In most of my circles, my friends and colleagues would say the woman. However, we continue to see policies both direct and indirect, local and international, that give us pause.
Two recent articles both dealing with women and pregnancy struck me, both for their injustice, but also for the ways in which the rhetoric surrounding women's bodies continues to be framed in patriarchal, controlling tones.
I have a very visceral repulsion of the recent use and abuse of tasers by police officers. Where they might hesitate to pull a gun, too often, we see videos and news reports that show people given the authority to protect citizens, often abuses that power to intimidate or simply to get their way. Unfortunately, the courts frequently back up this behavior of the police officers, even when there was no perceived threat by the person on which it was used. A very disturbing example happened recently here in Seattle.
A woman seven months pregnant was pulled over for speeding in a school zone. She refused to sign the ticket, because she did not wish to admit guilt. Normally, as many commenters pointed out, this would lead to her being cited, sent a summons, and they would battle it out in court. However, the officer decided that her belligerence, within her vehicle, and with no threat of harm or any sign of a weapon, warranted Tasering. The threat to her unborn child, something that many people seem is a life sacrosanct at conception, a fetus now nearing its development in utero, wanted, and intended to be kept, was threatened because someone with a badge wanted to prove they were mighty.
I cannot imagine the horror she must have gone through at such an experience wondering if her child was harmed in such a way. There are no studies to show what effects Tasering has in the long-term on adults, let alone what it does to developing fetuses. Though reports say she gave birth to a healthy child, the mother is permanently scarred, and there is no way to be certain that long-term damage has yet to be seen within the child as it grows. For a non-lethal weapon, Tasering has a growing list of deaths associated with its use, and reports of abuses are piling up fast.
What does this have to do with policy, rhetoric, and pregnancy? I find it odd that in a country where people scream obscenities at women who choose to terminate pregnancies that more respect and consideration of the dangers acts like the one mentioned above would be sanctioned in a court of law. What does this say about our nation? Are we a schizophrenic people? Is it all hypocrisy? For some it must be a difficult case to process, especially if they happen to both adamantly support the right and authority of police to utilize whatever force they deem necessary, yet on the other hand vehemently oppose any danger or threat posed toward a fetus. I would ask that those who feel strongly toward both to please give insight how one deals with such a moral position. Was it right for the police officer to tase her? Or was doing so violating the duty to the protection of an unborn child?
In Turkey, a larger debate is taking place that leads those of us who are outside to wonder whether we have a right to interfere in the policies of a culture not our own. Women in Turkey are banned from seeking artificial insemination abroad, for the practice violates the country's laws. For a people who, as I understand it, value human life and increasing the chance of children, it seems a schism between policy and... something else, to imprison women should they seek to increase their chance at conceiving. Clearly, as the rest of the article would indicate, this is tied intrinsically into a deeper power play within the political arena of modern day Turkey; something to which I am woefully ignorant. However, this obsession with assuring that women bear children, but the right children seems far outside the realm of rationalization. For certainly, if there are women to prosecute for becoming inseminated, this means that there are Turkish citizens who think they should have the right to practice this form of conception.
But Pinar Ilkkaracan, a prominent women's rights campaigner in Turkey, said it would be a misinterpretation of a law intended to protect the inheritance rights of children. "This is completely against the philosophy of the reformed penal code," she told the BBC. "We spent years fighting to improve the law so that it would properly protect women's autonomy over their bodies and sexuality. "This government has slipped this regulation in without any debate in parliament."
For now, I shall be grateful that there are women like Ilkkaracan in Turkey fighting for the rights of women within the context of their own culture, but what if her voice and those like hers are silenced? Do women from the outside, especially we privileged women in the U.S. have any right to step in and fight on behalf of them? At what point does legislation of women's bodies cease to be something that governments continue to take authority over?
Certainly our own government continues to struggle with these issues to this day. Just look at the types of women's rights slippage introduced into the recent healthcare bill! I do not wish to say that all women are the same in every culture, the blanket feminism applied by Western scholars over the world's women has proved disastrous time and again, but I do wish to recognize that on some level, we are all fighting for similar goals; most notably to be treated as human beings. Everything else is details, and to that, I would say that we should support the culturally coherent goals of those fighting within their own societies for the rights they deem are appropriate to them. Just as I hope that should women within the U.S. ever find ourselves silenced, those outside our borders would support us in reclaiming our agency.
That being said, I must wonder, who is already silenced within our nation? As this blog has already proven, I have a few ideas thus far...
