Category: Feminism

The Moaning After

There may be a flurry of posts over the next few days/weeks. I am still pondering what to do about this blog, but in the meantime will continue to comment as/when I see fit, until I’ve come to a firm decision. Warning, the following contains bucket-loads of snark.

This blogpost from young women complaining about their experiences of obtaining the morning-after-pill (MAP) or to use the less emotionally laden term “emergency contraception caught my eye earlier today (h/t @RiverFlows77), which bears dissemination.

Like much clinical phraseology,  ’emergency contraception’ is in itself an ingenious piece of newspeak, cleverly masking with semantics, not only the effect of the pill, namely very early abortion, but also the circumstances in which it be might be employed. Contraception is a way of preventing conception, in many instances, conception, the fusion of the sperm with the egg, will have already taken place and thus the morning-after pill will prevent this already fertilised and dividing zygote or if 5 days have elapsed, blastocyst, from implanting into the womb lining. The newer version of the morning-after pill introduced in 2010 can now be taken up to 5 days after intercourse, so it is not distortion or misleading to discuss the morning-after pill as being a form of early abortion. Undeterred the pharma companies have engaged in a clever piece of casuistry, declaring that abortion constitutes termination of pregnancy and that pregnancy does not begin until the fertilised egg is implanted in the womb lining.

Anyone who has ever been pregnant will testify to the specious nature of this reasoning. Pregnancy starts on day 1 of the cycle in which she conceives. This is why a pregnancy is dated from the first day of the last period. Conception, implantation and the maturing of the fetus are all part of the pregnancy process. Medically speaking, a pregnancy does not start at conception. Thus one’s pregnancy is always two weeks beyond the age of the fetus. A woman who is, for example, 8 weeks pregnant, will have conceived 6 weeks previously. So whilst the pregnancy is 8 weeks old, the age of the fetus is only 6 weeks.  Even if one wishes to reject the medical definition of a pregnancy, conception is the process of the sperm meeting the egg. Therefore the idea that the morning-after pill is always contraception (preventing or against conception) is clearly flawed.

But back to the complaints of the women seeking to obtain the morning-after pill, some Fisking seems in order.

Woman Number 1

So I went in and asked and the woman pharmacist told me that due to her religious beliefs she was unable to serve me the morning after pill. Not only did the way she said it make me feel like a complete slut, Sorry is this a parody? Since when did “I’m sorry but due to my religious beliefs I’m unable to serve you that product” equate to “begone you sinning dog of a whore, you shameless slut”??!! Not wishing to be complicit in the procuring of an abortion makes no comment upon the sexual morals of another person, nor does it imply any such sentiment. It is simply one person acting in accordance with their conscience, in this case dictated by religious beliefs, but as I have said on countless occasions, a sense that abortion is wrong does not require recourse to theism. This is the crux of the matter – there is no right not to be offended by the beliefs of others. The lady wanting to obtain the morning after pill wished to prevent the pharmacist from exercising her freedom of religion, because it made her feel uncomfortable. This is bigotry in action. 

it also meant that I came very close to not being able to get hold of any- which obviously could have lead to like, much bigger issues, especially as personally I don’t think I’d ever get an abortion. To point out the obvious, if you don’t think you’d ever get an abortion, perhaps you might want to think a bit harder about the effects of the morning-after pill. The Pharmacy is not the only place that one can get hold of the morning-after pill, GP clinics operate out of hours services and will dispense the morning-after pill, as will hospital A&E departments. The issue here is that Boots did not have another pharmacist available  to dispense the pill, hence the lady had to go elsewhere. Her complaint was that someone’s religious beliefs meant that she, as a consumer, was inconvenienced. If she desperately needed the pill, then there would have been another Pharmacy and/or medical clinics able to provide this for her. Her issue here should be with Boots, not a person’s rights of religious expression.

I completely respect everyone’s right to their own beliefs and opinions and while I would never judge anybody for their decisions I don’t think it’s right i get judged for mine- especially for people who are acting in a professional capacity. Good. That’s nice. Who said you were judged? That’s your own insecurity coming out there. I could never be involved in procuring an abortion for anybody, but that does not mean that I judge those who have them. I recognise that women often feel compelled and have no other choice; not sanctioning a choice is not the same thing as judging the morality of another, or stating that person is innately bad or flawed. This is all about how you feel. How do you think the person feels who would be forced to do something that is in their eyes deeply immoral, just so you don’t have a few minutes of feeling a bit embarrassed? Sorry, I’m not able to serve you that due to my religious beliefs, is neither a judgement upon morality, nor unprofessional. Did she give you a lecture on sexual morality? Or simply state the facts?

It was a bloody pharmacy and though she is perfectly entitled to her own beliefs i really don’t think its fair she be working there if those beliefs interfere with her ability to do her job. There should at least be another pharmacist on duty when she is who is able to dispense emergency contraception.  Her job is to dispense medicines in order to cure and prevent symptoms of disease and ensure that the medication is suitable for the patient. It is not her job to dispense medication that might cause an early abortion and the ending of a human life – she is protected under conscience rights. Your beef should be with the Pharmacy, not with someone exercising their freedom of religion.

I’m a vegetarian but if I got a job at Tesco I wouldn’t refuse to serve anybody buying meat. I don’t like the idea of forcing people to act against their own principles however STRAW MAN KLAXON. Firstly the right of people to eat meat is not generally held as being a contentious issue in society. Whether or not people should abort their unborn children is hotly contested and is still a relatively new development in society. Whilst women since the dawn of time have attempted to kill their unborn children, for centuries society, shaped by Judeo-Christian tradition, have explicitly rejected this as being desirable and have outlawed the practice. 

If you felt that strongly that eating meat was wrong, your principles would prevent you from being involved in anything that encouraged or condoned the practice. Furthermore selling meat is an altogether different concept. The animal is already dead and is being passed onto the consumer in processed form. How would you feel about working in an abattoir or selling equipment or supplies to the meat-industry? In the case of the morning-after pill, a Pharmacist is actively involved in a process that could result in an early abortion and could be held partly responsible. 

so if there are doctors who really don’t feel they can perform abortions, or pharmacists who don’t feel they can dispense the morning after pill, as long as their personal belief doesn’t inhibit my ability to get that service, I don’t think it’s a problem. so basically as long as there is always somebody else available at that time who can and will do it for me with the same competency and immediacy. I totally respect their opinions but i expect them to respect, if disagree with, mine.”  It’s all about ME ME ME. You can do whatever you like unless and until it inconveniences ME, then it’s how very dare you, because I am more important than you and respecting my opinion is doing what I demand you to. Not dispensing the morning-after pill is not disrespecting your opinion, it is an exercise of conscience rights – to disrespect your opinion would be to erm, fisk your self-centred moaning. Actually, I don’t disrespect your opinion, or your right to express it, I do however take objection when you wish to impose your right not to be inconvenienced upon someone else’s deeply held conscience rights. The Pharmacist did not disrespect you – she disagreed with you. What’s the problem? Don’t impose illiberal restrictions on others for your own convenience. That way lies a dangerous path. 

Woman Number 2

Before I discuss my personal experiences with contraception, I want to draw attention to the growing ‘hate’ against birth control, especially in America and increasingly here in the UK. Yay! Obligatory comparison with America, put the frighteners on everyone, the first rule of any discussion pertaining to “reproductive rights” in the UK. BINGO!!!

In North Carolina a few weeks ago, New Hanover County Chairman Ted Davis spoke in rejection of a state grant to cover the costs of family-planning for those earning low wages. Ted Davis is quoted in the Wilmington Star-News as saying, “If [they were] responsible and didn’t have the sex to begin with, we wouldn’t have this problem”. Because having sex without contraception when you can’t afford a child or afford/don’t-want-to-have an abortion is responsible, right?

Having sex when you can’t afford a child or afford/don’t want to have an abortion is, if not irresponsible, rather naive, even if one is using contraception. I hate to break it  you lovely, but *whispers* CONTRACEPTION CAN & DOES FAIL!!! I know this may come as something as a shock, but no method of contraception is 100% effective. There is one sure-fire way not get pregnant and that’s not to have sex. Now, I’m not going to get into the specifics about the political issue here, not least because I know nothing about this specific state grant, but it seems that Mr Davis has a point. I can also see why, folk such as Calah Alexander in America, might be annoyed that her son doesn’t qualify for free life-saving treatment and yet taxes are spent on birth-control.

 Planning to be sexually active (woo-hoo!), and not wanting immediate children, I went to the nearest doctor’s surgery and asked about contraception. Cor, aren’t you grown up? You enjoy sex and want to tell everyone that you’re having it? Round of applause. How very empowered. How novel, a woman having sex and liking it. Wonders will never cease.

Hmm…they kept asking me if I was in a relationship. I was, but it really shouldn’t have mattered, seeing as they’d already cleared up the ‘Do-you-have-an-STD’ matter, cue scary nurse voice. Actually they were doing their job in terms of attempting to help you look after your sexual health. If you were not in a relationship and planning to have casual sex, then it is their duty to advise you of the best way of protecting yourself from disease. Asking if you have an STD, is a professional responsibility. Scary nurse voice is not as scary as untreated chlamydia, syphilis, genital herpes or Gonorrhea. Grown up enough to want to have regular sex and yet avoid the possibility of children, but intimidated by the mention of potential consequences of unprotected sex. Hmmm. I see…

Meh, decided not to press that point – really excited to be getting contraception.  You really should get out more.

After more than a year of using the injection and then The Pill (cue capital letters for awesomeness) I took the advice of various nurses/doctors and took a short break from hormone contraception. Bless. The Pill. Awesome. So awesome that the medical profession decided that a prolonged dose of artificial hormones were not good for her long-term health. 

This is where the story gets a little scary kids! One time the condom broke – Yep. It happens. Oh wait. Hang on. Aren’t condoms supposed to prevent AIDS? Gosh isn’t the Catholic Church iniquitous in its teaching that they aren’t 100% failsafe…?

Cue the tale about her going to get emergency contraception. I say tale, I mean something of an Odyssey. Cue lots of swearing.

 Feeling (a lot) braver than I thought, I went straight up to the till, and I asked for what I wanted. The person at the counter freezes at my face (I did look young, but was at University age) and says in a cold voice that they ‘will need to talk to me in private’. Hmm, ominous. But, I think, they are just being professional. In my mind I am telling myself that I know they cannot sell/give the emergency contraception without assuring themselves that I am not pregnant, or underage. Cold voice? Gracious, I thought I was the Queen of Melodrama!!! Ominious? Or as you observe, simply doing their job? The morning-after pill is multiple the strength of a normal daily birth control pill. In studies, approximately 1 out of 4 women experience menstrual bleeding and nausea, approximately 1 out of 5 women experience abdominal pain, fatigue and headache. Other side effects include changes in menstrual cycle, breast tenderness, dizziness, vomiting and you may be at an increased risk of an ectopic pregnancy. 

If you have the following conditions: past heart attack or stroke, blood clots in the legs or lungs, breast cancer, liver cancer, epilepsy, cardiovascular or kidney disease, migraines ,diabetes or hypertension, then the morning-after pill is not suitable for you. Given all of that, of course the pharmacist has to do their job in ensuring that the patient is able to safely take the pill as well as warn them of the potential side effects and check that they are not already pregnant. If a woman presenting does look young, then of course their age should be checked and relevant precautions taken, such as advising them to speak with their parents, and/or a responsible adult as well as future advice regarding contraception etc. Not least a pharmacist needs to ensure that if the woman is under-age that she is not in an abusive situation. In the same way that retailers now ask routinely for proof of age for anyone buying alcohol who looks under the age of 25, this is only the Pharmacist doing her job. FOR YOUR PROTECTION. 

Maybe the person at the counter did not approve of contraception, maybe they thought I was someone who had not used any contraception. Maybe they were just doing their job?

I will never know. I will, however, always remember the cold and disbelieving look upon their face as they asked me whether I had ever used emergency contraception and my age. Drama-rama!! Cold, disbelieving look. Pur-lease. Aspiring Independent columnist perhaps?

It was only when I asked with bright eyes, (having visions of Watership Down here) flushed face and controlled-annoyed voice whether they would need to see my licence ID in proof that they with shame? embarrassment? abruptly ended the interview and gave me what I wanted. I can’t even remember if I paid for it or not, I wanted to leave that shop as fast as I could.Why did I not complain? Because I was relieved to receive the emergency birth-control. Because it was an uncomfortable encounter.

Here’s the nub. Women want to have their cake and eat it too. The freedom to have sex with whomever you want, whenever you want and not get pregnant, aside from being physically non-existent, carries with it certain responsibilities. The morning-after pill is supposed to be for total emergencies, it is a high-dose of artificial hormones which can in some women cause nasty side effects, not to mention an early abortion. If you are using the morning-after pill, it is an indication that something has gone wrong. Those dispensing it have a duty to look after your health. They also have a right to refuse to dispense if they do not feel it is appropriate, as well as a right to exercise their conscience, whether that’s based on religious beliefs or lack thereof.

Being an adult means that one has to accept that not every person in the world is going to condone or agree with your beliefs. Granted they should not abuse you on the basis of them, but tolerance should not have to entail being forced to commit an act that one believes to be intrinsically wrong.

The women relating their experiences, may well have been responsible women in steady or committed relationships, no-one is judging their sexual morality, but looking after their health. It’s funny. Women are prepared to get down, get naked and exchange bodily fluids with a man with whom they are not prepared to have a baby, yet all of a sudden go all coy when someone entrusted with dispensing health care, asks them generic, non-intimate pertinent questions to ensure that they get the best possible treatment.

Time for some feminists to grow up.

Feminists are sissies?

Calah Alexander, a young American Catholic convert who writes the provocatively titled Barefoot and Pregnant blog seems to have caused something of a minor brouhaha with her most recent post. She is currently 4 months pregnant, found herself in need of a maternity bra, so went out shopping wearing a t-shirt bearing the ‘offensive’ slogan stating that Birth Control is for Sissies and then had the audacity to write about the reactions she rerceived.

Though not partial to slogan t-shirts on anyone over the age of 5, I have to admire her chutzpah and bravery, having some sympathy with the sentiment expressed. As Calah is well aware from her post, wearing any kind of ideological slogan on clothing does invite a response, particularly when it is as obviously counter-cultural as denouncing birth control; combined with the physical manifestation of her belief, i.e. her emerging bump, the image and statement was especially potent.

The post was quite lighthearted in tone,(though Calah pulls no punches in terms of choice of phrase, I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of her), she describes the relief and transformation in discovering the effects of a well-fitting bra, the trials and tribulations of shoe-shopping and buying ice-cream with the kids, but she also describes the reaction she received from others whilst out shopping wearing said shirt, which tended from the incredulous to the downright hostile,  and ending on a humorous note, when she bumped into another mother, who recognised her from Church.

All in all, a quirky and touching blogpost from a typical American Catholic mom, sharing some of her life with us. Nothing to get offended about surely?

WRONG. As @kathleengreenwood pointed out, it spawned an entire 7 page hate-fest on a forum full of self-professed snarky mothers. The blogpost spawned comments such as “what a f*cking b*tch”, “I want to slap her across the face”, “I hate people like her, I’ll take my pill…you f*cking b*tch”. Yeah, kudos to the sisterhood! They then congratulated themselves on how morally superior they were to this ignorant fundie, encouraged and incited others to leave comments pointing out the error of her ways, and then became downright obsessive, trawling through her blog to see what other thought crimes may have been committed to the blogosphere, venting their vitriolic spleen and bile.

It seems Calah has previous form. On one occasion her little boy got rushed to hospital with severe anaphylactic shock requiring them to pay $280 for an epi-pen. They didn’t have the money, so took it out of the children’s’ Christmas present fund, thinking that a life was more important than presents and that their kids would be well catered for by the extended family. She made the heinous statement that it seemed mightily unfair that under the vagaries of the US healthcare system she had to pay a substantial amount for something that was absolutely necessary in terms of saving her son’s life, the state would not assist, however they will provide contraception and birth control free of charge, something that she feels is unnecessary, as if you don’t wish to get pregnant there’s a simple answer. She has a point, one might not agree, but it does not necessitate the level of hatred. Every detail of her life was poured over in an attempt to prove what an awful person she really is and discredit her point of view. She is obviously a liar who puts herself before her children, as evidenced by the fact that she went to a relatively upmarket department store. Her finances and entire lifestyle were subject to scrutiny.

“Her house seems nice are they really running so short they can’t buy gifts and meds? Shouldn’t they have been budgeted out or don’t they have emergency funds for sh*t happens”.

“That confused me too. I feel like it was her way of getting pity. ‘Our poor children didn’t get Christmas gifts BUT at least they have their brother’ !!! I also find it odd that they couldn’t scrounge up a little extra cash to get one or two gifts for each child  yet she now is buying decent bras and dress shoes for the kids at the mall”.

The thread reads like it’s been taken over by the below-the-line comments on the Daily Mail. How very tolerant. How very inclusive. How very pro-choice! The ernest feminists seem to have utterly missed the point. It. was. a joke. I thought that the t-shirt was rather good. It didn’t even need to be a Catholic or ideological statement, it could just have been highly ironic or self-deprecating. Ah, I forgot, I’m dealing with Americans here. One commenter noted that she would have refused to serve a woman who was wearing such a t-shirt and, she pouted, she would have been backed up by her boss. Gotta love those all-American land of the free and home of the brave values on display there. The most ludicrous comment was that the t-shirt was deliberately ‘homophobic’ with its mention of the word sissy.

Needless to say it all rather resonated. This forum made clear that they were not prepared to tolerate this woman, they hated her and all they believed that she stood for. I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not she would have elicited that reaction had she not been a Catholic?

But the statement on the t-shirt and its reaction does bear a little analysis. Why is it so hateful? Taken on face value it is a statement that proclaims that pregnancy and motherhood is difficult, not for sissies, not for the feint-hearted, but the truly heroic. Which is precisely why it upset the feminists with their “we are the strong tough fearless Amazonian pioneering women” self-vision quite so much. It implies that anyone who deliberately avoids motherhood is somehow a weaker specimen. And therein lies the paradox and antagonism at the heart of modern feminism. On the one hand it strives to be the Xena warrior princess, fearless, brave and bold goddess, stronger, bigger, bolder and better than men, yet on the other, in order to survive it also has to tap into the vying narrative of victimhood. Hence lots of outraged comments along the lines of how people would have to take hormonal birth control, otherwise their uterus would fall out, and obviously Calah, with her outrageous ideas that women can actually refuse to have sex if they don’t want to get pregnant, is slut-shaming and blaming, wishing to impose Victorian morality and blame on women. Either as women we are strong and in control, or we are not? Or is it that we want to be, but are still oppressed by the patriarchy and so have no choice other than to have sex, so must protect ourselves any way we can?

I can’t help but hearken back to that statement by Mary Wollstonecraft who saw abortion as being a consequence of women becoming weaker than they would otherwise be, if they had not been subject to sexual objectification.

“Women becoming, consequently, weaker, in mind and body, than they ought to be, were one of the grand ends of their being taken into account, that of bearing and nursing children, have not sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection, that ennobles instinct, either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born. Nature in everything demands respect, and those who violate her laws seldom do so with impunity”.

Pregnancy and childbirth are at the very core of femininity which is why feminists fight so hard for what they believe is control over their own bodies. The paradox being that this physical control admits, encourages and coerces female subordination. Female fertility is a problem, something that must be repressed and overcome, the body must be stopped from carrying out its natural functions of monthly ovulation and potential to bear children. A society that continues to view women’s fertility as a problem to be solved, is a society that does not value women and places unfair expectations upon them. Whilst society continues to view female fertility and childbirth as a problem, then women will never achieve true equality. Empowerment is an illusion in that a woman is only ever empowered if she can be 100% sure that her contraception will work and is entirely happy with the notion of aborting an unwanted unborn child in case it doesn’t. Are any feminists truly happy that most women chose to abort because they feel that they have no other economic or social choice? After all we are always being told that women don’t stroll into the abortion clinic as if it were Starbucks?

Bibi Lynch tragically and bitterly captured the essence of  how it can feel to be a childless woman in the Guardian last week.

“You won’t heal – because this is deep in you. What you’re supposed to do. What’s inside us to do. What we’re born to do. And you didn’t do it.”

Motherhood is without a doubt the most joyful and rewarding experiences there is. That does not mean that it is easy. Pregnancy is often a struggle, multiple young children at times demanding and stressful, even if one does stay at home. It may not be the same type of stress as the demands of a career, but it is nonetheless challenging at times. Responding to the catty comments of Hilary Rosen that she was somehow a lesser or inferior species due to not having worked, but instead been a stay-at-home mum or to use the now un-PC term, housewife, Romney said that just because they had not financially struggled, her life as mother of five children, has not been without its fair share of struggle, including fights against cancer.

Being prepared to endure pregnancy and childbirth, being prepared to die to self for the needs of others, is a sign of great strength, not weakness or oppression. Child-rearing entails a great deal of sacrifice, physically and emotionally.

Not using birth control is a sign of strength, it is a sign of responsibility and being prepared to accept and endure the consequences of having sex. It is not a fatalistic mentality, but a working with the feminine rhythms of your body, not attempting to counteract them. It is an exercise in self-control and potentially standing up to a partner keen to get amorous.

Why did Calah Alexander attract so much hate? Because she dared to go against and question a feminist mantra and by doing so demonstrated that she is stronger than others who (for perfectly legitimate reasons) have decided not to have more children. Anyone who cannot cope with a humorous slogan on a t-shirt that has a grain of truth and challenges a deeply cherished orthodoxy and is so moved to incite and spew tirades of loathing and spite, is not as tolerant and pro freedom of choice as they would claim. Anyone who feels so defensive as to chuck indiscriminate hatred and wish violence upon a total stranger because they disagree with a point of view is a bigot. Why have they reacted so strongly? Because they feel ‘judged’.

All of which proves that Calah was right all along. They really are sissies.

No room for exploitation of women

I was spammed today on Twitter, by an account called Gaydads, purporting to belong to Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, one half of the UK’s first gay couple to become fathers in the UK.

Without wishing to make too much of it, here’s their opening shot, along with their responses to questions as to the ethics of paying vulnerable women to donate eggs, and/or go through pregnancy and give up their newborn child. I would suggest that they need to employ a social media manager, given that they are currently hawking themselves and their children through the media, in order to drum up publicity for their new business which aims to exploit vulnerable cash-strapped women in America help predominantly homosexual couples circumnavigate the UK surrogacy laws by going abroad.

They are obviously threatened enough to have done their research and found out where I hail from to use as “ammunition” as opposed to engage with any actual arguments. If in doubt, chuck a few ad homs about, in an attempt to make yourselves feel morally superior. I wouldn’t usually bother blogging such silliness, however I think it’s worth noting the quality of the debate, and the personalities behind a deeply dubious business.

I’ve blogged before about the inherent difficulties with surrogacy, namely that it entails the destruction of human life if in-vitro fertilisation is used, but of equal concern, is the exploitation of women and the treating of children as commodities to be bought and sold.

Here’s a few snippets from their website. I’ve added my own comments in red:

Everyone has the basic human right to be able to have a child, really, do they? I can’t find that anywhere in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, nor is it in the European Convention on Human Rights. Wishful thinking based on subjective opinion – perish the thought!!

not everyone deserves to be a parent! – only those who are good-looking and possess class and/or money, preferably a lot of it to pay for our services, should have children.

There is no doubt about it; foreign surrogacy arrangements ARE attractive, which is why hundreds of couples every year go to America and other destinations to find a surrogate and egg donor. The laws on surrogacy are very encouraging for us to travel abroad and get our babies handed over to us without too much fuss at all. – no pesky restrictive laws surrounding the expenses that need to be paid and lax legislation allowing the obliteration of the mother from the birth certificate – we can pretend that she never existed! Plus, added bonus – we’ll push gestational surrogacy at you, more pennies for us and allegedly less of an emotional link for the mother with the baby inside her. Win, win!!

It is also worth noting that once your baby is born in the USA, we can also petition the courts to have both the intended parents names put on the birth certificate. There will be NO mention of the pregnancy being a surrogate pregnancy whatsoever. Please also note that this is NOT meant to deceive, it is a positive way forward for you to be recognised as the parents of your baby. – spin worthy of Alistair Campbell or Mandy. Superb piece of re-framing there chaps!

Where are all the feminists when you need them? The silence could not be more deafening. Where is the sisterhood? What could be more exploitative than rich men using the bodies of poor or less-well off women? Nothing could be more of a feminist issue as it is only women’s bodies who can be exploited in this way and typically for the benefit of men – lesbian couples rarely have to resort to overseas surrogacy. The Drewitt-Barlows argue that surrogacy may help straight couples who have been rendered infertile by the ravages of cancer, but that still does not make the initial exploitation any the more acceptable. This has nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with the exploitation and de-humanisation of poor women by richer ones.

Though Drewitt-Barlow seem to be more concerned with advancing their partner business in the USA, it’s worth looking at the situation in India where the business of wombs for rent is thriving. The women who ‘choose’ to become surrogates are confined to clinics or supervised homes where they can be closely monitored. Their “choice” such as it is, is borne out of economic necessity and cannot said to be in any way free. Which is precisely why the laws remain so stringent in the UK, where incidentally, gay single people cannot gain full legal rights over a child born by surrogacy.

For the record the Drewitt Barlows stated that they did not endorse India for potential surrogate couples, shortly after India issued a ban on gay couples in an attempt to tighten up on their surrogacy laws. This was, they said, due to concerns about exploitation, besides their partner clinic with whom they have negotiated preferential rates is in LA, where they spend 50% of their time.  The exploitation of the poor by the rich is not mitigated by the location, something tells me that Tasmania may be the next location on the cards.

There can be no justification for the exploitation of poor women by predominantly rich men. There can be no justification for deliberately contriving a situation whereby a child is deprived of its biological parent and traded like a commodity. There can be no justification for the exploitation of young children, such as those belonging to Drewitt-Barlow who are mercilessly flaunted in the press, in order to propagate the ideology that children no longer need their biological mothers.

Perhaps that’s why Drewitt-Barlow are so angry – it’s impossible to defend the indefensible. Anyone who might object to the trading of babies, to the Western colonisation of poor women’s bodies abroad, to the reduction of women to the level of brood-mare – well they are simply ugly, lack class, are homophobic and don’t deserve to be parents.

Sound familiar?

I’ve just finished writing a piece for this week’s Catholic Herald about the feminist and pro-life movements, which involved some research into the life and work of some of the pioneers of feminism in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Women who led the way in terms of securing equality of education, employment and opportunity.

I was particularly struck by the words of the relatively obscure Sarah F Norton –  public speaker, writer for feminist publications, and member of the Working Women’s Association who advocated for the education of women and girls and equal opportunity in the workplace and equal pay for women. We have very little detail other than her writings, but together with the better-known Susan B Anthony, they fought for the admission of women to Cornell University and as a result a year after her campaigning, in 1870, Cornell University became one of the first universities in the United States to admit women.

Writing in the feminist newspaper, Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, Norton denounced the proliferation of advertisements for the “fast increasing crime of foeticide” . 

This passage will have particular resonance for anyone who takes issue with the ubiquitous nature of those blatant abortion post-conception advertisements, soon to filter in to our living rooms. Abortion advertising is clearly not just a twenty-first century phenomena or anomaly. Twas ever thus.

[C]hild-murder is an easy and every-day affair…. [C]hild murderers practice their profession without let or hinderance, and open infant butcheries unquestioned, establishing themselves with an impunity that is not allowed to the slaughterers of cattle…. Scores of persons advertise their willingness to commit this form of murder, and with unblushing effrontery announce their names and residences in the daily papers. No one seems to be shocked by the fact…. [C]irculars are distributed broadcast, recommending certain pills and potions for the very purpose, and by these means the names of these slayers of infants, and the methods by which they practice their life-destroying trade, have become “familiar in our mouths as household words.” …Is there no remedy for all this ante-natal child murder? …Perhaps there will come a time when… an unmarried mother will not be despised because of her motherhood… and when the right of the unborn to be born will not be denied or interfered with.

It would seem that we still have a long way to go.

Are feminists closet Catholics?

The US anti-porn campaigner Gail Dines has been popping up all over the place, expounding her views authentic feminine sexuality. Porn is bad, she opines because:

“The more porn images filter into mainstream culture, the more girls and women are stripped of full human status and reduced to sex objects. This has a terrible effect on girls’ sexual identity because it robs them of their own sexual desire.”

I confess to having some sympathy. From a Catholic perspective, the first part of that statement is entirely correct. One of the problems with porn, is, as the Blessed John Paul 2 observed, is not that it shows too much, but that it shows too little, pornography is by its very nature reductive.

What fascinates me is how certain feminists are becoming the new arbiters of sex and sexuality, the very same women who eschew Catholic sexual teaching as the product of an oppressive patriarchy are inadvertently embracing and proclaiming an identical doctrine, without  so much of a hint of self-awareness or irony.  Let’s compare Dines’ statement on female sexual identity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out. CC 2333

Both are certainly agreed on the subject of individual sexual identity, although gender theorists may well have something to say on the subject of complementarity, but there can be no doubt that both are arguing that men and women have diverse sexual identities.

Speaking in an interview last year, Joan Bakewell, the veteran broadcaster and former feminist icon conceded that the much maligned Mary Whitehouse was right to fear the sexual liberation of the ’60s would damage society.

“The liberal mood back in the ’60s was that sex was pleasurable and wholesome and shouldn’t be seen as dirty and wicked”

A view of sex that is not confined to liberals or advocates of free love. Consider the catechism once again:

 “The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude.”Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. “

It seems that both feminists and the Catholic Church are in agreement in terms of separate male/female sexual identities and the inherent beauty of sex. In fact both Catholicism and feminism seem to want to hearken back to prelapsarian innocence, of Adam and Eve, cavorting freely in Eden, happily engaging in sexual intercourse as a sign of mutual love and affection, unbound by the chains of lust, oppression or exploitation. It’s not an image borne out of the free love movement of the sixties, indeed Milton pictures Adam and Eve enjoying conjugal bliss in their bower prior to the fall and the language that he uses to physically describe Eve is ripe with eroticism reminiscent of the Bible’s most sensual and sexy books, Song of Songs.

No doubt feminists will baulk at being identified with a religion which they perceive as being the product of patriarchy, but one has to admit that the parallels are compelling. Feminists display the qualities of prudery associated with Mary Whitehouse, as recently observed by Brendan O’Neill and therein lies the root of the irony and proof of women’s continued sexual oppression. Women feel uncomfortable with the marketisation of sexuality, which has been commodified, turned into a selling point and used as a yardstick against which women feel they must measure themselves. Any women who experiences discomfort or worse still expresses this, is according to O’Neill, an outdated conservative relic and something of a spoilsport. A particularly sexist advert in which women were objectified was aimed at a teenage market, which is why women are having a sense of humour lapse, no matter that women might be concerned about the effect of such advertisements on the developing psyche of the impressionable teenage boy who is immersed in a sexually saturated culture and who potentially has access to a volume and nature of pornography beyond the wildest dreams of the preceding generations. The usual Mos Eisley crew of Daily Telegraph commentators, point out in their usually charming fashion, that women are only complaining because they are ugly old harridans who can’t measure up and who are all probably rather useless in bed.

Women’s sexual liberation has paradoxically given birth to their sexual repression, couched in the language of sexual freedoms. Joan Bakewell noted that

“The Pill allowed women to make choices for themselves. Of course, that meant the risk of making the wrong choice. But we all hoped girls would grow to handle the new freedoms wisely.”

“Then everything came to be about money – so now sex is about money, too. Why else sexualise the clothes of little girls, run TV channels of naked wives, have sex magazines edging out the serious stuff on newsagents’ shelves?

What the pill did, was to strip the act of sex of its procreational qualities and create the illusion of consequence free sex. When procreation is removed from sex, it becomes nothing more than a leisure activity and thus ripe for commercialisation and exploitation. Marriages were no longer necessary or required, if it could be guaranteed that no children would result from sex. Everyone could have sex with whom they wanted when they wanted. As a result of this freeing up of sexual behaviour and attitudes sex then came to the forefront. It was a fun pastime that you could indulge in with everyone at will, no longer restricted to marriage and a natural topic for general discourse and commercialisation. With marriage now off the menu, women are the ones who bear the brunt of any unintended consequences of sexual encounters. It is women who have to cope with the aftermath of an unplanned pregnancy and women who are forced to override their natural fertility.
The sex industry is now huge business, the adult entertainment industry is worth billions of dollars a year, but are we really any happier or more fulfilled as a result, or are we all suffering from anxiety, body image and performance issues, men and women alike, as a result? The rise of metrosexualism demonstrates that body image and performance anxieties are not limited to women. Furthermore without going into explicit detail, not all pornography caters to a straightforward hetrosexual or vanilla market, therefore the narrative that pornography mainly humiliates and degrades women is too reductive, although I would contend that pornography humiliates and degrades all who are involved in it, be it as participant or voyeur.
I suspect it’s too late to turn the clock back nor do I advocate any sort of ban, given my innate liberal leanings – a ban on pornography skirts dangerously close to totalitarianism as well as being largely unenforceable. Like alcohol, tobacco, trans-fats and gambling, I suspect that its effect differs from person to person. Whilst I would be the last person to advocate pornography, having witnessed the pernicious effects of a fledgling pornography addiction in a previous relationship as well as believing pornography to be enormously spiritually as well as physically and psychologically damaging, it is not the role of the state to act as a custodian of personal morality and health. All anti-porn campaigners can do is commission and widely publicise/disseminate any scientific data and research as and when it becomes available. All the state should do is put effective controls on what may be accessed by children in public places. As I’ve said before, if parents are so concerned about their children becoming overly sexualised, then there is a simple solution, namely keeping tight controls over what comes into the family home and access to the computer.
Consenting adults should be able to make their own informed decisions and not be dictated to by either feminists or Catholics but the similarity between the two is more than a little striking. Catholics are often accused of seeking to impose their own version of morality upon others simply by speaking out about damaging sexual behaviours, yet unlike feminists we do not seek to impose legislation to regulate the sexual behaviour of others but advise of the moral dangers, for which we are deemed intolerant and as many commentators here have noted – warped.
Feminists have a much more overt agenda of wishing to regulate others’ sexual behaviour, by force if necessary, wishing to ban strip clubs and limit pornography, and yet at the same time, wish to revile Catholics for what they perceive to be regressive attitudes. It’s all rather strange considering we outwardly would seem to have much in common.

A misogynist’s dream

The Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones has come in for a hefty amount of criticism for her shocking revelation that in two different relationships she resorted to desperate measures to conceive, i.e. nipping to the bathroom immediately after proceedings, to retrieve the used condom and impregnate herself.

Whilst no-one should condone the deceit implicit in her actions, it seems hard-hearted not to have some sympathy with her predicament. Catholic teaching on sex is highly controversial and misunderstood, but what lies at the heart of it is that the covenant between the spouses is integrated into God’s covenant with man. “Authentic married love is caught up into divine love”. CC 1639

The sexual act is ordered towards procreation. Not every sexual act will result in procreation, but this is its primary purpose, ordained by God. To exclude fertility from the act of sexual intercourse is in effect to kick out God.

John Paul II observed that contraception not only violates the procreative aspect of sex, but also the unitive aspect. (Sex should be unitive and procreative, for bonding and for babies). Sex should be a giving of the whole self to the other, which includes fertility. Janet Smith compares it to someone asking their partner to have sex with them but to put a bag over their head during sex because their partner’s hair is causing them annoyance. “I love you, but I don’t want a very important part of you here, something which would naturally belong”. To contracept, is to withhold something back from your partner.

The tragicomic and rather pathetic image of Liz Smith surreptitiously attempting to impregnate herself using sperm from freshly used condom is a physical embodiment of the perils of attempting to separate sex from procreation. Not only do we see her trying to regain something that she believes is rightfully hers, a natural gift or product of sex as opposed to an organic payment for an M&S ready meal, but we can also see how condoms can also be used as a tool of misogyny and to oppress women. Liz Jones is far from the only woman I know who is desperate to conceive a child, but whose partner refuses to countenance the idea, in many cases because he believes that the couple already has a sufficient number of children.

There something inherently cruel and not to mention selfish and misogynistic about denying a woman her innate and instinctive desire for a child. It treats a biological and entirely natural urge as if it is something unpleasant and nasty, a whim that is not going to be indulged. Of course this goes both ways, there are scenarios whereby a woman takes the pill in secret or against her partner’s wishes, but in either case it highlights the selfishness inherent in the act of contraception. I don’t want to have a baby, I’m going to keep that part of me to myself. I read with mounting horror a series of tweets suggesting that she ought to be prosecuted for stealing his property. It served to highlight the dangers of thinking that contraception is a failsafe method and how we seem to have cast aside the natural consequence of sex, the thought that someone could get pregnant without another’s explicit consent – how very shocking! What was her “crime”? Being prepared to do almost anything to fulfil her dreams of becoming a mother? Or using the sperm of her partner without his consent? Catholics are used to oh-so-witty renditions of Every Sperm is Sacred, criminalising a woman for using semen without consent takes that sentiment to a whole new level. If sperm remains the property of a man’s body at all times, it raises troubling questions for women about pregnancy and abortion.

That was also another worrying aspect. That fathers who may be deceived in this way, ought not be obliged to take any sort of responsibility for his children. Why should a man have to pay for a child that he didn’t want to have, tweeted one Lib Dem in outrage. Because it’s called “taking responsibility”. Time was it was universally agreed that sex is likely to result in children. Contraception seems to have lulled society into a false sense of security and thus when a child is conceived without express consent, it is viewed as an outrage, a burden, one that ought not to exist.

Many women were outraged by Liz Jones’ deliberately provocative statements, in which she implied that all women were deceitful liars prepared to go any lengths to have a baby and that men had better beware. All childless women in their late 30s and early 40s are possessed with a fervour to conceive according to Jones. It was an exaggerated caricature, but according to the 2001 study quoted, a significant proportion of women (42%) stated that they would lie to get pregnant against their partner’s wishes.

Contraception has enabled society to dictate expectations and conventions of ideal family size to women. To have more than 2 children is seen as either terribly vulgar and a feature of the lower-classes or as an upper class badge of wealth. Children are apparently expensive, so to be able to have lots of them, one must either rely on state benefits or an extensive private income.

Though I share women’s exasperation at the sweeping generalisations contained within Liz Jones’ confession, the resulting outrage proved that she had touched a nerve. What saddened me was the misogyny on display by women who would otherwise be passionate advocates of a woman’s right to her own fertility. Presumably the acceptable course of action would have been for Liz to have left her husband and embarked upon a costly course of sperm donation which stood an equally slim chance of success and would by it’s very nature excluded an involved biological father. The woman wanted to have a baby with her partner. That seems wholly natural and understandable, I don’t see the need to berate her for that. Of course he should not have been deceived, but it seemed that he was equally unwilling to compromise and perhaps rather heartless and selfish, not prepared to make the sacrifice required for either his wife, supposedly the most important person in his life, nor indeed for the new little baby.

It was saddening to see her described as a “mad bitch” by those who would normally condemn misogyny. Previous columns in which she detailed her struggles with over-spending and eating disorders were dredged up without anyone drawing the obvious link between the overspending and childlessness.

If any other female columnist mentioned a previous history of a struggle with anorexia or even self harm, which was subsequently used against them to prove current fragile mental health there would be uproar. There is nothing mad about being overwhelmed by a biological urge. Many many women testify to a sense of urgency to conceive in their late 30s, they are responding to a biological and hormonal stimulus. Liz Jones was responding to her body’s calling. It happens. Women who are desperate to conceive go to desperate lengths.
Had her attempts not involved deceit then no doubt this longing for a baby would have been lauded as evidence of how deserving she was of a child.

Perhaps Liz thought that once she presented her husband with a fait accompli he would come around? A baby should never be proposed as a solution to a marriage in difficulty as the demands of a newborn can place considerable strain on a marriage, but a baby can also prove to be an adhesive in marriage and a cause of deeper bonding, shared joy and intimacy.

It takes a heart of stone not to be moved by one’s own newborn child and to leave a woman because she has become pregnant by deception, is an act of cowardice. To forgive and courageously give, to accept life as it is and to do the best by one’s child, whether conceived on purpose, by accident or even deception is the mark of a real man.

Ideally a child should be conceived with the consent of both parents, but the amount of hate to which Liz Jones has been subjected for attempting to conceive minus the consent of her partner is disproportionate and concerning. Contraception was supposed to free and empower women but the inevitable flip side is that condoms put men firmly back in the driving seat. In a situation like that of Liz Jones, a husband may legitimately deprive his wife the chance of a child and she is vilified and penalised for disobedience. If a woman wishes to contracept against the wishes of her husband that is perfectly acceptable due to bodily autonomy, but she is denied the opportunity to conceive without express male consent.

Some might argue that this is a good thing, the child must be put first and it is better for a child not to exist at all if it is not wanted by its father. If that isn’t misogyny, if that isn’t an example of selfish control of a woman’s fertility, then I don’t know what is.

Contraception and abortion are a libertine’s dream. By stripping the sex its procreative ability, he strips it of any long-term commitment and convinces himself that his desire not to have children exonerates him from any responsibility should one accidentally result without his express consent.

A woman’s sole right to choose and determine her fertility should logically encompass her right to determine when to have a baby. A woman is considered mentally competent to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy but a determination to create a baby at any odds is universally condemned by men and women alike as proof of mental illness and selfishness.

That a woman can be the target of so much vitriol for nothing more than wanting to have a baby with her husband is stunning in a so-called age of liberation. That many women have reacted quite so angrily and protested so vehemently that Liz Jones is not representative, is very telling. Methinks they do protest too much. Children are never far from the thoughts of most childless women in their late 30s and 40s. Most would not lie or deceive their partners, but the potential is there nonetheless. Perhaps Liz Jones betrayed the sisterhood by pointing this out?

All in all a very sorry tale and one that has me counting my blessings for an authentic marriage, one that accepts and works with the natural order.

Blaming and shaming

The feminist left-wing blogger, It’s Mother’s Work, wrote a thought-provoking piece about “victim-blaming” in the case of rape, in which she posits the campaign from the Welsh police anti-rape campaign which features this poster, seeks to put the blame for rape upon victims as opposed to perpetrators.

Eamon Holmes inadvertently stumbled into this row this week, with his comments to a rape victim during an interview on yesterday’s This Morning, during which he asked “why were you tempted to walk home”  and concluded with “well I hope you take taxis now”.

There’s now been a flurry of complaints into ITV as a result of Holme’s “misogynistic victim blaming.” This was an interview, therefore Holmes, in common with all interviewers was attempting to empathise with his interviewee. He wasn’t saying the attack was the woman’s fault, but acknowledging the unpleasant and unsavoury fact that, women tend to be more at risk from sexual assault than men. On the whole women are more physically vulnerable than men, I was in the CCF at school, I’ve completed several self-defence courses and yet I know that on a dark night if a man stole up behind me, I wouldn’t stand much of a chance. Generally speaking women are more likely to be the object of sexually related violence from random strangers, than men, which is one of the factors that renders the issue of male rape so taboo and one of the reasons why so many instances of it go unreported.

There can be no justification for rape and Its Mother’s Work is correct when she states that young men need to be educated to respect women and as Alison noted in her post, featured in the Telegraph this week, we need to have a serious think about the effects of pornography upon our young people. Education may only go so far however.  Education is not mooted as a solution for the crime of murder, we know that motivations of murderers are far more complex than a simple unawareness that what they are doing is immoral and that they ought not to be doing it.

Rape is equally psychologically complex. The cases of premeditated stranger rape are fortunately rare, but they do happen. There are some psychologically damaged individuals out there, who are determined to perpetrate atrocious crimes, the products of a broken or twisted psyche. For some people it really is a case of being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like it or not, people walking on their own late at night are more vulnerable to attack. Both men and women walking alone are likely to be targeted by those with malign intentions, for a variety of reasons, be they racist, homophobic or sexist. For the attacker who is bent on attacking a person of a different colour, or targeting a homosexual, or raping a woman, there are a variety of factors that will determine whether or not a particular person will be that particular victim, one of which will be how easy it will be for the attacker. A rapist is far less likely to pick on a group of women walking down the street, or a woman accompanied by a friend, than he is a single woman on her own. Her location and the preponderance of passers-by will also play a factor, as will things like street lighting, CCTV and cars passing. It is not blaming a woman who is targeted in this fashion, to note that a woman walking on her own is vulnerable to attack. This is not a new phenomenon, twas always thus. Women in seventeenth century London, frequently dressed up as men when going about their business in the city, not to make any specific point about gender, but because it was safer, they were less likely to be accosted.

Most men who are guilty of rape however,  have not deliberately set out with the intention of having sex with a woman without her consent. Alcohol is usually a factor in cases of rape, the heady and intoxicating nature of alcohol blurs boundaries, renders one less risk averse and makes signals more difficult to interpret and communicate. There is no doubt that being on your own and drunk dramatically increases your vulnerability and thus susceptibility to unwelcome sexual advances, you may not be able to understand what is implicit until it is too late, or perhaps more pertinently you might not be able to adequately physically defend yourself.

In either situation, there is a way to mitigate risk, in the first case, by individuals endeavouring not to walk alone at night, or if they have absolutely no other choice, to put in place various safety measures. In the second case, it is wise for women who don’t want to risk an uninvited sexual encounter to which they can neither consent nor defend themselves, to be prudent about drinking in certain situations.

That is not to say that cases of rape will dramatically decrease, but it certainly will diminish an individual’s risk of attack. The Welsh police campaign was not seeking to cast blame on a woman, its slogan explicitly mentions the word “victim” which is an acknowledgement of that rape is an uninvited crime. It does not seek to blame, but to ask women to take responsibility for their own personal safety. In an ideal world, rape would not exist, along with a whole host of other crimes. In an ideal world, I would be able to leave my house unlocked, or my children fast asleep in bed whilst I popped down the road for a drink, but we don’t live in such a world. We have to engage with the world as it is, instead of how we would like it to be.

Eamon Holmes was trying to get into the psyche of his interviewee, he clearly felt that a woman walking alone at night following a night out was taking a risk and so asked her as to the factors that led to this decision. He wasn’t saying “it was your fault, you deserved it”, just wondering what it was that prompted her to take a risk. No decision in life comes without risk and we can learn lessons from others’ experiences without resorting to blame. Stating “well I hope you take taxis now”, is not blaming the victim for the horrifying assault, but more the statement of a concerned other. There may be an implied “well had you been walking home this may not have happened to you”, but that is not the same as stating that the girl was responsible for or invited her attack. It’s a statement of fact. Had the young woman not been walking home alone, she may not have been attacked in this way. It does not render the attack her fault, nor lessens the severity of it, but is a salutary lesson in safety.

Whilst we shouldn’t be living in a climate of fear and no-one is suggesting that women should neither go out, nor have a drink, it is not unreasonable to state that we all bear a level of individual responsibility. Had the woman not being walking alone, then she would have removed the factor that facilitated the rapist. Of course she should have been able to have been walking alone at whatever time she liked, just as I should be able to leave my house very obviously unlocked, but that’s not the world in which we live.

Rather than getting into a futile war of victimhood and wasting our energies bemoaning the fact we do not live in Utopia, or casting all men into the role of potential rapists and seeing a misogyny, which in this instance is not present, why not take steps to acknowledge that some activities are risky and take steps to neutralise the risk? Eamon Holmes and the Welsh police are not wrong to point out that there are ways of staying safer. There are no guarantees that the taxi-driver won’t turn out to be a rapist, or that staying sober will protect you from sexual attack and neither should women be eying every man up with suspicion, however wisdom and personal responsibility surely have to play their part, as they do in every single situation in life.

A consequence of walking home alone at night means that one is more vulnerable to attack. A consequence of getting drunk means that one might end up being raped, or being accused of rape. Why do women need to be absolved of the responsibility of the potential consequences of their actions more than men? Doesn’t seem very equal to me.