April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

abortion

Be nice when someone Spitz on you

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What is up with the feminist baby eaters? Why are they so cranky? Must be “that” time of the month.

Let me try and explain it in small easily digestible pieces. This isn’t about making friends, or appealing to those who are fucking clueless about lifes realities. This is about fighting against a belief that things were better when men were men, sheep were nervous and women had no control over the number of babies they had and were denied abortions even to save their lives.

This is about dealing with those who post comments in support of women dying and doctors being killed on ones blog. I usually just delete them. But maybe it’s time we let the sunshine under the rocks so the gatekeepers of civility can grab a fucking clue. [Read more…] about Be nice when someone Spitz on you

Motherhood–hold the apple pie

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Apple Pie
A society will sentimenalize and moralize about the things it wishes it cared about. Pregnancy and motherhood being no exception.

Plenty of moralizing, lots of cooing over womb contents like children oohing over puppies in the pet shop window, but little actually being done to support pregnant women and mothers.

We begin with the moralizing over what you may or may not eat/drink while pregnant.

You say you just can’t help super sizing. You look at the that hamburger and all you can think is more bacon!!!!!!!!!! You have started getting slushies by the garbage pail.

No need to take responsibility folks. Good news it’s your mom’s fault!!

Our study has shown that eating large quantities of junk food when pregnant and breastfeeding could impair the normal control of appetite and promote an exacerbated taste for junk food in offspring,’ she said Dr Stephanie Bayol.

‘This could send offspring on the road to obesity and make the task of teaching healthy eating habits in children even more challenging.’

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Now don’t you feel better? Have a cookie.

In an effort to prove two can live as cheaply as one pregnant women are now being told they must keep weight gain to 10lbs less than the current guidelines.

According to current guidelines, which IOM announced in 1990, women with low body mass indexes should gain up to 40 pounds during pregnancy, women with normal BMIs should gain 25 to 35 pounds, and most obese women should gain about 15 pounds. In 2003, about 25% of pregnant women in the U.S. gained more than 40 pounds during pregnancy, compared with 20% in 1990, according to the AP/Standard-Times.

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Now some of that weight is increased uterine size, breast size, placenta and amniotic fluid. All of which on their own can add up to 15lbs. Considering that ‘obese’ women are now to only gain 5lbs, one can only assume that doctors are recommending calorie restriction (ie dieting) during pregnancy. Seems like a bad idea. In fact the current guidelines were set because doctors were recommending restricted weight gain before and it wasn’t shown to have good results for the babies.

I suppose the retro fad has hit the medical community now.

Not only that but you’ll grow hair on your chest and talk funny.

Lobby groups in Ireland are calling for regulations on anti abortion ‘counselling services’.

Niav Keating of Choice Ireland said: ‘When our activists attended one agency, they were told that having an abortion would increase their risk of developing breast cancer, becoming an alcoholic and abusing children. These are blatant lies designed to scare vulnerable women in a crisis pregnancy situation.’

Choice Ireland said it was calling on the government to bring forward statutory regulation for all pregnancy counselling services. Minimum codes of practices and standards should be imposed to ensure that misleading and incorrect information is not given to
vulnerable women.

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You would think that groups that invoke the gord as their witness wouldn’t be playing so fast and loose with the truth….something about bearing false witness.

Adoptive parents showing appreciation for the trials gone through to create the children they want are in court complaining about birth mothers getting benefits they don’t.

adoption advocates contend that 15 weeks is far more time than the average mother needs to recover from the physical stresses of childbirth and that much of it is actually spent bonding with a new child.

But some maternity experts disagree, saying that the birthing process puts physiological stresses on a woman’s body that adoptive parents may not recognize.

‘Maternity benefits exist to recognize the unique experience of pregnancy,’ says Amy Mullin, a University of Toronto sociologist and author of Reconceiving Pregnancy and Childcare: Ethics, Experience and Reproductive Labor. ‘During pregnancy, a woman can undergo hypertension, nausea, heartburn and a number of other things. It’s not the norm for pregnancy to be completely easy. The government has recognized that embodied experience and I hope they continue to do so.’

Ms. Mullin stressed that the 15-week leave can start up to eight weeks before pregnancy, addressing any pre-birth health concerns.

‘That gives a mother six weeks to recover after her pregnancy,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t say that’s out of line.’

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Bleeding hearts. Why in my day women dropped ’em while doing the laundry and went right back at it.

Here are some of the realities of pregnancy

A dairy farmer is accused of giving a cattle hormone to a woman he got pregnant in hopes of inducing a miscarriage.

Police said 25-year-old William Stanley Sutton III added ProstaMate last week to a soda he gave to Lauren Ashley Tucker, 21.

Tucker felt sick to her stomach and vomited after drinking a 20-ounce soda Sutton gave her that ‘tasted nasty and burnt her throat,’ according to court records. She went to the hospital Aug. 9, and the hospital reported a possible poisoning to police.
The unborn child survived. Tucker, who was treated and released, is now 15 weeks pregnant.

ProstaMate is a hormone given to cows in the breeding process to bring all cows in heat at the same time. It can also be used to stimulate an early-term abortion in a heifer that gets pregnant too young or a cow that mates with an undesired bull.

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A Perth man who bashed, kicked and stabbed his pregnant, wheelchair-bound de facto wife has been remanded in custody.

Graham Leslie Garraway, 24, appeared in the Fremantle Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday charged over the alleged attack on Wednesday on his 21-year-old partner at their Langford home.

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DARTMOUTH, N.S. – A pregnant woman is in hospital with life-threatening injuries after being stabbed repeatedly with a sword in a domestic dispute.

A 43-year-old man who lives with the woman has been charged with attempted murder. Police wanted to charge him with trying to kill her unborn child, as well, but that was overruled by the Public Prosecution Service.

The stabbing happened in a ground floor apartment in Dartmouth just after midnight Tuesday. The woman was discovered by a passerby who heard her call for help from an open window. When she looked inside she saw the injured woman and ran for help.

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A pregnant woman with a chronic heart condition pleaded for doctors to abort her baby so she could live – but both she and her newborn son died.

Her ‘tragic’ story resulted in a year-long investigation by Health and Disability Commissioner Ron Paterson after her family complained about how she was treated. His report, released yesterday, criticizes poor communication between clinicians during the woman’s pregnancy and a 15-week delay in assessment for a heart condition – 15 times longer than recommended.

The family of the woman and her son did not want them named.

Paterson refused to say which hospital provided ‘suboptimal’ care but the Sunday Star-Times understands Wellington Hospital, one of two hospitals involved, was found to have twice breached the patient code of conduct.

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Protecting life

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What springs to your mind when you hear this phrase?

Perhaps programs which allow people access to the essentials for living– homes, food access to health care.

Perhaps you think of the bike helmet you bought your child, or your resolve to never drive drunk or tired or otherwise occupied.

Maybe you think of the aid you send to a foster child, or women’s shelter or other hands on charity.

I wonder in your deliberations if you ever consider refusing to fund abortions for poor women.

There has been much ado amongst the “I’m alright jack” and the “woo hoo lets legislate the hoo hoo” over this;

A clause was added to the Hamilton County indigent care levy contract 10 years ago to block the money from being spent on abortions for poor people.

Recently, that change almost was reversed.

Oh dear the horror!! That women would have the choice not to bring more children they can’t afford into the world!

Of course lets not forget that as poor women they shouldn’t be having sex at all. Nope no way, no pleasure for you lady. And that “sweet precious wonderful protected life” in your womb, well don’t get too attached to having it thought of that way because as soon as it’s born it becomes “another goddamn miserable drain on society that my tax dollars have to go to support“.

Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati had sent word of the clause deletion to more than 1,000 people on its e-mail list. It has since sent a follow up e-mail on the reinstatement.

Executive Director Paula Westwood said she was pleased that the clause is back in.

“Our foremost goal is to make sure that life is protected,” she said. “It looks like the language will remain on this, and that is a good thing.”

One can only hope that Ms. Westwood will put as much effort into ensuring that the resulting children are fed and clothed and babysat while their mothers try to support them. Perhaps she can also direct them to counselling for the depression, anger and terror they feel at being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. No doubt that would not fall under Ms. Westwood’s umbrella of protecting “life”.

Not all pregnancies are alike

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pregnant_couple.jpgThis is the version of pregnancy anti-choicers see. Even if they themselves do not experience the soft focus joy the picture alludes to, they would never admit to it. They certainly do not want to hear that for many the experience of pregnancy is a horror.

Anyone who could still adhere to the idea that all pregnancies are gifts and all abortions are wrong after reading the following story has no sense of decency or humanity.

An 11-year-old primary school pupil who was raped last year but kept her ordeal a secret until a month ago, has given birth to a baby boy.

The baby was born in Tygerberg Hospital on Thursday.

The family of the the girl, who lives in Bishop Lavis, have decided to give up the boy for adoption.

Approached for comment, a prominent medical doctor, Yusuf Noor, said it was “very traumatic. It will stay with her for the rest of her life”.

“Depending on the size of her pelvis, womb and other parts of her body, she may not be able to give birth normally again and she may have complications.

“However, it depends on the treatment given to her before the birth by a gynaecologist.

“The greatest problem will be a psychological one. It is very traumatic to give birth at that age,” Noor said.

Her grandmother said: “I hope the counselling programme and sessions are completed before she is summoned to testify in court.”

The 48-year-old security officer who will appear in court today is a former neighbour and a family friend

full story

“Having a girl is to plant a seed in someone else’s garden.”

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cross posted at Bread and Roses: Front Page

India is proposing to register all women who are pregnant. This ostensibly is being done in order to curb the number of female fetuses being aborted and to help stop the number of female child infanticides.

Currently up to 500,000 female fetuses are being aborted yearly. The preference for boys has “[…]reduced the number of girls per 1,000 boys from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001.” ((http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/14/ap3914376.html))

Boys tend to be preferred because they carry on the family name. But families here also fear the financial burden of girls – when it comes time to pay huge traditional dowries to their daughters’ future husbands upon marriage. ((http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-03/2007-03-05-voa17.cfm))

Until there is a change in the way females are viewed societally, the attempt to limit abortions will only result in more female children suffering. As they are more likely to be killed at birth and less likely to receive the same care in feeding and medical attention and less likely to receive education.

There are many mitigating circumstances in the law that permit a woman to have an abortion. Rape is one, the inability of an unmarried woman to care for a child is another. Any pregnancy that causes mental anguish to a woman can be legally terminated even against medical advice. The minister ought to be looking at the root cause of female foeticide, not try to enter a personal domain. ((http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=db8deabe-930d-40d9-8f91-c02f151bc8ff&&Headline=Getting+up+close+and+far+too+personal))

[Read more…] about “Having a girl is to plant a seed in someone else’s garden.”

Wishing on Facebook

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The Great Canadian Wish List on Facebook has been taken over by the So Cons.

It seems to some, a silly thing that pro choicers care about this endeavour.
I would ask those people to consider the situation to the south of us.

Media regularly gives the crazies the floor. Christianity is no longer associated with love and charity, but with hatred, bombs and people who actually deride other christians for caring about the poor.

In a country facing mounting military deaths from an illegal and unneeded war, poverty, domestic terrorism, declining standard of living, the main election platform issue is whether or not you are pro choice. [Read more…] about Wishing on Facebook