The Bizarre Christian "Quiverfill" Movement

I despair, I really do, these people are beyond the pale. And I have marked the quote with an asterisk that really goes beyond the pale to border on the insane.

"What a cute arrow-maker, can I go down on it?"

"No, arrows aren't made that way!"

And yer man! he just had to be called Jim Bob didn't he, or some such.

The Bizarre Christian "Quiverfill" Movement Pushing Women to Procreate for "God's Army"

Leaders of the Quiverfull movement encourage women to have as many as 20 children, regardless of the effects on their health.
By Vyckie Garrison
August 29, 2012

During a recent interview on the Today Show, Jim Bob Duggar blurted out, "It's fun trying!" when asked if he and Michelle were actively seeking to have another baby. Today's host, Savannah Guthrie responded to the mega-dad's salacious remark with, "Jim Bob - you sly dog!"

Viewers may have come away with the impression that TLC's "19 & Counting" celebrity parents, Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar hold very casual, perhaps even avant-garde attitudes regarding sex and sexuality.

But a quick look beneath the surface reveals that America's most celebrated Quiverfull couple believe and espouse decidedly unhealthy ideas when it comes to sex and babymaking.

Although Jim Bob makes frequent displays of romantic affection toward his prolific wife, Michelle, which would suggest that the couple might enjoy sex for non-procreative purposes, the "biblical family values" advocates-- whose "literal" interpretations of scripture inspire the Duggars to receive each and every pregnancy as an unmitigated blessing from God--also teach that the primary purpose of woman is to conceive and bear sons, i.e., "arrows" for God's army.

Consider Romans 1:27: "And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."

Quiverfull movement leader, Mary Pride, in her seminal book, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism and Back to Reality, offers the following interpretation of "the natural use of the woman" ...

*Since the word used for female is connected so strongly with the idea of nursing babies, whereas it has no connection at all with the idea of sexual activity, I believe that God is saying here that when women exchange their natural function of childbearing and motherliness for that which is "against nature" (that is, trying to behave sexually like a man), the men tend to abandon the natural sexual use of the women and turn to homosexuality. (pp. 27-28)

Nancy Campbell, "editress" of Above Rubies--an international Christian women's magazine-- encourages "women in their high calling as wives, mothers, and homemakers" by explaining in her book, Be Fruitful & Multiply: What the Bible Says About Having Children, that the word "woman" is a combination of the words "womb" and "man." Woman means "womb man" or "man with a womb."

With regard to the Romans 1:27 "natural use of the woman" passage, Campbell says, "Women were created by God's design to function as nourishers by nourishing life in their womb and a babe at their breast. When women deliberately turn away from their natural functions, they do it to their own detriment." (pp. 105-107)

Sure "family values" champion, Jim Bob Duggar puts on a nice show of desiring his godly wife for more than just her ability to produce yet another arrow for his already overflowing quiver ... but Jim Bob's hermeneutics as well as his politics belie enigmatic presuppositions about the purpose of marriage, sex, and Christian wives.

Speaking in regard to Todd Akin's recent "legitimate rape" and Paul Ryan's rape as a "method of conception" remarks, Amanda Marcotte explains the fundamentalist mentality that, "the fact that someone can make a baby means that making babies is what she is for. ... Women are among an array of objects to be used. The refrigerator is for storing food. The bookshelf is for holding books. The woman is for making babies. You no more give her a choice in the matter than you would give your refrigerator veto power over what food it holds because it didn’t like your method of shopping."

Could another pregnancy be life-threatening for Michelle Duggar? Might it be risky for baby #20? Could another pregnancy leave their 19 already-born children motherless? Yes - of course! Is Jim Bob Duggar having fun trying to get his wife pregnant nevertheless? If making babies is Michelle's divine purpose - if that is why God made her ... why shouldn't her husband enjoy knocking her up one more time? It's only natural.

Jim Bob - you sly dog!

Vyckie Garrison, single mom of 7 kids, is a former adherent of the Quiverfull movement – a growing segment of Christian fundamentalist who advocate biblical patriarchy, prolific motherhood, homeschooling, courtship & betrothal, and other crazy shit like that. Garrison tells the story of how she came to embrace the extreme lifestyle and why she left at her “No Longer Quivering” blog and has created The Spiritual Abuse Survivior Blog Network. - AlterNet

Shocking Plight of Women in North Korea's Concentration Camp Gulag

I'm not totally unaware as to what goes on in North Korea, writing these few words back in 2007, but nothing prepared me for this report from Women Under Siege.

2007: These camps are massive, holding hundreds of thousands in each and where for such a simple thing as complaining about the food ration (in civilian life) whole extended families are rounded up and incarcerated for life.
Given this fear combined with the harsh realities of life, millions malnourished and dying of starvation (three million died in the last recent famine) and juxtapose this with the Dear Leader's god-like status and a whole nation that can only be described as the greatest cult the world has ever seen, or likely to see, I just find the whole thing so mind blowingly bizarre.
The narrator asked the question, 'how much is fear and how much is conditioning?' irrespective of either there appear to be masses that are genuinely on the full kool aid diet. This man is as near to being a god as it gets.

I grant there will be many very quiet dissidents but the reality of North Korea makes Orwell's 1984 read like a fairy story. more

The fine line between ‘obedience’ and rape in North Korea

By Michele Lent Hirsch
May 17, 2012

When Shin Dong-hyuk was 10 years old, he watched his mother be raped by her boss.

In an attempt to fetch her for dinner, Shin approached the office where he had been told she would be. The door was locked. Through a window he saw her kneeling as she washed the floor, then saw her boss approach and grope her. Shin’s mother and the man took off their clothes, and the boy watched the rest unfold.

But this was no ordinary case of sexualized violence in the workplace. Shin was born into a North Korean concentration camp, where he lived by the whims of guards and could be killed in an instant for any small behavior deemed wrong. His mother worked in a rice field within the camp, and her boss, one of the prison guards, did whatever he wished to as many women as he wanted. Shin’s mother “complied”—though by international standards, the term “rape” would apply—because she knew the alternative was death.

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates that up to 200,000 North Koreans are imprisoned in concentration camps—camps that are meant to stamp out every trace of individuality and destroy three generations of “impure” citizens. Citizens are first captured by veritable “thought police” and hauled off for any number of alleged crimes. Captives are “re-educated,” tortured, starved, beaten, and murdered.

Though there is no way of knowing how many prisoners are raped each year (just as there is no way of knowing how many prisoners are hung above a fire and burned, as Shin reportedly was), escapees report that guards attack women and girls frequently.

These attacks take place in a very casual, routine manner, says Blaine Harden, author of Escape From Camp 14, the recent bestseller that chronicled Shin’s life. Once girls reach their mid-teens, Harden told me, patrolmen begin to rape them. As in the Holocaust and in refugee camps around the world, North Korean inmates are often coerced into sexualized violence in exchange for food rations and other meager aid. During their days or weeks as a guard’s target of rape, Harden says, their abuse brings trauma, but also vital nutrients.

As if enduring repeated sexualized violence were not enough, Harden continues, teen girls and women are “disappeared” or murdered the minute they are discovered pregnant.

“It’s an awful game that they are forced to play,” says Harden. No matter how “obedient” a girl has been, no matter how many days or weeks she quietly suffers sexualized abuse in an attempt to survive and please the guards—it is the rape survivor who is punished.

“The theory behind the camps was to cleanse unto three generations the families of incorrect thinkers,” a former guard interviewed in Harden’s book recalls. “So it was inconsistent,” he explains drily, “to allow another generation to be born.”

In other words, because a prisoner is deemed to be of “impure” stock, she and her fetus are destroyed. This is consistent with what Women Under Siege has found in conflicts that utilize sexualized violence as a means of ethnic cleansing, from the Holocaust to Darfur—that women’s bodies are controlled to temper the threat their ability to reproduce poses.

All of this happens with a backdrop of physical austerity for prisoners. Harden writes that individuals held in camps may not so much as hold hands without threat of death. “Should sexual physical contact occur without prior approval,” goes one of the rules Shin had to memorize growing up, “the perpetrators will be shot immediately.” Even “conversing between the sexes without prior approval” is forbidden. As such, only those prisoners “rewarded” with arranged marriages can sleep together a few times a year. Children produced through these marriages are approved. All other births are not.

In a perverse twist, says Harden, a woman’s poor health can become an advantage. If she is malnourished enough to be rendered infertile, and can endure rape without pregnancy, her life is usually spared.

Many raped women, however, do not have such “luck.” Women Under Siege.

For more information on North Korea’s concentration camps, see the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea’s recently updated report.

Toronto Tarts: Cover Up - Muslim Cleric

Brings a whole new meaning to 'fuck me shoes' I guess.

Just another misogynist Muslim headbanger sharing his Islamic wisdom with us, because if I had a nickel for every time I have heard the same argument, I could retire.

Or better still, Atangana and his ilk, could apply to join the twenty first century.

Muslim Cleric: If Women Don’t Want to Get Raped, Politicians Should Make it Illegal for Them to Dress Provocatively

York University (in Canada) has been the site of several sexual assaults over the past few weeks and students are angry because they don’t feel the school has done enough to prevent future attacks.

They’re really not going to like this.

Al-Haashim Kamena Atangana, a Muslim cleric, wrote to the Toronto Sun to offer his own suggestions as to how these crimes can be stopped:

Brings a whole new meaning to 'fuck me shoes' I guess.

Just another misogynist Muslim headbanger, because if I had a nickel for every time I have heard the same argument, I could retire.

I wanted to mention that the reason why these sex attacks are continuously happening is because the Canadian laws, which gives too much freedom to women, are the cause of these sex attacks. It has been revealed that every 5 seconds a woman is being sexually assaulted in North America. Women in North America are falling victims of the Democratic Freedom that you they passionly believe in. The reason why a woman gets raped is because of the way she dress. Women dress so provocatively so much that they receive too much attention for themselves and that attention at times leads to death.

If the law enforcements and the Canadian politicians were very serious about solving this problem, they would introduce laws that would make it illegal for women to dress provocatively in the streets. It is true that many people would object to this if that were to happen. and this will definitely create protests and opposition. However by arresting sexual predators is not going to solve the problem because as long women continue to dress like this there will always be perverts and rapist who will continue to remain on the loose. more

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Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil
A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.
3 October 2008
Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.
The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies.
The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair.
Sheikh Habadan, an ultra-conservative cleric who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd. BBC

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The 1-eyed burqa
Exclusive: Marylou Barry shakes head at Saudi sheikh's demand for female dress
10/07/2008

From the You-Couldn’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up-If-You-Tried Department:

Over the weekend a short but remarkable news article made its way around the Internet. It was remarkable not so much for its content – which was only about what we Westerners have come to expect from the seventh-century barbarians who also inhabit the planet – as for the fact that it was published by the normally very liberal British Broadcasting Corporation.

“A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia,” the story states without comment, “has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye. Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.”

Now, I am aware that the Brits are known for their tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and “the Beeb” for its tolerance of politically correct insanity, but, boy, not embroidering on that must have been tough. Wouldn’t you have just loved to be a fly on the newsroom wall when the editor read that guy’s report? Wouldn’t you have loved to be at the unscheduled meetings that must have resulted, as corporate lawyers and risk-assessment teams conspired to run the blurb, but inoffensively enough to keep from hearing from the Wahhabi Lobby? more

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A reader left a link to this website, which is replete, nay, encyclopedic in superstitious nonsense. Below are just some random examples of the glory of Islam.

I thought to include the subtle graphic that headed the piece, entitled 'notpraying' just in case you don't get the message.

The Terrible Consequences of not Praying Salah

Bismillah. Today, insha’Allah we’re going to touch on a slightly different angle on the concept of salah. Now, you know that salah is fard–the 5x daily prayers–and that the reward of doing so is great, and the sin of doing so are terrible. Hellfire, punishment on the Day of Judgment, punishment in this life, all these things are but possibilities.

But let’s take a look at a slightly different angle: scholars. What’s the position of the scholars on someone who doesn’t pray?

The position of all four madhaahib–Maliki, Shafi’ee, Hanbali, and Hanafi–with no difference of opinion–is that a person who does not pray, ever, is not a Muslim.

Think about that. Not a Muslim. Not anyone who has a chance of Paradise.

Why? There’s a very explicit hadith on this–the hadith of the Prophet

The contract between us and them is salaah. Whoever leaves it, he has disbelieved.

This is a very direct, explicit hadith–salaah is the contract, part of the mithaaq, the original contract, with Allah that all humans took. And this is only one of the explicit ahadith like this.

What’s more, it was inconceivable in the time of the sahaba that someone could be a “Muslim” and not pray. It just doesn’t make sense.

Scared yet?

No? Well, there’s more. What is the position of the scholars of Islam on someone who doesn’t pray, today, who lives in that now-extinct species of Islamic State? Then what happens?

Again, there’s no difference of opinion on this.

The position of a Muslim in an Islamic state, who doesn’t pray, is to be jailed.

And once they’re in jail, they should be advised. That what they’re doing is haram. That prayer is so, so important. That it is a major sin. That it just takes five minutes, five times a day–less than one sitcom.

And if they don’t repent? Keep advising them for a day. Then, a second day. Then, a third day.

And if they still don’t repent?

Then they are executed.

So think about that, next time you feel like skipping a salah. Honestly, it just takes five minutes. Don’t let your lame excuses side-track you. Just do it. Not Praying

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I thought this sounded rather familiar; perhaps I was just thinking of Catholicism.

The fear of Allah

The Arabic word for the “fear of Allah” is taqwâ . It comes from the root word meaning “to protect from something, to prevent”. Indeed, a person exhibits the fear of Allah by seeking to prevent Allah's punishment by carrying out what Allah has commanded of him and abstaining from what Allah has prohibited him.

Allah had called upon all people in every era to fear Him. Allah says: “And We had enjoined upon those who were given the Scripture before – as well as yourselves – to fear Allah.”

It is Allah's right over His servants that they fear Him as He ought to be feared. Allah says: “O you who believe! Fear Allah as He ought to be feared and do not die except as believers.”

Ibn Mas`ûd explained what it means to fear Allah as He ought to be feared by saying: “It means that He is to be obeyed not disobeyed, remembered not forgotten, and shown gratitude not ingratitude.”

The fear of Allah is the path to forgiveness, salvation, and the attainment of Allah's mercy. Allah says:

“Indeed, Allah is with those who fear Him and those who do good.”

“And My mercy encompasses all things, and I shall decree it for those who fear Me.”

“He is worthy of being feared and worthy of granting forgiveness.”

“And whoever fears Allah – He will pardon him his sins and grant him a great reward.”

“Indeed, those who fear Allah will be among gardens and rivers, in a seat of truth near an All-Powerful Sovereign.”

Allah promises those who fear Him that He will provide for their needs and grant them a way out of their worldly difficulties. Allah says: “And whoever fears Allah, He will make for him a way out, and provide for him from whence he could never imagine.”

This is Allah's promise. We should draw strength from it when we are tried in life with difficulties that tempt us to resort to what Allah has forbidden.

The relationship between knowledge and the fear of Allah

Allah says: “It is only those who have knowledge among Allah's servants who fear Him.”

There are two ways in which knowledge and the fear of Allah are related. The first is that true fear of Allah comes about as the result of having proper knowledge of Allah and His perfect attributes.

Ibn `Abbâs said about this verse: “They are those who know that Allah is capable of all things.” blah blah

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I wouldn't even attempt to single out anything on the subject of homosexuality, but there is this from heaven on earth, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Treatment of homosexuals within Islam:

........The Sha'fi school of thought (also seen in the Arab world) requires a minimum of 4 adult male witnesses before a person can be found guilty of a homosexual act. Al-Fatiha estimates that 4,000 homosexuals have been executed in Iran since their revolution in 1979. 10 public executions of homosexuals have been performed in Afghanistan by the Taliban army. Blah

15-Year-Old Girl Faces Life in Prison for a Miscarriage?

15-Year-Old Girl Faces Life in Prison for a Miscarriage? Why Conservatives Are Criminalizing Pregnant Women

The creeping criminalization of pregnant women is a new front in the culture wars over abortion.
July 4, 2011

Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child.

Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.

Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.

"Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws," said Lynn Paltrow of the campaignNational Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). "It's turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights."

Bei Bei Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby. On 23 December she tried to commit suicide by taking rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her.

Shuai was rushed to hospital and survived, but she was 33 weeks pregnant and her baby, to whom she gave birth a week after the suicide attempt and whom she called Angel, died after four days. In March Shuai was charged with murder and attempted foeticide and she has been in custody since without the offer of bail.

In Alabama at least 40 cases have been brought under the state's "chemical endangerment" law. Introduced in 2006, the statute was designed to protect children whose parents were cooking methamphetamine in the home and thus putting their children at risk from inhaling the fumes.

Amanda Kimbrough is one of the women who have been ensnared as a result of the law being applied in a wholly different way. During her pregnancy her fetus was diagnosed with possible Down's syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.

The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.

Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with "chemical endangerment" of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.

"That shocked me, it really did," Kimbrough said. "I had lost a child, that was enough."

She now awaits an appeal ruling from the higher courts in Alabama, which if she loses will see her begin a 10-year sentence behind bars. "I'm just living one day at a time, looking after my three other kids," she said. "They say I'm a criminal, how do I answer that? I'm a good mother."

Women's rights campaigners see the creeping criminalization of pregnant women as a new front in the culture wars over abortion, in which conservative prosecutors are chipping away at hard-won freedoms by stretching protection laws to include foetuses, in some cases from the day of conception. In Gibbs' case defence lawyers have argued before Mississippi's highest court that her prosecution makes no sense. Under Mississippi law it is a crime for any person except the mother to try to cause an abortion.

"If it's not a crime for a mother to intentionally end her pregnancy, how can it be a crime for her to do it unintentionally, whether by taking drugs or smoking or whatever it is," Robert McDuff, a civil rights lawyer asked the state supreme court. Go to page two.

"Conscience Clause" Allows Prison Guard to Confiscate a Rape Victim's Morning After Pill

There's not much a fellow can say, is there?

"Conscience Clause" Allows Prison Guard to Confiscate a Rape Victim's Morning After Pill
By Robin Marty
June 29 2012

We've watched the definition of "conscience clause" be expanded to include everyone from nurses and data entry workers at hospitals to bus drivers refusing to drop off patients at clinics. But now a prison guard refused to allow a rape victim to take the second dose of emergency contraception (which prevents fertilization) claiming it was "against her beliefs." That's a new one.

Via Addicting Info:

A Tampa woman whom we only know as R.W., was raped. She was treated by the rape crisis center, who gave her two emergency contraception pills, one to be taken immediately and one to be taken 12 hours later. When she reported the rape to the police, they uncovered an arrest warrant on R.W. for failure to pay restitution and failure to appear. After she was arrested, a Hillsborough County guard confiscated her second pill, claiming it was against her religious beliefs.

But this is exactly what happens when "conscience" is allowed to trump a woman's rights to avoid pregnancy. R.W. is suing the sheriff's office, and as well she should. This isn't just about women denied access when jailed (Although that in itself is problematic -- should a woman fear reporting a crime because she may be arrested? Not to mention the fact that women who are sexually assaulted while in jail may also be at the whim of a guard or someone in authorityin obtaining access to emergency contraception to prevent pregnancy).

No, this case also brings to light how those who are "in charge" when it comes to dispensing are able to inflict their own moral beliefs onto someone else. In states like Kansas, which seek to expand conscience clauses well beyond health workers, the putative "rights" if those who wield power are being allowed to trump those of the patient in need. AlterNet

Women Prisoners in the US Still Shackled Whilst Giving Birth

This isn't news to me, I have known about this practice for years, but I have a feeling that it may come as quite a shock to some of my European readers. Or perhaps I should rephrase that; my readers from civilised parts of the world.

I cannot think of anything more degrading, anything more traumatic, or anything more unnecessary, than to be forced to give birth whist shackled to a bed.

Misogyny is not the sole domain of Islamic males is it? No, it flourishes alongside that other characteristic that is the domain of inadequate men everywhere, the power play, the total control of women. And nowhere does it flourish more than among the cops and the screws (correctional officers) of the American police state.

If only as an academic exercise, how I would love to see the results of a comprehensive psychological study of both police and prison guards. Boy! I bet that would make some scary reading.

I can't get a job because I'm below average intelligence, invariably racist, I have anger issues and an authoritarian attitude. I know, I'll join the police force or the prison service. What a great idea, what could possibly go wrong?

Women are born free in the US but everywhere give birth in chains

America is almost unique in the civilised world for forcing pregnant prisoners to undergo childbirth cuffed and shackled
Sadhbh Walshe
6 June 2012

Only 16 of 50 states in the US have any regulations or laws against the shackling of female prisoners during childbirth

In 2007, a 17-year-old girl called Cora Fletcher was charged with retail theft. Over a year later, after she missed a court date, she was sent to the Cook County jail, in Illinois. She was eight months pregnant at the time.
During a pre-natal check-up at the facility, her baby appeared to have no heartbeat, so she was sent to the county hospital. As the medical team tried to induce her, Fletcher claims that both her hands and both her feet were shackled to either side of the bed. Only when she finally went into labor, three days later, was one hand and one foot released. It's hard to imagine a more crucifying way to force a woman to try to give birth.
Sadly for Fletcher, there was no payoff for the trauma and humiliation she was forced to endure, as her baby was born dead.
Fletcher was one of the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit brought against Cook County on behalf of 80 female prisoners and detainees who also claimed to have had similar experiences of being shackled during childbirth. Just under two weeks ago, the county agreed to a settlement of $4.1m dollars payable to the women, who will each receive between $5,000 and $45,000.
The Cook County sheriff's office made it clear, however, that they were agreeing to the deal for expediency's sake only and were admitting to no wrongdoing. This despite the fact that Illinois became the first state in the union to ban the practice of shackling women during labor, back in 1999 – at least seven years before any of the women named in the lawsuit had their babies. A spokesman for the department, Frank Bilecki, went so far as to issue a statement claiming the jail's treatment of (female) detainees is the "most progressive in the nation".
If that is the case, women in America better watch their backs.
The practices of making pregnant women wear belly chains and of shackling their hands and feet before, after and sometimes during labor, are just another way in which the United States distinguishes itself – or fails to distinguish itself, perhaps – as anything but a bastion of liberty and justice and a champion of women's rights. No other country in the "civilized world" finds shackling pregnant women a necessary or desirable procedure. The practice has been repeatedly and vigorously condemned by the committee against torture at the United Nations; and it has been decried by both the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (You can imagine how doctors relish the prospect of trying to safely deliver a baby whose mother is in chains.)
Yet, here in America, only 16 of the 50 states have any kind of legislation to restrict or ban the practice. And as was evidenced in the Cook County, Illinois law suit, even states that do have laws on their books don't necessarily feel compelled to uphold them.
No one knows exactly how many women have been subjected to this degrading treatment, as prison officials are not obliged to keep records of pregnancies and births that occur to women in their custody. That in itself speaks volumes about the lack of attention paid to the needs of the exploding female prison population. (The US has more women prisoners than any country in the world, and their numbers are increasing at twice the rate of the male population.) When you ask a prison official why women are shackled when they are in transit or away from the facility, the answer will invariably be because that is standard prison procedure and that leg irons, handcuffs and belly chains are necessary to prevent the prisoner escaping and to protect the public.
Chaining up prisoners who are dangerous felons is one thing, but as the vast majority of incarcerated women are nonviolent offenders who, for the most part, are only guilty of crimes of poverty and addiction, a one-size-fits-all shackling policy is not only unnecessary, but dangerous. Especially since the chances of a woman in the middle of labor going on the lam are almost nonexistent. That should be self-evident, but it seems that no allowance is made for the physical vulnerabilities of women, even when they are pregnant.
And so you have a situation where someone like Cora Fletcher finds herself literally and figuratively bound by practices that would be harsh if applied to a multiple murderer, never mind a teenage girl who stole something from a store. As if the rigors of childbirth were not punishing enough, the state chooses to make the experience as torturous for a woman as possible.
There is reason, however, to hope that the days of this barbaric practice are numbered. The recent $4.1m settlement was welcomed by human rights advocates and many lawmakers as a strong message to jails and prisons that shackling women before, during and after childbirth is unlawful and unconstitutional. Cook County has paid a hefty price for its decision to violate their own state's laws. Other local governments can expect to do the same.
Advocacy groups are gearing up to get legislation passed in the 34 states that still allow the practice and are pushing for a federal standard to ensure that the laws are upheld in all 50. It's a shame that it will, apparently, require endless lawsuits and relentless campaigning to put an end to a practice that any reasonable person should find abhorrent. But if that's what it takes, so be it. Gruniad

The Movement to Stop Prisons From Shackling Women in Labor Builds

Previous: California Prisons: I wouldn't Put These Blokes In Charge of My Dog

Seven Ways Citizens Are Using Humor and Creativity to Protest Injustice

The original article is a three page post, but I think the first item captures the essence of the thing. But if you do nothing else, do follow some of the links.

Seven Ways Citizens Are Using Humor and Creativity to Protest Injustice

While not a new concept, creative activism does seem to be having a "moment" right now as activists look for ways to draw attention to the recent attacks on our rights.
By Lauren Kelley
March 25, 2012

The recent spate of right-wing attacks against reproductive rights, the ongoing foreclosure crisis propagated by Wall Street banks, racist police actions that never seem to end - the injustices can seem overwhelming. But rather than give up, activists have been relentlessly fighting back.

There's the Occupy movement fighting economic injustice (among other things), of course, but there are also many other activists fighting for our rights all over the country. Lately, many of those activists have been using creativity, and sometimes humor, to get their message across. While not a new concept, creative activism does seem to be having a "moment" right now as activists look for ways to draw attention to the recent battles happening around the country and the world.

Below are several examples of recent actions that go beyond the traditional protest march. Some of them have made us laugh, while others make us think - but they've all been successful, in that they've grabbed the media's attention and gotten activist messages out to the masses.

Several of the funniest recent actions have been carried out by reproductive health supporters fighting back against the onslaught of right-wing attacks against reproductive rights: Komen for the Cure deciding to defund Planned Parenthood (and then backtracking), Catholic bishops launching an all-out assault on contraception, dozens of Republican-led legislative attempts to undermine Roe v. Wade. As Amanda Marcotte recently told Tracy Clark-Flory in a piece for Salon:

"Things have just gotten to the point of absurdity that you can't react without being absurd yourself." Thanks to recent attacks on even contraception, "ordinary women who often don't pay attention to politics are finally beginning to pay attention," she says. "And I think that means more opportunities to communicate through humor instead of the typical outrage thing. Humor can be very clarifying."

So we'll look at several humorous reproductive rights actions first.

1. Knitting vaginas and uteruses for anti-choice Congresspeople

The Snatchel Project has a simple rallying cry: "Let's make a uterus or VJJ for each male rep in congress!" The point is to send the following message to anti-choice Congresspeople: "Hands off my uterus! Here's one of your own!"

Here are the simple instructions for participation, via the group's website:

1. Knit or crochet a vagina or uterus

2. Print a message to enclose

(see below for a suggested message)

3. Mail it to your male Senator or Congressional Representative

(see the links to the right)

4. We're in the process of arranging hand delivery to congressional offices in Washington, until then, go ahead and mail yours in!

5. Record your items in this spreadsheet so we can track which representatives still need to receive a "gift"!

6. Don't forget to thank your representative if he respects women and supports our rights.

Learn how to knit, follow the patterns, and you too can send your government representatives a message they're unlikely to forget.

2. A sex strike for reproductive rights More

Arizona: More Madness on Women's Reproductive Rights

It's not the greatest bit of writing I have come across, so I will just paste the insane part of the article.

How do these people get elected?

AZ Legislator Wants to Make Women Watch an Abortion Before Having One -- Fight Back By Showing Her Your Bodily Functions


Terri Proud, Arizona legislator: Personally I’d like to make a law that mandates a woman watch an abortion being performed prior to having a “surgical procedure”. If it’s not a life it shouldn’t matter, if it doesn’t harm a woman then she shouldn’t care, and don’t we want more transparency and education in the medical profession anyway? We demand it everywhere else.

Until the dead child can tell me that she/he does not feel any pain – I have no intentions of clearing the conscience of the living – I will be voting YES. more

What did I just say, how do these people get elected? Stroll on! here's another one, perhaps it's just a coincidence that she too is from Arizona.




And while we are doing batshit crazy, have a bit of our William. And if you can figure out what on earth he's talking about, you're a better man than I Gunga Din.

Women's Reproductive Rights: America Out of Control

I remind you, the year is 2012, America is a western industrial country.

And this is just one of hundreds, if not thousands of stories that abound right now on States preoccupation with, and invasion of, Women's reproductive organs and rights. Lawmakers in the US! they could put the Taliban to shame.

How the "Pro-Life" Movement Puts Women Behind Bars

In Alabama, the claim that eggs, embryos and fetuses have separate legal rights has led to the jailing of 60 women.
By Lynn Paltrow and Emma S. Ketteringham
March 17, 2012

Numerous organizations and leaders who identify themselves as pro-life have assured the public that their efforts to re-criminalize abortion and establish the unborn as separate legal persons will not result in the prosecution and imprisonment of women. Yet, in Alabama alone, the claim that eggs, embryos and fetuses have separate legal rights has provided the basis for arresting approximately 60 women.

These women are being prosecuted under Alabama’s 2006 law designed to provide special penalties for people who bring children into methamphetamine laboratories. Its official title is "Endangerment of Exposing a Child to an Environment in Which Controlled Substances are Produced or Distributed" and it provides that a person “commits the crime of chemical endangerment” by “exposing a child to an environment in which he or she...knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally causes or permits a child to be exposed to, to ingest or inhale, or to have contact with a controlled substance.”

This law makes no mention of pregnancy, pregnant woman, drug use, fetus, or any other words that would make it applicable to a pregnant woman who uses a controlled substance and seeks to continue her pregnancy to term. In fact, the Alabama legislature has repeatedly refused to amend this law or to create others that would address the issue of pregnancy and drug use through the criminal law.

Nevertheless prosecutors have argued, and the Alabama’s Court of Criminal Appeals has agreed, that the word “child” in the statute includes a “viable fetus” and therefore may be used to arrest and jail women who become pregnant, eschew abortion, go to term, and try to bring life into this world, despite having used a controlled substance.

The Appeals Court decision reaches far beyond women who use illegal drugs or even drug use at all. Many prescription drugs are controlled substances and there is no defense under the law if the drug is prescribed to the pregnant woman. This means that a pregnant woman who is prescribed a controlled substance (and her doctor who prescribed it) are now potentially subject to criminal penalties as well. And, if the word “child” in one Alabama criminal laws means “viable fetus,” then surely it would have to mean the same thing in others – including the state’s child abuse and related laws. This means that women are potentially criminally liable for an unlimited range of actions, inactions or circumstances during pregnancy believed by police and prosecutors to pose a risk of harm to the fetus. (Think “personhood” measure in disguise.)

Hope Ankrom and Amanda Kimbrough are two of the 60 women who have been charged under the chemical endangering law – not for running meth labs or bringing children to them, but rather for continuing their pregnancies to term in spite of having a drug problem. Ankrom and Kimbrough have appealed their convictions to the Alabama Supreme Court.

Forty-seven medical, public health and legal advocacy groups and individuals, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Nurses Association filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief in support of these mothers. They urge the court to reverse the lower court’s radical extension of the chemical endangering law to permit prosecution and punishment of new mothers, pregnant women, and their doctors.

These organizations and experts explain that while they do not in any way endorse the use of illegal drugs during pregnancy, medical consensus is that illegal drug use by pregnant women does not pose risks qualitatively different or greater than a wide range of other actions, inactions, exposures, and circumstances engaged in or experienced by pregnant women, such as smoking cigarettes. Go to page two.

How Legal, Medical Marijuana Got One Couple's Children Violently Snatched Away Link

Upstairs Having a Vibrate Your Dinner's in The Oven

An interesting little read.

The Strange, Fascinating History of the Vibrator

The sex toy has its roots in the prude Victorian era -- but its history tells us a lot about the current attack upon women’s sexuality.
by Erik Loomis
March 9, 2012


Victorian-era doctors disliked dealing with female patients. This highly masculinized profession saw women as overly emotional and barely capable of rational discussion of their bodies. For a profession actively attempting to separate itself from the quacks selling cure-all tonics out of the back of wagons, treating women’s conditions provided little professional credibility or prestige.

One of women’s most common medical conditions was broadly called “hysteria.” By this, doctors meant any number of symptoms that described "irrational" female complaints. Perhaps the most well-known subsection of this aliment was neurasthenia, a nervous condition afflicting Gilded Age women and some men. Neurasthenia symptoms ranged from headaches and fear of insanity to insomnia and “morbid fears.” While mostly afflicting women, men also received diagnoses of neurasthenia; common causes for men were thought to be overwork and masturbation.

Male doctors found their hysterical and neurasthenic patients especially frustrating. Many doctors suggested that women would feel better if they engaged in sexual intercourse until its natural conclusion with a male orgasm. But given the ineffectiveness of vaginal penetration in satisfying many women, doctors resorted to other solutions. Doctors manually massaged the women’s clitoris until she achieved relief, i.e. experienced an orgasm, although it was not recognized as such. Annoyed doctors complained that it took women forever to achieve this relief; moreover, they thought this condition beneath their respectable professional demeanor to treat. On the other hand, the repeat business of these women was good for their pocketbooks.

Beginning in 1869, inventors developed steam-powered massage machines for medical offices. By 1900, doctors had a wide variety of devices to choose from, helping relieve the tedium of digitally massaging female patients. Even better from medical professionals’ perspective was the invention of a hand-held vibrator in 1905, allowing women to treat their own hysteria without visiting a physician. Soon, companies began advertising for the home vibrators, using slogans such as “all the pleasures of youth…will throb within you.” The home vibrators made economic sense for women as even the higher-end models cost no more than five or so visits to the doctor. Moral police officers worried that the home device would “accomplish little more than the titillation of the tissues.” Nonetheless, they proved quite popular with middle-class women whose homes had the electricity needed to operate the vibrators.

Despite the very real physical relief offered by vibrators, many doctors preferred to believe the vibrator was an asexual device. The medical profession thought sexuality only manifested itself in the penetration of a woman’s vagina by a penis. In late Victorian America, men saw middle-class women as adverse to sex which both facilitated men’s visits to the plethora of brothels in the cities and reinforced the idea of women provided a civilizing effect on men corrupted by the rough-and-tumble streets. When seemingly “pure” women did want sex, it was for reasons of maternal needs, not pleasure. That vaginal penetration did not please these women simply meant they lacked a sexual nature. At least one scholar does argue that doctors of the time did in fact recognize the reality of a clitoral orgasm, so we do not have a consensus on the matter.

The attempt to desexualize the vibrator played into larger fears men expressed about female sexuality. Masturbation was on the minds of many Americans during the early 20th century. Men such as Theodore Roosevelt worried that “self-pollution” sapped the male of strength, virility and morality and that the practice threatened the future of American manhood. But the specter of female masturbation was far more terrifying. I have read debates between doctors over whether women should be allowed to ride bicycles or whether the pleasure they might induce from the seat made it an unacceptable moral hazard.

Despite their popularity, vibrators disappeared from the market in the 1920s. The devices were devised for middle-class women, but in a nation as racially and ethnically diverse as the United States in the early 20th century, there were many competing sexual norms. Many working-class women, less affected by middle-class sexual norms, knew what the vibrator could do. The large-scale prostitution industry, although under attack after the crackdown on semi-legal and regulated red-light districts in the 1910s, adapted to new technologies and began creating pornographic films. These films began deploying the vibrator, destroying the fiction that the device was divorced from human sexuality. It seems that as soon as the connection between sexual pleasure and vibrators became firmly established in American culture, their acceptability as medical treatment vanished and the product disappeared from mainstream society. It was not until the early 1970s that the vibrator again became a common product.

On one level, this story may amuse us. It’s certainly difficult to disparage the development of a device that brought women very real physical relief and pleasure. Yet this is also a story of male hostility to women’s bodies and sexuality, the assumption that women’s medical complaints were beneath men to take seriously, and the denial and suppression of female sexuality in favor of male pleasure cloaked in rhetoric of science and medicine.

Recent Republican attacks on women’s bodies and their demonizing of female sexuality reminds me of the rampant sexual hypocrisy of late nineteenth and early twentieth century America.

The anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock and his campaigns to prosecute birth control providers are reminiscent of Rick Santorum’s attitudes toward women. Rush Limbaugh’s sexualized personal attacks on Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke for arguing in favor of requiring private insurance plans to cover contraception hark back to a period when a woman discussing sexuality in public faced the loss of her respectability. Virginia’s attempt to pass an anti-abortion law that included a mandatory transvaginal ultrasound, effectively a state-sponsored sexual assault of any woman who wants to terminate a pregnancy, suggests the days when women lacked control over their own reproductive systems, with men deciding whether mothers were fit and sterilizing those deemed unworthy.

Exploring century-old sexual debates provides essential context for the current attack upon women’s sexuality. Limbaugh, Santorum and other prominent Republicans long for an idealized past where female sexuality remained in the home, under a patriarchal system that punished women for their sexual sins while rewarding men for sowing their wild oats. Wealthy white men have a long history of trivializing women’s medical and sexual needs while shaming those who express sexuality in public.

As Republicans continue their attacks on women’s control over their own bodies, the nation’s sexual history is essential knowledge. So long as Republicans advocate for a past of sexual repression, we need to know what actually happened in order to fight for a more progressive and equal present and future. AlterNet

In light of this article, you may wish to click on the 'Sex Prudery' tag in the sidebar. You may come away with the impression that we (the US, particularly the South) haven't come very far.

No pun intended.

Stuff You Couldn't Make Up: Get On The Game Or We Will Stop Your Dole

'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'
By Clare Chapman
30 Jan 2005

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.


Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile'' and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.

"There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry," said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. "The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits."

Miss Garweg said that women who had worked in call centres had been offered jobs on telephone sex lines. At one job centre in the city of Gotha, a 23-year-old woman was told that she had to attend an interview as a "nude model", and should report back on the meeting. Employers in the sex industry can also advertise in job centres, a move that came into force this month. A job centre that refuses to accept the advertisement can be sued.

Tatiana Ulyanova, who owns a brothel in central Berlin, has been searching the online database of her local job centre for recruits.


"Why shouldn't I look for employees through the job centre when I pay my taxes just like anybody else?" said Miss Ulyanova.

Ulrich Kueperkoch wanted to open a brothel in Goerlitz, in former East Germany, but his local job centre withdrew his advertisement for 12 prostitutes, saying it would be impossible to find them.

Mr Kueperkoch said that he was confident of demand for a brothel in the area and planned to take a claim for compensation to the highest court. Prostitution was legalised in Germany in 2002 because the government believed that this would help to combat trafficking in women and cut links to organised crime.

Miss Garweg believes that pressure on job centres to meet employment targets will soon result in them using their powers to cut the benefits of women who refuse jobs providing sexual services.

"They are already prepared to push women into jobs related to sexual services, but which don't count as prostitution,'' she said.

"Now that prostitution is no longer considered by the law to be immoral, there is really nothing but the goodwill of the job centres to stop them from pushing women into jobs they don't want to do." The Telegraph

Shirin Fakhim

A Rosa Parks Moment for Jerusalem Hundreds Board Segregated Buses

Good for them.

Hundreds Board Segregated Bus Lines to Protest Ultra-Orthodox Exclusion of Women
By Ophir Bar-Zohar and Oz Rosenberg
01/01/12

Men and women launch demonstration against segregated bus lines and against exclusion of women from public sphere.

Hundreds of men and women boarded gender-segregated buses in Jerusalem and Ramat Gan on Sunday, in protest of the exclusion of women from the public sphere and against the segregation of men and women in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.




Despite the friction between the two communities, the protest on board the buses went over relatively quietly.

The organizers of the demonstration requested that the protesters gather in central points in Jerusalem and Ramat Gan so they would not be drawn into provocations.

Throughout the evening, there were two incidents in which bus drivers refused to allow the activists to board the buses. In line 354 from Ramar Gan to Be’er Yaakov, the problem was only solved after police intervention, and on line 402 from Ramat Gan to Jerusalem, the bus driver threatened the activists and journalists that he would break their cameras.

On Ben-Gurion street in Ramat Gan, several ultra-Orthodox men flung insults at police officers, saying that “the country helps protesters in their struggle.”

An ultra-Orthodox passenger on one of the buses in Bnei Brak said, “We suffer from exclusion more than secular people, but once the media creates a fight between secular people and Haredim, then we have no choice – we have to pick a side.”

“Extremists from both sides do not allow a discussion to take place on this subject,” he said, blaming the media and ultra-Orthodox extremists of anti-Semitism.

The event, which was created by Jerusalem resident Alon Visser called on people to put an end to the apathy and changing the status quo. Visser said that he has gotten used to seeing gender-segregated buses run through Jerusalem’s central bus station.

“This is not the society that I want to live or raise my children in,” Visser wrote on the event’s Facebook page. “We cannot continue to be silent on the issue of gender segregation on bus lines – it is against the law and against human rights.”

According to Visser, the event was not meant to protest against or hurt the religious Haredi community, but rather “to eradicate the ugly phenomenon of the exclusion of women.” baltimorejewishlife

Previous: Orthodox Judaism How Enchanting
h/t Maren

Orthodox Judaism How Enchanting

It's so nice to know that misogyny isn't exclusive to Islam, such delightful fellows.

Happy new year ladies; know your worth, know your place.

I thought about posting a photograph, but I didn't want to despoil my blog with images of men who are just as loathsome and vile as their Arab or Persian counterparts. You may Google image 'sikrikim' should you so wish.

It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible. - George W. Foote

Orthodox Judaism treats women like filthy little things

If a man and a woman are drowning in a river, first they'll save the man, 'who is obligated to perform more commandments,' whereas a woman's 'wisdom is only in the spindle.' In fact, 'words of Torah should be burned rather than being given to women.'
By Yossi Sarid
30.12.11

If you would like to know the source from which your brothers derive their brazen behavior, go over to the study hall and open a page of Talmud. It's true that the Torah has 70 faces, but the trend of these faces is clear: The source of the pollution is in halakha (Jewish law ) itself. What is happening in Beit Shemesh and its satellites is not "contrary to halakha," it is mandated by halakha. And the rest will be told to the grandmothers, daughters and granddaughters.

Anyone ignoramus knows that the Torah's "ways are ways of pleasantness," that "the honor of a king's daughter is within," and that "proper behavior comes before the Torah," but it's worth knowing more. It's worth knowing that a woman is unfit to be a judge, and is also unfit to give testimony. She is unfit for any public position with authority. "Thou shalt appoint a king over thee" - a king and not a queen.

A daughter, commanded the sages, must not be taught Torah, because "the mind of woman is not suited to be taught, but [only] to words of nonsense." Women are light-minded and have little knowledge.

And if a man and a woman are drowning in a river, first they'll save the man, "who is obligated to perform more commandments," whereas a woman's "wisdom is only in the spindle." In fact, "words of Torah should be burned rather than being given to women."

A man must say three blessings every day during morning prayers: He thanks God "that He didn't make me a gentile, that He didn't make me a woman, that He didn't make me an ignoramus." And it's not proper to speak to a woman too much, since "all her conversation is nothing but words of adultery," and whoever talks to her too much "causes evil to himself and will end up inheriting hell." And let's not even talk about the fate of someone "who looks even at a woman's little finger."

The extremists who spit at women, who call themselves Sikarikim, learned their lesson 101 times and learned it well: A husband would do well not to let his wife go outside, into the street, and should restrict her outings "to once or twice a month, as necessary, since a woman has no beauty except by sitting in the corner of her house."

Because inside the house - very deep inside - her glorious honor awaits her: "Every woman washes her husband's face and feet and pours him a cup and prepares his bed and stands and serves her husband. And any woman who refrains from doing any of these tasks that she is obligated to perform - is forced to do them." Some recommend forcing her with a whip or by starvation "until she gives in."

And needless to say, she is at her husband's disposal whenever he is overcome by a desire "to satisfy his urges with her." And if she continues to rebel, he always has the right "to divorce her without her consent."

And there are many similar halakhot, only a few of which we have collected here. Nor have we cited everything in the name of the ones who said them, for lack of space. The readers are invited to find the references on Shabbat - and to browse around - on their own; this is a good opportunity for study. We will direct your attention to Tractate Shabbat, which does a good job of summing up halakha's attitude toward women: "a sack full of excrement" with a bleeding hole.

Some people will seek to console themselves: It's true that this is the halakha both m'doraita (from the Torah ) and m'drabanan (from the rabbis ), but that is not what is taught nowadays. But it suffices to listen to the sermon the sage Rabbi Ohvadia Yosef delivered five years ago, based on the well-known halakhic work "Kitzur Shulchan Aruch": "A man must take care not to walk between two women or between two dogs or two pigs, and men should also not allow a woman or a dog or a pig to walk between them."

Treating women as impure and filthy begins with halakha and continues with actions. As long as the religious and ultra-Orthodox parties - Shas, United Torah Judaism, Habayit Hayehudi and National Union, none of which have any women in the Knesset - are not disqualified, their nakedness will continue to sing out and the nakedness of the land will be revealed. Haaretz

Previous: Watch Headbanging Jewish Extremists In Action Against Little Girls

Not only are they despicable, they are insane.

The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence. Abu Ala Al-Ma’arri

A Definitive Article on Mississippi's Initiative 26

It was at this point that I intended to feature a Mother Jones article on what the implications of Initiative 26 would be in respect to birth control. However, thanks to a dear reader I can put before you a far more definitive source, not just on the subject of birth control, but of the implications as a whole that this bizarre and extreme proposal would conjure up.

Vote No on 26, Mississippi - Here is why

On November 8th, 2011 in the General Election for Mississippi, there will be three Ballot Initiatives to vote on. 26 - to redefine "person" in our constitution, 27 - to require voter ID (ie disenfranchise voters) and 31 - to restrict the use of eminent domain. The full, actual text of 26 is below. Vote No on 26, Mississippi!

I've put a lot of thought into this initiative. I've tried to keep this updated with the most recent developments. There is a lot of information, so please bear with me and read this through. Where I have supporting documentation, there are links within the text that are blue and underlined.

First, a video.

Rather than embed the video in question, a video I might add, that by its (simple) nature is reminiscent of another, simple message for simple people, that featured many years ago in the next door state of Alabama. But this is but a digression.

No, rather than the featured video, have a look at this one, again linked from the article, but one I would have thought that gives a far starker warning to just what 'Personhood' actually means in real terms in the States that have already enacted this legislation.

The intrusion, by hospitals, prosecutors and law enforcement is absolutely staggering, so much so that I had to replay the clip again to have it confirmed that such nightmare scenarios had indeed come to pass.

Of all the clips that I have ever watched that warn of the effects of religious extremism, nothing but nothing comes close to this one. And this I remind you, is in a country where having a social conscience (socialism) is seen as one step removed from the totalitarianism of a Stalinist state.

I don't know what analogy would best describe what is depicted in these few short minutes, but whatever anyone might choose, they would have to end in, totalitarian state.

The events that are happening in these states is truly frightening, so much so, viewing of this clip should be made mandatory.

The "Personhood" initiative only defines the word "person" in the Mississippi constitution as "every human being from the moment of fertilization." If you think this is an anti-abortion bill, think again. It says nothing about outlawing abortion. It says nothing about outlawing the morning after pill. It says nothing about anything else. All results of the bill will have to be figured out by the police arresting people and the courts deciding what the change to the definition of person means. It might not even outlaw abortion. It might have lots of other, perhaps unintended, consequences.

For instance :

Birth control pills and IUD pregnancy prevention methods would be outlawed by the 'personhood amendment' (because they prevent a fertilized egg - which would instantly become a fully legal 'person' - from attaching to the uterine wall as a rare third stage effect, but it still happens), further increasing these numbers. The "yes" group claims otherwise, even though their own board member, Dr. McMillan says, "I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions." (see the 'lies exposed' link further down for more details)

I have come to believe that the wording of i26 actually targets IVF to put it out of business.


Drinking and smoking during pregnancy would go from just being risky to becoming criminal negligence. Women who have miscarriages would have to endure investigation for possible criminal charges, from negligence up to and including murder. You think not? There is already legal precedent - 15 year old Rennie Gibbs was charged in Mississippi with Depraved Heart Murder in December, 2006 after a miscarriage. (see pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges

A commitment to pre-embryonic personhood would require us to investigate these miscarriages to ensure that no foul play was involved in the loss of these persons. This does not necessarily mean that all women experiencing miscarriages would be prosecuted; however, our legal framework requires an investigation when there has been a loss of life.

26 leaves no exception for rape. more

Jesus and Mo.

Mississippi: Personhood Status For Fertilised Egg

Update: Rachel Madow conceived in rape tour.

These people are insane, and the article is a testimony to that insanity.

But the proposed Initiative 26 is much more than affording full legal rights to, and declaring 'personhood' status to a fertilised egg, it would effectively outlaw all other forms of contraception other than the purely barrier methods, condoms and diaphragms.

Mississippi has the highest infant mortality rate of any state in the nation. It also has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy nationwide

And in a country that is visibly coming apart at the seams, the priority in Mississippi are the rights of a fertilised egg. Mississippi did have another priority, but they have already addressed that issue, by imposing a state-wide ban on the sale of vibrators. You think I jest? clicky or: Violators will face up to a year in prison and a fine of less than $10,000. clicky

I don't have a 'stuff you couldn't make up' tag, perhaps I should initiate one. I do have a 'batshit crazy' tag, but that doesn't do justice to stuff like this; 'batshit dangerous' perhaps, might be nearer the mark.

Daily Kos has this: Occupy My Uterus. My Ass! Fertilized Eggs Are NOT People!

Legal Rights for Fertilized Eggs? How a Terrifying Law Could Lead to Jail-time for Miscarriages, Birth Control Bans, and the End of Legal Abortion

Mississippi could well be the first state to pass a "personhood law," once considered too extreme for mainstream anti-choicers.
By Irin Carmon
October 26, 2011


Dr. Freda Bush has a warm, motherly smile. In her office just outside Jackson, Miss., she smiles as she hands me a brochure that calls abortion the genocide of African-Americans, and again, sweetly, as she explains why an abortion ban should not include exceptions for rape or incest victims. The smile turns into a chuckle as she recounts what the daughter of one rape victim told her: “My momma says I’m a blessing. Now, she still don’t care for the guy who raped her! But she’s glad she let me live.”

Bush is smiling, too, in the video she made to support as restrictive an abortion ban as any state has voted on, Initiative 26, or the Personhood Amendment, which faces Mississippi voters on Nov. 8. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, black or white, or even if your father was a rapist!” she trills. But Initiative 26, which would change the definition of “person” in the Mississippi state Constitution to “include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the equivalent thereof,” is more than just an absolute ban on abortion and a barely veiled shot at Roe v. Wade — although it is both. By its own logic, the initiative would almost certainly ban common forms of birth control like the IUD and the morning-after pill, call into question the legality of the common birth-control pill, and even open the door to investigating women who have suffered miscarriages.




Personhood amendments were once considered too radical for the mainstream pro-life movement, but in the most conservative state in the country, with an energized, church-mobilized grass roots, Mississippi could well be the first state to pass one. Initiative 26 even has the state’s top Democrats behind it.

And in Bush, it even has a respectable medical face. Last month, Bush led a press conference of fellow gynecologists to try to refute the “scare tactics” of the opposition, which includes even the solidly conservative Mississippi State Medical Association. (The group feared 26 would “place in jeopardy a physician who tries to save a woman’s life.”) In one of several “Yes on 26″ videos in which she stars, Bush says unequivocally, “Amendment 26 will not ban contraception.”

But when we spoke, Bush was far less sure. And if her smiling face carries the day, the debate over even basic access to birth control could be heading to similar votes in every state legislature, and extremists have their dream case to take to a Supreme Court where the Roe majority teeters precariously.

That’s partly because the Personhood movement hopes to do nothing less than reclassify everyday, routine birth control as abortion. The medical definition of pregnancy is when a fertilized egg successfully implants in the uterine wall. If this initiative passes, and fertilized eggs on their own have full legal rights, anything that could potentially block that implantation – something a woman’s body does naturally all the time – could be considered murder. Scientists say hormonal birth-control pills and the morning-after pill work primarily by preventing fertilization in the first place, but the outside possibility, never documented, that an egg could be fertilized anyway and blocked is enough for some pro-lifers.

Indeed, at least one pro-Personhood doctor in Mississippi, Beverly McMillan, refused to prescribe the pill before retiring last year, writing, “I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions.” Bush does prescribe the pill, but says, “There’s good science on both sides … I think there’s more science to support conception not occurring.” Given that the Personhood Amendment is so vague, I asked her, what would stop the alleged “good science” on one side from prevailing and banning even the pill?

Bush paused. “I could say that is not the intent,” she said. “I don’t have an answer for that particular [case], how it would be settled, but I do know this is simple.” Which part is simple? “The amendment is simple,” she said. “You can play the ‘what if’ game, but if you keep it simple, this is a person who deserves life.” What about the IUD, which she refuses to prescribe for moral reasons, and which McMillan told me the Personhood Amendment would ban? “I’m not the authority on what would and would not be banned.” No – Bush simply plays one on TV. And if her amendment passes, only condoms, diaphragms and natural family planning — the rhythm method – would be guaranteed in Mississippi.




Bush also says in the commercial that the amendment wouldn’t “criminalize mothers and investigate them when they have miscarriages.” And yet if the willful destruction of an embryo is a murder, then that makes a miscarried woman’s body a potential crime scene or child welfare investigation. What about women whose miscarriages were suspected to be deliberate or due to their own negligence? One Personhood opponent, Michele Johansen, told me she wondered whether she could have been investigated for miscarrying a wanted, five-week pregnancy, because she rode a roller coaster. (Her doctor ultimately told her they were unrelated.)

The boilerplate Personhood response, echoed by both McMillan and Bush, is that no woman was prosecuted for miscarriage before Roe v. Wade, so why start now? Of course, there was no Personhood amendment at the time, nor much knowledge of embryonic development. And in countries with absolute abortion bans, like El Salvador, women are regularly investigated and jailed when found to have induced miscarriages.

Pressed, Bush said, “Look at the numbers of women who were injuring themselves [pre-Roe] in an attempt to have an abortion. It was not 53 million,” the estimated number of abortions since Roe v. Wade.

“I don’t have all the answers,” she said, “but those questions that are there do not justify allowing nine out of 10 of the abortions that are being done that are not for the hard cases,” she said.

But a Colorado-based Personhood activist, Ed Hanks, is more than willing to publicly take things to their logical conclusion. He wrote on the Personhood Mississippi Facebook page that after abortion is banned, “the penalties have to be the same [for a women as well as doctors], as they would have to intentionally commit a known felony in order to kill their child. Society isn’t comfortable with this yet because abortion has been ‘normalized’ — as the Personhood message penetrates, then society will understand why women need to be punished just as surely as they understand why there can be no exceptions for rape/incest.”

Personhood represents an unapologetic and arguably more ideologically consistent form of the anti-choice movement. It aims squarely for Roe v. Wade by seizing on language from former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun – the author of the Roe decision — during the hearings that the case would “collapse” if “this suggestion of personhood is established … for the fetus.”

Similar ballot measures have failed twice in Colorado, where an evangelical pastor and a Catholic lawyer started the Personhood movement, but Mississippi is no Colorado. It’s the most conservative state in the nation. Planned Parenthood (which doesn’t even provide abortions in its one clinic here) and the ACLU are dirty words. Where there were once seven abortion clinics in the state, the one remaining flies in a doctor from out of state. As for supporting life, Mississippi’s infant mortality rate is the worst of any state in the nation. The number of babies who die as infants in Mississippi is double the number of abortions annually. It also has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy nationwide, alongside a child welfare system that remains dangerously broken.




Even so, if Initiative 26 passes, it would embolden similar efforts in Ohio, South Dakota, Florida and other states, currently trying to get a Personhood amendment on the ballot in 2012. And though there have been no reliable public polls, insiders on both sides believe it is headed for approval. “This thing will pass if people don’t understand what it really means,” says Oxford-based attorney and Initiative 26 opponent Forrest Jenkins. The Personhood movement “can either convince people that birth control is abortion or they can convince people that it’s not really true and we’re just being silly.” (Indeed, when I asked one college student who described himself as pro-life about the birth-control implications, he said, “I thought that was just gossip.”) Unfortunately for opponents, talking about sweeping and nuanced implications takes a lot more words than “stop killing babies.”

Mindful of anti-abortion sentiment in the state, even the local pro-choice opposition has taken to referring to all these implications – like banning birth-control pills — as “unintended consequences” of the initiative. But as my conversations in Mississippi with pro-Initiative 26 doctors made clear, for many Personhood supporters, these effects are anything but unintended. They’re part of the plan.



I had barely arrived in Mississippi when I was declared a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” by the grass-roots wing of the movement. Les Riley, the self-described “tractor salesman with 10 kids and no money” who got Personhood on the ballot, stopped responding to my messages, so I’d posted interview requests on the Personhood Mississippi Facebook page, disclosing that I was pro-choice but committed to giving them a fair hearing.

“This is just a reminder of some of the ‘Neutral and Fair’ mainstream media that are trying to lure us into debate, argument, and confrontation,” Wiley S. Pinkerton wrote on the same page, not long after. “They are coming to this site hoping to catch us without the full armor of God.”

Of course, even if I’d wanted to, the chances of catching any of them without “the armor of God” seemed remote. The Personhood movement in Mississippi is openly theocratic. Riley has written that “for years, the pro-life movement and the religious right has allowed the charge [of being “religiously motivated”] to make them run for cover. I think we should embrace it.” Riley, in fact, had already enthusiastically embraced Christian secessionist and neo-Confederate groups as part of his coalition. (Thenational media play his personal history received by the time of my visit this month might explain some of the hostility to the press.)

Last summer, a more mainstream face, Brad Prewitt – a lobbyist and former high-level staffer for U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran – took over the campaign at the request of the American Family Association, which, like Prewitt, is based in Tupelo. (Riley continues to actively campaign, though he isn’t listed on the official Yes on 26 site. Prewitt promised an interview several times, but never came through.) Prewitt, too, publicly described the conceptual origin of Personhood being “the Bible, Genesis,” and declared, “Mississippi is still a God-fearing

At several public forums organized by the secretary of state to discuss ballot initiatives, resident Scott Murray’s statement was typical: “I know there is an issue with pregnancies, unmarried pregnancies, but I tell you the greatest prevention is God, and we’ve got to return to God.” So was Stephen Hannabass’ assertion that “we’ve got to repent. We’ve got to come before God and beg for mercy for our state and for our country.” Continue into insanity.