's privacy right there?!
7.14 The woman should have a bag packed in case a transfer is required. Oh noes! How will the world ever survive if a labouring woman turns up in a hospital without a nightie in a plastic bag? FFS. The level of nannying is fucking astounding. Will there be reports tabled if silly women don't pack a nightie and demonstrate their nightie packing capacity to Big Daddy?
8.3 When labour assessment occurs at home, the qualified practitioners must ensure that the woman is informed of her progress in a timely fashion that enables informed decisionmaking; this should include: 8.3.1 reassessment that the woman’s condition is suitable for birth at home; and 8.3.2 informing the woman and her family, where necessary, on options for care for example, if transfer to a health unit is advised and whether this should be in a car or an ambulance). 8.4 The qualified practitioners are responsible for informing the booked health unit both when the woman is in labour and also when she has given birth. So a labouring woman is going to have regular vaginal exams which disrupt labour and prove nothing about progress so the midwives can report on her and her faulty body to everyone within cooee. Then everyone gets reported for "successfully" or otherwise, managing to squeeze out a baby under these hospital conditions too. Fark. Nothing's ok about any of this.
Here we go into really really scary territory again:
8.12 It is difficult to predict outcomes of pregnancy and birth, and complications can occur quickly. If a woman chooses to continue with plans for a home birth when the qualified practitioners have advised against it, the qualified practitioners should document the situation, formally notify labour and delivery suite at the booked health unit and the obstetric consultant on call. The qualified practitioners may continue to provide care but should be aware of the separate duty of care to the baby. Actually reputable sources can tell you that in unhindered birth instant complications are rare but that's by the by.
The baby, is the baby of the woman. You do not get to make separate care arrangements for my children as if I cannot be trusted to make the best possible, safest, evidence based decisions for my child. You just don't get to do that. As a parent I have the right to decide how my baby is treated once they're earthside and prior to that, they are in MY body and I will make ALL the decisions, thanks. Foetuses do not have legal personhood. De facto rubbish this is.
The woman must be offered an oxytocic injection immediately after delivery to reduce the risk of haemorrhage. Quick point but actually this is also bullshit. But the studies done obviously have no bearing on the policy. I'm not researching it for you, try google.
9.9 The qualified practitioners are no longer responsible for the woman’s care after transfer to a health unit, but it is advisable that one of the qualified practitioners , who attended labour at home, remains involved with the woman’s care until after the baby is born. 9.10 If disagreement arises with the woman about transfer of her or her baby when complications occur, either qualified practitioner should document the situation and formally notify the appropriate staff at the booking a health unit. It is advised that the qualified practitioners have the woman record in writing her decision not to accept their advice. Ah so once you transfer, all this Collaborating still means squat because your midwife has no practicing rights in the hospital. You're signed over to total strangers at this point without anyone giving a shit about the relationship you may have inadvertantly forged wth your midwife through the last nine months of constant testing and bullshit. And yes, everyone's up to running off a quick written memo when they're refusing to take a baby to hospital who isn't sick but has somehow fallen outside the hospital guidelines being forced upon you in your own home.
Ok this is just dumb: 2.1 Giving birth at home is not a common practice in Australia and adequate documentation, therefore, is of the utmost importance. WHY? What the fuck purpose does the constant reporting on women serve? Oh yes that's right it controls us.
12.2 The safeguarding of documentary evidence is of even greater importance for practices that are relatively rare than for those that are common; therefore:
12.2.2 the non-availability of a SA Pregnancy Record and its information at the time of labour and birth must be seen as a contra-indication for home birth and is an indication for transfer to a health unit (see 6.6); Do I really need to tell you why this is ridiculous? How about healthcare as a reason to transfer? Not just noncompliance?
I'll leave you to read their listed sources. Unsurprisingly most are old and from the surgical school of decision making. The 2005 BMJ study rates a mention but most of the work is getting on for a decade from when this document was produced in 2007.
Why is this so? I'm sure you can work it out.
And do enjoy the checklist at the end and imagine it being applied to women who birth in hospitals, as opposed to those who have take away hospitals as per this document.
If this is our future, I'm scared for women. I'm heartbroken. I'm deeply angered that our basic human rights are not even considered. Our bodies. Our births. WTF don't you get?!
This youtube presentation explains the impact on birthing women of the personhood of the foetus as is supported in many states of the US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuC4gGSZ-yU
More ways to shit on women Part 47 - laugh at violence against us *trigger warning*
From the committee proceedings investigating the current legislation to outlaw independent midwifery. Get yourself a transcript.
I would just like to remind the committee that the leading cause of maternal death in this country is suicide.
- Hannah Dahlen
Professor Dahlen aside, Have you all noticed how much shitting on birth trauma there is at the moment?
Home birth wingnuts shouting down major steps forward for midwifery
Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:
The reaction from homebirth advocates has been little short of hysterical. Roxon has been vilified across the blogosphere and deluged with letters and emails. One blogger, perhaps not understanding the meaning of the word, called Roxon’s failure to publicly fund homebirth “socialist”, which would make it the first socialist reform Miranda Devine has ever supported. While not all homebirth advocates are as extreme as Joyous Birth, which uses the term birth rape, there’s plenty of wingnuttery out there.
I won't dignify Miranda's unspeakable act of violence against women when she laughed at birthrape in her column of spew.
http://shedidsaidworewhat.wordpress.com/
Warning: going here to see the gross misrepresentation of violence against women may cause conniptions. Hint: just cos you say you're a Feminist (while defining disagreements between women as "shitfights") doesn't mean you are. It might just mean something very different apparently.
Why is birthrape routinely dismissed as a few women whining about the use of lifesaving intervention? Further hint: birthrape isn't medicalised birth, it's doing things to women's bodies without consent. Little things like cutting open of vaginas often without anaesthetic (even people who like medicalised birth can read studies to indicate this is a dumb idea that benefits no one), shoving hands and fingers into women's vaginas without consent, or even cutting women's bodies open after a series of coersions, humiliations, and again without consent. Doesn't that provoke the slightest flinch in you?
Is it really that hard to understand? Consent. We're talking consent. The right for women to decide what happens to their bodies. Consent.
(Except when it happens in hospitals and then it's ok. Potential rapists looking for a career should consider obstetrics. Cute uniform, indoor work, easy hours and you get paid and thanked no matter how many women you rape. Cool!)
This isn't feminism, this is Big Daddy talking through women who think they're oh so funny and up to date with their "feminism". The feminist part of that pile of shite kinda escapes me.
The boring old furphy that talking about women being raped in hospitals is somehow watering down the other ways in which women are "really" raped is so offensive to everyone concerned. Who knew a definition of rape was based on the venue?! Oh but of course because once women couldn't be raped at home because husbands can't rape something they own, right? And once women who were raped in the street just deserved it. Would it be rape if a doctor raped a birthing woman with their penis instead of their hands? I dunno, I'm confused. Maybe it's rape when women say it's rape? And maybe instead of a stupid kneejerk reaction fuelled by a stack of internalised misogyny and birth mythinformation just maybe some women (who think they're feminists while clearly totally missing that boat) could listen to what the women are saying and take that on board instead of deriding our attempts to prevent a basic attack on human rights? You may not realise it but we're also concerned with your basic human right to at some point in your life choose to add parenting to your life and bring that baby from your body without also being raped at the same time. Trust us when we say it's a less than edifying start to parenting when you have PTSD.
Why are birthing women separate from Other Women when it comes to talking about rape? And consider too that many women who birth have also been raped in ways that fauxfeminists are comfy with and which are allowed to be labelled rape as well as birth being something most women do in their lives. So apparently the time you can't say "Yes means yes, no means no, however we dress, wherever we go" is when it's in a hospital, in a hospital gown. Please, make free with our bodies when we're birthing because it's not rape, it's lifesaving intervention and we're just too silly to know the difference. Just like those Other Women are too silly to know when footballers rape them in front of the team? Or is that rape you recognise because it involves a power imbalance and something being done without consent? Gee sounds remarkably like birthrape to me except maybe you trusted that when you went to a hospital you'd be safe in the hands of Trained Professionals who never do anything unnecessary. Then a crowd of strangers stood around and egged the perpetrator on while deferring to them in the hierarchy of who's present in "delivery" suite and you lay there paralysed with fear and a hole that was punched in your back in order to introduce drugs of a serious nature into your body.
With women shitting on us like this, who needs RANCID? Old fashioned feminism? Yep, the kind where human rights are respected and we don't label birth as somehow different from other parts of women's lives
IBTP.
And then to Crikey.
Why don't women read Crikey?
Crikey seeks women for conversation, companionship and fun times.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/08/20/crikey-seeks-women-for-conversation-companionship-and-fun-times/
Here's a hint: positioning men as the centre of the universe and laughing at political activism by women doesn't really attract women who care about politics. Doing it like a personals ad. That's just dumb and creepy. And not even particularly giggleworthy. Boring.
Bernard Keane's impressively offensive "article" on homebirth ("Home birth wingnuts shouting down major steps forward for midwifery") is so full of lies and misrepresentation it's almost bizarre that anyone thinks it passes for opinion and it sure isn't Fact. I'll vent spleen here where it's expected that people will behave with a modicum of honesty about their vested interest and be called on it when they don't. To pretend that doctors shouldn't have so much say in birth while totally dismissing what birthing women (you know, the ones whose bodies are up for discussion here?) are saying about birth is the ultimate bullshit.
Way to go speaking out for the oppressed, chaps. Tell us what we think, tell us how to think it, then lightly dismiss everything we've said anyway. Classy. See the point kinda is, Bernard, that a step forward for a group of professionals who will work in a hierarchical medical model to make sure surgeons have the final say over women's bodies is not actually a step forward for birthing women. It's nice for those midwives, although it doesn't apply to the only ones offering genuine midwifery and it thus doesn't mean that women are going to be celebrating. Only women would be expected to celebrate something that shits all over them while people like you continue to define what we should want and do in terms of our own bodily autonomy. Got that? MY body, MY birth. Not yours, not your right to whine about how some of the girls aren't toeing the line when you clearly have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
I'm just a "homebirth wingnut" and "hysterical" woman so you can bet I won't be going back to Crikey now. Dudes defining politics for me I don't need. I'm just a laydeeblogger on soft topics, yanno, like birthrape (something many men AND women love a laugh at coz it's sooo funny when women are assaulted, hey?!), legislative changes to women's human rights in this country (oh that's right I'm just part of an unrepresentative tiny vocal minority shitting on "everyone's" great joy at the current appalling changes to midwifery (s)care in this country) and other boring shit like that which dudes wouldn't want to read about since it doesn't apply to them, as they see it. Except it kinda sorta does since every time someone's human rights are chipped away we are all just that little bit more impoverished in the world we inhabit. It's only when you position yourself as lords of creation that you can afford this perspective.
And what's with the denial that birthrape exists? Who does that serve, Bernard? It doesn't serve women. People once denied that rape within marriage existed, or that adult men would rape small children, but it didn't mean it wasn't happening and it has come to be (somewhat) accepted as a possibility in recent years. But the women who spoke out were shat on in the same way by patriarchy lovin' dudes who love to laugh at violence against women. Ha ha. So funny. Seeking to score points against an oppressed group by laughing at their protests that violence is done to them? What the FUCK?
What other sphere of politics (yes I know there are vaginas involved but it is actually politics, dudes) involving this level of oppression is so celebrated and accepted in the wider world? Crikey wouldn't get away with using any other group's experience of oppression in this way but women, hey fair game. Especially women who choose bodily autonomy and criticise a hospital system which routinely coerces and forces poorly evidenced (at best) and actively harmful interventions on people who access it. Except it's not "people" it's "women" and thus it's totally fine. Birthrape is not funny, dudes, any more than any other kind of assault to the human body. If you wingnuts were following the legislation you'd have heard that the greatest killer of birthing women is suicide. That's pretty funny too, right?
In case you missed it above, read again here:
I would just like to remind the committee that the leading cause of maternal death in this country is suicide.
- Hannah Dahlen
The rage I feel when women's lives are dismissed, laughed at and belittled in this way knows no bounds. And to have a few stabs at pretending to be cool and down with feminism'n'shit by saying that male obstetricians ought not have so much say in birth is patronising crap indicating absolutely no adequate critique of anything related to women and birth.
Crikey, you disgust me. I cleared my cookies and will never go back. IBTP. And Bernard Keane.
I sent this tonight and CCed her advisors as well.**
I have requested a response. I'll let you know what it is...
Dear Minister,
I write with deep concern to you, seeking clarity should the legislation to criminalise homebirth midwifery go ahead. Consumers need information about how their needs will be met and are entitled to have those vital questions answered as soon as possible. Women achieving pregnancies in only a few short months will probably be giving birth in a vastly different legal climate and need to be equipped with information in order to make difficult decisions.
Your immediate attention would be appreciated.
1.What will women who are pregnant prior to July 2010 but birthing after 2010 do with regard to their midwives? Their pregnancies will be conducted within the law and yet their births will not. How do you anticipate this will need to be managed?
2.Many women refuse to access publicly funded homebirth schemes, still more women are not eligible or have no scheme in their state or city. What will you do in order to provide them with an appropriate careprovider?
3.After July 2010 what will homebirth advocacy groups do? Will we face fines of $60,000 for “inciting” midwives to attend women at home?
Given that we appear to be faced with this assault on our basic human rights to decide where and with whom we birth, we need answers to these questions as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
** Having not received a reply as of last week, and having also sent it three times to the PM in various places, I emailed again. Still no response. Must be too busy sorting it out to get back to me, right?
Homebirthers may try to convince you that our actions are infringing on their human rights. This is an outrageous accusation given that half of all humans are men and don't give birth. This is not a human rights issue, it's a women's issue, one that few women care about. Women can vote, drive, marry or not, go to university, wear pants and have group sex with rugby players, the majority of women are happy with their lot. The remaining "women" are an outspoken minority who are struggling to find a husband on account of their lack of hair on top and wild bushes everywhere else. Your government is currently drafting legislation against these terrorist ugos too.
Lisa at her Midwife Mutiny blog shares some letters and thoughts on the current draft legislation.
I’m fucking disgusted. As parts of the USA move toward a system of underground abortion provision through the threat of terrorist force, we’re moving toward a system of underground homebirth midwifery through the threat of State force. Anyone who thinks this is a good thing, raise your hand. All those with your hand raised, go have a glass of wine and feel ashamed of yourselves. All those without your hand up: write to Roxon and your federal MPs and Senators, please.
Din of Inequity draws the only logical conclusion between attacks on abortion and attacks on homebirth as the same crap to control women.
Women’s bodies on the line in Australia.
It may seem like a storm in a teacup to people who are anti-homebirth, but the legislation will effect us all. Homebirth has been an anchor that has upheld the normal, natural process of birth, an antidote to the over medicalisation of birth and a counter to the spiraling caesarian rates. But going beyond birth, this is about bodily autonomy, about a woman’s right to the self determination of her health care needs, it is about our personal sovereignty. Any whittling down of our rights reduces and endangers us all.
Australian women face one of the greatest struggles for basic human rights they’ve ever faced.We have the vote, we have some semblance (lipservice) to equal pay, we can mostly put our children in childcare, rape makes it into the newspaper (insert mass disclaimers, but it IS there!), we can mostly access a safe abortion service but we may not be able to hire a midwife to support us in a homebirth after next year. We are focussing our energies on the rally on September 7 in Canberra. Large numbers of women are working hard writing letters, designing banners, buying tshirts, seeing MPs, posting on the internet, talking to friends, family and random strangers. This is a sinister law which seeks to do violence to women, babies, families and our communities.
What if we lose?
Every hope we’ve had for maternity care has been dashed so far by successive governments and I see little reason to hope, as yet, that the fines attached to midwife-attended homebirth will be overturned and yet we must keep struggling because without struggling there is absolutely no hope. No one’s going to drive through in their white Prius and save us or the midwives, and it’s probably not that likely that anyone’s going to change the legislation either.
People just don’t get it. Australians are prone to apathy at the best of times although perhaps it’s more a sense of disenfranchisement and disconnection which lies behind our ready acceptance, in the main, of laws like this. Everyone who refuses to support the campaign has some reason or other they’re using to justify it: I’ve finished birthing, I’m a bloke so I’ll never give birth, I like birthing in hospital (um yeah ok, whatever but I don’t so how about you put yourself in my shoes?), you’re exaggerating the dangers of hospitals you weirdy, it’s not worth it for so few women and they’re just noisy whingers anyway. Or any of the other myriad of misogyny-soaked excuses I’ve heard so far. It is tragic stuff that we don’t see beyond the end of our noses or our genitals to see the wider picture of basic rights being smashed and how that demeans all of us not just homebirthers.
Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. . .
Preamble
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Women’s right to bodily integrity and autonomy is an oft discussed aspect of this blog. It mystifies many readers, causes some to break out in hives apparently and post all manner of nonsense about how women are somehow too stupid to make decisions in their own best interests. I guess that’s only a reasonable conclusion from how we just drive that damn car into walls with the kids in the back unless someone in Authority is breathing down our necks telling us not to. All those women I see lying down in the road waiting for trucks to not hit them and their kids are doing it because there’s no law to stop them doing it! Quick! Break out the emergency Vagina Protection Laws for all the silly ninnies who need someone to stop them slicing themselves with the tin opener instead of the cat food!
I don’t need anyone making those decisions for me, thanks. Oddly enough I know even without a law to tell me that stabbing yourself in the eye with a biro hurts and that standing on lego is one of the most painful things an adult ever experiences. And I manage it all without the benefit of legislation that would criminalise my children for playing which is pretty much what children do. Women, likewise, have the physiological potential to just birth, and making criminals of us because of where and how we choose to pursue that potential is so offensive it’s almost beyond belief. Luckily for Big Daddy and his patriarchy, feminists have well developed senses of humour so we seldom go postal. One could perhaps argue however enough was enough and the straw which broke the camel’s back was the law that criminalised the very act which patriarchy seeks to force us to perform because we’re not performing it to Big Daddy’s rules. Talk about wanting your cake and eating it too. As a friend said, “What 99% of births wasn’t enough for you?”
So given that we have a long history of being guilty of being women, we have to face the reality that we may lose this struggle. You can look to countries overseas to see where similar laws have been passed and you have to conclude that it is thus possible. I’m sorry for you folks who are still celebrating the apparent win of some rights being extended to some midwives, so long as they work in the hospital system and are good girls, but your inability to face reality ain’t going to stop my births being criminalised.
What will it mean to us if we lose? What will it mean for homebirth?
Well obviously many of us are (not) having discussions about how to get around these stupid laws. No no, of course not. We’ll all be good little girls and let the federal government force us back into the hands of those who’ve raped many of us in the hospital system, hurt our babies and trashed our lives, yes of course we will, yes siree. And we’re certainly not seeking legal advice about what we can do to help women in an underground movement to retain our human rights.
If we lose, babies will still be born at home. However we manage it, we will manage it. Some laws are unable to be policed, mostly because they’re not really crimes at all because a crime is meant to cause some kind of damage to persons or property. Some laws are such an affront to human dignity and commonsense that it becomes the duty of citizens to simply ignore them. Women have ever thus been creative because we have to be to survive in a world that hates us and whatever the AMA, RANZCOG or any of their fellow travellers and collaborators wish for us will not make it so. They may seek to wreak violence upon us but we will refuse to be bowed and will keep on supporting each other, supporting the midwives who support us and living with great pride in our achievements as we continue to help women birth at home.
Your human rights matter to me. I will continue in this struggle for the rest of my life. Join me as we pledge ourselves to keeping visible the women who choose homebirth and as we lovingly continue to maintain a safe space for each of us. I'm proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with each and every one of you. You are my sisters. Whatever the legislation says, we will still be here, no one can legislate us away.
In recent years as midwife-assisted homebirth has become more topical in the mainstream press, so too freebirth or family birth, has also become more widely known. Our culture of control over women means that the shock value of women birthing autonomously is on a par with those women who chained themselves to parliament houses for the privilege of voting. The politicised nature of birth, and the heavily contested zone of women’s bodies, means that any choice outside of an external careprovider model is scrutinised, criticised and demonised. Those who birth in hospitals, with their poor outcomes and constant newsworthy crises are seldom asked to justify their decision despite the clear evidence that their choice is the suboptimal one. How refreshing it would be to see women in L&D quizzed over their reasons, research and capabilities to manage the system they’ve chosen.
[Important nomenclature point: “Unassisted Childbirth” while a popular label, still epitomises the notion that the norm for birth is “assisted” and yet a woman birthing without a medical attendant is seldom actually “unassisted” just supported in different ways from assisted births.]
There are a number of broad reasons often given for those who choose freebirth – note that this is not the same as women speaking for themselves. Some reasons include the cost of private midwifery care, availability of midwifery care, fear of careproviders or previous trauma. All of these are still coming to us via a paradigm which assumes the only model for birth to be one in which women seek external care provision. This argument posits that only “damaged goods” or those without access to midwives would need or want to birth without an attendant, thus cementing the primacy of the external careprovider in birth. For some women, some of these factors do come into play. For many women these are not factors which they consider when planning a birth. Those living in major cities, for instance, have little trouble locating independent midwives.
The pressures on independent midwives are well known to those of us who work in birth and it cannot fail to be acknowledged as reprehensible that obstetricians who work without evidence or woman-centred care are favoured on every level over those who would seek to offer women something of benefit to them, their families and also the wider community. What some midwives fail to recognise however is that the very pressures on them from those bureaucracies which seek to stamp out homebirth are filtering down to clients in a very real way. The obstetric model of “care with strings” is the one promoted by these bureaucracies so women are forced to accept birthing under conditions which may indeed favour a midwife’s continued access to registration but does not support women to achieve the births they desire. However the end result is arrived at, some women are thus unable to find midwives to care for them and decide, given the demonstrable dangers of our hospital system, that they will be an autonomous consumer within the healthcare system and care for themselves.
Freebirth is thus not an attack on midwifery but for some women it is an indication that midwifery as it stands is unable to fulfil the needs of many consumers. Perhaps rather than viewing freebirthing women (and those who support them) as another enemy, it would serve some careproviders to use this information to reflect upon how to manage these issues without clients being affected. The use of freebirthing women’s stories to promote midwives’ campaigns for professional recognition is a misguided approach and only furthers the existing paternalism around birth. Midwives should be freely available to all women and to exploit some women’s decisions to birth without a midwife in order to further a very different agenda does not seem a deeply considered strategy. Increased availability of midwives, desirable as it is, will not alter every woman’s freebirth plans given the range of reasons women might choose freebirth in the first place nor should it since women’s right to choose within birth must be inviolable.
However a woman arrives at the decision to pursue freebirth, it almost always boils down to a desire for autonomy. Autonomy is not available to women in the hospital system, it is not available to all women choosing independent midwifery for complex reasons, some of which are stated above. In fact it is generally not available to (nor is it pursued by many) women in our lives outside of birthing. Some women want to truly make their own decisions around their bodies, births and babies. This can only be a radical concept in a world where women are seldom supported in their basic rights to bodily integrity.
Imagining women with an automatic right to full autonomy is disturbing to many of us, enculturated as we are to believe that women are communal property, subject to the invasive gaze of authorities both public and private. It seems a difficult concept for careproviders who come from a background of normal socialisation and through inherently misogynist training to grasp, but it is as difficult a concept for many women to grasp and those who do are a (maligned) minority. Some women even recognise that it is their response to the client/careprovider dynamic which leads them to choose autonomous birth and thus avoid their own socialisation to hand over their power. Careproviders might even find their own personal and professional satisfaction concomitantly increased by taking similar steps.
It would indeed be refreshing sometime to see the tables turned and women who choose birthing options known for poor outcomes, and venues in which their power is expected to lie dormant questioned about why they would make such dangerous decisions. Of course this can only happen in a world where it is no longer normal for women to unquestioningly accept what is offered as “care” in the maternity system and what passes for “choice” when you inhabit a faulty feminine body in a patriarchy.
Kick off Birth Trauma Awareness Year 2009 by standing proudly with your sisters.
We are all in this together.
What is done to one woman, is done to us all.
Raise awareness, offer support, now is the time!
Every woman, and every baby, and every family deserve a Joyous Birth!
Birth Trauma
In 2009 Joyous Birth, and other involved groups and individuals, will be promoting public awareness around women's experiences of traumatic birth. Birth trauma is at epidemic proportions and yet so normalised while causing untold damage to women, babies, families and communities around the world.
Careproviders need to take responsibility for their actions and accord women the basic human rights taken for granted outside of maternity care. Women need to stand strong and speak out about the violence in order that we may see this juggernaut of obstetric control finally begin to run into opposition from those most affected - consumers. What is done to one woman is done to us all, and women say NO MORE!
Enough is enough.
We will no longer stand by while our sisters, partners, friends and babies are mutilated and traumatised.
The silence ends now.
What can you do to be part of this community effort? Follow your passion in this three stranded project. We need to talk about:
How to avoid birth trauma.
How to heal from birth trauma.
How to raise awareness about birth trauma.
* put a birth trauma awareness sticker on your car, pram, bicycle helmet, letterbox, gate, fence, front door
* sew a birth trauma awareness patch on your sling or wrap
* put your traumatic birth pics on youtube with appropriate captions raising awareness
* drop off JB pamphlets and info on normal physiological birth to your local medical centre
* tell someone about your birth trauma
* write a letter to your daily, local or national newspaper
* talk to your community group, ABA group, mothers' group however casually you like
* tell your GP if you have one
* tell your natural therapists and give them some JB brochures
* write and share your own traumatic birth stories as well as your beautiful birth stories
* work at healing yourself - you're worth it!
* take a few pamphlets everywhere just in case the need arises
* say “Birthrape is real" on mainstream internet forums
* change your sig to something supportive of BTAY on mainstream forums
* put a link to JB on your website, blog, community group website or anywhere else you can
* host a showing of BOBB in your local area and invite the newspapers
* go to anything women-related and talk about birth trauma - WEL, CWA, IWD.....
* do some community-minded graffiti or even a mural!
* write stuff on toilet walls in maternity hospitals
* do some Wiki edits
* put a birth trauma quote in your email sig
* ring the radio when talkback time is on and talk about your experience of traumatic birth
* do an essay at uni about it if you can, or a tutorial presentation
* Join forces! Get involved with your other local homebirth and maternity groups. Volunteer your time, and bounce ideas off others
Use these slogans, or write your own.
Birth trauma happens. Has it happened to you?
Birth trauma happens. It happened to me.
Birth trauma happens - deal with it!
Birth trauma happens. So does healing.
Break the silence around hospital violence
Avoid birth trauma - birth at home
Hire a surgeon, get surgery.
Women have human rights too.
Birth trauma deserves our attention.
Birth trauma deserves your attention.
Does birthrape offend you? Good.
Yes means yes, no means no,
However we dress, wherever we go -
And that means in hospitals too!
Did your rapist wear a mask and gown? Mine did.
Episiotomy is genital mutilation.
Doctors, what do you do when a woman says no?
Midwives, what do you do when a woman says no?
I own my body and I give birth.
Epidurals are a pain in the back.
Fingers, forceps, hands, ventouse, baby - which one belongs in a vagina?
Did you feel your caesarean? I did.
Women say no to birth intervention and yes to powerful birthing!
Better a yummy mummy than a numb mummy. Say no to epidurals.
Drugs in birth? Just say NO!
Healthy babies deserve healthy mothers.
Health means more than alive.
Avoid birth trauma - manage your own birth.
Birth trauma is not a baby's choice.
Birthrape on demand, a surgeon's right to choose.
My body, my birth, my choice.
Birthrape - happening at a hospital near you.
Birth trauma - coming to a woman near you.
You deserve a great birth so stay home.
Unwanted interventions = birth trauma.
Vaginal exams without consent are rape.
Birth is not a medical condition. Leave women alone.
Birth is not surgeons' business.
Birth is women's business.
Consent is not consent when it’s obtained by lying or coercion.
The “dead baby” card does not obtain consent. It coerces women.
Did you know birth trauma can make women suicidal?
Did you know birth trauma happens?
Have you heard of birthrape?
Coerced surgery is human rights abuse. Women and babies deserve respect.
Forced caesareans are the ultimate violation of women’s human rights.
Doctors are not gods. Midwives are not gods.
Women can run their own lives.
We the undersigned strongly object to the conditions of the study on Infant Sleep Disturbance, which is being conducted by Kate Jackson at FlindersUniversity.
We are concerned that the children involved in the study will be subjected to ‘sleep training’, otherwise known as controlled crying, cry it out or controlled comforting. This aspect of the study is inconsistent with Flinders University Ethics policy (1), which requires researchers to protect the rights of their experimental subjects.
The Australian Association for Infant Mental Health(2) does not support the practice of controlled crying stating that the technique “is not consistent with what infants need for their optimal emotional and psychological health, and may have unintended negative consequences”. If there is ANY concern that controlled crying could be harmful to infants, then the rights of the child are not being protected and the study should cease immeditaely.
We are also concerned with comments that Kate Jackson has made to the media, which display bias unfit for someone conducting a scientific study, “Conflicting advice about controlled crying meant some parents were being scared off the technique” (3) .
As informed individuals we question the theoretical foundations of this study, in particular, the definition of'sleep problems' (4).There is evidence to support that it is completely natural for infants to wake often during the night throughout their first year and beyond (5,6). This is NOT a 'sleep problem'.
Controlled crying and other similar regimes may indeed work (although one Australian baby magazine survey found that only 8% of mothers who used controlled crying said that it worked for more than a week) to produce a self-soothing, solitary sleeping infant. However, the trade-off could be an anxious, clingy or hyper-vigilant child or even worse, a child whose trust is broken. Unfortunately, we can't measure attributes such as trust and empathy which are the basic skills for forming all relationships(7).
These infants cannot speak up for themselves
Please sign to help protect their rights
References:
1. FlindersUniversity, Ethics and Biosafety.
http://www.flinders.edu.au/research/info-for-researchers/ethics/
2. The Australian Association for Infant Mental Health,
http://www.aaimhi.org/documents/position%20papers/controlled_crying.pdf
3. The Sunday Mail, Adelaide Now.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24305993-5006301,00.html
6. Goodlin J, Beth L, Burnham M M, Gaylor E E, Anders T F, 2001, Night Waking, Sleep-Wake Organization, and Self-Soothing in the First Year of Life, Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Volume 24, Issue 4. View abstract at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11530895?dopt=Abstract
I'm supposed to be writing about forgiveness today. I owe an article and it's been sitting in the back of my mind, stewing in the detritus of the parenting and activism which lives back there. Forgiveness and birthing women. Learned authors I consulted on this topic like Desmond Tutu and Starhawk seem pretty clear that forgiveness is a part of a longer process involving survivors speaking out and someone listening and actually caring about the pain inflicted. So that's my sticking point, I guess.
Forgiveness is impossible in the war zone that is birthing in the western world.
Sounds so dramatic but well that's how it is! Imagine gatherings like the South African Truth & Reconciliation meetings where victim/survivors and perpetrators came together to listen, communicate, discuss, take responsibility and eventually offer forgiveness. Birthing women could stand up and through their grief, describe how it feels when people with absolute power over you inject you with drugs without consent, or how it feels to have your vagina cut open for no reason, without consent and without anaesthesia. Or how it feels to listen to your baby screaming while strangers poke and prod them and then take them away for you while you beg for them to be in your arms.
Imagine surgeons and medwives standing up and saying "I cut a woman's belly so I could go on holidays" or "I made fun of a woman's birthing noises because it made me uncomfortable." Imagine midwives actually saying out loud, "I gave that woman a VE because Doc X said I should even though she didn't want me to and I felt terrible doing it." Imagine the opportunities for healing their own experiences of birth trauma which lie unaddressed when midwives could say, "I insisted on washing babies because my babies were washed and I couldn't bear the thought that other women would get what I missed." Imagine homebirth midwives saying, "I'm sorry I insisted you transfer for no real reason, I just had a bad back and felt overwhelmed." Ah so much possible insight, so little likelihood.
Of course this stuff will never happen in the current climate. Not while birth reformers are meeting with surgeons and reassuring them that they're not like those Angry Women who might get all uppity and start making "demands" instead of having birthing "wish lists". Scuse me while I vomit into my keyboard. I figure the adequate socialisation of most of us which means we don't get angry about stuff, we get cancer instead, means that some of us have to do extra Angry Duties like teachers who do extra playground duty as favours to friends. I'll do some angry for the women who are dead now because of obstetricians since they can't do it and no one seems to want to talk about them.
I don't forgive the people who perpetrated my birthrape. Fuck that. They don't give a shit, they've gone on doing it since then, what good would forgiving them be? I'm not eaten up with anger, it's not gnawing at me, it bursts right on out in wildly appropriate ways like blogging, activism or running forums that seem to scare the hell out of casual observers. ("OMG did you see?? They say OUTRAGEOUS things on those forums!!")
Yep outwaaaaageous things like "Only you give birth, only you decide where." What we don't talk about is the advanced certificate in forgiveness a woman might require when her husband has decided she'll have an out-of-homebirth which goes to shit. How can a woman forgive herself and him for insisting she go to hospital when the damage can be so terrible? Will that woman be able to forgive her husband when she lives with the daily reminders of her surgery or other birthrape? When she sees the scars on her baby's mind and body will she forgive him? The worst of all is she'll probably just live in denial for years and not even tell him how angry she is that she let someone talk her out of birthing safely.
What can we do?
Go be angry. Warm the cockles of my cyberheart with the flames of your righteous anger. I'm beyond rage at how women are treated in birth in Australia. Let's do anger together, sisters. We have nothing to lose but our denial and apathy.
Despite scaremongering and weirdness from the press, all utterly predictable of course, simultaneous national rallies occurred! You can see all the news and pics at this link.
“Rallies for Accountability” were held simultaneously nationwide on Friday 28th March 2008. At midday, women, men and children gathered in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth as a show of public support for survivors of abuse in the healthcare system.
The rallies were inspired by recent reports in the media of the actions of Dr Graeme Reeves, an Obstetrician/Gynecologist dubbed the “Butcher of Bega”. Hundreds of women have come forward telling of assault, abuse and mutilation while under the care of Reeves. Even more disturbing is that in spite of several hundred complaints submitted since around 1990 by patients and staff about this man’s practice, he was not struck off the medical register until 2004.
The members of Joyous Birth were so outraged and moved by news reports about the actions of this doctor; they decided to “do something”. “Rallies for Accountability” were planned as a public show of support for the survivors of abuse in our healthcare system, and to highlight the lack of accountability and culture of silence in the healthcare system.
Joyous Birth, the Australian homebirth network is currently organising a national day of rallies to show support for the women stepping forward with allegations around their experiences of Graeme Reeves. This is planned for Friday 28 March, midday outside parliaments in every state but NT, at this point.
Joyous Birth hopes that women all over Australia can join forces over this issue which we see as linked to the wider issues of medical culture in this country. A Graeme Reeves could only have occurred in a system which is already sick. Contact me at janet (at) joyousbirth (dot) info for more information.
Have you seen this in the news lately? Stand by these courageous women and offer them your support!
QUOTE: THEY call him the Butcher of Bega - a NSW doctor who has committed such monstrous acts that hundreds of terrified victims have remained silent for more than five years.
Dr Graeme Stephen Reeves is alleged to have routinely mutilated or sexually abused as many as 500 female patients while he was working as a gynaecologist and obstetrician at various hospitals across Sydney and the NSW south coast. Click here for Source.
QUOTE: Mrs Dewaegeneire was admitted to Pambula Hospital on August 2002 to have a minor lesion removed from her labia.
Before she lost consciousness to a general anaesthetic, she said Dr Reeves leaned over and whispered in her ear: "I'm going to take your clitoris, too".
After the operation she discovered all her external genitalia had been cut off her body. It is alleged Dr Reeves later boasted of removing "all the fun bits" - and said she wouldn't need them as her husband had died. Click here for Source.
In spite of there being 1200 complaints against this man, there are those who still seek to protect him.
QUOTE:Butcher victims top 1200
SUPPORTERS of the "Butcher of Begs", Graeme Reeves, have gone to ground as the growing tsunami of email complaints surpasses the 1200 mark.
The Sunday Telegraph was met with a wall of silence when it contacted former colleagues, psychiatrists and health regulators last week to find out how the disgraced former gynaecologist and obstetrician managed to escape detection for more than a decade.
Only one former colleague spoke out last week to defend Reeves, who is accused of routinely mutilating and sexually abusing hundreds of patients. Click here for Source.
QUOTE: Last week Dr Simonson, who provided a letter of reference for Reeves at his NSW Medical Tribunal hearing in 2004, said he stood by his statement that Reeves was ``one of the better surgeons'' in his experience.
"I assisted Dr Reeves in some operations and what I saw him do is what I've seen othersurgeons do similarly in other operations,'' he said.
Asked if that meant he had seen other surgeons mutilate their patients, he replied: "I'm not commenting''. Click here for Source.
WE MUST EXPRESS OUR HORROR AND OUTRAGE THAT THIS HAS BEEN ALLOWED TO HAPPEN IN OUR HEALTH SYSTEM. WE MUST SHOW OUR SUPPORT FOR THIS MANS VICTIMS, AND SEND THE CLEAR MESSAGE THAT THIS MUST NEVER BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN AGAIN, AND THIS MAN MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.
Nationwide rallies have been organised in the following cities, on Friday the 28th of March, Midday, on the steps of Parliament. (others cities may also be involved, I will update as necessary) You can also e-mail me at janet (at) joyousbirth (dot) info
Bring ribbons to tie to represent the women abused.
Come along, bring your families, bring placards, spread the word!
Contact Joyous Birth to get involved, spread the word, bring your mothers’ group, tell your school committees, tell anyone who’ll listen and come along to support these women.
SLOGANS FOR PLACARDS:
First Do No Harm
Real Doctors Don't Abuse Women
We Deserve Better!
Ignorance is NOT strength!
Respect Us.
Care not Scare!
We are watching YOU.
Our bodies are our own.
Procedure without Consent is ABUSE
Ask. Listen. Respect.
Consent is not a contract for abuse!
My signature does NOT absolve you!
Do that to me on the street. Go to Jail.
You are not above the law.
Abuse us, pay the consequences.
No means NO - Even in Hospital!
We don't trust you anymore.
Rape? Mutilation? All in a day's work and supported by his mates.
Those of you from out of town, may not have heard but a serial mutilator of women has been recently discovered in the eastern states. He is currently residing somewhere in NSW with his wife accompanying him. It seems that he sexually assaulted many women and mutilated the genitals of at least 1200 women over a decade and without public outcry or police follow up. He performed these mutilations in public view, in front of hundreds of other people and yet none reported him or followed up his behaviour to see that someone, anyone, put a stop to his activities. Women he mutilated made complaints but these were ignored. Why no outcry?
He was an obstetrician.
There is barely any press coverage, letters women are sending to the newspapers deploring this man walking free while women suffer are not being printed. Silence abounds. Except for his friends who are speaking out to defend him and in hopes that he isn't suffering too badly now, poor man.
Some of us, of a cynical turn of thought, might hypothesise that a system based on the oppression and subjugation of women, where women are routinely disregarded as they scream no, is the ideal hiding place for a serial misogynist. While there is no denying the vile, unspeakable nature of this man's deeds, he's not that far from plenty of birthrape stories, is he? Mutilated genitals, women left scarred for life unable and unwilling to speak out for fear of ridicule. A system where doctors are gods is going to breed this kind of behaviour at some point. I daresay he's not the only one using the safety of general anaesthetic to indulge personal desires of a revolting nature.
Are you feeling shocked and staggered by this? Despite being deregistered in one state, and concerns being raised about him in a number of hospitals, and despite at least one woman dying, he was allowed to keep mutilating and raping for over a decade in our maternity hospitals. Those with so much invested in how maternity hospitals keep running are not going to just leap aside and offer themselves up for more regulation of their activities. Too much money is involved for anyone to really give a damn about this.
"The Sunday Telegraph was met with a wall of silence when it contacted former colleagues, psychiatrists and health regulators last week to find out how the disgraced former gynaecologist and obstetrician managed to escape detection for more than a decade.
Only one former colleague spoke out last week to defend Reeves, who is accused of routinely mutilating and sexually abusing hundreds of patients. Dr Frank Simonson also revealed fears about Reeves's mental state in the wake of the scandal, which has made headlines around the world.
"I hope that ... he is getting medical treatment and counselling,'' he said.
"He would be suffering terribly mentally at the moment - and he certainly would need some mental support.""
If you're a client of Frank's, I suggest you step away. He befriends serial misogynists and defends them publicly.
Are you feeling moved by the surgeon's plight? Are you wondering where the hell the hundreds of hospital staff who enabled him are hiding? Or maybe they're just working away in the hospital like they were then, watching some other butcher perform mutilations on women. Well yes, they would be, they'd be enabling episiotomies, right? They'd be holding women down and forcing their legs apart to allow easy access to people with sharp instruments who have no business between any woman's legs - ever. They'd be putting up the synto and telling women to shut up and stop complaining. They'd be saying, "Well you let a penis up there!" to women who don't want vaginal examinations. They'd be taking babies from their mothers' arms, jabbing them with noxious chemicals and filling virgin guts with powdered poison made by multinationals.
Not so hard to see how a mutilating surgeon came about and stayed undetected, hey? How about all the surgeons who slice open vaginas and then stitch without anaesthetic to punish women for refusing interventions? Or stitch women too tight to deform their vaginas and supposedly make their (always) male partners jump for joy at the thought of fucking a woman who cries in pain. Or those who force women to have caesarean surgery for no reason thus risking their lives and the lives of their babies? They're having their names printed in glowing birth announcements, as I type, where Dr So-and-so is thanked for the "safe delivery" of a baby. Or they're signing a credit card chit for goods paid for by Medicare where every time a surgeon lays a hand on a woman they get paid a little more. When these women went to see specialists for repair work, the doctor would comment that the mutilating surgeon had left his "trademark" mutilation on their genitals. And yet none reported him? So they colluded and obviously approved, right? People who don't approve of genital mutilation would report it, wouldn't they? Doesn't this rather make a mockery of all the supposed disapproval for female genital mutilation in this country? Or do we only disapprove when non-white, non-surgeons do it?
Obstetrics is the job for serial misogynists. They get to control and abuse women's bodies and not only that, but women's bodies while trying to perform the societally sanctioned defining act of womanhood. And then their colleagues and friends all stand by them. Plus plenty of women who experience brutality on this continuum also fail to speak up even though the people who rape them are clearly coming from a history of rape and will continue to rape as long as they have those positions of power over women.
So if you've experienced interventions without consent or been coerced or forced into anything in a hospital, speak up! Not speaking up means we're colluding!
Can you imagine a surgeon who was removing penises and testicles without reason or consent lasting very long in a job? Especially if it was a woman doing the mutilating? I can't. She'd be gaoled, pilloried, dire mutterings of bringing back the death penalty would be happening in clubs across the country. But let a man loose on women under general anaesthetic to slice at will and no one really gives a damn.
My rage knows no bounds.
Stay tuned for the news of a rally to protest about this shocking travesty.
(Except when it happens in hospitals and then it's ok. Potential rapists looking for a career should consider obstetrics. Cute uniform, indoor work, easy hours and you get paid and thanked no matter how many women you rape. Cool!)
