It’s been a bad week here in birth activism land. I got a Serious Infraction for SPAM for posting a link to my birth pics on a forum.  Then I actually had my sorrow at a booked surgery deleted from a  post. I really feel for the mama in question, I’m both sorry and sad she’s having a second unnecessarean, she seems pretty sad about it too. But god forbid someone should say so.  

I have committed the crime of being unsupportive.

Well if being supportive means ignoring women’s pain, not mentioning the truth about birth and how it’s risking your life to have interventions you don’t need, I am proud to be unsupportive.

Yes, let’s all be supportive. Sounds so lovely, doesn’t it? But what are we supporting? When we tell someone lies about their pregnancy and birth, who is really being supported? Does the woman benefit? The baby? The family and community? Big Fat No. The surgeons benefit, of course!

I absolutely do not support the medical establishment and their rape and torture of women and babies. I feel even more disgust for those who masquerade as friends to women but are just spouting the same shit as the establishment. Dressing it up as support does not make the risks lessen. If we all pretend surgery is safe and wise, it does not make it so.

I do not support misinformation. It is not my sister’s right to risk her life and that of her unborn child and yet be patted on the back and told it’s ok.  Has that baby been offered a choice to cook till it’s actually fit for the world and then be born safely? If she loses her uterus in this surgery, is that ok? If we all support madly enough will that mend the cuts that leave her bleeding to death?

It’s not choice when it comes wrapped in lies, smoothed over with misinformation, complete with a ribbon tying it all up and making it acceptable. Move closer to the package... Smell the stench arising from it? That’s the smell of death, of lies, of women’s lives shattered, families torn apart.

Let’s all lie through our teeth. Let’s all pretend we’re Doing Our Best.  Really? Our best is to lie down and take shit from hospitals? Really? That’s what best looks like these days, does it?

I am tired of seeing women walk in the door with the wounds of hospitals on their bodies and souls. I am tired of seeing women support one another in this myth making. For god’s sake, someone speak up!

Women are dying, babies are dying, when is it enough?

Postscript: In order to facilitate discussion around censorship on forums, I have deleted my account on that particular forum. I was not banned. I was just tired of being abused and silenced. Back patting doesn't keep women safe. No one would be back patting over women choosing to formula feed for no reason and yet the vital, life threatening time of surgical birth is supported willy nilly. This is what happens when there is no feminist critique to support genuine dialogue. A once fine forum has bitten the dust now and is pushing the same placatory, censoring, mainstream agenda as all the other mainstream forums. I cannot be a part of colluding in the rape of birthing women.