In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Tag: International

How To Top A Mohammed Cartoon

Run a Holocaust cartoon. Way to take a stand for your dearly-held national free speech values, Iran! We knew you had it in ya.*

I’m sure that the right-wing blogosphere will immediately denounce anyone who questions the good taste of these cartoons as an anti-free-speech advocate. And to further their love of free speech, I’m sure they’ll reproduce these cartoons on their sites (or at least link to them), just like so many of them did with the Mohammad cartoons. Maybe we’ll even get t-shirts! Because it’s all about free speech, no matter how offensive.

To be serious: There is a difference between making a cartoon about a mass genocide, and making a cartoon which features an image of a diety who isn’t supposed to be imaged. But supposedly this issue is strictly about speech — if you think it’s acceptable to not print horrifically offensive things on the editorial pages, you’re a fascist. Now, I’m a big First Amendment fan. I’d fight to the death (well… maybe not death, but high pain levels) for the rights of individuals and the press to create and publish what they want. But I also recognize that there’s a big difference between things like individually-created art and something promoted by the editorial board of a newspaper, which is why comparisons to things like Piss Christ and Corpus Christi don’t exactly follow. I think it’s sick that an Iranian newspaper is comissioning these cartoons. But my view is fairly consistent: Regardless of content, newspapers should have the right to print the images and words of their choosing, but they should make efforts to not be full-on bigots; their speech should have a point, and not simply seek to offend. I think this is true regardless of whether they’re depicting Muslims, Christians, Jews, Blacks, Asians, whoever. As a legal standard, of course, press and speech rights should be unfettered. And ideally, those rights would be used to challenge and to inform, not just to offend. If they do offend, use your own freedom of speech as a response — but the line gets drawn when you’re trying to shut down the conversation through violence, threats of violence or coercion.

So I’m curious to see how people will respond now that the content of the cartoons has changed. I longingly await Buy Iranian campaigns, demands for U.S. newspapers to publish the cartoons, and calls to give people who are offended by the cartoons a culture war. I’m sure the ever-consistent right wing will be on this immediately.

*Sarcasm, for the slower among us.

UK Stands Up For Women’s Lives

Maybe I’ll move to London.

The British government will today publicly defy the United States by giving money for safe abortion services in developing countries to organisations that have been cut off from American funding.

Nearly 70,000 women and girls died last year because they went to back-street abortionists. Hundreds of thousands of others suffered serious injuries.

Critics of America’s aid policy say some might have lived if the US had not withdrawn funding from clinics that provide safe services – or that simply tell women where to find them.

Way to go, British government! This issue refers, of course, to the Global Gag Rule, which cuts off U.S. funding to any organization abroad that so much as mentions the word “abortion.” U.S. funding never pays for abortion abroad, so this isn’t an issue of foreign aid paying for actual procedures. The Gag Rule cuts off funding to any group that tells pregnant women if abortion is a legal option; lobbies its own government for reproductive rights; or performs abortions with its own non-U.S. funding. This rule further extends to HIV/AIDS funding, meaning that numerous AIDS clinics have been de-funded, cut back and shut down in the name of “pro-life” politics. And the clinics that are losing funding are the very clinics that are attempting to prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place, and that provide basics like prenatal and well-baby care.

DFID asked IPPF to produce a report on the scale of the damage caused by unsafe abortion. Death and Denial: Unsafe Abortion and Poverty, is published today. It reveals that an estimated 19 million women will risk the consequences of an unsafe abortion this year, of whom 70,000 will die. This accounts for 13% of the 500,000 maternal deaths each year. Reducing unsafe abortions is critical to reaching the UN’s Millennium Development Goal on cutting maternal mortality, said Mr Thomas.

Women’s low status in many poor countries makes them vulnerable to sexual coercion, abuse and exploitation, says the report. Almost 50% of sexual assaults worldwide are against girls aged 15 or less.

The death and injury toll is highest in countries where abortion is illegal or severely restricted, as in Kenya, where some 30% to 50% of maternal deaths are a result of unsafe abortion.

The Family Planning Association of Kenya, an IPPF member, chose to forfeit US funds rather than sign the “global gag” clause. It was forced to close three reproductive health clinics, scale back others and slash outreach programmes.

But restricting abortion is life-affirming.

When abortion is banned or highly restricted, and when women are lied to or blocked from basic access to reproductive healthcare, they die. The current U.S. policies kill women, period. They are not pro-life. And the UK deserves a huge round of applause for taking a big step to protect women’s health and women’s lives.

Thanks to Ms. Lauren for the link.