A good article by Lynn Paltrow describes many recent cases in which the law has been used to force c-sections on unwilling women. Here’s a sample:
Angela Carder was not as lucky. This case occurred in the early 1990s and garnered national attention. After the 25-weeks pregnant Carder became critically ill with cancer, she, her family and attending physicians agreed to focus on prolonging her young life for as long as possible. The hospital, however, sought a court order forcing her to have a C-section. Despite testimony that the surgery could kill her, the court concluded that the fetus had a right to life and ordered her to be cut open against her will. The surgery was performed: The fetus died within two hours and Angela died within two days with the C-section listed as a contributing factor. No one suggested arresting the doctor or hospital officials for murder.
Paltrow is the head of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, whose website I should probably explore..
There’s something deeply disturbing about being forced by legal sanctions to have an operation to save someone else’s life. That the need is questionable is only icing on the cake. I might not approve of someone who refused to donate bone marrow to save a close relative (I can’t say for sure, never having been put in such a position myself), but I would never force them to do it.
I remember the Angela Carder case. It was written up in a book about feminist views on pregnancy, and I also remember not being able to sleep for a couple of nights because of the horror of that case, but it wasn’t nowhere near the only upsetting one in the book. And things haven’t gotten any better for pregnant women since then.
Faludi included some similar medical stories in the end of “Backlash.” Maybe I’ll figure out where my copy is and reread it.
But on topic, I find this whole mess rather discouraging. It seems that the conservative (and Christian evangelical) movement has gone much further than I realized. I can’t think of another timely reason why these cases, and similar ones, seem to be turning back the clock.
The Carder case is horrible, but it’s not surprising in the long view of history. It’s the logical consequence of the bullying, authoritarian attitude taken by the male medical establishment towards women–and pregnant women most of all, “for the sake of the children” of course–for the past century and a half.
It’s worth remembering that while the modern anti-choice movement often vilifies doctors, the ORIGINAL anti-choice movement in America — in which abortion was outlawed for the first time, 1850-1880 — was LED BY male doctors, and the American Medical Association in particular. (Carroll Smith-Rosenberg’s DISORDERLY CONDUCT: VISIONS OF GENDER IN VICTORIAN AMERICA has a good chapter on this.) Its chief goal was to create the situation in which cases just like the Carder case would happen — that is, to bring every aspect of pregnant women’s lives into the bright clinical glare of the hospital, thus under male doctors’ “expert” control. “For their own good,” of course, and “for the good of the children.”
The necessary, horrible consequence of such a policy is dead women–women killed by male “experts” who forced them into procedures that they did not want to undergo, but who are protected from any responsibility for their actions by the King’s X that they receive as “experts.” In such an environment it’s no surprise that we’d see forced sterilization, unnecessary hysterectomies, unnecessary mastectomies, forced C-sections, etc. — and that when they led to murder by depraved indifference, the courts would barely stifle a yawn.
The Christian Right needs to be resisted, but we have to remember that they are only the latest wave of foot-soldiers in a much longer war…
I appreciate that many of you have an obvious bad-taste when it comes to the “Christan Right” but I get a little concerned when I see it pinpointed in capitals as the root of these very frightening issues.
I am a Christian. I believe in a loving God, and a just God. I believe that Jesus preached tolerance and servant-hood towards ALL people.
I do NOT believe in making abortion illegal (just because it isn’t my choice doesn’t mean the choice shouldn’t be available).
I do believe homosexuals should be allowed to be married, because I do not believe that marriage is a religious insitution, I believe it is a union of love.
I do not believe that anyone should be charged with murder for refusing surgery… because largely I believe no one has the right to decide “what is best” for someone else (issues of competency, dependancy and accountability aside).
It’s not the God, it’s not even the faith or the religion, for the most part. It’s the insane nut-cases/cultists who call themselves Christan (and in part the instiutions they’ve created). Please try to keep them seperate in your mind from the faith they name but do not walk.
Well, for what it’s worth, in my mind there’s an important distinction between “the Chirstian Right” and Christians in general.
“Well, for what it’s worth, in my mind there’s an important distinction between ‘the Chirstian Right’ and Christians in general.”
Why don’t we ever hear about the Christian Left?
“Why don’t we ever hear about the Christian Left?”
I suspect it’s because they don’t push significantly different issues than the “Left” as a whole. Whereas the “Christian Right” (which I hear referred to as the “Religious Right” much more often) does push issues that are much different from other right wingers. Also, they promote themselves as a seperate group & raise a ton of money that way.
But this is only a guess.
“Why don’t we ever hear about the Christian Left?”
I think we just call them nuns! ;->
I grew up Catholic, and, there are many Christian’s on the left; there are many on the right. I have no idea why the left leaning ones don’t call themselves the “Christian Left”.
I grew up Catholic, and, there are many Christian’s on the left; there are many on the right. I have no idea why the left leaning ones don’t call themselves the “Christian Left”
Being something of a “Christian Leftist” myself, and being romantically involved with one, I’d say that it pretty much boils down to the idea that our religion shouldn’t be something that we proclaim. Religion may be a reason for members of the Christian Left to hold the political beliefs that they do, but that doesn’t mean that they feel they have to proclaim their religious motivations at every turn. (In fact, the Bible specifically talks against that.)
Mostly, it isn’t anyone’s business what my religion is. There are good, non-religious reasons for supporting progressive politics so why should I ignore those in favor of a my-god-can-kick-your-god’s-ass argument that will only turn people away? Most importantly, though, religion is a private thing that shouldn’t be imposed on others and shouldn’t be bragged about. Humility is one of the most ignored of Jesus’ teachings, especially by many Christians.
So really, there is a Christian Left but it doesn’t vocally proclaim itself as such because it tends to genuinely believe in the seperation of church and state, and because it’s believed that one’s faith is private and should not be used as a weapon against others.
Adding a bit onto what has been said in response to Sheelzebub’s excellent question: “Why don’t we ever hear about the Christian Left?”
Part of the problem is that folks like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have so effectively monopolized the use of “Christian” as a cultural identity over the past 35 years or so… (It’s not that there aren’t lots of Christians who aren’t conservative fundamentalists; it’s that it’s conservative fundamentalists who have laid claim to more or less exclusive *identification as* a Christian in the public sphere. They’ve also been very aggressive about intimidating those who disagree with their political stance out of publicly identifying themselves as Christians, by repeatedly attacking liberal and leftist Christians as Not Real Christians, by speaking as though their distinctive take on politics were the only distinctively Christian take, etc.)
It’s worth noting that up until the mid-1960s, “Christian political activism” mainly called to mind various forms of __socialism__ (of the Walter Rauschenbusch variety), not hard-Right politics! The hard Right managed to stage a rhetorical takeover in the mid-1960s, mainly by combining the politics of white male resentment with the battle over school prayer, and, by the late 1960s and early 1970s, the debate over abortion.