I hope everyone has filled out their Birth Survey. It is ongoing, so if you haven't done so, please do. It's a small way you can make a huge difference. It will take about 20-30 minutes of your time.
Debra Pascali-Bonaro, the director of "Orgasmic Birth", posted this link on her Facebook. I found it to be incredibly powerful and thought-provoking. I wanted to share it here. It is titled "How Personhood USA & The Bills They Support Will Hurt All Pregnant Women."
On a personal note, I have always considered myself to be anti-abortion. I obviously love babies! I've determined that the majority of people do not believe abortion to be a good thing to do. This topic was addressed at the Controversies in Childbirth Conference last weekend in several talks and panels. When you realize how fetal rights interfere with a woman's right to make choices for herself and her baby, you simply cannot condone the anti-abortion laws. They contradict one another.
Let me explain a bit further: If a woman is told her baby is too big (or a number of other examples) and the doctor is recommending a C-section -- for the safety of the baby -- the mother potentially loses her rights because the fetus's life has more value, according to Personhood USA. The doctor is seen as the expert and therefore holds all the power. The mother looses her power to decide for herself. Her baby's life has more protection than her own.
A close friend was telling me about her mother having an abortion many years ago in order to save her own life. It was a devastating event. Under Personhood USA, the fetus potentially has the right to live, regardless of the mother's medical condition. Had the laws provided protection for the baby over the mother, my friend, along with her 3 siblings, potentially could have lost her mother.
Women should be informed of all their options and the implications of their decisions -- and then allowed to make their own choices -- whether that means to have a homebirth, a VBAC, an epidural, or even an elective C-section. She has the rights to make those choices. It's a shame that women have to fight to give birth the way they want to, worrying about the legalities surrounding her birth and the possibility of having a most likely unnecessary surgery forced upon her.
I believe in choice. I believe that our Founding Fathers of this great country intended for us to have the freedom of choosing what is in our best interest, not just for us, but for our families. I do not want to see doctors having more control over how women birth their children. You can imagine how the C-section rate would climb even higher with more states enforcing this Bill.
I don't believe that with the current President and Congress holding power in the U.S. that we will see this widespread, but it is happening around the country, as mentioned in the five states in the story. The implications are more far-reaching than it appears when you first hear about the bill. Fetal rights sound great until you realize how it takes away the rights of the pregnant woman.
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