Tag: abortion

Get Your Laws off my Body! by Elise Edwards

After considering Virginia’s Transvaginal Utrasound Bill in light of the womanist critique, I wonder if religiously-motivated lawmakers considered that they alone do not have access to God’s intentions, but that the divine spirit is operative in a pregnant woman as well, would they be so willing to negate her moral agency?

On Tuesday, the senate in Virginia approved a law that would require women to get an external ultrasound before an abortion.  This is a scaled-back version of an original bill that mandated transvaginal ultrasounds prior to abortions. According to this Washington Post article, opponents like Sen. Janet D. Howell describe the measure as “state rape,” since it is the state, not the woman and her doctor who decides that she must undergo this procedure  requiring the insertion of a probe into the vagina.  Although proponents of the bill say that it is designed to give women more information about a fetus’ gestational age and development, most would agree that it is ultimately intended to discourage the women from having an abortion.  This is why bloggers like Kendra Hamilton believe that religion is the moti­va­tion behind this and the other 5 abortion-related bills introduced in the Virginia General Assembly connected to issues of women’s sovereignty over their bodies.  Yet, as I heard about these bills, another religious response came to mind – one that expresses horror and condemnation of coercive practices regarding women’s childbearing. Continue reading “Get Your Laws off my Body! by Elise Edwards”

Of Human Life* By Carol P. Christ

Watching the last episode of the Australian series Brides of Christ in which Catherine leaves the sisterhood of the convent because of her disagreement with Humanae Vitae brought me right back to the Yale Roman Catholic chapel and the folk mass I attended regularly.  In 1968 just after the publication of Humanae Vitae, priest and co-graduate student Bob Imbelli preached a sermon on the doctrine of conscience, arguing that though it was incumbent on Catholics to think carefully about the papal encyclical on birth control, it was also the responsibility of every Catholic to follow her or his conscience on the matter.  In the episode, Sister Catherine encourages a Roman Catholic mother of six who has already self-induced more than one abortion to take the pill, but the woman decides she cannot go against the church’s teachings.  Catherine allows an editorial against Humanae Vitae to be published in the school newspaper even though she knows it will probably lead to the expulsion of one of her favorite students.

I had forgotten that Pope Paul VI issued the prohibition on birth control against the clear majorities of the Roman Catholic commissions instructed to study the matter.  In the episode, Sister Catherine, told by her bishop that she can no longer express her own opinions on birth control, tries to explain to her students that Roman Catholics cannot use birth control because it is against “natural law.”  This provokes one of the students to ask if people are not supposed to use birth control because animals don’t use it.  This question sparked an “ah-ha” moment for me.  Hmm, I thought, while “man” has invented birth control, “women” cannot use it because we are meant to remain “like the animals.” This debate really is about the question of whether women are human! Continue reading “Of Human Life* By Carol P. Christ”

Criminalizing Miscarriages: Latin America’s Zero Tolerance Policy on Abortion By Michele Stopera Freyhauf

Imagine suffering a miscarriage.  All of us have or know someone who has suffered one; I had two.  For me it was a terrible time and I still remember the day of loss and the expected due date.  We all cope differently with this loss, but it is just that – a physical and/or emotional loss.  Statistically 15-25% of women in childbearing years will suffer a miscarriage anywhere from 5 to 20 weeks gestation.  In the United States, when we suffer a miscarriage we go to the hospital.  Often times the visit results in a dilation and curettage (or D&C) to stop bleeding and possible infection.  For me this was also done after the doctors removed the baby girl that was dead inside of my womb.

If this would have occurred in certain Latin American countries, especially in El Salvador, Chile, Colombia, Malta, Nicaragua, and even Mexico, the emergency room doctor would notify the authorities of my miscarriage and I would be arrested and jailed anywhere from 3-50 years for having an “abortion.”  El Salvador even has a prosecutor’s office responsible for crimes against minors and women whose responsibilities are capturing, trying, and incarcerating women who have abortions and miscarriages.  In this office, there are police, investigators, medical spies, and forensic vagina inspectors.  Medical providers have an obligation to report abortions; this is focused more on young uneducated and impoverished women.  For these women, there is no presumption of innocence; they are guilty. Continue reading “Criminalizing Miscarriages: Latin America’s Zero Tolerance Policy on Abortion By Michele Stopera Freyhauf”

The Misbegotten Male: Male Sex-Selection & Female Abortion By Cynthia Garrity Bond

I turned away and, despite myself, the tears came, tears
Of weakness and disappointment; for what woman
wants a girl for her first-born?  They took the child from
me.  Kali said: “Never mind.  There will be many later
On.  You have plenty of time”
To our modern sensibility, the ancient Greeks understanding of procreation is as far reaching as say Nordstrom’s may be to any dollar store.  To the Greeks, men’s testicles had a particular function or job to fulfill: the left one produced girls with the right one producing boys.  For Aristotle, if you were willing to “man-up” and take the pain, tie off your left testicle during intercourse in order to insure the birth of a son.  In this formula, if something were to go wrong, even though you followed the correct game plan and a girl was born instead of the hope for son, something obviously went wrong at conception, thus the term “The Misbegotten Male,”i.e. a daughter, as the misbegotten.   Continue reading “The Misbegotten Male: Male Sex-Selection & Female Abortion By Cynthia Garrity Bond”