Letters to the Editor
-
Imminently?
'Imminently' preventable? What is that supposed to mean? I checked the dictionary and I still don't get it.
-
That's staggeringly tragic
Of course, I note Carol that you are far more interested in women in China than you are in the men and children in your own neighborhood. You are more interested in doing something (what?) about women around the world, than you are in acting locally where your writing might accomplish something to help men, that want to be fathers, and children, that want their father.
You could act locally by talking about Elian II and Elian III and by talking about how necessary it is for a rebuttable presumption of joint custody, but you won't.
Instead you'll ignore issues that you could change because they are politically incorrect and discuss issues that you can't change.
What a waste.
-
Imminently...
I think Lloyd meant 'eminently preventable.' Something of a term of art (?) in medicine and disease research. Really 'easily preventable' with current medical knowledge and the proper supplies.
-
Female Privilege
You know, I read this, and I thought to myself, "It's gonna be pretty hard for the 'enthusiastic' posters to tie one woman preventably dieing a minute, to men's rights and bad feminists and the rottenness of BroadSheet and all the rest of the crap." Gosh was I wrong. It was a matter of minutes.
OK, BS65, Agent Anonymouse(TM), M3, Linney U., gagaga, etc, lay it on us. Tell us how this proves women are privileged, please do.
-
Hey Drunkistan
You should have heard Rachel Maddow connect Ellen DeGeneres and the dognappers with Bill Frist -- it was really masterful.
Stealing all her charm from it, it was basically that the rule or law DeGeneres went afoul of was created because of Bill Frist admitting in his book that as a med student when cats were in short supply he would go to rescue shelters and pick up cats intended for adoption and then experiment on them.
Rachel Maddow is the best.
So seriously Drunkistan, when you're engaged in a little civil disobedience, a little protest, do you play strictly by the rules that of your employer or the power, or do you play close to the rules but make sure your protest or civil disobedience is heard?
I think I was pretty clear.
The situation is tragic, but not necessarily more so than fathers that have had their children stolen from them, or children that have had their fathers removed from their lives.
If you should ever breed, human babies that is, you may realize that. You just cannot forcefully separate a parent from their child without causing great havoc in a family or a person or a life.
These men and children, almost certainly in Carol Lloyds neighborhood are simply not a political priority for Carol, and she acts to make sure that they are not a political priority for anyone and so does Broadsheet.
So in fact, by refusing to mention that issue, one way or the other Carol engages in a worse sin that she might have by simply not discussing the issue of these women.
Think globally, act locally. She claims to be doing the thinking, she is not doing the acting.
Using your words, she's just plain rotten.
Anyway, as always, your ability to get through the day on a 44oz Mad Dog and not water is impressive.
HTH
-
re; preventability
I have the same problem when American feminists and other pundits of all stripes want to conflate and distract their local issues by pointing to what happens in distant and disenfranchised parts of the world. The sole commonality that links the opening theme with the last is that of womanhood. International sisterhood is great in theory, but weak on actions.
I would like to offer an alternative interpretation as to explain the persistently high rates of mortality rates for women in childbirth. For women in some situations as in subsaharan Africa, the risk is deemed worth the benefit the risktakers themselves. In societies wherein motherhood and having many children confer power and privilege, however small and unacknowledged in political discourse, childbearing is a calculated risk for most women under such conditions and one that they are willing to assume. We seem to be willing to discount the ability of women to gauge their own circumstances (in far away lands) and to make such decisions because it's more expedient to think of them as victims and then to focus attention of the decision makers (or deciders, as the case might be) closer to home.
On this same subject though, is it acceptable to admit that biology and the 'lifedrive' might also be factors that we as a species will always contend with? Biology is just unfair in how it puts all the mortal risks associated with reproduction on women. No amount of money or political will is ever going to alter this. Then there is the 'steelmagnolia' phenomenon. If we explain to a woman that her anatomy or health will put her in mortal danger if she tries to get pregnant (or get pregnant again), will she certainly not? As someone who has experienced a very eyeopening conversation with an American professor who was planning her 4th scheduled caesarean at the time, I can say that an element of the mortality rates is due to women's belief in their invulnerability and their own personal calculations about the risks.
-
"childbearing is a calculated risk"
That may be so for people with freedom to have sex when they want and not when they don't, and for people with access to contraceptives. I think you've got the wrong ladies.
Did you look at the charts in that massive document? PAI tries to make a case for this being about abortion laws - and I'm not saying it's not - but if you look at the charts you can see that there is a huge correlation between maternal death and income. Big. Shocker.
-
Also, Potomacker
I don't see how this story "conflates and distracts" (from?) local issues. Can you clarify that? Because Lloyd made it pretty clear that reading about maternal mortality from this distance made our cute little domestic squabbles about things like VBACs seem prety silly. If anything, with the opening sentence "Today's BBC story about the persistence of maternal mortality around the world puts recent controversies about vaginal births after Caesareans and home births into perspective," the author is suggesting that maybe we don't have it so bad. And I agree with her that the politics of birth in this country are NOT unimportant, but it is useful to see how things are elsewhere to give one a little perspective on the level of one's privilege.
So, where do you see the conflation and distraction happening, exactly?