Why are women in the US relegated to being baby factories?
January 11, 2014 at 1:59 pm
(This post was last modified: January 11, 2014 at 2:25 pm by Raven.)
More and more it seems that in America women are being dehumaized in state after state. They get forced to undergo ultrasounds with no medical necessity, or to sit through disinformation-laden state mandated lectures in order to dissuade them from exercising their right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
Now, in Texas, we have the case of Marlise Munoz. Her body is being artificially kept alive. Her brain function has been irreversibly lost because of a pulmonary embolism. Marlise had told her husband that she never wanted to be kept “alive” in this way. But because she was 14 weeks pregnant when she passed, Texas state law requires that she be kept on life support.
According to the NY Times, more than 30 states place restrictions on when a hospital can remove life support from a pregnant woman, and 12, including Texas, have laws on the books that require hospitals to keep a woman's body alive if she is pregnant. The hospital has no choice in the matter, regardless of the desires of the family, whatever the patient herself had expressed prior, or what the patient's doctor thinks. Put another way, the law sees women as baby factories instead of as human beings in far too many states.
The Munoz case would not exist had she not been 14 weeks pregnant when she was pronounced brain dead. The condition negated her right to make end-of-life decisions with her family and have them followed. It's the right wing that is doing this, and to me at least it seems patently hypocritical of them with all this grandstanding they do about “getting the government off our backs”. They shepherd laws like this through the legislatures of whatever states they can, with the end result of furthering government intrusion on what should be the most private of family matters. I guess it's all about who's ox is being gored. As long as it's your ox and not theirs, why not?
edited for punctuation and spelling.
Now, in Texas, we have the case of Marlise Munoz. Her body is being artificially kept alive. Her brain function has been irreversibly lost because of a pulmonary embolism. Marlise had told her husband that she never wanted to be kept “alive” in this way. But because she was 14 weeks pregnant when she passed, Texas state law requires that she be kept on life support.
According to the NY Times, more than 30 states place restrictions on when a hospital can remove life support from a pregnant woman, and 12, including Texas, have laws on the books that require hospitals to keep a woman's body alive if she is pregnant. The hospital has no choice in the matter, regardless of the desires of the family, whatever the patient herself had expressed prior, or what the patient's doctor thinks. Put another way, the law sees women as baby factories instead of as human beings in far too many states.
The Munoz case would not exist had she not been 14 weeks pregnant when she was pronounced brain dead. The condition negated her right to make end-of-life decisions with her family and have them followed. It's the right wing that is doing this, and to me at least it seems patently hypocritical of them with all this grandstanding they do about “getting the government off our backs”. They shepherd laws like this through the legislatures of whatever states they can, with the end result of furthering government intrusion on what should be the most private of family matters. I guess it's all about who's ox is being gored. As long as it's your ox and not theirs, why not?
edited for punctuation and spelling.
“To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?”
― Christopher Hitchens
"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject". - George Santayana
"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed". - George Carlin
― Christopher Hitchens
"That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject". - George Santayana
"If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed". - George Carlin
