Parenting and reproductive freedoms

Just came across this today:

dreama (Again I Said): of note:parenting controversies edition

dreama has collected some excellent reading (including a post from my co-blogger Lauredhel at my other blog) regarding the ideological and practical struggle against overmedicalised and overcommercialised views of both birth and parenting. Several excellent examples of looking at traditional practises through an evidence-based analysis as well.

When time allows I may well add some of these (or other writings by the same authors) to the Reproductive Freedoms FAQ.

FAQ: What do feminists mean by "reproductive freedom"?

Updated 19Mar2007

Reproductive freedom is so much more than merely being pro-choice. Without reproductive freedom, women's rights to legal equality and social equity cannot be guaranteed.

"Defined by feminists in the 1970s as a basic human right, it includes the right to abortion and birth control, but implies much more. To be realised, reproductive freedom must include not only woman's right to choose childbirth, abortion, sterilisation or birth control, but also her right to make those choices freely, without pressure from individual men, doctors, governmental or religious authorities. It is a key issue for women, since without it the other freedoms we appear to have, such as the right to education, jobs and equal pay, may prove illusory. Provisions of childcare, medical treatment, and society's attitude towards children are also involved."

--The Encyclopedia of Feminism (1986) Lisa Tuttle
ISBN 0-09-944900-5

There are many issues affecting reproductive freedom in various parts of the world: forced-childbirth (eg Romania), forced-abortion (eg China), access to affordable birth control (all countries without universal health care), any access to birth control, access to a healthy diet sufficient to grow healthy babies and safely undergo childbirth, unnecessary caesarians (most Western nations), female genital mutilation (increases childbirth risks), inequitable access to healthcare for women, and many many more.

Submissions are requested for articles addressing these issues.

The pro-choice/pro-life debate will be covered in detail in a separate post (in progress).

Introductory
Evidence Based Midwifery Care
Joyous Birth (homebirth advocacy)
Birthrites (caesarian advice): Scroll down their sidebar for various links (shocking site layout) | Planning a Positive Caesarean for women who need/want a caesarean and want to be in control.

Anyone know some sites where Obstetricians fully embrace evidence-based obstetrics rather than economically/professionally/traditionally rationalised obstetrics? There must be a few. Surely?

Clarifying Concepts

Rights during Childbirth/Birth Abuse
You may never have considered intrusive obstetric practises as abuse, or as "birthrape", a term coming into wider use. This may change your mind.

"Just because it is the standard of care, doesn't mean it's ethical."

Navelgazing Midwife: Oh, the homebirth debate blog...

Why pro-choice?
thinking girl (Thinking Girl): Blog for Choice Day 2007 (lots of links, and a very interesting discussion addressing dissenters)

Check Googlesearch for top-linked "Blog for Choice" posts.

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FAQ Roundup: Introductory material

Updated 03May07

Wanting to join in a discussion with feminists on a blog or other online forum? Need more information? It's a good idea to start with one or both of these two posts, depending on how you came here:

• I asked some feminists a question, and instead of answering they sent me here. Why?
• How to Use This Blog.

Below are the FAQs thus far (this page will be regularly updated on approximately a weekly basis). Qs in small font are in progress but not yet posted. If your question is not addressed in the FAQs below, please check the Open Suggestions Thread to see whether someone else has suggested the same question and/or provided a useful link to an article addressing that question.

Each of the FAQ posts below contain links to other material, especially other blog-posts, from other authors online. The comments threads provide links to further reading supplied by the readers of this blog.

There is some necessary repetition in some of the FAQs, because not everybody is going to read every Q, so material needs to be placed in more than one post to effectively cover various issues.

NB: The FAQs attempt to be descriptive from a reasonably neutral position. There are other posts on this blog which are not FAQs which are intended as general feminist resources and op-eds: these posts are not intended to be neutral documents.

Absolute basics:

• What is feminism?
• What do feminists want?
• Does feminism matter?
• Isn't feminism just "victim" politics?
• Why do some people talk of "feminisms"?
• Can men be feminists?
• What can feminism do for me?
• What can I do for feminism?
• What do you mean by "Not my Nigel"? (feminist abbreviations/jargon)
  

Specific Issues:

• Why are there so many fights between feminists?
• Why do you feminists hate men?
• What is male privilege?
• What is the "Gender Gap"?
• What’s wrong with suggesting that women take precautions to prevent being raped?
• Isn't "the Patriarchy" just some conspiracy theory?
• What do feminists mean by "reproductive freedom"?
• Aren't you all just a bunch of "feminazis"?

Clarifying Concepts:

• What is "sexual objectification"?
• What is the "male gaze"?
• I've got nothing against equal rights for women, but we've got that, so isn't feminism nowadays just going too far ? (aka Why do we still need feminism?)
• Why "feminism" and not just "humanism"? or "equalism"? Isn't "feminism" exclusionary?
• Why are you concentrating so hard on "X" when "Y" is so much more important?
• But men and women are born different! Isn't that obvious?
• How can Feminity be "socially constructed"?
• Feminists just hate heterosexual sex
  

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