Reproductive Oppression

[KarenNC]

Excellant post!

I also think many women in developed nations have a hard time imagining that women in developing nations* really* want many children and large families.

I have no problem believing that some women in developing nations want many children and large families but I also have no problem believing that not every single one of them does, because if that were the case, they would not be abandoning those children or having dangerous and often illegal abortions when those unwanted pregnancies occurred.

What appears to be at issue here is that some folks in developed nations seem to have a hard time imagining that women in developing nations might really want to be able to exert some control over their own reproductive options privately, options that can be exercised in the context of their own resources, values and beliefs, just like women in developed nations, rather than serving as an unwilling poster child for the idealogy of anyone in a developed country.

 

[Petergee]

*But Ugandan Health Minister Mike Mikula rubbished the report, saying condoms remained a vital part of the country’s Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms (ABC) strategy.

“The weight of the ABC is all equal in that abstinence has been one of the critical strengths of Uganda’s ability to reduce the prevalence in the country. And obviously, being faithful, which is the B has equally done very well. But condoms and the distribution of condoms continues unabated.” He said 65 million condoms had been procured about two months ago and another 80 million were on the way. Uganda is often held up as a model of how to fight HIV/Aids, with infection rates falling from 15 to 5%.*

Evidence to support that condom usage increases the spread of HIV?

No, evidence that rich Westerners have pressured Mr Mikula into making a politically correct soundbite. It is breathtaking the way that the Western establishment and their onboard commentariat have ignored the blatantly obvious fact that it is the emphasis on modifying sexual misbehaviour which has so dramatically reduced AIDS rates in Uganda, which had been the highest in the world when the emphasis was on condoms, and are now rising again thanks to the western pressure to increase the promotion of condoms. Not only have they ignored all this but some as here have the nerve to claim that somehow it was actually condoms which reduced the AIDS rates in Uganda! And the west is fiull of people willing to gullibly swallow this without question.

I do not suggest that there is also the need to assist with food aid, however the West does indeed provide food aid which in many countries rots on the docks or is confiscated by the governments in the countries before it reaches those in need.

True that is also a problem in some places. In any case it’s certainly not a matter of not enough contraception.

The issue here is not “telling poor people not to have children”. It is the attitude that providing information about spacing pregnancy or preventing pregnancy and the means to do so to those who **obviously want and need it **because they are aborting pregnancies (even dangerously and illegally) and abandoning children is somehow inherently oppressive.

It’s “obvious” to you. Not to them. They don’t want or need it. They say they don’t want or need it. But you insist they do, and by golly they’re going to get it. That’s reproductive oppression.

 

[mark_a]

Everyone knows Eisenhower’s warning on the military-industrial complex.

Well, not everyone. Help me out?

 

[gardenswithkids]

:banghead:

…The point you seem to be determined to overlook is that teen pregnancy rates, abortion rates, etc have been dropping for decades while contraception use has not. Also noteworthy is that our American experience is much different than that of other developed countries who also have legal abortion and ready access to contraception in terms of the high rates of teen pregnancy, etc.

From the link you provided, Planned Parenthood’s own research institute (AGI) attributes the recent decline of teenage pregnancy in the USA partly to abstinence programs. They also found the contraceptive use of teens increased only 2% from 1988-1995; they attribute the decrease in teen pregnancy mostly to “more effective methods.”

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/05/1/gr050107.html

The AGI analysis concluded that approximately one-quarter of the decline in teenage pregnancy in the United States between 1988 and 1995 was due to increased abstinence… the researchers found that overall contraceptive use increased—but only slightly, from 78% in 1988 to 80% in 1995. … teenagers in 1995 were choosing more-effective methods. A significant proportion had switched to long-acting hormonal methods that were introduced to the U.S. market in the early 1990s, namely, the injectable contraceptive (Depo-Provera) and the contraceptive implant (Norplant). By 1995, more than one in eight teen contraceptive users (13%) was using a long-acting method, and primarily because of this shift, sexually active teens became increasingly successful at avoiding pregnancy.

Notice the contraceptive “choices” for women in developing countries: “less effective methods” that still frequently result in unplanned pregnancies, or “more effective” injectable contraceptives, which seem to cause greater negative side effects on women in developing countries. From a link I posted much earlier: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/nov/07111307.html

Most so-called “modern” contraceptives have been tested in field trials on healthy women of the developed world. Their indiscriminate use on women in the developing world who are malnourished, anemic, or suffer from other health problems can have a devastating effect on women there. …Bangladeshi women who had received Norplant suffered side-effects much more serious than those admitted by Norplant’s proponents: continuous bleeding far heavier than a normal menses, weakness in the limbs, severe pain and, significantly, blurred or double vision….

Encouraging the self-injection of Depo-Provera is another example of a questionable practice that violates FDA regulations and may lead to serious side effects or even death. The population controllers’ dream of the over-the-counter sale of Depo-Provera and birth control pills, and their widespread distribution by “paramedical” staff with only minimal training – both practices which also contravene FDA regulations – has become a reality.

 

[KarenNC]

:banghead:

From the link you provided, Planned Parenthood’s own research institute (AGI) attributes the recent decline of teenage pregnancy in the USA partly to abstinence programs. They also found the contraceptive use of teens increased only 2% from 1988-1995; they attribute the decrease in teen pregnancy mostly to “more effective methods.”

You seem intent on framing this in very extreme terms. I quoted the part that said that some part of the decline in teen pregnancy is due to abstinence programs ("*approximately **one-quarter *of the decline in teenage pregnancy in the United States between 1988 and 1995 was due to increased abstinence").
That leaves the other 3/4s to be explained, and that explanation is not, as you stated, due to them having abortions. It was due to the ones who chose to be sexually active using forms of contraception that were more reliable for them. What is the problem with that? I have never once suggested that abstinence should not be an option for anyone. Just that it is not realistic to believe that it is going to be the option of choice for everyone.

Now, to shift things back to the discussion of family planning among married women in developing countries. If every married woman in every developing country wants as many children as possible, has no interest in any form of family planning to space children or end childbearing and wants every pregnancy that occurs, I would like for both you and Petergee to explain the reasons behind the numbers of abortions in developing countries, including ones in which abortions are illegal.

who.int/inf-pr-1999/en/pr99-28.html
Out of nearly 50 million abortions performed in the world each year (30 million of them in developing countries), 20 million are unsafe…There is an urgent need to make available a wider range of contraceptive methods to allow users greater freedom to choose what suits their needs best.

guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html
The abortion rate in Asia and Africa are at 29% and 31% in Latin America, 30% in the developing world if one excludes China.

Of the 182 million pregnancies that occur in developing countries, more than one-third are unintended, and 19% end in induced abortion (8% are safe procedures and 11% are unsafe…More than 100 million married women in developing countries have an unmet need for contraception, meaning they are sexually active; are able to become pregnant; do not want to have a child soon or at all; and are not using any method of contraception, either modern or traditional.

findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3876/is_199906/ai_n8874638/pg_6
Married women obtain a higher proportion of abortions in developing countries than in developed countries. In the developing world, married women account for very high proportions of abortions in the Asian countries, including the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, and three of the four Latin American countries represented (Colombia, Dominican Republic and Peru).

Notice the contraceptive “choices” for women in developing countries: “less effective methods” that still frequently result in unplanned pregnancies, or “more effective” injectable contraceptives, which seem to cause greater negative side effects on women in developing countries.

Which would be exactly why I am advocating that the true oppression is the limitation of information on and access to the same range of family planning choices available to those of us in developed countries.

 

[Good_Daughter]

What appears to be at issue here is that some folks in developed nations seem to have a hard time imagining that women in developing nations might really want to be able to exert some control over their own reproductive options privately, options that can be exercised in the context of their own resources, values and beliefs, just like women in developed nations…

You seem to have missed the mark here. I think everyone, those who oppose contraception and those who are contraceptive minded, understands that women “want to be able to exert some control over their own reproductive options”. Understanding the need for reproductive options (no matter where a woman lives) is a no-brainer. Who do you think fails to grasp this?

…rather than serving as an unwilling poster child for the idealogy of anyone in a developed country.

People in developed nations trying to help women in developing nations are going to do this in the way they think is best. If I believe contraception is harmful (and it can be) why would I promote it to anyone? That includes my children, friends or women in developing nations, all of whom I am trying to love as best I can. I might as well promote smoking to these people. After all, it is often relaxing and enjoyable and I know many people who have smoked for years suffering few to no adverse health effects.

If I believe contraception is beneficial, I can promote it comfortably after a brief cost/benefit analysis. The only problem here is (from my own reproductive health experience in Canada) contraception tends to be promoted to the exclusion of fertility awareness methods of birth control. Can you show me that my experience is exceptional? Are reproductive health care providers around the globe willing to do what it takes to properly teach fertility awarenwess as birth control before giving women the choice between fertility awareness and contraception?

 

[bankerdavid]

NFP is most certainly just as much a method of contraception as any other reversible method such as birth control pills, etc. It is used for exactly the same reason (to avoid becoming pregnant at a specific time while still allowing the couple to engage in intercourse), it simply works by a different mechanism, one that is acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church.

What NFP is is letting God show us what’s best, instead of believing that we know what’s best for ourselves.

 

[Good_Daughter]

Which would be exactly why I am advocating that the true oppression is the limitation of information on and access to the same range of family planning choices available to those of us in developed countries.

Our range of access to family planning choices in developed countries, medically speaking, usually extends from one end of the contraceptive spectrum to the other, excluding any type of fertility awareness education or birth control.

Most physicians are involved in their patients’ family planning only insofar as it involves contraception. For fertility awareness family planning, patients are on their own. (With a few fortunate exceptions.) That’s not much of a range.

 

[gardenswithkids]

…That leaves the other 3/4s to be explained, and that explanation is not, as you stated, due to them having abortions. It was due to the ones who chose to be sexually active using forms of contraception that were more reliable for them. What is the problem with that?
…Which would be exactly why I am advocating that the true oppression is the limitation of information on and access to the same range of family planning choices available to those of us in developed countries.

Karen, communicating with you frustrates me. You do not follow what I write. Frankly, I don’t know if it’s because you simply don’t want to or can’t, or if I am the one who fails to make myself clear, or if you prefer to twist my words to promote your agenda. I always like to assume the best of people, so I assume you have good intentions behind your beliefs and/or your agenda. My assumption of basic goodness is what motivates me to continue discussing this with you even though I find it frustrating. I will try again to explain the statistics we have already discussed. If you still don’t understand the association between contraception, increased unplanned pregnancy, and abortion, *please open a new thread *so others might try explaining and discussing this with you.

Contrary to what you just wrote, I *did not *claim that teenage pregnancy dropped due to abortions–I claimed live births dropped due to abortions. (Abortion generally means a pregnancy does not end in live birth as the embryo/fetus/baby is delivered dead. Sorry, I tried avoiding what the pro-choice crowd considers “inflamatory language” but I need to be more blunt since you didn’t understand what I wrote earlier)

I claimed and showed with Canadian statistics that abortion increased at a very steady rate for over a decade once contraception and abortion became readily available in their society. In Canada, the increase of abortions occured at a very steady rate in the years following the legalization of the birth control pill. People change their sexual behavior when they think they can engage in sex without getting pregnant, yet all methods of contraception have failure rates. When contraception fails, many women turn to abortion.

Moving onto America. The teenage pregnacy rate following wide-scale acceptance and availability of contraception, which continued for about two decades until other efforts to reduce teenage pregnancy beyond pushing contraception took effect. According to the research from AGI (associated with Planned Parenthood) the recent decrease in teenage pregnancy is due to both abstinance education and to “more effective” contraception, as the increase of contraception use by teens barely budged. AGI attributed 3/4 of the drop to “more effective contraception”. Promoting abstinance helps reduce pregnancy, but using contraception didn’t reduce unplanned pregnancy if women choose less effective contraception methods. Note that while many push condom use in the US, condoms were* not* listed amoung the “more effective” methods of contraception. AGI named “more effective” methods to be more permanent hormonal contraceptives like Depro-prevera and Norplant.

Back developing countries, which was the thread topic. Petergee has provided some discussion and links regarding the lack of effectiveness of condoms in preventing disease, and they are also “less effective” methods of birth control. Contraceptive methods Planned Parenthood considers “more effective” have more negative side effects on undernourished women in developing countries. Women in developing countries don’t simply lack "access to the same range of family planning choices available to those of us in developed countries"–they frequently malnourished and sick from lack access to food and clean water.

You say you want to give more contraceptive choices to women in developing nations, but more “choices” isn’t neccesarily good if the added “choices” are harmful and/or deadly. A basic rule of good medicine is to “do no harm”; contraceptive methods of “family planning” harm both women and their society.