November 21, 2004

• The Religious Right and Reproductive Freedom I‘ve yet to meet a fellow Catholic in this country who’d beat an atheist to death because he didn’t fast during Lent. Some people are complaining that Bush took away their reproductive rights. Last I heard, my friends are still reproducing. One of my high school friends just had her second child, a daughter. And some of my patients are still having legal abortions, elective and spontaneous — and in Middle America, even. Imagine that! I don’t know what alternate reality of the U.S. of A. these whiners are living in, but where I’m at, people still have their reproductive freedom. In fact, high schools are doling out condoms to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to express their reproductive freedom, even if it means they’re more likely to become pregnant and become one of my preecclampsia patients. Yup, I still have my reproductive freedom. Not so for this fellow: 2004 Tuesday 16 November A 14 year old boy is sentenced to 85 lashes for breaking his Ramadan fast A 14 year old boy died on Thursday, November 11th, after having received 85 lashes; according to the ruling of the Mullah judge of the public circuit court in the town of Sanandadj he was guilty of breaking his fast during the month of Ramadan. The Kurdish site Rojeh’heh Lat reports that the young man’s identity has not been disclosed. He was scheduled for burial on Saturday, November 13th (after 3 days at the local morgue), in the cemetery of Beheshteh Mohammadi in Sanandadj. However due to the public’s realization of the events surrounding the boy’s circumstances the cemetery was stormed [in protest] and his burial did not take place. According to informed sources, supervisors have instructed that the burial take place in the presence of his closest relatives, surveyed by security forces. from http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/source/001327.html Or this woman: Mutilated Western Woman Found in Fallujah Home John Little at 9:33 am The body of a blonde-haired woman with her legs and arms cut off and throat slit was found lying on the street in Fallujah, a notorious enclave for hostage-takers, marines said. “It is definitely a Caucasian woman with long blonde hair,” said a military official, who cut open a cover that had been over the corpse. . . . “It is a female missing all four appendages, with a slashed throat and disembowled, she has been dead for a while but only in this location for a day or two,” said Benjamin Finnell, a hospital apprentice with the Navy Corps, who had inspected the body. An AFP photographer embedded with the marines said the woman was wearing a blue dress and her face was completely disfigured. from http://www.blogsofwar.com/archives/2004/11/14/mutilated-western-woman-found-in-fallujah/ To me, “reproductive freedom” means that no one has the right to perform a hysterectomy on me against my will. I’m fertile, and I’m proud of it. Hand me another maxi pad, will ya? This one’s sopping wet.

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