The problem is low pay, not family size

In recent public debate about child poverty blame has been laid once again on parents having too many children.  Correspondents and opinion piece writers have stated or implied that more than two children is too many.  When did we decide that having three kids constitutes a large family? 

In the whole of human history there has been a massive period of time with average family sizes of more than three children born to one couple.  In many countries in the world now women are likely to have more than two children over the course of their fertile years, indeed the world average fertility rate is a bit over 2.5 on all three measures Wikipedia uses.  is it unreasonable to expect to be able to have three children and be able to get by in Aotearoa New Zealand, a comparatively well-off place to live?

Those who blame family size for child poverty have been rebutted on the statistics already by such as the Child Poverty Action Group, who have as their mandate research and advocacy to reduce child poverty and would I have no doubt promote reductions in family sizes if that really were a key driver. 

What the family size argument seems to boil down to is pretending that you know more about someone else’s life than they know about it themselves.  Second guessing the life choices of others is an impossible game, even with the benefit of hindsight.

There could be many reasons why people have more than two children (or indeed any children, one child, or no children).  Maybe there was a contraceptive failure, or cultural pressure to have a big family, or a desire to have children of different sexes, or they had the financial resources at the time of conception, or any range of other reasons that are theirs and not yours or mine.

By stating bluntly “if you can’t feed then don’t breed” a series of unhelpful assumptions are made, including that people’s financial situations don’t change over time, or at least don’t get worse.  In an age of uncertainty around employment, the future of work, rapidly changing technology and industries, this seems a naïve assumption to make. In decades gone by how many people, young women in particular, took typing at school before we saw the rise of the personal computer and the demise of the typing pool? 

It is equally impossible for a couple or an individual to accurately foresee how much each child will add to their outgoings.  Will this child have additional health needs, a disability, or be one of twins?  Will we have to move to different housing because of particular needs this child has, housing that is more expensive and creates more transport expenses too? 

Finally not all children are planned at the point of conception.  Contraception does fail, and is not easily available and socially acceptable to all.  In New Zealand Abortions are legally allowed only for medical risk to the physical or mental health of the pregnant person, not for economic reasons.   Those advocating for the termination of pregnancies which are going to put financial pressure on a parent, based on projected income, should think carefully, not least because an abortion on such grounds would be against the current law.

The key driver of child poverty is not too many children but too little money; low incomes, whether it be from paid employment or social welfare or a combination of both.

It's not that long ago that most people in this country could expect a reasonable standard of living for their family based on the income of one full time worker, even with three or more children in the household.  In 2012 the Herald published statistics on median income levels across Auckland.  The area I live in and represent, Puketapapa (Mt Roskill), had the 18th lowest median income in the Herald's stats, despite having a lower percentage of people on benefits (10.5%) than many of the suburbs higher up.   This gap is not about the choices of individuals, it is about a system that distributes wealth in a way that is wrong.  We simply must lift incomes.  We do that by investing in education, in infrastructure, in social welfare, in job creation, in innovation, in pay equity and, crucially, paying at least a living wage.  Focusing on procreation is a distraction, not a solution.

NB:  This post is a rewrite and update of an earlier one I wrote about four years ago on the same topic.  I submitted it to the Herald but they declined to publish it.  Special thanks to Deborah Russell for editing.

Fourth of three

In a couple of months I will be transforming my life, and my body, again, through the addition hopefully of another baby.  To answer the standard questions and get that out of the way:  everything is going fine for the fetus, it's a boy (joining two other sons) and I am just looking forward to having another baby, don't care about the sex although the others in the household wanted a girl, I've unfortunately been quite sick and tired and sore this time around.  Right, now that that's done (and thank you in advance for any congratulations you may wish to offer - please don't feel you need to do so in comments) let's move on to my motivation for writing this post.

Many many people assume this is my first, unless they actually see me with my children or know me well.  This means I get rather a lot of well meaning advice before I'm able to say actually this is my third child on the way, and get that deflated "oh" which goes along with the mental realisation they don't need to give me any instructions or horror stories or non-scientific anecdotes.  A few persist, but most flag it at that point.

Some have been unwise enough to assume I am disappointed about the physical sex.  I'm not, other people are, but genuinely not me.  I now try to get in first with telling them that, before they put their foot in it.

What I'm struggling with most though about these conversations is saying "this is my third."

Each time it niggles a bit, because this is actually my fourth (known) pregnancy - not because I had an abortion as I suppose many reading this will think given my activity on that issue, but because I had an early miscarriage.

It wasn't physically traumatic, more a delayed period at about the six week mark.  The stick had told me I was pregnant but I hadn't yet had time to go to my GP for confirmation; when I did instead it was to discuss the miscarriage, get ultrasounds to check everything had dislodged properly, and so on.  I was pretty upset, not least because this was my first attempt, but not distraught.  We didn't tell anyone really, and then I became pregnant again immediately, this time with the pregnancy that produced the child known to many of you in days gone by as Wriggly.*  I did end up telling quite a lot of people about the miscarriage during that second pregnancy because it skewed my dates and resulted in some out of the usual order scans and such like.

So when people say to me "is this your first?" and I say "it's my third" I mean third child, not third pregnancy, but I always feel a little stab of guilt that I'm erasing that very first experience, the one that was over before it had hardly started.

I don't mourn for that embryo, I don't imagine the child that could have been, I never have really since my children were born and I realised how for me what I miscarried wasn't at all a comparable life, a human being, in the way the now 7 and 4 year olds are and were since they were newborns.  It wasn't even an attachment as strong as what I feel now to the fetus moving and kicking inside me, even though I remain somewhat aloof from that, just in case.

But I do feel a sense of betrayal, or erasing an important part of my uterine history, when I use the word "third" knowing that most will translate that as third pregnancy, not third child.  I want to be upfront about it, and I know that experiences of miscarriage, especially probably those that happen early, are not commonly shared, serving to unfortunately isolate those who experience them.  I also don't want to end up giving too much information, thinking that those who ask me the standard casual questions about my now obviously distended belly want my full gynaecological history, which I must admit I'm not particularly inclined to give.

In my head I've decided now to think of this as the fourth of three.  Maybe I'll work out a way to articulate that in polite conversation sometime in the next six weeks.  Perhaps it'll be enough for me to have written it up here, and shared it in this manner, that I won't feel a niggle anymore.




*  He prefers me to use his real name now on the internet and I try to respect that, but he's actually irrelevant to this so I won't be in this post.

'Attack on Obesity Starts Before Life': (At Least) 5 Problems

This is a guest post by George Parker:

5 quick-fire reasons why I have a problem with the public health approach reported in the New Zealand Herald today under the headline: ‘Attack on obesity starts before life’:

1.     The studies were based on animal experimentation (sheep) and there are still many questions about how or whether the findings of these studies translate to humans and human environments.  It is therefore way too early to use these studies as a basis for public health policy (this is leaving aside the ethics of animal experimentation that involves starving and/or force-feeding pregnant animals).

2.     The relationship between obesity and health is highly contested and we should question the very idea of public health interventions aimed at obesity prevention.  The study of obesity, the findings of those studies, their representation in the media, and their application into public health policies are all influenced by anti-fat bias – the socially constructed notion that fat is bad and that fat people are ‘lazy’, ‘greedy’, ‘stupid’, ‘out of control’ and ‘unproductive’. Anti-fat bias results in stigma and discrimination for fat people which is itself a health risk. For example, fat people report frequent dieting with both physical and psychological effects, avoiding recreation in public spaces, and forgoing health care because of the attitudes of health providers towards their fatness.  Variations in body weight should be understood as part of natural human diversity, and identifying and addressing anti-fat phobia should be a public health priority.

3.     Public health policies specifically targeting women as reproducers and mothers to improve population health are discriminatory on the basis of gender.  Such policies are a continuation of a long history of reproductive injustice that has resulted from the reduction of women to their reproductive organs, the elevation of the interests of fetuses over pregnant women, and the responsbilisation of women, particularly mothers, for social and health problems.  This in turn has justified, and continues to justify, the surveillance, regulation and control of women’s reproductive bodies including for example restrictive access to contraception and abortion, and policies and prosecutions aimed at foetal protection.  

4.     Public health policy focused on changing individual behaviour is influenced by neoliberal ideology that seeks to justify reduced state involvement in and responsibility for the population’s health and wellbeing by responsibilising the individual for health.  This is unjust - it masks and maintains vast and persistent social and health inequalities and other relations of power eg. racism, poverty and gendered social roles, that create the conditions for and determine poor health. It is no coincidence that the ‘attack on obesity’ by targeting women’s dietary choices before and during pregnancy is our dominant public health strategy at a time when solo parents welfare entitlements are being reduced; when affordable, safe, warm housing is difficult to secure; and when many families are experiencing food insecurity.

5.     Public health interventions targeting individual behaviours frequently translate, not into increased social support, but rather blame, guilt and punitive sanctions on those who fail to improve their health regardless of their material realities and social contexts. Not only is this unjust, it also fails as a public health strategy because it risks disengaging people from health and social services.  Women are especially vulnerable to anti-fat bias in health services and are already subject to increased surveillance and intervention because of their role in reproduction, particularly women marginalised by their socio-economic circumstances and due to racist systems of oppression.  The potential to disengage those women who could most benefit from health and social services is thus high and poses a significant threat to women’s and their children’s health.

(Related reading: Werewolf article: Policing Pregnancy, by Alison McCulloch)

Who Was That Woman, Anyway?

It’s trite to say that books take you places. But true nonetheless. With books, you can disappear into other times, cultures, imaginary worlds. “Foreign” fiction is better than any guide-book at introducing you to a place and its people, and sometimes even better than going there if you want to see beneath the surface.

But if you live here and read enough of the stuff (say novels from the two Anglophone powerhouses – the United States and the UK-plus-Ireland) then a different feeling starts to kick in. Like what you’re getting to know is really life inside the American novel, not life inside America. At about the same point, for me anyway, “local” fiction itself starts to feel a bit foreign. Not in the way “foreign” fiction is foreign, but in the way local fiction feels rare, like something you don’t see very often. Which, when it’s good local fiction, also makes it feel precious and exciting and new.

I felt this way reading Aorewa McLeod’s new book “Who Was That Woman, Anyway? Snapshots of a Lesbian Life.” It’s a novel, yes, but as McLeod explains in the book’s front matter, it’s inspired by real life events. “Some details happened in real life, some did not,” she writes. “The characters are fictionalised and given fictional names.” The book’s 10 chapters, ordered by date, span roughly 40 years in the life of Ngaio, McLeod’s protagonist who, like the author, is an English lecturer at a university in Auckland.

The subtitle is sweet in the way it undersells the book. These are not only snapshots of a lesbian life, but of life in New Zealand, and life in Aotearoa. Snapshots of what it can be like to grow up here, and live here.

Its starting point is the 1960s with Ngaio, a university student, heading to Nelson to spend her summer break as a nurse’s aide because “an ex-schoolmate’s father was someone high up in the mental health service and he had suggested that nurse-aiding in psychiatric hospitals was a lucrative way of earning money in the holidays”. Ngaio is put in a ward with bedridden, severely disabled children. “There were enormous hydrocephalic water heads, tiny pinheads, huge slobbering mouths, bent bodies, contorted hands waving in the air, grasping blindly, clutching as if there were something to reach for. They could grip me with such desperate strength that I had to pry their fingers off. Many were blind. I couldn’t tell how old they were.” McLeod’s writing, particularly in the first half of the novel, is like that: direct and piercing.

It’s while she’s working in Nelson that Ngaio meets Suzy, her first love. Suzy is a Māori woman from a Mormon family who works as a charge nurse at the children’s ward in town. “She only goes for white girls,” a friend tells Ngaio. “All her family’s married white. That’s what the Mormons encourage them to do, to make it in the white world.” Who cares! Ngaio is in heaven. “This was it; this was what it meant to make love. This was the transformational moment of my life.”

"Legitimate rape" is illogical cant

Content warning:  Rants related to rape, victim blaming, rape apologists, and ridiculous sex education that helps no one, all contained within.

"If it is a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down."

So said Republican nominee for the US Senate Todd Akin.  

"That whole thing" refers to pregnancy.  Mr Akin is saying that women don't get pregnant from rape.  And if they do then it wasn't really rape, it wasn't "legitimate rape."

The whole concept of "legitimate rape" appals me.  I believe that Mr Akin is meaning to say "real" or "genuine", when he says legitimate, but I can't help thinking of that other meaning of legitimate, which is "acceptable."  

It is not up to Mr Akin to decide what does and does not constitute rape, or even this bizarre sub-set of rape that he's carved out in his head.  Rape is sex without consent.  There is nothing legitimate, as in acceptable, about rape EVER.  And as for there being illegitimate rape, fake rape; there is NO evidence to suggest that false rape claims are made at any higher rate than any other level of fraudulent reporting, which tends to be about 5%.  

Many of the reactions I've seen to Akin's comments have been focused on the sheer biological illogicality of his claim that rape cannot result in pregnancy.  Yet that's exactly what I was taught in my teens at a school in New Zealand in the early 1990s.  I recall quite clearly during a health class a teacher (who was not a science teacher and I suspect very unsupported to run these discussions) telling us that pregnancy did not result from rape because the woman's body (only women can get raped you see) was simply not receptive, wasn't producing the correct juices, was hostile to the sperm.  This wasn't a biology class I hasten to add.  For a long time I believed her.*  

The point of this discussion was to refute the idea that abortion in cases of rape was even to be considered.  If you were pregnant it couldn't have been rape, "legitimate rape" as Akin would no doubt say, therefore no termination for you, evil slut!

Ellen and Minnie helped to dispel this myth.  You remember Ellen right?  Ellen Crozier?  She was Cheryl West, before there was Cheryl West.  You know who I mean, that Shortie nurse, the one who was Carla's good sister.  The origins of her daughter, Minnie, were shrouded in mystery for many a season on the Great New Zealand Soap, and it eventually turned out that that pregnancy was the result of rape.  

In my own life I've studied biology a fair bit, and I know, now, how untrue the line I was sold all those years ago is.  I know it also second hand from the bitter, horrible, experience of a number of women who have disclosed such stories in their own pasts; resulting in adoption, miscarriage, abortion, and keeping the resultant child and raising them well.  The feeling of being violated over again, in finding out about the pregnancy, and then having to make hard decisions with no correct answer due to the proprietary, selfish, harmful act of another.  

There are, sadly, so many myths about rape, and about reproductive health.  When one that seems so obviously wrong to us pops up let's consider that there will be those who have been taught the lie as truth and who may not yet have had the additional learning, or the life experience, to show them otherwise.  






*  She also helpfully told us, in the same session, that if someone wanted to rape us there was no point lying that we had our periods as the rapist wouldn't care.  It's odd what sticks in the teen brain through to adulthood.

Yes, this happened in Aotearoa New Zealand

Thanks to Women's Health Action Trust for allowing me to re-publish this media release here.  It refers to this case in the media last week.


Criminisalising pregnancy no solution

‘Jailing women in the interests of foetal protection cannot be justified on either human rights nor public health grounds and sets a dangerous precedent’ says Christy Parker, Senior Policy Analyst of Women’s Health Action Trust.

Ms Parker was responding to reports this morning of the jailing of a New Plymouth woman in the interests of protecting her ‘unborn baby’ from harm.

‘Women’s Health Action strongly supports steps being taken to ensure good outcomes for women and their babies when they are risk of harm. However the criminalisation of conduct during pregnancy has not been shown to improve outcomes and has been condemned within international human rights forums’ Ms Parker states.

‘Making women fear prosecution for various types of behaviour during pregnancy has been shown
to be a barrier to accessing health and social services that support women to improve outcomes for
themselves and their families. This has recently been highlighted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Anand Grover, in his report to the United Nations. Mr Grover states in his report, ‘it has been well documented that the public health goals are not realised through criminalistion; rather they are often undermined by it’. In addition, States are obligated to ensure that interests in protecting prenatal life are consistent with the fundamental human rights of women and do not perpetuate discrimination against women’ states Ms Parker.

‘The issue here is not about the details of this particular case but rather a trend towards foetal
protection and the criminalisation of pregnancy in Aotearoa New Zealand. As interest grows in the
outcomes of the Green Paper for Vulnerable Children, we need to be thinking carefully about how
to best support good outcomes for women and their babies. Punitive measures that further isolate
women and that risk undermining their human rights should be treated with caution’.

More on Women's Health Action Trust can be found at their website.

Abortion stats out today - UPDATED

The raw statistics will be released today for abortions in the year to December 2011.  The full commentary and data doesn't come out until the Abortion Supervisory Committee report towards the end of this year.

The bits I'll be watching for are the abortions by duration of pregnancy (anecdotal evidence lately suggests there are real problems getting early abortions at some services), and by previous live births (I think it's always helpful to bust the stereotype that those having abortions are never parents already).

Will hopefully update when they come out, although if it's after 2pm I probably won't be able to until tonight.


UPDATED:

Here's the info on the Statistics website.  The headline points, from the Stats NZ release are below:

In the year ended December 2011:

• 15,863 abortions were performed in New Zealand, the lowest number since 1999 (15,501).
• The general abortion rate was 17.3 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years, down from 18.1 per 1,000 in 2010.
• Women aged 20–24 years had the highest abortion rate (33 abortions per 1,000 women aged 20–24 years).
• The median age of women having an abortion was 25 years.
• Most abortions (62 percent) were a woman's first abortion.
• 55 percent of abortions were performed before the 10th week of the pregnancy.

/update

Please consider this an open thread for discussion of the stats and the general state of access to abortion in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This is NOT a thread for discussing the morality of abortion, which you can do over here.

Transphobic tripe, again

I want to write on some related issues to this piece of bigotry by Rosemary McLeod, which I shall try and do later, but in the meantime:

1. Referring to a known person (particularly one with a clearly stated gender identity) as he/she questions that identity, and is not acceptable.
2. I assume by "surgically created penis thingy" you mean a penis. If so, say so.
3. I have no idea why the man in question has not had 'bottom surgery', but there are a lot of reasons (medical risks, cost, the fact that the results are often not that great) why he may not have done so (DOES NOT NEED A PENIS TO BE A MAN is another option).  If you don't know the reasoning, don't draw any conclusions from what you think it might be.
4. As a queer woman with short hair, a little facial hair and who sometimes wears men's clothes, I'm actually not like Thomas Beattie when it comes to gender. THAT IS BECAUSE I'M NOT A MAN. He is, I'm not. Therefore, none of the above are determining factors.
5. Plainness = so utterly irrelevant.
6. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE ABORTION RATE HAS TO DO WITH THIS.
7. Have you ever considered the fact that maybe the couple are modelling pride in who they are, openness and the fact everyone is entitled to respect for their children?
8. Have you ever considered that maybe it would be hard for them to keep this secret and they are trying to reveal it on their terms.
9. If all the people (disabled, non-white, unmarried, low income...) who some obnoxious bigot thought shouldn't have children acted on that advice, the world would have a lot less kids and be a far worse place.
10. I've never heard of a child with a trans* parent being made homeless by that parent because of their gender identity. Maybe that needs to be considered when we're thinking of the children.
11. When you start talking about BIRTHING LIVE GOLDFISH, OF ALL THINGS you make this sound like a freak show. It isn't. Shut up.
12. If you're concerned about the children, oh the children, why won't someone think of the children, why don't you stop worrying about what may or may not have been between their parents' legs at whatever times in their life, and make the world a bit easier for them by showing some respect.

Got it? Awesome.

Guest post: Why minors deserve a choice as well

By smkreig, cross-posted from The Comfort

As many of you may remember, there was a heated debate earlier in the year about supposed ‘secret’ abortions which were being performed on teenagers without their parents knowledge or consent. There was a public outcry about how schools and heath-care facilities (or in a broader view, the state) were taking the place of parents in helping the minor make the decision of if they should or should not carry the pregnancy to term. Many suggested that the school (or health professional) should have to inform the parents when a minor is considering an abortion.


I don’t understand how these people came to this conclusion. I agree that people should be encouraged to talk to trusted friends and family about their situation - especially if they are finding it overwhelming. A strong support network is important for any teen; but this is where many people missed the point. In suggesting that parents/guardians should be informed when their minor is pregnant and considering an abortion, they also suggest that these parents/guardians are part of a trusted support network for the teen. This is by no means always true. Parents are humans and therefore they can be abusive, coercive or even be the cause of the pregnancy. There is often a reason why a teenager will come to a guidance counsellor, nurse, or doctor in confidence. If the woman trusted her parents and considered them supportive, she would most probably have gone to them for support.

It also suggests that the parents know what is best for the teen and her uterus; and this is where the argument really fails. Some people suggest that it is important to inform the parents because they will also be affected by the pregnancy. No doubt, the parents can choose to help look after the child, they can choose to help fund its upbringing. So why should they not have a say, if THEY want a grandchild? Simply put; their role as grandparents can be abandoned. The fact that the young woman needs to carry the foetus in her uterus; needs to endure pregnancy; needs to make the decision of what to do after it is born: this cannot be abandoned if she is denied the individual choice of abortion. Someone who is not directly, and undeniably affected by the pregnancy cannot claim to know what is best for the woman who is pregnant, becuase they therefore put their preference and morals infront of the health; wellbeing; and autonomy of the woman as a human being.

This post is not about the ‘state raising our children’, it is about considering pregnant teens as self-possessing human beings, who are able to make a decision about their own bodies. If it was required for parents to be allowed to make a decision about their daughter’s foetus, the daughter should also have the choice to pass the obligation of pregnancy onto those who want to keep it.


***


This is part of a week of Pro-Choice Postings hosted here at The Hand Mirror starting on Friday 28th October 2011. For an index of all the posts, being updated as they go up, please check the Pro-Choice Postings index. And if you'd like to submit a post for cross-posting, guest posting or linking to please email thehandmirror@gmail.com.

Guest post: Abortion as an act of love

By pohutu, cross-posted from threewisewomen

When you’re in a defensive crouch in the face of those on the march against reproductive rights, you can find you wake up one day to discover they’ve seized big swaths of ground that you’d never really even thought about defending. Perhaps because you never thought the ground was yours in the first place. Or perhaps because you’d simply never really thought about it.

One of those swaths of ground is love. Yes, don’t be shocked: love. Abortion and love.

Anti-abortionists began their assault on the ‘love’ ground decades ago: God loves you and your baby; we love you and your baby; we are the ones who love; you are the ones who hate and kill. Opposing abortion was the ‘loving’ position to take. For a while, this love-focus was directed primarily at the fetus. Save the life of the unborn child. We want to force you to continue an unwanted pregnancy because we love babies, we love your baby, we love children.

But if you really were doing this for love, how could you tell a woman that she was a murderer, a killer? How could you scream obscenities at her on a picket outside a clinic? Being all about love, and being so cruel to pregnant women wasn’t a good look. So, in recent years, there’s been an increased focus on the woman, with a lot of anti energy going into making the case that abortion hurts women. Now, it’s that we want to force you to continue this pregnancy not just because we love ‘the baby’, but because we love you, too.

In a culture that reveres mother-love, it’s easy to see abortion as anything but an act of love, and so we on the pro-choice side just gave away the ‘love’ ground without really even realizing it was there, without really even thinking about it.

Let’s take it back: “Abortion as an act of love.” Does that statement shock you? Does it seem a radical thing to say? If it does, why? If it doesn’t, hey, you get it. Abortion as an act of love. How could that possibly work? What could that possibly mean?

Just as there are as many reasons for having a child as there are women who have children, there are as many reasons for having an abortion as women who have abortions. Is every birth an act of love? Is every abortion its opposite? Let’s say you were unhappily pregnant and forced to give birth against your will (what anti-abortion advocates, out of ‘love’, want to make a reality). Would that birth be an act of love? Let’s say you had three children, lived in poverty, became pregnant and for the sake of your children, had an abortion. Would that abortion be an act of love? Let’s say you were 13 and pregnant and wanted an abortion. Your mother arranged it for you. Would your mother’s act be an act of love?

Abortion can be love just as motherhood can be love. Abortion might not be an act of love – coerced abortions, for example; motherhood might not be an act of love – coerced motherhood, for example. Or, an abortion might be simply a raw need. It might be desperation. It might be a mistake. It might be a million other things. And one of the those things is love: Abortion as an act of love.

***

This is part of a week of Pro-Choice Postings hosted here at The Hand Mirror starting on Friday 28th October 2011.  For an index of all the posts, being updated as they go up, please check the Pro-Choice Postings index.  And if you'd like to submit a post for cross-posting, guest posting or linking to please email thehandmirror@gmail.com. 

The only person looking out for me, is me.

A comment over at another post calling a pregnant woman a mother, and expecting duties and obligations to be fulfilled by the sheer action of conceiving made me want to write directly to this point.
Being a mother involves more than just pregnancy, just as being a father involves more than just inseminating someone successfully.
As a ‘mother’, I could choose to walk away from my child, and never nurture, care or put another thought into them. It seems rather unfair to all involved (and to mothers) to call me a mother.
The understanding of the writer was that the future child had put an obligation on the ‘mother’ simply by existing.
My understanding of life is that it is NEVER under a guarantee. My mother could have died in childbirth, leaving me without the care she has given me. I could have been born into a family who did not want me and mistreated me. I could have miscarried without any intervention.
No one DESERVES life. We either get it or we don’t, and throughout it we fight to make the best of ourselves, for ourselves.
Whilst I do feel very strongly about children’s rights and advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves, I would not expect anyone to kill themselves, or put their own life aside in order to let a child live.
The hard and fast of it is that as unappealing and totally unclothed in “decency and morality” as it is, we all only have ourselves, and to expect someone to give their own life for someone else is more than our society should be able to ask of us, if there is a safe alternative.
I don’t expect much from this world, but I do expect the right to my own bodily autonomy, and the right to put myself above all others. Because no one else should have to.
Selfish though this is, this is what I expect.

Expanding and contracting and expanding again

I was so sure it would be the Tuesday.  No particular reason, just a hunch. 

Due date was the first or second of September; the midwife seemed to waggle back and forth between them.  I was full and heavy, the most pregnant I'd ever been before.  Maybe I thought Tuesday because I wanted the pregnant part to be over.  I was very apprehensive about the labour part though, so I just kept pushing it away in my mind. 

Magically this process was going to be:

1. Pregnant
2. ????
3. Baby and mother healthy and well

I hadn't laboured at all with Wriggly, not a single contraction, in a story I told in three parts several years ago.  I was partly looking forward to giving labour a go, but pretty nervous, especially in regard to what I consider one of the scariest medical words in the English language, "crowning".  And I knew if labour didn't come on spontaneously soon it would be off to surgery for another sunroof delivery, with nary a uterus quiver experienced, and no chance of labouring with any future pregnancies either.

By 10.30pm I'd given up waiting to feel my first ever contraction and I headed to bed.

Parental notification is defacto parental consent

Make no mistake:  parental notification for teen abortions is actually about parental consent for teen abortions.

Let's consider the broader position of those who advocate strongly for parental notification (not just those who agree when asked the right magical question).

Do they support the right of pregnant adults to have abortion on demand?  No.

Do they support funding for independent counselling services, not run by anti-choice organisations?  No.

Do they support Family Planning and their work to improve both sex education and access to contraception?  No.

Do they support early medication abortion, because it is easier both physically and psychologically?  No.

Do they seek to reinforce the position, shared by our current unfair law, that the pregnant person is not the person who should decide whether or not to terminate their own pregnancy?  Yes.

The point of changing the law to get parental notification is to yet again take power away from the pregnant person.  Notification will become defacto parental consent.  And that is just another way of saying the pregnant person can't, shouldn't, musn't decide. 

It is wrong that certifying consultants have the power to deny or allow abortions.*  It would be just as wrong for parents to have that power.  Even if that power is exercised over their own child, and they are under 16.

Many good points have been made in other blog posts about the relationships of parents and their children, and how while parental involvement can be encouraged it should not be mandated.  I'm not able to put a great link farm of all that good stuff together right now.  I agree with many of the arguments that have been made - about the right of teens to privacy, about the vulnerability of those who will be in abusive family environments, about the problem with parental notification where someone in a parental role may be the father, about respecting that people should choose who supports them.

I agree with all of that, and at base it all boils down to one thing for me; respecting the right of the pregnant person to control their own body, and acknowledging no one is in a better position to make that choice than they are.




*  This should in no way be read as a criticism of the many excellent certifying consultants who do difficult work in challenging circumstances.  I heart them.

Guest Post: Dealing with Infertility: a How to Guide for friends and family

Many thanks to Foggy in Nelson for this contribution, on the eve of Mothers' Day.  Wanting to write this has driven FiN to set up her own eponymous blog, (the below is crossposted) which I'll be adding to the blogroll shortly. 

 

I’ve thought long and hard about whether to pen this post but after 12 hours of feeling churned up about the issue I have decided that getting it all out on paper (the laptop version) will help with the processing of my feelings, and maybe serve as an educational and useful tool for a few people out there.

 

Fertility, or lack of it, is an awkward issue. It can destroy friendships, relationships, and the self esteem of those involved because of the sheer hugeness of it all, combined with the insidious silence that is often associated with all things to do with female reproduction.

 

I have known since age 23 that I have a fertility ‘issue’, having been diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) following years of irregular periods, strange weight gain, body hair and oily skin. I read up on PCOS, took the information to my GP, who ordered the necessary blood tests and internal uterus / ovary scan (fun – not) and confirmed my thoughts. I have PCOS, which means that my ovulation is out of whack. It doesn’t make pregnancy impossible, but it certainly can make it more challenging. I’m fully aware that I may have to go through the horrors of hormone treatment, medication and IVF, and that there is still no guarantee of a child at the end of it all.

 

It’s always been in the back of my mind, but it wasn’t until my marriage to S in 2009 at age 29 that the reality started to really weigh on my mind. S and I visited our GP, whose advice was to ‘get cracking’, which we promptly have done but to no avail yet.

 

One of the total arseholes about having PCOS is the irregular periods, meaning that 5-6 times a year I have ‘hope’; my period hasn’t arrived for 8 weeks and we immediately think ‘ooh, could it maybe have happened naturally’. Then comes the purchase of a pregnancy test with the heartbreaking single blue line as a result.

 

This doesn’t just affect me, it affects S deeply too. The only times I have seen him cry during our marriage is when he admits how painful our conception issues are for him. It must be doubly difficult for him; having to comfort me and the (irrational but real) guilt I face, while also feeling heartbroken himself.

 

I sometimes wonder if people are aware that we are not childless by choice, particularly given my commitment to my career (whatever my career will morph into!) and passion for feminism, choice and women’s rights. The reality is that until re-connecting with S I wasn’t desperate for children (although I did have a plan to have them one day), but once we had started dating again I have been burdened with an overwhelming desire to make a small creature that is part me, part S. I love the idea of having children who look like him, maybe have his personality, or mine, or their own! Yes, I can rationalise that it’s probably hormones talking, but that doesn’t take the pain away.

 

The reason this has all come to a head is the pain of having to endure another round of “mum’s are the best”, “being a mum has completed me” nonsense that comes up during the commercialised marketing opportunity that is Mother’s Day. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem celebrating mothers (mine is amazing), but I DO have a problem with the sheer hype about Mother’s Day that has the opposite effect of a celebration on many people; those who have lost children, those who can’t have them, those who are trying and trying to have them, those who have lost Mother’s, those who have become estranged from their Mother’s, those who were adopted and desperate to find their birth Mother, those who had their children taken from them when it was socially unacceptable to have a baby out of wedlock.

 

I am grateful that my Mother has always seen Mother’s Day as a commercialised waste of time, and has instead encouraged us to do nice things for her on a regular basis. She would rather us attend her PhD graduation, make her regular cups of teas and have long phone chats, instead of making a big fuss of her on a random day that has been designed to generate $$ for companies.

 

I make the comparison with Valentine’s Day. I’d rather S made me cups of coffee when I’m working on an essay, gets up in the morning with me when I have to get to the airport early and buys me flowers / chocolate / wine / ice cream occasionally. It would suck to be in a relationship when it was only celebrated once a year. I would likewise encourage those who go overboard on Valentine’s Day to also think about the effect of their celebrations on others. Since struggling with our infertility issues I have become acutely aware that shoving my happy relationship in other people’s faces could actually be really hurtful for those who are going through a breakup, separated from a loved one, bereaved, or single and lonely.

 

This isn’t to say we shouldn’t celebrate the happiness in our lives. But we should also do so sensitively and also keep a look out for our friends and families who have tough burdens to bear and think about their needs.

 

One further point before I leave you with some ‘do’s and don’ts’ for supporting a friend or family member who has infertility issues. Being a mum is not “the best”. People who say that are unintentionally ostracising and demeaning the work and lives of those who are not mothers. Just because we’re not mums doesn’t mean we can’t be “the best”. It doesn’t make us less loving, less caring, less hard working, less smart, less connected to people, or less valuable. We do other things that matter: we advocate for people, we work as cleaners, doctors, teachers, bus drivers and politicians. I am no less a fully-fledged adult woman because I haven’t popped out a sprog yet.

 

Do:

• Involve us in the lives of your children. Just because we don’t have them doesn’t mean we don’t like yours. Invite us to birthday parties, baptisms, school assemblies etc. When you leave us out but invite your friends who do have children you only ostracise us further.
• Do allow us to say ‘no’ though if it is a bit too hard.
• Ask us about our work and actually put some genuine interest into it.
• Organise a girls’ night, get a babysitter, and keep children out of the conversation.
• Remember that we childless ones can have sleepless nights, stress, and sickness too.

 

Don’t:

• Pity us. Treat us as human beings with full lives, because we don’t need children to have a full and interesting life.
• Expect us to get super excited when you get pregnant / have a child.
• Give advice on how to get pregnant, or promise that we will get pregnant one day. How could you possibly promise that?
• Tell me a story about someone that I’ve never met with PCOS who got pregnant after trying for years. How could that possibly help me?
• Forget about your childless friends after you’ve had a baby. We’re still here!
• Stick endless posts up on Facebook about your children’s nappies, teeth, sleeping routines etc. No offence, but no one really cares.*

 

 

 

* Ok, so that may be a little harsh, I don't mind hearing about children occasionally but when it's all I ever see it's quite a put-off and makes me assume that you have nothing else to talk about. For me, seeing your posts about kids all day is the other side to you putting up with constant political posts from me.

women on screen

stratos has finally become available on freeview, and i'm loving it. not only the access to al-jazeera programmes, but the documentaries, and the films. tonight i was totally blown away by the interview with the palestian comedian maysoon zayid. i can't find a clip of it online, but as soon as it's available, i'll put it up.


sent to me by email today was a link to the site "every mother counts", a site devoted to improving maternal health care, so that quality care is accessible to all mothers. i'd really recommend reading the various barriers to adequate health care detailed on the site, including lack of health workers, lack of equipment, lack of transporation, lack of access to family planning, lack of emergency care, and lack of post-partum care.

also on the site is information about a film by christy turlington burns called "no woman, no cry", a documentary sharing the stories of women at risk:




finally, i received by email from the director of "the shape of water", details of her next project. kum-kum bhavani is now working on a documentary called "nothing like chocolate":

NOTHING LIKE CHOCOLATE portrays the intimate story of anarchist chocolate-maker, Mott Green. Mott operates an unusual chocolate factory that turns out delicious creations unknown to a world saturated with industrially produced cocoa, much of it produced by trafficked and enslaved child labour in West Africa. With a rich blend of ingredients missing in the large-scale production of corporate chocolate, Mott utilizes solar power, employee shareholding and small-scale antique equipment to make delicious, organic, and socially conscious chocolate. Each step in the production process, from cocoa pod to candy bar, involves ethical and sustainable methods aimed at empowering the community of farmers involved. An anarchist chocolatier, with his tiny chocolate company challenging the global model of large-scale chocolate production, and undermining the exploitation of child labour...

2011 marks the 10th anniversary of a voluntary protocol agreed to by chocolate manufacturers, including Hersheys and Mars, that all their chocolate would be made without exploited child labour in a very short period. Releasing NOTHING LIKE CHOCOLATE in 2011, perhaps at Sundance, will both show people are making delicious, slave-free chocolate, and put pressure on the large corporations to stick to their word.

kum-kum is seeking funding for this project, and if you are interested in further details, you can find them here.

only women bleed*

well, since periods have been so much the topic of discussion lately, i thought to myself that it must be time to do a post about them. mostly from the point of view of the cultural differences around periods, and the restrictions that have built up over different traditions.

i'll start with the traditions i know best: my own. for muslim women, periods are a time when we are excused from worship. so we don't have to pray or fast - the latter being sensible for me at least, cos i'm anaemic & really couldn't cope with fasting at the time we have our period. i guess that these 2 restrictions aren't seen as a kind of relief from our point of view, so i've not really heard any muslim women complain about them.

there are a few others though. one is that we shouldn't touch the qur'an. this is one where people have developed "fixes" for, so that i have heard one scholar say that women should read a qur'an with translation when they have their periods. this is on the basis that the words that aren't the actual arabic of the qur'an are greater portion of the book, so it's all ok. another that i've heard is the expedient of touching the qur'an while wearing gloves or using a cloth**. i find this interesting in terms of the way people want to get around the restriction, but don't want to challenge it.

another is that we don't have intercourse when we have our periods. i can't say i've ever heard anyone complaining about that one, and my own personal reaction is basically "yucky, why would you want to?"

the most contentious restriction, though, is the one of not entering the mosque when menstruating. well, more precisely, the restriction is to not sit at the place of prayer, so if there are parts of the mosque that aren't used for prayer, they are fine. most muslim women will abide by this restriction without a problem, mostly because they aren't praying at that time so there's no point going to the mosque anyway. i'll go if there's a public lecture, but sit in the foyer which is just as comfortable as inside the prayer area.

it becomes an issue when we want to have mosque open days though. we've had many debates about that in nz, because the conservatives will be all like "how can you let non-muslim women come through the mosque, they might have their period and we certainly can't police it in anyway". luckily, the majority of mosques have taken a much more liberal line & open the mosque to everyone.

so that's us. hinduism has more severe restrictions. since i don't know so much about it, i'm going to quote from a comment put up on AEN by dr sapna:

I come from a culture with similar beliefs. I have cousins back in India who are not allowed to live in their own house when they menstruate. That means they cannot go into the kitchen or the bathroom or do regular normal things. This is because they are 'impure'. What started out as a social concept-that menstruating women in the old days needed to rest from their daily hard routines (in the days when household chores were difficult and most women were anaemic, they never got to rest, this was a good excuse to make them take time out). However as is the case, explaining such things to a largely illiterate and superstitious population is hard. So it is intertwined with some spirituality and some superstition. But then such attitudes are hard to wipe away. Confronted by colonisation and Westernisation, such 'traditions' resist change. They become deeply embedded in cultures and then in the name of political correctness, acceptable. Never mind if it is degrading to women and very patriarchal.

As a doctor back in India I have prescribed hormones to women who wish to postpone their periods in order to fit in religious festivals, including fasting during Ramadan and the Jain festival of Paryushan.(Although the Koran is very specific about menstruating and lactating women going on a fast. The Jain scriptures must be too.) As a woman I have been told not to go into temples when I menstruate and places that are taboo for me.

How does this fit into our lives in this current world? Indian women resist such social attitudes now. They work, they are independent, they live in nuclear families. Many even go to temples.

she thinks such practices can and should be challenged from women living within the culture/faith tradition.

i can't say i know anything much about the christian tradition. i only recall reading a verse of the bible when i was young, which seemed to imply that menstruation and labour pains were a curse on all women, in punishment for eve causing the whole fall from grace thing. i'm sure others will correct me if i'm wrong about this, and if there are any other traditions or restrictions around menstruation.

i found something about jewish restrictions at wikipedia. here's an article that goes the menstrual taboos among major religions, and who knew that there is even a museum of menstruation. woohoo!!

there is the one thing that seems to be common amongst all cultural and religious traditions when it comes to periods: that it is hidden from the public discourse, that it is hidden from the private sphere as well. other than their husbands, most women will not reveal in public that they have their periods. they'll be happy enough to mention to other women (though not always, in parts of the world even that seems to be a no-no). but no way will they mention it in a mixed gathering.

i accept that it is a personal event for most women, and i'm not saying that it's something we should have to share. but wouldn't it be nice if we could share it without having to feel embarassed? wouldn't it be nice if you could casually mention at your workplace or any social setting that you had your period, and it would be no big deal? well, i may be the only one, but i think that would be a great state of affairs.

i hate how issues of menstruation and childbirth have been treated as "women's issues", which men are supposed to keep well clear of and know nothing about. yes, that is changing somewhat, especially because of the advertising industry and the greater tendency of fathers to be present at the birth of their kids. but there's still a lot of cultural baggage there. it would be nice if the functioning of women's bodies could be treated as a normal, natural & openly-discussed thing.

*ETA: as maia points out in comments, this title is exclusionary, and my apologies for that. i took it from the alice cooper song, which is actually about domestic violence but has a double entendre that i thought fit the topic at hand. obviously i didn't think it about it enough.

**ETA2: i thought i'd put this comment into the post as well as in comments, as it pertinent to my understanding of the restrictions:
I liked your post about this, but I don't think you should make a blanket statement that women are not allowed to touch the Quran during menstruation. This isn't a universal position - many scholars say that there is no problem with touching the Quran while menstruating, while even the most conservative on this point make exceptions for women who are teaching or studying the Quran.

Similar disagreements exist in relation to women being in the masjid while menstruating - it's not a universally accepted restriction.

On the inconvenience of periods and pregnancy

Cross posted

The New Zealand Herald contacted me yesterday, wanting a comment on this invitation being sent out by Te Papa (the New Zealand national museum).

Te Papa storeroom tours

A behind the scenes tour of Te Papa's collection stores and collection management systems
Te Papa, 10:30am- 2:30pm, Friday 5th November 2010
Places are limited to 7 people

A chance for Local regional museums to visit various Te Papa store rooms and meet the collection managers of:
- The Taonga Māori collection - Lisa Ward, Moana Parata, Noel Osborne
- Photography and new media - Anita Hogan
- Works on paper - Tony Mackle
- Textiles - Tania Walters

Conditions of the tour:
* No photographs are to be taken of the taonga, however some images can be made available.
* There is to be no kai (food or drink) taken into the collection rooms.
* Wahine who are either hapü (pregnant) or mate wähine (menstruating) are welcome to visit at another time that is convenient for them.
* We start our visits with karakia and invite our manuhiri to participate.

Who is it for?
- This tour is for representatives from small museums, art galleries, heritage organisations, the arts and cultural sector or iwi organisations.

(I've edited the layout and fonts and so on, to fit on the screen, and the emphasis is mine.)

The Herald reporter suggested that I might have something to say about the practice of excluding menstruating and pregnant women being sexist and archaic. However, I didn't. I sent back these three quotes.

It's fair enough to respect cultural protocols, but maybe Te Papa could say that, instead of their mealy-mouthed request for pregnant and menstruating women to come back at a time that "is convenient for them." I'm perfectly able to function when I've got my period or when I'm pregnant. It's far more inconvenient to have to make special arrangements to come back at another time.

I don't understand why a secular institution, funded by public money in a secular state, is imposing religious and cultural values on people. It's fair enough for people to engage in their own cultural practices where those practices don't harm others, but the state shouldn't be imposing those practices on other people.

It's up to Maori to work out if and how and when cultural practices should change for Maori, within the traditional freedoms of liberal democracies. If it is important to Maori people that pregnant and menstruating women aren't included in the tour, then maybe the tour shouldn't take place at all.

The story appeared in the New Zealand Herald this morning:

Anger at Te Papa ban on pregnant women

It's interesting to see which of my quotes was used in the story, and how it was used.

Stuff also has a story about the invitation. They contacted Boganette for comment.

Pregnant women warned off Te Papa tour

A reminder: we are individuals at The Hand Mirror, not a monolith. The views above are very much MY opinions, not views of The Hand Mirror.

Another opportunity for body policing lost

Cross posted

When I was pregnant, I was very careful about how much alcohol I drank. From vague recollection, I think I had a couple of half glasses of wine during my first pregnancy, and maybe three during my second one. Except for the full glass of wine I had on my midwife's recommendation on the dark and stormy night when my waters broke, but nothing else was happening to indicate that labour might be starting. Seriously, it was a dark and story night: according to the midwife the air pressure may have caused my waters to break.

I didn't exactly feel guilty about it, but I was faintly worried, and I had to talk myself through the worries. I had completely absorbed the "DO NOT DRINK DURING PREGNANCY" mantra.

Each time, I was worried that someone would tell me off (except for that glass of wine on the dark and stormy night). The excellent Blue Milk has an excellent post on policing women who drink from time to time during pregnancy: Compare and contrast. And see also Lauredhel's post at Hoyden about Town: Bad science on booze in pregnancy: Women infantilised with absolutist messages.

But it turns out that there is no evidence to suggest that women who have one or two drinks a week during pregnancy do any harm to their babies whatsoever.

Light drinking during pregnancy fine - study

Women who have one or two alcoholic drinks a week during pregnancy do not harm their children's behavioural or intellectual development, according to a new study.

The British researchers found that pregnant women who drank up to a glass (175 millilitres) of wine, up to 50 ml of spirits or just under a pint of beer a week did not affect their children.

What are the pregnancy police going to do now?

Previous posts:
Firing up the baby machines
Because it's always better to police women