and I didn't even notice it until today.

the entire purpose of annas rant was to establish that disagreement with HER was abusive, so this is pretty funny.

okay. in our country's recent history here's a quick and superficial review of the way men hold women *slave* to review (three off the top of my head)-

treating and establishing women as property to be traded by father to husband by way of marriage prior to the nineteenth century, refusing to allow women any legal rights including the right to vote and establishing laws which condone and advocate the abuse of women by the discretion of men.

now in wordplay, think of all of the words which degrade and sexualize women, words that men can use to continue to hold women *slave*.

oh yeah, not to mention the booming sex trade industry which actaully does hold women and young girls *slave*, but i guess that the men who patronize sex slaves are also somehow being held *slave* not the actual girls who are sold into slavery.

*sigh.* we have a ways to go, ladies.

I get the feeling that any woman who states her opinion is, in your estimation, being abusive towards you.

Anna, you are eloquent (not ridiculous).

only further proves what I say about men being slaves of women.

one way women continue to hold men slave is for women to report or call a guy some derogatory term in order to slam him in the eyes of others, in this case calling me 'abusive', whether the man deserves it or not.

Anna is RIDICULOUS. And men need to wake up to this sort of abuse from women.

All I did was call out one potential reason SOME men may abuse women. If truth hurts, it is telling that some women cannot handle truth.

But, based on how Anna treats men she disagrees with, such as me, I will begin to call any woman's comments I disagree with ABUSIVE myself.

Boy, this equality thing sure sucks, huh?

I didn't crawl everywhere: I googled and then used our university's system to check abstracts. It seems that if one is NOT abused before getting pregnant, there is around a 2% chance it will start, but that abuse does not escalate to mother murder (see the GAO report and a number of other reports out there) nor does there seem to be a link to child support. The men may like to hit, but they don't want the double homicide of killing a pregnant woman (if we assume rationality, and knowing that a number of places have "fetus protection" laws). I do not assume rationality here. The abuse is implicated in some pre-term births. These murders are usually seen as "heat of the moment", not "premeditated".

Middle class pregnant women are far less likely to die of intimate murder than lower class women. Middle class women have more access to lawyers, etc, to actually get things like child support and alimony. In the unstable neighborhoods where most pregnancy related murders happen, child support is nominal if awarded. Child support does not seem to be a factor. For it to be a factor these murders would have to be rational. It is the assumption of rationality that seems problematic.

More pregnant women die of car accidents that intimate murder, and the number for intimate murder appears to be exaggerated because of the Baltimore study. The real risk is there, but it is much lower than 1 of 3. Adultery seems to be a bigger motivator for the premeditated murder of pregnant women than general abuse. Again, we are talking about such small numbers and so few studies that it is problematic to extrapolate.

What we know is that a small number of pregnant women will be abused and murdered during the course of that abuse by intimate partners. 98% of these women were already being abused. Some women's abuse stops during pregnancy and picks back up when they deliver. We can not say it is rational. The evidence seems to point to being in economically frail neighborhoods as a risk factor, but not as a catalyst.

Most men will not abuse pregnant women.

if there's a consensus on this that is one thing, but if there IS any increase then there is no reasonable way to claim that the negative effects on the mans life of being responsible for a kid is not a factor.

The argument that men kill pregnant women to prevent child support payments does not seem to be supported by research. It is an insult to normal, decent men.

Abuse during pregnancy: strategies

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/164/11/1578

A 2002 General Accounting Office report, "Data on Pregnant Victims and Effectiveness of Prevention Strategies Are Limited," warns that figures on maternal homicide "lack comparability.... Estimates...cannot be generalized or projected to all pregnant women."

Current studies vary too widely in methodology, conclusions and far too often in the agendas propelling research.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy49.html

GAO study http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02530.pdf

Moreover, the Department of Justice (DOJ) reports that the total number of women murdered has been declining since 1993.

The DOJ also finds that the number of women murdered by "intimates" (a spouse, ex-spouse, or boyfriend) has also fallen since 1993. Are maternal homicides somehow rising as the other categories fall?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy49.html

"The Massachusetts study documents that for every 100,000 births, 9 women died from injury related causes" and notes that about 1/3 of those deaths were "intimate partner homicides." Thus, the risk of becoming a maternal homicide victim is about 3 in 100,000. http://www.lewrockwell.com/mcelroy/mcelroy49.html

Massachusetts study establishing numbers http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2004/1222davis.html

Poverty and living in an economically distressed neighborhood are the two biggest risk factors for pregnant women becoming a victim of violence. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/205004.htm Middle class women (who might actually get a settlement and/or child support, are actually less at risk. It is in neighborhoods where the crime risk is high already that both initimate and non-intimate violence against pregnant women seems to increase

This excludes information on schizophrenics, etc some of whome seem to focus on pregnant women, and simple muggers, carjackers, and robbers, who also see pregnant women as vulnerable because of the physical limitations of pregnancy. Those are taken as given in several studies. mentally ill women trying to steal babies are given far less academic attention, although they do get sensationalistic media attention. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/17/national/main661617.shtml ; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14954419/

Information on the limitations of the JAMA study that provided the stats on pregnancy/homicide link

Dr. Harold Weiss, of the Center for Injury Research and Control, identified another way in which the study may be misleading. In a letter to JAMA following the publication of Horon and Cheng's study, Weiss highlighted how Maryland's policy regarding autopsies may contribute to an under-counting of death due to motor-vehicle accidents. The Maryland medical examiner's office requires an autopsy for all murder victims, but does not for all auto accidents. This means that while medical-examiner reports identified all murdered pregnant women — and, in fact, these reports were the source of 100 percent of Horon and Cheng's identification of pregnant homicide victims — the lack of data on women who die in motor-vehicle accidents means that Horon and Cheng likely missed some pregnant women who died in auto accidents.

Weiss also highlighted the pitfalls of assuming that the findings from a study conducted in Maryland are nationally representative. It turns out that Maryland has many more homicides per capita than the rest of the country. Between 1993 and 1998, among Maryland women of childbearing age (15 to 44 years), there were 499 homicides and 605 motor vehicle deaths — a ratio of .82 homicides for each motor vehicle death. Nationally, however, there were 19,306 homicides and 41,474 motor-vehicle deaths, or .47 homicides per motor-vehicle death. Thus even if homicides are the leading cause of death among pregnant women in Maryland, the same trend doesn't necessary follow nationally.

The General Accounting Office and Center for Disease Control have also researched the relationship between pregnancy and violence, and cast additional doubt on the alleged link between pregnancy and homicide. One report concluded that "current study findings suggest that for most abused women, physical violence does not seem to be initiated or to increase during pregnancy.... In one study we reviewed, only 2 percent of women who reported not being abused before pregnancy reported abuse during pregnancy. The same study also found that, for some women, the period of pregnancy may be less risky, with violence abating during pregnancy; 41 percent of the women who reported abuse in the year before pregnancy did not experience abuse during pregnancy."

Violence against women, including against pregnant women, is a serious problem. Each such death is a special tragedy — the loss of the woman compounded by the extinguished hope and promise of a new life. But overstating the frequency of these brutal acts minimizes the horror of each episode, confuses the public, and may lead to misallocated resources. We need a national discussion about how best to prevent violence against women — and an important element of that conversation must be separating fact from fiction. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/pol/241852075.html