Women are not livestock

From the news: "Canadian fatwa condemns honour killings."

The Muslim cleric who declared his religious decision that "Honour killings are no part of Islam" admits that, unfortunately, fatwas like this don't change the rate of murders motivated as
"honour killings."

A Canadian imam issued a fatwa Saturday officially condemning honour killings and family violence. The edict is an official reminder to Muslims, coming from the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada and signed by 34 imams across Canada and the U.S.

The official decree was made in a Mississauga, Ont., mosque and was initiated by Calgary imam Syed Soharwardy, who founded the council. The fatwa condemned honour killings, domestic violent and misogyny as "un-Islamic."

It was made in response to the recent Shafia family murder trial in Kingston, Ont., in which a Montreal couple and their son were convicted of killing four female relatives.

Double standards

Blogger "Daylight Atheism" points out that parents who lobbied to have Christian propaganda pamphlets sent home with all schoolchildren are shocked and appalled to find that atheists and members of other religions want to use the same channels to distribute their information. Are they lying hypocrites or just blind in one eye and can't see out the other?

End the pandemic of unsafe abortion

This week, Britain's medical journal The Lancet published a study of the worldwide effects of unsafe abortion. And by unsafe abortion, we mean unsafe for women, the only living, breathing individuals on the operating table, floor, sidewalk, or patch of ground.

By definition, unsafe abortions are those "done by individuals without the requisite skills, or in an environment below medical standards." Approximately 19-20 million such abortions occur annually, almost all in developing countries.

The authors write:

Worldwide, approximately eight women die every hour because of complications of unsafe abortion. In an article published this week by The Lancet exploring causes and consequences of unsafe abortion, the authors write that "ending the silent pandemic of unsafe abortion is an urgent public-health and human-rights imperative."[1]

Titled "Unsafe abortion: The preventable pandemic," the article is authored by David A. Grimes, MD, of the University of North Carolina Medical School; Janie Benson, DrPH, and Bela Ganatra, MD, both of Ipas; and other noted experts in obstetrics-gynecology or international public health. It is featured in a special series of articles on sexual and reproductive health released online in November. The Lancet held a press briefing this morning in London, chaired by Editor Richard Horton, to launch the landmark series.

Commenting on the pandemic, Dr. Janie Benson, Vice President for Research and Evaluation at Ipas, an international organization committed to reproductive health and rights, stated,

"As with other serious threats to public health, whether in the developing world or elsewhere, the problem of unsafe abortion should be approached by using evidence-based solutions."

She went on to note that

"after decades of public-health research on the subject, the clear and incontrovertible evidence shows that when abortion is made legal, safe and easily accessible, women's health rapidly improves."

Dr. Horton, writing in a comment introducing the special series, asserts that both the journal and the World Health Organization, which provided support for the special series, back this conclusion.

The article reviews evidence from numerous countries demonstrating that legally restricting abortion does not reduce the overall number of abortions, but does, often dramatically, increase the rates of maternal death and injury from unsafe abortion. Conversely, areas in which abortion and contraception services are widely accessible have among the very lowest overall abortion rates in the world.

(Thanks to NAF blog for the link)

Pill cuts ovarian cancer and saves lives

"the protection of Pill use corresponds to the avoidance of 3,000 to 5,000 ovarian cancer cases, and consequently 2,000 to 3,000 deaths a year in Europe."

Article: I am Not a Womb, I am a Woman

Gilles d'Aymery of Swans suggests that this article might be of interest, and I agree. While it applies to the U.S. health care system, and I use the term loosely, it is an interesting discussion of the overall attitude towards women as reproductive units rather than people who might want jobs, contraception, or other alternatives to becoming ready to produce a healthy baby.

The long and the short of it is that "experts recommend" that women spend their entire reproductive lives ready to get pregnant, including never smoking nor drinking alcohol. These recommendations and all the others, such as "control obesity," "keep your vaccinations up to date," and "avoid rat feces" are good advice to anyone. However, I do not expect to see the U.S. government banning all cigarette or alcohol advertisements with women in them any time soon. How much better, Ms. Hromic points out, to enable women to get the jobs they need to live support a healthy life and the contraception they need to avoid pregnancy. It's a very interesting article with a definite point to make.

Follow the link to read "I am Not a Womb, I am a Woman" by Alma A. Hromic.

I might also suggest that a really good health program would ensure that women have the martial arts skills to fend off attackers. Sexual assault and spousal abuse kill more women than heart disease and lung cancer combined in the U.S.

(Button from www.evolvefish.com)

Article: Regulating Women's Bodies

Here's another interesting article posted by Giles D'Aymery of Swans: "Regulating Women's Bodies" by Jan Bauman.

Excerpt:

...the fate of women today is falling into the hands of fundamentalist and out of those of the countless women who gave their lives in hard-fought battles for women's rights, reproductive choice, equality in the workplace, and the recognition of the legitimacy of our intellect. A chilling image that personifies this movement is that of a smiling George W. Bush, surrounded by 9 smiling white male politicians and flanked by American flags, as the president signed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.....

...One rational fellow, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, sees reality quite clearly and objectively:

There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, or to reduce infant and maternal mortality. No other policy is as sure to improve nutrition and promote health -- including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. No other policy is as powerful in increasing the chances of education for the next generation. And I would also venture that no policy is more important in preventing conflict, or in achieving reconciliation after a conflict has ended.

While the U.S. puts more money toward fighting AIDS than any other country, it throws more than half of it to ineffective programs promoting abstinence, and shuns effective programs that promote condom use and prevent needle sharing.

(Button from www.evolvefish.com)

Tags: women's health

Female "circumcision" kills babies

The practice of cutting away the clitoris and labia and sewing a woman shut is a cultural act, not a religious one. This mutilation, misleadingly called "female circumcision," causes pain, suffering, and death for women. As a woman's problem, it has been largely disregarded as a health issue. However, perhaps the "right to life" movement will take it up as a cause now. After a large study of more than 28,000 women, the World Health Organization has published figures showing that the mutilation complicates childbirth and increases infant mortality by up to 55%.

Here are selected quotes from a CBC article:

It's estimated more than 100 million women and girls have had the procedure, also called female genital mutilation....

It is usually performed on girls under the age of 10 by a traditional practitioner with crude instruments and without anesthetic, the agency said. It usually involves removal of the clitoris or other external genitalia for cultural or other non-therapeutic reasons.

Researchers from the UN health agency studied data from some 28,000 women giving birth between November 2001 and March 2003 in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. Three-quarters of the women studied had some degree of genital mutilation.

Up to 20 out of every 1,000 babies born in Africa die as a direct result of their mothers' circumcision, the agency said.

Scars forming around the wound could cause an obstruction, prolonging labour, "which increases the risk of caesarean section, heavy bleeding, distress in the infant and stillbirth."

Female genital mutilation "is estimated to lead to an extra one or two perinatal deaths per 100 deliveries," the study said.

Photo not available, and you should be thankful, but you can go here for a map.

Tags: childbirth, obstetrics, female circumcision, genital mutilation, women's health,
body modification, babies, neonatal mortality

Protect all women while they're still alive: Heather Mallick, CBC

CBC columnist Heather Mallick writes:

"An Alberta Conservative backbencher, Leon Benoit, has introduced a private member's bill on fetal homicide which says the killer of a pregnant woman should be charged with killing two people. Even though the Supreme Court refuses to define a fetus as a person under the law, Benoit's bill would see a fetus at any stage as a second murder victim.

The bill, which will likely fade away like all private members' bills, is just "common sense," an anti-abortion group told the Toronto Star. It's not even the tiniest bit an anti-abortion bill and if you think so, you're just paranoid, the group said.

Call me paranoid. If the fetus at any stage is a person and you kill it, as this bill would have it, then logically any woman choosing abortion gets 25 years in jail. She would be placed on a moral parallel with Thatcher, whose violent loathing of women haunts me when I remember his beautiful despairing victim.

Read more by following the link.

Marriage informed consent form

On the Swans site, Jan Baughman, offers a sample informed consent form for marriage in an article entitled "Marriage Mutatis Mutandis."

The status of women

From the United Nations' report on their Decade of Women, 1975 - 1985:

Women consititute one-half of the world's population, perform nearly two-thirds of the world's work, receive one-tenth of the world's income, and own less than one-hundredth of the world's wealth.