#coerced sterilisation

[enbycrip]

Canada does not get to hide its historical and ongoing genocidal actions and policies towards indigenous people.

And yes, coerced sterilisation *is* both genocide and eugenicist. I wish I didn’t have to keep explaining this to folk, but I do.

#genocide #native canadian #Canadian genocidal policies #indigenous genocide #indigenous canadians #first nations #coerced sterilisation #coerced abortion #canada

[beguines]

Revisionist historians of medicine are keen to interpret psychiatry's enthusiastic involvement in the sterilisation and mass murder of hundreds of thousands of people labelled as "mentally ill" during the Third Reich (1933–1945) as an aberration, a perversion of correct medical practice (see, e.g., Birley 2000; Burleigh 1994; Lifton 2000). The official line is forwarded that German psychiatry was progressive, humane, and on the cutting edge of mental health care and treatment until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Hitler's National Socialism then manipulated the institution for its own—ultimately genocidal—ends. Thus, it is argued that a "Nazification" of German psychiatry took place, where the appropriate medical values for the care and welfare of the patient were replaced by a fascist ideology. While there were a small minority of power-hungry, racist psychiatrists who were happy to follow Hitler's orders and send mental patients to the gas chambers, such scholarship suggests that most within psychiatry remained morally opposed to and critical of the regime. Certainly, this version of events is reassuring for workers in the current mental health system, yet it is far from the truth. Belatedly, established figures in German psychiatry such as Michael von Cranach have recently admitted that the psychiatric genocide was "not, as we liked to think in the first decades after the war, a small group of Nazi criminal doctors, but the majority and the elite of German psychiatrists." These seldom uttered admissions from within the profession echo the words of another psychiatrist, Frederic Wertham, who stated of the profession's activities during the Third Reich,

"The tragedy is that the psychiatrists did not have to have an order. They acted on their own. They were not carrying out a death sentence pronounced by someone else. They were the legislators who laid down the rules for deciding who was to die; they were the administrators who worked out the procedures, provided the patients and places, and decided the methods of killing; they pronounced a sentence of life or death in every individual case; they were the executioners who carried out or—without being coerced to do so—surrendered their patients to be killed in other institutions; they supervised and often watched the slow deaths."

"[H]ard though this may be to wrap one's head around," states Burstow, "psychiatrists can be reasonably theorized as architects of the Holocaust." This claim was supported by observers at the post-war Nuremberg trials, including Leo Alexander who stated that psychiatry's operations in the 1930s could be understood as "the entering wedge for exterminations of far greater scope in the political program for genocide of conquered nations and the racially unwanted."

Bruce M.Z. Cohen, Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness

#bruce m.z. cohen #psychiatric hegemony #psychiatric abuse #eugenics /

[transmutationisms]

@amarocit yes i would love to hear your analysis of the french context here! so i'm borrowing a lot from dorothy roberts, who talks about this in chapter 7 of 'killing the black body'—roberts makes a distinction between the american liberal's demands for "reproductive liberty" (a guarantee of freedom from specific forms of government intervention) and what she calls "reproductive equality", which would be a more expansive guarantee of reproductive choice that takes into account the background factors of social inequality restricting eg black women and poor women from accessing the full range of options in reproductive care / decision-making.

part of what's at stake here, obviously, is the simple fact that the right to abortion in roe v wade operated on the background assumption that health care is essentially income-restricted. but there is also a whole web of legislation of government action that perpetuates the inferior status of black women, and that prevents them from making all manner of choices about having / raising children. so, a negatively conceived right to abortion is simply insufficient to eliminate the subordination of black women. it's a right that was basically designed around the desires and needs of (wealthy) white women for whom "reproductive choice" had become very highly focussed on a right to abortion rather than, say, a right to the kind of overall economic stability that would allow them to actually access that procedure, or indeed a right to avoid the kinds of state coercive measures that sought to control black women's reproduction in other ways (eg, welfare policies that seek to discourage black women from having children, or punish them for doing so; forced sterilisation; various other means of trying to discourage them from having children). wealthy white women's desire to access abortion has basically come up against natalist pressures for them to reproduce; this is simply not the case for all demographics in the us. as long as demands for abortion rights assume (tacitly or explicitly) that everyone seeking an abortion is fighting against the pressure to HAVE children, it's impossible to adequately address the needs of those who are actually being coerced by various state policy in the opposite direction.

people have also made a lot of the fact that the roe decision hinged on a 'right to privacy' rather than an affirmation of bodily autonomy—obviously i don't think that was good, but i am honestly not convinced that even the best-written supreme court decision would have made much difference in this respect lol. as we've seen in the past few years regarding the court, and the past few decades regarding abortion specifically, what the court says is not really set in stone any more than any legislation is. i think abortion opponents would have been pretty determined to chip away at any legal conception of a right to abortion. it seems to me that the underlying issue here is, again, that the right to abortion was basically grafted onto larger structures of inequality and the subordination of black women; i don't think 'liberty' (if we want to use that word) can really exist so long as the underlying oppressive structures are still there. obviously the supreme court is not designed to be capable of challenging those structures because it exists within them and upholds them as an arm of the state.

in any case i guess my main point here is: a right to abortion was always going to be shaky and inequitable in the us so long as it was configured as a very limited freedom from specific forms of government intervention, rather than being placed in context with the larger social forces that act to constrain people's ability to make free choices about their bodies / reproduction. abortion needs to be available freely and on-demand, along with things like contraception, but also along with actual freedom from government coercion NOT to reproduce, which is something that the state directs primarily at black and poor women. abortion framed as a negative right has no redress for this type of issue because again, the us abortion rights movement has been so driven by wealthy white women who were in a position where their main concern was getting access to the procedure, rather than fearing being forced to have it (or being forcibly sterilised and so forth).

when we flip it around and start thinking about what's required to actually achieve equality and reproductive freedom, it's clear that just guaranteeing legal access to abortion is wildly insufficient for those subjugated by legal and systemic antiblackness, living in poverty, &c. and it's pretty depressing that the mainstream us abortion rights movement has never been able to grapple with eg, the very real and ongoing legacy of eugenics in welfare policy, white women's feminism, and yes the efforts to provide access to contraception and abortion. as long as these things are excluded from advocacy of abortion rights, and abortion is conceived as a freedom-from (a specific manner of state intervention), we're not actually able to discuss the broader factors that constrain people's ability to make free choices about their bodies and reproduction: poverty, racism, policies in response to these factors that may take either pro- or anti-natalist stances, depending on the state's goals and the specific population it's trying to control or manage.

anyway yeah: would be very interested in hearing what you have to say about the french context!

[stele3]

#destiel daily digest

[susansontag]

women who don’t want children do need to stop using their own existence to derail important feminist discussions sometimes tbh. like teenagers and young people actually can’t be fully sure whether they’d want children or not in the future and therefore that is a real conversation to bring up when we’re talking about medical procedures that lead to sterilisation. just because you’ve decided that means we’re all looking at girls and women as potential baby factories shows your own internalisation of patriarchal thinking. similarly it’s insane to project your own feelings about pregnancy and a potential baby onto a woman being coerced into giving up her newborn for adoption as some kind of justification that this industry is some neutral entity recognising the reality that not all women want to keep their children. like I’m saying this as a woman who doesn’t feel like I’ll ever want kids myself… please stop lol, it’s embarrassing

#moth.txt

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Problematique thogts about gender/prison, prompted by the current onslaught of horrors re: somni

I am slowly reconciling myself to the fact that I do not understand the moderate left-lib trαns-positive position on gendered housing in prison. It just seems unprincipled and reflexive

I understand the tεrf/patriarchal/socon theory: females are more vulnerable and precious and pure than males, sex = gender, and therefore the men need to be isolated from convicted criminals ontologically incapable of harm even if it doesn’t fit with their genderfeels. I think the position is abhorrent, and it fills me with hunger for violence against the sick fucks who enforce it at gunpoint, but it at least makes sense

I can understand a view on which trαns women specifically—like many other prison demographics—are at elevated risk of violence , particularly sexual violence, in men’s prisons and therefore should be rehoused as a harm reduction measure. Again, it’s not my way of looking at things, but I can see how it could be someone’s

I understand a more moderate version of the first option, where the real danger from co-Ed housing is that babies can happen, and the imperative behind carceral gender segregation with troonish exceptions is ensuring no XY is allowed around the XX’s (or Vice versa) without sterilising cross-sex hormone therapy. I happen to think this is tantamount to endorsing state-coerced sterilisation and should be regarded with a similar degree of disdain, but I think this about a lot of positions some ppl support without thereby falling into immediate self-contradiction

I know the abolitionist view, that the whole question is moot bc we should just immediately dissolve carceral facilities en masse. This project faces… other obstacles, shall we say, but i don’t think questions about what to do with the <1% of the populations that rejects their birth sex when they are convicted of serious antisocial wrongdoing pose special difficulties for it

And I understand my own beliefs on the matter: that a Y chromosome is neither a disease requiring quarantine nor an offence deserving punishment; that its treatment as such by the carceral system is an outrage against reason and human dignity; that we should dismiss empirical or statistical arguments for the supposed benign extrinsic consequences of such a policy as summarily as we would similar arguments for the reintroduction of de jure racial segregation; and that we must embrace the most expansive, fraud-conducive trαnsgender rehousing policies in prison politically viable at any given moment as an instrument for defying these armed venerators of biological arbitrariness and retrograde social divisions. Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus

But none of these is the normie leftlib take. It obviously isn’t the socon one (the only alternative of which it seems conscious), and it most emphatically is not mine, since it countenances requiring some kind of proof that an inmate’s claim to gender identity is “legitimate” (which is anathema to my whole way of thinking). And ofc it isn’t abolitionist in any interesting sense.

Neither, however, does it fit easily with the other explanations i mentioned. If it were motivated principally by concerns about (sexual) violence, for one thing it would also apply to e.g. gay and physically weak men in equal (if not sometimes greater!) measure, and it would also seem asymmetrical as regards gender-direction, whereas normie libs generally seem to support both directions of gendered rehousing. And if the real concern were about fertility, there’d be no reason not to just offer chemical castration (cross-sex or otherwise) to any cis person who feels like hanging out with the other sex

My uncharitable read is that the lib view projects the contingent historical reality of pervasive gendered segregation onto the fundamental necessary structure of human society as an eternal truth, and thus understands an individual’s gender as a similarly transcendent ethereal fact, a holy beetle in a consecrated box, unmoored from the contingencies of their free choice or physical embodiment, accessible to him/her/them directly thru the deliverances of supersensuous intuition and (possibly) inferentially to shrinks and other fraud-detectors thru outward accidental signs of inward gendered Essence. In accord with the immutable divine zoning of Plato’s Heaven into the boy and girl districts, we should therefore guarantee that prisons (like all parts of society) are split up by gender while making sure that it is the True Deep Metaphysical Gender that determines an individual’s side of the split. Which is uhhhh. A useful delusion for them to have about the gender politics of the kingdom of heaven, ig, since decent ppl can use their faith in it to manipulate them to emancipatory ends. But not one with much rational weight behind it

Idk tho mb I am being overly cynical

[girlschasinggirls]

Thank you for being one of the only radfems debunking the rape claims and standing up for Palestinians 💞

It's sad to see other radfems falling for Israeli propaganda and unsubstantiated claims.

Like why didn't these radfems not care when Israel forcibly sterilised black Jews repeatedly every 5 months? Or why don't they care that Israel coerced villages to leave by raping nearby villages?

Whatever "EvIl hAmaS" has done Israel has done it 1000 more times and worse

Once again a sincere thank you for the 🇵🇸 solidarity

some radfems are WAAAY to keen on calling black/brown/arab/muslim men rapists it’s actually scary

even if all of palestinian history only began on october 7th 2023. on day one after the terrorist attack israel was already breaking the laws of war and geneva conventions (cutting off water food supplies etc) to civilians which is collective punishment and killing via starvation, indiscriminately bombing densely populated areas with no precautions to prevent harm to civilians. within a week they have already killed DOUBLE the amount of people killed in the terrorist attack basically all being civilians

and i do not support hamas but they mainly attacked military bases and killing and taking hostages were military personnel. during the festival the IDF soldiers were hiding amongst the people in the crowd firing at hamas and they were firing back. gaza has been under that blockade for 16 years. the average age in gaza is 18, around half of the 2.3 million people there are children. so for over 1 million kids there they were born in gaza and have never been anywhere else. they have NEVER been let out. how much do you think people can take!!!

[earhartsease]

[djuvlipen]

12/10/2022

We have “come across verbal and physical abuse of Roma in hospitals by medical staff in several countries but notably Bulgaria, Ukraine, North Macedonia, and Romania. This disproportionately affects Romani women and girls, particularly mothers in labour, who face both abuse and malpractice from health-care professionals”, Lee explained. Research by the ERRC and others in Bulgaria and Hungary found Roma women in different hospitals reporting physical abuse during their stay in the maternity ward. “Across both countries, Romani women told us that they thought that no one would believe them, even if they shared these experiences”, he said.

[...]

Governments have also been responding to historic abuses against Roma women. From the 1960s to the mid-2000s, thousands of Roma women were coerced or forced into sterilisation or unknowingly sterilised without consent during health-care visits in the former Czechoslovakia and subsequently the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In 2009, the Czech Government apologised to Roma women for this abusive practice and promised compensation. As of Nov 24, 2022, compensation has been awarded to 171 of 474 women who have applied. But campaigners highlight the lack of government resources for speeding up the compensation process, with many women waiting for months without a response. “There has also been no community outreach on the part of the government to help women navigate the process for compensation, relying instead on the capacities of local civil society organisations to do this”, Lee reports. Others are more hopeful about progress. de Jong notes that part of the Czech Republic's Roma inclusion strategy is “devoted to compensation for sterilisation, so they’re aware of this; they’re working on it”. However, the situation has received less attention in Slovakia. Although the Slovak Government officially apologised to Roma women for unlawful sterilisation in November, 2021, they have not announced a plan for compensation. “When I looked into the Slovak Roma inclusion strategy, there is no mention of sterilisation, so they don’t have any policy set up yet to compensate these women for what's been done to them…What we’re obviously hoping is the government will also be taking the same steps that the Czech Government is taking currently”, said de Jong.

#medical misogyny #racialized misogyny #roma #forced sterilization of romani women #racism #intersectionality #romani reproductive rights

[jessequinones]

Don't Fetishise Slavery

A while ago on TikTok, someone made a video and to make sure I don't put words in their mouth, I'm going to be quoting a lot of what this person said. To avoid any kind of harassment, I won't be using their username but trust me when I say I'm not making this up. I didn't think I would have to tell people this but don't fetishise slavery.

The influencer started their videos (and there are several) about how someone negatively reviewing a book doesn't mean that others won't find enjoyment in said book. The person who reviewed a book didn't like it because the slavery aspect was poorly done, especially for a romcom. The influencer responded, "I need the title because any sci-fi romance with slavery in it, I will read the shit out of that. I know that's fucking problematic, but like...I love it; that's one of my kinks."

Now I won't mention the book in question because I don't want the book to blow up in popularity, whether the popularity is famous or infamous. It's best if this storytelling doesn't see the light of day as fetishising slavery is disgusting.

I like how the influencer stated in their own video they know this is problematic. I should also mention this influencer is also white.

After that video was made, there was backlash (obviously). Still, the influencer only addressed the backlash from one person, maybe two but claimed there were multiple. There's a good chance the influencer simply deleted those comments but kept the remarks which were in support.

In their next video, the influencer said in response to someone asking why is that your favourite trope? "Is it my favourite? No. Do I enjoy it in sci-fi when there are non-humans involved? Yes."

This is where the problems begin.

Even if slavery isn't your {influencer} number one trope, why do you enjoy it? Secondly, the fact of the matter is alien slaves, and human slaves are not different.

Most of the time, aliens are coded as people in minority communities, but their traits are brought out to eleven. Here are a few examples of the negative stereotypes in sci-fi and why it's no different from the real world.

The Krogan (Mass Effect Series) deals with a heavy topic known as the 'genophage'. The Krogan were sterilised because they were seen as 'dangerous' and had to be kept 'under control'. Sterilising woman in a marginalised community is sadly nothing new.

"More recently, forced and coerced sterilisation against marginalised women has been documented in countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, including Chile, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Hungary, India, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Slovakia, South Africa, Swaziland, USA, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela" Priti Patel (2017) 'Forced sterilisation of women as discrimination' https://publichealthreviews.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40985-017-0060-9

Patel forgot about Puerto Rico and how the United States were the one who did it.

Not all aliens in media are giant frog-like creatures; some are like the Jedi, which are just humans but with super powers.

"Most of last century's science fiction is notoriously tales of white, male humans—no matter how far in the future or how distant a planet it is set. Other-worldly stories of strong, white, human-like aliens rescuing a beautiful damsel in distress set an unfair standard for both males and females while ignoring non-binary people. Not to mention that other alien races were generally portrayed as a threat, or corrupt in some way, or less intelligent." Carla Ra (2021) 'Racism and Sexism in Early Sci-Fi' [https://www.authorcarlara.com/post/racism-and-sexism-in-early-sci-fi]

What does all of this have to do with the slavery trope?

"Black men and boys are imagined as dangerous, threatening, inherently criminal and superhuman — bigger, faster, stronger and less likely to feel pain. These views have roots in chattel slavery." -Tamari Kitossa The conversation (2020) https://theconversation.com/how-hollywoods-alien-and-predator-movies-reinforce-anti-black-racism-127088

Let me highlight what Kitossa said, slavery. Real-world slavery. That was about the predator alien from... 'Predator'. Just because a book is written about aliens doesn't mean it doesn't draw on real-world events. Humans write what we know. The only thing we know is our own history and culture and, therefore, can't create anything 100% brand new and original.

When creating an alien race, something will link it back to the real world; that's just how it is.

In the same video, the influencer said, "liking something in a book doesn't mean you like it in real life."

This is where the white privilege comes out and says hello.

Throughout history, the chances of you being a victim of slavery are low if you're white. I'm only alive because my Taiño ancestors were enslaved, so slavery is a touchy subject for me.

Growing up as a white person whose ancestors were never enslaved gives you {the influencer} a sort of privilege that many people don't have. Those who are a victim of slavery can't trace their ancestor's lineage that far back. Many of their history and culture got destroyed. The Taiño community, my people, are labelled as extinct because of slavery even though we're still alive! Hearing people talk about my community as if we're no longer around is really hard to deal with, even though no one hears us, no matter how loud we shout. That's what's it like when your ancestors are victims of slavery; that's a privilege some people (mainly white people) don't have to deal with because their ancestors were the ones doing the killings. You may be able to ignore that history when its a fictional alien, but we see the history and connections.

I'm going to skip over some of the other stuff the influencer said, trying to defend themselves because they go into kink talk, something I know nothing about. However, I will only bring up things I think are relevant to the discussion.

"When somebody has a kink that they do not act out in the real world, um… who are any of us to judge?"

I hope you {the influencer} don't act out slavery in the real world.

As for enjoying things in a book but not liking them in real life and trying not to judge others who have kinks only in fantasy, where is the line drawn? How would that kink form be my biggest question? What part of being a slave made you {the influencer} enjoy it to the point where it became a kink? That question gets answered later.

Another video later. "Slavery trope in literature is the same as slave play because it is consensual. The reader is consenting to the content."

Trying to stick with only books here; this is why that kind of thinking is flawed.

I will be the first to admit that I know nothing about slave play, BDSM, etc. However, I know a popular book where that kink is the main focus. Love it or hate it, Fifty Shades of Grey.

Fifty Shades of Grey is a story about a power dynamic. Both parties consent via contract. The slavery trope in fantasy is not like that because the enslaved person in the book isn't consenting. That's how consenting works; both parties need to agree to it.

The idea that the slavery trope is consensual because the reader is consenting via reading is wrong. A reader is a witness to a story; they're observing what's going on but can't do anything to stop it. When someone reads a book, if the book is written well enough, that fantasy becomes a reality as the reader gets sucked into that world. The same can be said when watching a movie. The viewer can't change the story, the story is already told, so whenever something happens to a character, it will always happen to that character. Here I give the example of the numerous, take your pick, rape scenes in the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' book series and the 'Game of Thrones' TV series.

Several actors were uncomfortable with what they were doing because of the real-world implications, and several viewers were uncomfortable watching it because of traumatic events. The only one who consented to all of this was the show's writer and the book's writer.

"Whenever discussions come up about the depictions of women in fantasy shows that take place in a fictional past or in an altered version of our past, there are many excuses that are allowed to be passed around. "Women didn't have as many rights in the past" is not an excuse for subjecting women to sexual violence, writing them using sexist tropes, or to give them a passive position." -Princess Weekes (2019) The Mary Sue [https://www.themarysue.com/perils-of-sexist-racist-medieval-fantasy-historical-reasons/]

Everything that I just said applies to sci-fi. Sci-fi isn't a genre that escapes from these tropes as it's the same but now in space. Like I said before, writers create what they know. When making slaves for an alien race, taking a look at real-world slavery is a resource one can do.

In the same video, the influencer said, "there is no victim because the characters are fictional and the reader is consenting, so there's no victimisation."

Again, that's just wrong. The victim is still the slave. Yes, everything is fictional and fake, but fake stories have real-world repercussions. You can't tell me people don't inspire to be like Indiana Jones. Because of Indiana Jones, looters of archaeological dig sites ramped up during Indy's hay day. I suggest reading this article here if you would like to know more about looters. [https://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2014/09/09/why-archeologists-hate-indiana-jones/comment-page-1/]

Fetishising slavery is a quick way to turn something in a book back into reality despite the fact that slavery is still around. Those who enjoy the slavery trope might try to recreate it in the real world and with a partner who agrees. That's fine until the 'salve' isn't acting enough like a real slave and the consenting party quickly doesn't last. I'm not saying the influencer does that; they very clearly stated they don't. However, we can't deny the effect fictional stories and characters have on the real world. Just because a story might be fake doesn't mean it can't inspire another story that isn't.

The influencer repeats themselves a few times and goes around in circles in other videos. Still, their last main argument that I want to take away from all of this was why they enjoyed it in the first place. I lost the video for the exact quote, but the influencer said they enjoy the power dynamic between an enslaved person and a slave owner. They enjoy it when someone holds all of the power but falls in love with a slave, and throughout the story, the two of them become one. That kind of love story can easily be done without having actual enslaved people in it.

Anyone who writes actual slaves, sci-fi or not and then romances them is fetishising something that's still happening today, just not talked about as much. The guardian estimated in 2019, about 40 million people were in slavery (Kate Hodal' One in 200 people is a slave. Why?' https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/25/modern-slavery-trafficking-persons-one-in-200)

Writing about slavery is fine; fetishising it is not. Also, trying to find more books about that trope and buying it is not all right. The more people who buy these books, the more people will keep making them. The more these books keep getting made, the fewer people will see this as a bad thing, and they might start recreating a fantasy and turning it into reality. Don't engage in that trope; thanks for coming to my Ted Talk

#slavery #Jesse Quinones #An Ordinary Writer #writing #wrtieblr #books #sci-fi #fiction #tiktok #booktok

[lumierecharity]

SOUTH AFRICA: VOTERS HEAD TO THE POLLS ON 29 MAY 2024. VOTE PROLIFE!

SOUTH AFRICA: VOTERS ARE DUE TO HEAD TO THE POLLS ON 29 MAY 2024 FOR GENERAL ELECTIONS. 

VOTE PROLIFE!

Abortion is a tragic issue which has affected many in the beautiful land of South Africa. On 1 February 1997 abortion-on-demand was legalized in South Africa. By 2024 an estimated two million babies in South Africa had lost their lives through abortion, mostly with taxpayers' money. [1] This loss of life has left devastation in its wake. Nationwide demonstrations against the abortion law have swept the country over past years as pro-lifers repeatedly marched to Parliament. People from Worcester, Velddrift, Hermanus, Malmesbury, Durbanville, Belville, Klipjeville, Cape Town, Kroonstad, Bloemfontein, Durban, East London, Pretoria, as well as many others areas have protested the abortion law over the past few years. [1], [2], [3], [4]. [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13].

Protests at abortion clinics

Protests at abortion clinics have been widespread throughout the country, such as the protests at Marie Stopes Clinic in Cape Town [2] and Pretoria [9]. 

National Alliance for Life

National Alliance for Life (NAL) is a platform for pro-life organizations, churches and individuals to be heard. This vibrant platform is strongly supported by pro-lifers in South Africa and further afield. An NAL conference pamphlet affirmed that "We must take a stand against the killing of children until it (abortion) is abolished." [13]

Dr de Vos

Dr Jacques de Vos faced charges for allegedly telling a pregnant woman that 'her fetus was a human being' and that an abortion kills an unborn human, Alleged News. [14] Dr de Vos lost his employment and was banned from practising medicine, Alleged News. [14] He was only a week away from finishing his medical degree, Alleged News. [14] Protests regarding the fate of Dr de Vos spread from South Africa to Kenya, Alleged News. [15] More than 19,000 signatures from African citizens - concerned about the fate of pro-life Dr Jacques de Vos - were delivered to High Commissioner Thembela Ngculu at his Nairobi office; Alleged News. [15] In 2022, Dr de Vos was cleared to practise again after a five-year ban, Alleged News. [16]

Forced sterilisations at hospitals

In South Africa, at least 15 hospitals and 48 staff were involved in coerced or forced sterilisation of women living with HIV/Aids, Alleged News. [17] A report by the Commission for Gender Equality in South Africa investigated reported cases and found that staff at the hospitals were party to gross human rights violations, as well as those of reproductive rights, Alleged News. [17] 

Abortion without consent

Buyiselwa Daweti said her horrific ordeal with a private hospital in Cosmo City in 2002 inspired her to fight for reproductive health rights and awareness, especially for vulnerable women sterilised against their will, Alleged News. [17]

"I had an abortion without my consent, which is in line with [forced] sterilisation, based on a lie by a doctor, who said my twins were not growing. He gave me tablets stating he wanted the twins to grow. The next day, I had a miscarriage which I thought was natural," Daweti said; Alleged News. [17]

Forced sterilisations

The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE), a Chapter 9 institution, released its report on 24 February 2020  revealing how hospitals forced and coerced women to agree to being sterilised, Alleged News. [17] The cases of violated women date back to 2001, Alleged News. [17] Some of the women made to sign sterilisation agreements while in severe pain only learned later from private gynaecologists that their fallopian tubes had been cut during labour, Alleged News. [17] 

Learned during labour

Other women learned during labour that they would be sterilised, allegedly after hospital doctors told them women with HIV should not have children, Alleged News. [17] The CGE found that the women were made to sign forms under duress, as they were threatened with not being assisted with caesarean procedures they needed: Alleged News. [17]

Call to stop illegal abortion advertisements

Director Justin Jones noted that "you cannot drive anywhere in a South African city these days without seeing illegal posters selling prophets, potions . . . Then there are also the ones that are selling things like "quick abortions" . . . which are inevitably done by unlicensed practitioners in unsafe conditions." 

"When the various posters are analysed, it becomes noticeably clear as to why the originator or owner uses the illegal (guerilla type) approach to advertise.

The practises they are advertising are normally illegal, and they are preying on the poor, the desperate and the marginalised." [18]

Outrage against backstreet abortions - public protest

Protest marches took to the streets in South Africa as outrage against backstreet abortions continued to grow. [19] Deputy Health Minister Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, accompanied by Gauteng Health MEC Dr Nomathemba Mokgethi and Ekurhuleni Mayor Tania Campbell, led a march against illegal and unsafe abortions, Alleged News. [19] 

Dead foetuses litter the streets

Most of the numbers of unidentified infant bodies received by the Johannesburg Forensic Pathology Services (FPS) medico-legal mortuary in Braamfontein are foetuses; Alleged News. [19] They are abandoned - discarded around the city, Alleged News. [19] Foetal osteologist Roxanne Thornton works with these deceased infants, Alleged News. [19] The dead babies come in as viable foetuses (more than 26 weeks), and as non-viable foetuses (those who would not survive outside the womb), Alleged News. [19] (The viable foetuses are thus dead preborn infants of more than six-and-a-half months, Alleged News.) 

Osteologist Thornton said many of the abandoned foetuses are illegal abortion cases, mostly stillborn and abandoned; Alleged News. [19] Osteologist Thornton said, "I work with foetal prenatal bones. The goal is to prove the case forensically. The reason I do this is because there are hardly any inquests for the dumped [foetuses] - they don't get investigated and they are forgotten. This is an injustice.

"I believe these children should have a voice. A lot are dumped just around the corner from a shelter or abortion clinic," Alleged News. [19] 

Pro-lifer received conviction

In February 2013, Mr Peter Throp received a conviction for damaging property by placing pro-life stickers over illegal abortion stickers, Alleged News. [19] Mr Throp received sentence of a fine of R5 000 or three months imprisonment, suspended for five years, Alleged News. [19] In March 2014, the Cape Town High Court upheld Mr Throp's appeal; Alleged News. [19]

15% of maternal deaths due to abortion complications

Unsafe, illegal pregnancy terminations lead to 15% of South Africa's maternal deaths, Alleged News. [19] According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in South Africa 15% of maternal deaths are due to abortion complications, Alleged News. [19]

Abortion is legal for children in South Africa

On December 11, 1996, South Africa enacted the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act. This Act gives women of any age or marital status access to abortion services upon request during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and, in certain cases, extends access to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy. [19] Currently, in South Africa, children are legally barred from drinking alcohol and from driving cars until they are 18 years of age. [19]

In South Africa, children between 12-14 years of age are being granted abortions, many of them without their parents' knowledge. [19]

Over 10,000 babies are abandoned in South Africa every year

Every year, over 10 000 babies are abandoned in South Africa, with the majority of them found dead, Alleged News. [20] Director Nadine Grabham said, "A lot of babies are abandoned due to failed abortions. Born alive, only to die from unsafe abandonment," Alleged News. [20] 

Sadness in South Africa

The introduction of abortion-on-demand in 1997 made abortion legal in South Africa. Instead of backstreet abortions becoming less, they have - alongside legal abortions - proliferated to the point that illegal stickers advertising abortion are a common sight in South Africa. Dead babies have been discarded in the streets, such as the eleven foetuses found in a bucket at a taxi rank in Mdantsane, Eastern Cape; Alleged News. [21] There had been speculation that the foetuses could have originated from a local clinic, Alleged News. [21] 

Every abortion causes the death of an innocent child

Dr Claude Newbury of Pro-Life South Africa wrote the following, "Every abortion, legal or illegal, causes the death of a totally innocent, helpless unborn child." [22]

THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY OF SOUTH AFRICA 

IS STAGGERING UNDER THE WEIGHT OF DEATH 

DUE TO ABORTION

VOTE PRO-LIFE!

THE FOLLOWING SOUTH AFRICAN VOTERS GUIDE ENLIGHTENS WHICH PARTIES

- ACKNOWLEDGE ALMIGHTY GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION

- CONTENT OF EDUCATION TO BE CONTROLLED BY THE PARENTS

- RIGHT TO LIFE (AGAINST ABORTION AND EUTHENASIA)

- OPPOSES COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS

- AGAINST LEGALISING PORNOGRAPHY

- AGAINST LEGALISTING PROSTITUTION

CLICK IN THE FOLLOWING LINK FOR 

THE SOUTH AFRICAN VOTERS GUIDE

[1] Christians gather in Cape Town to march for life, Alleged News

[2] South Africa: Nationwide demonstrations against the abortion law

[3] March for Life Cape Town South Africa - meet the protesters against abortion law

[4] March for Life Cape Town South Africa - meet the protesters against abortion law [2]

[5] March for Life Cape Town South Africa - meet the protesters against abortion law [3]

[6] March for Life Cape Town South Africa - meet the protesters against abortion law [4]

[7] March for Life Cape Town South Africa - meet the protesters [5]

[8] March for Life Cape Town South Africa - meet the protesters [6]

[9] South Africa: Pretoria Prolife Rally protests abortion law

[10] South Africa Pretoria Prolife Rally - meet the protesters

[11] South Africa Pretoria Prolife Rally - meet the protesters 2

[12] South Africa Pretoria Prolife Rally - meet the protesters 3

[13] South Africa affirms the sanctity of unborn life at the NAL Conference

[14] South Africa: Pro-life Dr de Vos charged with unprofessional conduct for telling patient abortion kills a human being, Alleged News

[15] South Africa: Pro-life Doctor "is accused of trying to dissuade a patient from terminating her pregnancy," Alleged News

[16] Pro-life medic cleared to practise as a doctor again after five-year ban, Alleged News

[17] South Africa; Forced Sterilisations at hospitals, Alleged News

[18] South Africa: Call to stop illegal abortion advertisements

[19] South Africa: outrage against backstreet abortions grows while aborted babies' bodies are received by mortuaries; Alleged News

[20] Over 10 000 babies are abandoned in South Africa every year: Baby Savers SA; Alleged News

[21] Eleven foetuses found at taxi rank, Alleged News

[22] Comments and Recommendations from Pro-Life South Africa concerning the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill 2003, Alleged News

With thanks to joynews.co.za, iol.co.za, static.pmg.org.za and savotersguide.co.za

#Youtube

[silvaguerrero47]

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#polyurea coatings

[sexualnews12]

Mumbai Hospitals’ Darkest Secret on Family Planning Revealed

A RHM research article, Identifying disrespect and abuse in organisational culture: a study of two hospitals in Mumbai, India, has obstetricians from government-run hospitals in Mumbai confessing to coercing women into sterilisation after their second child. Chillingly, so-called ‘consent’ is usually obtained when they are in labour. Read the full article from Mid-Day The post Mumbai Hospitals’…

View On WordPress

[luna-rainbow]

Eugenics in the 1930s

Okay wow reading the Eugenics in United States was a trip and a half.

I'm sure other people have done metas of this, so this is more a record for myself for future fic writing.

In summary, because there's a lot of history, the eugenics movement was pretty much the precursor to the Nazi eugenics movement. Unconsented and coerced sterilisations of Black women continued into the 70s.

Just some relevant tidbits to Steve and Bucky's experience:

The 3rd International Eugenics Congress was held in NYC in August 1932, and elected Ernst Rudin as its president - a Swiss-born German psychiatrist who became a strong influence on forced euthanasia programs of the disabled and mentally ill under the Nazi regime.

The movement successfully lobbied for increasingly strict immigration restrictions. The Immigration Act of 1907 added an exclusion for: (Presumably when Sarah immigrated she was negative for TB)

All idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; professional beggars; persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living…

30 states passed laws allowing for compulsory sterilisation of criminals or the disabled.

A 1937 Fortune magazine poll found ~60% of people supported sterilisation of "mental defectives" and criminals, while only 15% opposed both, suggesting this is not an unpopular view at the time.

Because I wanted to understand exactly what views Steve would have been living with at the time, I did some digging and found the published papers from the Eugenics Congress and I'm going to keep it under cut because it's vile ableism of the extreme kind and needs a trigger warning.

To get a sense of truly how arrogant and dehumanising these views were, here's the opening address to the Eugenics Congress by Charles Davenport:

Research on human genetics, as the foundation of eugenics, should be continued. ... We need to know the genetical factors present that favor self control -- inhibition -- or the lack of it. We need to know more about the genetical factor that favors output in music, mathematics, invention, organization and the rest. By a knowledge of the laws of inheritance of these special capacities the chance of breeding them can be increased.

It is probably well that the principles has been established in this country that the fertile marriages of the feeble-minded, and the inheritably insane should be reduced to a minimum.

Eugenics is not interested in death rates any more than it is in birth rates. It is interested only in quality. One may even view with satisfaction the high death rate in an institution for low grade feeble-minded, while one regards as a national disaster the loss of a bold and successful aviator, or even the infant child of exceptional parents.

Any nation will, in the long run, be what the quality of its breeding stock permits it to be (...) Every nation wants to secure for itself its ideals of high quality of manhood. (...) The immigration problem has indeed two aspects on the biological side. (...) Possible biological disharmony arising in the hybrid offspring of people widely unlike genetically; (...) the other aspect of immigration is that of a clash of instincts in groups with unlike temperaments and mores. (...) While there are apparent dangers in the free mixture of very dissimilar races, we have reason to look for certain advantageous consequences of out-breeding, providing the breeds be not extreme.

Can we by eugenical studies point the way to produce the superman and the superstate? Progress will come slowly. (...) But I think we are justified in having faith that the future will bring precise knowledge in human biology, and education will establish the desired mores.

The load of nauseating drivel encapsulates the astounding narcissism of a group of people believing it entirely within their rights to dictate what kind of people are worthy of living and "breeding", dressed up with very faulty science. The super soldier experiment was an extension of these views and it's actually disappointing how much the franchise minimised the role of the eugenics movement.

If Steve spent most of his childhood with the poorer and ethnically diverse group, these views are probably less prevalent, but there's likely to be a lot of prejudice once he mingles outside of his social class. His experiences with the medical profession was likely quite negative if this is the dominant belief at the time. In fact, one of the speakers (Madge Macklin) urged to include the teaching of eugenics in the medical curriculum.

The whole-hearted cooperation of the genetically trained medical practitioner is an essential to the success of the eugenic program for the following reasons. (1) He is necessary to determine who are physically and mentally qualified to be parents of the next generation (...) (2) He is the authority who must decide as to what persons have inherited diseases. (3 - summarised) He is depended upon to accurately record observations of disease, especially in those of more than one member of family. (4) He is a vital part in the education of the public as to the value of and necessity for eugenics. (...) He is indispensable in the program of sterilisation, both as the actual operator, and in large part as the initiator of recommendations for patients to be sterilised.

The medical profession, the one you hoped would value doing no harm and autonomy and justice, was being asked to judge the worthiness of people to pass on their genes.

As for exactly how they viewed people with disability and their value, there was this nasty rant by Lena Sadler, an obstetrician - what is exceedingly fascinating is that her Wikipedia page has no mention of her very avid support for eugenics (legit it's the stuff of alt-right crazies and it was about 8 pages long)

The menace of feeblemindedness, insanity, and delinquency is a rising tide, constantly growing in volume, because these enemies of society pass on their faulty mental and moral taints to their rapidly increasing progeny. (...) Here we are coddling, feeding, training, and protecting this viper of degeneracy in our midst (...) all the while seemingly ignorant and unmindful of the fact (...) that the future descendants of the army of the unfit will increase to such numbers that they will overwhelm the posterity of superior humans and eventually wipe out the civilisation (...)

[In an example of an intellectually disabled child] we maintain that society owes it (...) to say to this child: "We will continue to do the very best for you; you shall be educated or trained to your fullest capacity--and then you shall be either segregated or sterilised--we will do our full duty by you, but there must be no more like you."

She had included in her list of unfit people not only the "insane, idiots, criminals and paupers" but also people who were deaf, blind, epileptics, alcoholics, and "abnormal sexuality"...and Steve and Steve's parents would have ticked several boxes.

I feel like I need some time to digest all this. I get the sense that there is pervasive scorn against people who are poor, non-white (*and by this it's Nordic white not just any garden variety white), disabled or has visibly "undesirable genes", and this is a majority view amongst a lot of the educated class, including the medical profession - with whom Steve would have had a lot of contact.

It was...sneaky? Disappointing? That they removed the eugenics movement from the background of CATFA, because I think it informs a lot of Steve's choices. It wasn't that he wanted to kill Nazis, but he knew if the eugenics movement won, there would be no place for him or many millions of people like him, or for the many more who did not fit with the movement's narrow racial and class profile.

And in a way, I think even without Erskine, some part of Steve knew he was the better volunteer, because more than all the other able-bodied soldiers (even including Bucky) he understood the disabled experience, and he knew no one else would be willing to fight as hard for them, because they had been devalued so thoroughly by society.

I feel like with this context in mind, it's also much harder to be feeling sympathetic towards Peggy, who treated pre-serum Steve with at best detached courtesy, with a 180 change as soon as he gained desirable breeding characteristics. I really cannot see Steve carrying all this social context and still finding Peggy a morally attractive character.

#steve rogers #meta #eugenics #medical meta #history #anti peggy carter #reference #ableism #like extreme ableism #long post

[rf-times]

Thoughts on abortion

The fetus cannot be treated as an independent agent because it does not exist independently to the mother.

This is different to any other life form granted an independent right to live as it does not require one specific woman's bodily resources to be extracted. An infant can be kept alive by anyone while a fetus is kept alive only by the continuous and specific gestational work of the mother.

In any other circumstance where survival is dependent on body resources like needing an organ donation from one specific person, it is uncontroversial that the right to determine what happens to one's own organs/bodily resources is more important than someone else's right to live. So it should not be any different for pregnancy and childbirth.

Unconditional access to abortions is essential to every woman's right to full personhood, autonomy and safe healthcare.

Fetuses "belong" to their mothers not because they're genetically related but because the fetuses are uniquely dependent on the mother, her resources and labour.

Men have used the claim of owning fetuses to control women and children for millennia. After discovering their role in reproduction, men considered themselves to be the source and architect of life, with women acting as menial labourers and vessels for already fully formed souls. Later when more about genetics was learned, men considered fetuses like companies they had a fifty percent share in.

Men define reproductive rights as "the right to determine what happens to your genetic offspring" rather than "the right to determine what happens to your body as it pertains to reproduction."

This is taken to a logical extreme with surrogacy. A woman gestating a fetus and giving birth to children that in men's and the law's eyes, don't belong to her. Women being forced to sign contracts where their right to autonomy is taken away and where they can be forced to have abortions they don't want as well.

When the right to abortion is threatened, all women suffer and certainly suffer far more than any man from any background. A rich husband deciding whether you keep your pregnancy is not better than the government deciding. However women from marginalised communities suffer disproportionately from these laws, also because of other factors affecting their reproductive rights like poor pre natal care, maternal mortality and forced and coerced sterilisation programs.

#my posts #feminism #pro choice #anti surrogacy #abortion

[esotericworld]

Tyrannical China.

“

Twitter has deleted a post from China's US embassy which claimed Uighur women had had their minds "emancipated" by their policies in Xinjiang.

The post linked to an article by state-run media which claimed women were no longer "baby making machines" due to action on alleged religious extremism.

Beijing is alleged to have forced many Uighur women to be sterilised or fitted with contraceptive devices, apparently to control population growth.

China has denied the allegations.

The Uighurs are a mostly Muslim minority group which lives mainly in Xinjiang province in northwestern China.

The tweet, published on Thursday, also claimed that Uighur women were "more confident and independent" as a result of "reproductive health" being "promoted" to them.

Over the weekend, the tweet was replaced with a message from the social media site which claimed the tweet "violated" Twitter's rules, without providing further details.

The original tweet had linked to an article by China Daily, a state-run newspaper, which alleged the eradication of extremism in Xinjiang "had given Uighur women more autonomy when deciding whether to have children".

The article referenced a report by the Xinjiang Development Research Centre which said: "The changes were not caused by 'forced sterilisation' of the Uyghur population, as repeatedly claimed by some western scholars and politicians."

Last year, a report by China scholar Adrian Zenz alleged Uighur and other ethnic minority women were being threatened with internment in camps for refusing to abort pregnancies that exceeded birth quotas.

The findings were based on a combination of official regional data, policy documents and interviews with ethnic minority women in Xinjiang.

The report also said that Uighur women with more than the legally permitted number of children - but also many women who had not exceeded birth quotas - were involuntarily fitted with intra-uterine devices (IUDs), while others were coerced into receiving sterilisation surgery.

Under current rules, couples in China are allowed to have up to two children, with couples in some rural areas allowed up to three.

Former detainees in internment camps, which China says are re-education camps to tackle extremism, said they were given injections that stopped their periods, or caused unusual bleeding consistent with the effects of birth control drugs.

According to Mr Zenz's analysis of the data, natural population growth in Xinjiang has declined dramatically in recent years, with growth rates falling by 84% in the two largest Uighur prefectures between 2015 and 2018 and declining further in 2019.

Following the release of that report, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on "all nations to join the United States in demanding an end to these dehumanising practices"...

#China