Touring the Valley: war on women

Showing posts with label war on women. Show all posts

Death Without Dignity

Think about these matters for a minute.

We are all encouraged to have a will - a document that directs how our property will be distributed or disposed of after we die. A person's right to control their property, even after death, is legally recognized and traditionally honored.

Most societies consider it important to treat the dead with respect. That includes, not only a deceased person's property, but also their physical remains. Desecration of a corpse is considered especially detestable. Abusing, mishandling, or improperly disposing of a corpse carries both civil and criminal penalties.

When it comes to organ donation (using a person's body and its parts after death), once again, we are encouraged to express our wishes prior to death. If a person has not given permission for their organs to be used by other people, then it is illegal to use those organs. In some cases, family members are permitted to grant permission ater the person's death, but, in any event, it remains illegal to take organs, or to use a body in medical research or experimentation, without proper permission.

Traditionally, grave robbing - taking a body out of its grave - is considered a particularly vile crime. In times past, professional grave robbers would supply freshly dead bodies to medical schools where they were dissected for the purpose of teaching anatomy and surgery. This practice was widely condemned, and laws were enacted to control the acquisition of cadavers and to ensure that bodies used in medical education would eventually receive a dignified burial or cremation.

Unfortunately, we now find ourselves living in a society where some people are no longer allowed the respect and dignity that comes with making one's own choices regarding the handling and use of the body after death. Specifically, there is a trend to treat women as less than fully human, a lower caste of beings who do not enjoy the same rights as men when it comes to basic decisions regarding their own bodies. For some time, there have been persons openly advocating for the use of female corpses in bizarre medical experiments. Until recently, one might expect that a woman, just like a real person, could choose to grant - or not - permission for her body to be used in research and experimentation, and that, in the absence of such permission, her remains would be handled and disposed of in accordance with her and her family's wishes. In the year 2025, this is not true.

A woman who happens to be pregnant at the time of death may end up as a sort of living corpse, her body connected to machines that force some of her organs to continue functioning, so that her body can be used as an incubator for the nonviable fetus that, under normal circumstances, would have died with her. This has just been done to the remains of a woman who did not give permission for organ donation or medical research, against the wishes of family members who wanted her to be treated with dignity.

As it happens, in this case, the mad-scientist experiment seems to have succeeded, in that an extremely premature infant, weighing less than two pounds, was extracted from the woman's body and placed in intensive care. Infants delivered at this stage have about a 10% chance of survival and, if they survive, are likely to face severe medical problems.

Health concerns fror micro preemies

This Movie Gives Me Nightmares

In Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World, people have no parents. They are gestated inside test tubes in factory-like settings where their development is monitored and controlled by a state agency. If Huxley had been writing horror instead of sci-fi, he might have dismissed the test tubes and instead described a society in which corpses are repurposed as incubators.

Such a ghastly scenario is too gruesome for most horror writers. Even Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein, only envisioned dead bodies being rebuilt with spare parts so that they could be brought back to life.

In recent times, there have been occasional suggestions from researchers or politicians that brain-dead women or women in persistent vegetative states could be used as surrogates, or "fetal containers" for couples using IVF, or for fetuses transferred from women seeking abortions.

Now think about zombies.

Horror movies and TV shows portray zombies as angry dead people who have come to life, or people infected by a bizarre epidemic, who relentlessly attack the living, often with an appetite for brains. But the original zombies were less spectacular. They were dead people reanimated through voodoo, who were used as slaves.

It's happening now. Without consent, and against the family's wishes, a brain-dead woman is being used to incubate a fetus. If this horrifying procedure results in a live birth, there is a good chance the baby will face serious medical problems and disabilities. But that won't stop the mad scientists from trying it again.

What we are seeing is the zombification of women's bodies.

Whose Body Is It, Anyway?

Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash

Imagine this. A young man falls ill, experiencing some kind of seizure, or perhaps a stroke, that releases blood clots into his brain, ultimately causing his death. His brain is not functioning, and the attending physician has declared him dead. However, because he was connected to life support equipment in the hospital, some parts of his body are still functioning in a machine-like way.

An examination reveals that his testicles are still producing viable sperm cells. A state agency notifies the hospital that the man must not be disconnected from life support, even though the local medical board officially confirms that he is dead. According to a recently-passed state law, destroying or discarding potentially viable gametes is "equivalent to terminating human life" and carries heavy penalties. The hospital is required to maintain the man's body and to retrieve the sperm.

The man was single, and there is no one in his family who wants to use or preserve his sperm. In fact, his family members have refused to give permission for any further medical treatment, and have requested that the life support equipment be removed. State officials suggest that the sperm can be frozen and stored at a sperm bank, although it is unclear who would be responsible for the costs involved. Further, without the man's consent (impossible to get at this point), the sperm cannot be used in a fertilization procedure. State legislators introduce a bill that would make "orphaned or unclaimed gametes" wards of the state, to be donated as directed by state health officials.

In the meantime, the man's dead body continues to be operated by machines, using resources that otherwise would go to living people in critical condition whose lives might be saved.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? But is it any crazier than artificially maintaining a dead woman's body so she can be used as an incubator?

Those Crazy Women

There are standard methods that are used to try to undermine women in public life.

#1 - Attack her sexuality. She slept her way to the top. She's promiscuous. Or she's a lesbian. Or she's frigid (no wonder her husband cheated - see #4). And, more recently: she's really a man.

#2 - Attack her appearance. She's old, she's fat, she dresses badly, she's horse-faced (no wonder her husband cheated - see #4), she looks masculine, she laughs too much, her voice is annoying, her hairstyle is awful. Or she's trying too hard, spends too much time and money on vanity.

#3 - Attack her health. She's an alcoholic. She has a degenerative disease or fatal illness. (If she ever trips or bumps into something, that's proof.) She's mentally ill.

#4 - Attack her husband. He's gay. He cheated. He's a crook. He actually hates her. He's a perv. Or she's wickedly single (See #1).

#5 - Attack her children. They're gay, they're ugly, they got bad grades - she's a bad mother. Or she has no children because there's something wrong with her.

Sometimes some of these are used against men. But it's very predictable that #1, #2 and #4 will be revived for female candidates.

Bad Jokes

When I want to make fun of a politician like donold trump, I usually do what most people do – I post a clip from one of his speeches or I upload a transcript of something he has actually said. I might simply mention a well-known quote. For example, referring to Hannibal Lecter or whale-killing windmills is an obvious reference to trump.

It's pretty normal to use a politician's own words and behavior to make fun of them. However, when JD Vance wanted to mock Kamala Harris, he didn't use any clips or quotes from her interview or speeches. Instead, he dug up an old clip from a Miss USA pageant, featuring a young lady who looks nothing like Kamala, has nothing to do with Kamala's campaign, and probably has never even met Kamala.

The clip was extremely embarrassing to the young woman, not to Kamala Harris. Somehow, JD thought it would be funny to publicly humiliate a stranger and that doing so would strike a blow against the Harris campaign. That’s a weird idea.

When it was pointed out to him that the incident in the clip was so distressing to the young woman that it had led her to contemplate suicide, did he say, "Oh no, I didn't know that, that's very concerning and I'll delete the post immediately"? He did not. Did he say, "I'm terribly sorry for having added to her pain, and I'll delete the post immediately"? He did not. Did he say, "It was a mistake to use that clip and I'll delete it immediately"? He did not. Did he just quietly delete the post? He did not. When given an opportunity to apologize, Vance refused to do so.

The young woman in the video has since deleted her Xtwitter account, even though she did nothing wrong. In the meantime, Vance's nasty little post is still visible.

Why Have Policies When You Can Make Dirty Jokes?

After Bill Clinton went through months (it seemed like decades) of having his sexual exploits investigated and publicly described in excruciating detail, many commentators were surprised to find that he still had the support of many (perhaps most) women voters. At the time, there was speculation that women identified with him, because it is so common for women to be scrutinized, judged, and stigmatized for their sexuality.

Women don't like being slut-shamed, and they especially don't appreciate the idea that having a sex life somehow makes them ineligible for dignity in the workplace.

Republicans haven't learned that lesson. Despite their own collection of sleazy characters, both male and female, they still think it's a good strategy to snigger about a woman.

Is Miscarriage a Crime?

We know that many pregnancies end naturally in spontaneous abortion, aka miscarriage, before the pregnancy is known or even suspected. A typical scenario: Your period is a week or two late (if you are normally irregular, you probably won't notice). Then when it finally comes, it may seem a little heavier than usual. The blood that is discharged will be disposed of on a tampon or pad. Even if you suspect this was a miscarriage (most women don't), you will likely not consider having a funeral for your tampon.

In another common scenario, you realize you are pregnant, and may have already received prenatal care. Then one day, you experience cramps, bleeding, and an urge to push (similar in feeling to a difficult bowel movement). Most women go into the bathroom at this point, where they are likely to bleed onto the floor, in the bathtub, or into the toilet. A few will save the bloody mess to be analyzed by a medical lab, but most will just clean it up, washing everything down the drain or flushing it down the toilet. In some cases, it may be necessary to have a "D&C" procedure to remove tissue that was not expelled. The flushed or removed material is not perceived as a "body" or a "corpse".

Many Republicans now want to arrest women for doing the normal thing during and after a miscarriage. Simply seeking medical help during a miscarriage is often viewed with suspicion, or treated as a potential crime. Medical providers report being afraid to treat women undergoing miscarriage, because state laws will lead to accusations of performing an illegal abortion.

• This woman is being prosecuted because she flushed blood and tissue: https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2023/12/08/miscarriage/

• In Alabama, women risk bleeding to death because doctors will not help them when they miscarry: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/roe-dobbs-abortion-ban-reproductive-medicine-alabama.html

• This woman spent 19 days having a miscarriage because doctors refused to help her: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/idaho-woman-shares-19-day-miscarriage-tiktok-states/story?id=96363578

• A woman with a cancerous condition was told to go sit in the parking lot and wait for a heart attack: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/25/1171851775/oklahoma-woman-abortion-ban-study-shows-confusion-at-hospitals