Human Rights: Protect Pregnant Women: Free Bei Bei Shuai

 This War on Women needs to stop. If our society wants to reduce abortions - the thing to do is do give women more support - not less - and definitely NOT punishment for being depressed. Depression is a mental health issue. Bei Bei Shauai should not be charged with murder. This is clearly the wrong message to send to women who need assistance and support. I am signing this because I believe that criminalizing women who attempt suicide, or otherwise exert their own rights to their own bodies, is ridiculous and effectively strips women of their right to physical autonomy. You are basically enslaving women, and this woman does NOT deserve this punishment. It is her body, her choice to stay alive or not. If you don't want women's choices to effect a foetus, then find a way for it to survive outside the womb!Please do your part (if you believe in the cause only) and sign the petition to free Bei Bei Shuai..

Katha Pollitt
March 7, 2012
This article appeared in the March 26, 2012 edition of The Nation.

On March 14, Bei Bei Shuai will have spent one full year in jail in Marion County, Indiana. Her crime? The prosecutor calls it attempted feticide and murder. What it really is: attempting suicide while pregnant.

In December 2010 Shuai was running a Chinese restaurant in Indianapolis with her boyfriend, Zhiliang Guan, by whom she was eight months pregnant. Just before Christmas, he informed her that he was married and had another family, to which he was returning. When Shuai begged him to stay, he threw money at her and left her weeping on her knees in a parking lot. Despairing, she took rat poison and wrote a letter in Mandarin saying she was killing herself and would “take this baby with me to Hades”; friends got her to the hospital just in time to save her life. Eight days later her baby, Angel, was delivered by Caesarean section and died of a cerebral hemorrhage within four days. Three months later, the newly elected prosecutor, Terry Curry—a Democrat—brought charges, claiming that the rat poison that almost killed Shuai had killed her baby. If convicted, she faces forty-five to sixty-five years in prison.

Unfortunately, punishing women for their behaviour during pregnancy is becoming more and more common, fuelled by the passage of “unborn victims of violence” laws in at least thirty-eight states declaring the foetus (or, in twenty of those states, even the embryo or fertilized egg) a separate victim in cases of homicide. In most instances these laws were intended to protect pregnant women from violence, especially from abusive partners, not to apply to the women themselves. But that is what has happened, as the anti-abortion forces have gained power. “The prosecution’s legal arguments are exactly based on legal arguments behind the personhood measures now moving through the states,” Lynn Paltrow, executive director of NAPW, told me by phone. “They treat the fetus as completely separate within the pregnant woman. How can you be separate and within?”It is hard to know where to begin listing what’s wrong with this case. Consider the health ramifications: attempting suicide is not a crime in Indiana. It’s the tragic result of mental illness, depression and extreme emotional distress; and it’s not uncommon for pregnant women to seriously consider it, or even try it. According to a 2010 study in Obstetrics & Gynecology, suicide is the fifth leading cause of death among pregnant women. Pregnant women in crisis need and deserve compassion and treatment. But if Shuai is convicted, what pregnant woman will seek help? “Every major medical and public health organization that has considered the issue has concluded that it is dangerous for maternal and fetal health to hold women criminally liable for their pregnancy outcomes,” says Emma Ketteringham, director of legal advocacy for National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), which is co-counsel to Shuai’s defense. Eighty such groups and experts—including the National Perinatal Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Nurses Association—have filed amicus briefs.

Pro-choicers have focused on the dangers fetal personhood measures present to abortion rights. That danger is real: they’re part of the antiabortion strategy to build up the legal status of the fetus as a person in so many parts of the law that when the Supreme Court finally revisits Roe v. Wade, a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy will look like a bizarre exception. But these laws pose broader dangers to women, because they hold pregnant women liable for any conduct during pregnancy that a local prosecutor suspects caused a bad outcome—and bear in mind that every year 15-20 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, 1 percent end in stillbirth and another 19,000 end in neonatal death. Under these laws, hundreds of pregnant women have been arrested, often on only tenuous evidence that their actions, including drug use, harmed their fetuses. In Alabama sixty women have faced such charges.

“These laws say there’s one law for pregnant women and another for everyone else,” says Linda Pence, the energetic Indiana lawyer representing Shuai. “For everyone else suicide is a mental health issue. For a pregnant woman, it’s a crime. That’s a violation of women’s constitutional right to equal treatment under the law.” If Shuai is convicted, Pence notes a further paradox: “If you’re two months pregnant and try to commit suicide, you can be charged with feticide, even though you could have a legal abortion.” Although maybe not for long.

In its briefs the state portrays Shuai as a heartless and calculating home wrecker who lived with a married man and “committed a cold-blooded and intentional act that ended the life of her unborn child” in order to punish him when he left. But who is really being cold-blooded here? The woman who tried to kill herself, who held her baby for five hours as her life slipped away and wept inconsolably when she died? and who then went into a psych unit? Or the prosecution who thinks pregnant women are legally required to stay sane until they give birth?

In February Shuai was granted bail on appeal—something, says Pence, no defendant in a murder case in Indiana has won in more than a hundred years. The bad news is that the court of appeals refused to dismiss the case. For now, Shuai remains in jail. I asked Curry if those eighty expert amicus briefs gave him pause. “I’m the prosecuting attorney,” he replied. “We don’t make the law. We enforce the law.”

How you can help: keep up with the case on Twitter @FreeBeiBei; “like” Free Bei Bei Shuai on Facebook; donate to NAPW at advocatesforpregnantwomen.org or by check to NAPW, 15 West 36 Street, #901, New York, NY 10018; write to Bei Bei in care of NAPW. You can also sign the petition to free Bei Bei Shuai.

A Letter in a Lost Wallet

As I walked home one freezing day, I stumbled on a wallet someone had lost in the street. I picked it up and looked inside to find some identification so

I could call the owner. But the wallet contained only three dollars and a
crumpled letter that looked as if it had been in there for years.

The wallet that started it all...

The envelope was worn and the only thing that was legible on it was the
return address. I started to open the letter, hoping to find some clue. Then
I saw the dateline--1924. The letter had been written almost sixty years ago.

It was written in a beautiful feminine handwriting on powder blue
stationery with a little flower in the left-hand corner. It was a "Dear John"
letter that told the recipient, whose name appeared to be Michael, that the
writer could not see him any more because her mother forbade it. Even so, she
wrote that she would always love him.

It was signed, Hannah.

It was a beautiful letter, but there was no way except for the name
Michael, that the owner could be identified. Maybe if I called information,
the operator could find a phone listing for the address on the envelope.

"Operator," I began, "this is an unusual request. I'm trying to find the
owner of a wallet that I found. Is there anyway you can tell me if there is a
phone number for an address that was on an envelope in the wallet?"

She suggested I speak with her supervisor, who hesitated for a moment then said, "Well, there is a phone listing at that address, but I can't give you
the number." She said, as a courtesy, she would call that number, explain my
story and would ask them if they wanted her to connect me. I waited a few
minutes and then she was back on the line. "I have a party who will speak
with you."

I asked the woman on the other end of the line if she knew anyone by the
name of Hannah. She gasped, "Oh! We bought this house from a family who had a daughter named Hannah. But that was 30 years ago!"

"Would you know where that family could be located now?" I asked.

"I remember that Hannah had to place her mother in a nursing home some
years ago," the woman said. "Maybe if you got in touch with them they might be able to track down the daughter."

She gave me the name of the nursing home and I called the number. They told me the old lady had passed away some years ago but they did have a phone number for where they thought the daughter might be living.

I thanked them and phoned. The woman who answered explained that Hannah herself was now living in a nursing home.

This whole thing was stupid, I thought to myself. Why was I making such a
big deal over finding the owner of a wallet that had only three dollars and a
letter that was almost 60 years old?

Nevertheless, I called the nursing home in which Hannah was supposed to be living and the man who answered the phone told me, "Yes, Hannah is staying with us. "

Even though it was already 10 p.m., I asked if I could come by to see her.
"Well," he said hesitatingly, "if you want to take a chance, she might be in
the day room watching television."

I thanked him and drove over to the nursing home. The night nurse and a
guard greeted me at the door. We went up to the third floor of the large
building. In the day room, the nurse introduced me to Hannah.

She was a sweet, silver-haired old timer with a warm smile and a twinkle in
her eye.

I told her about finding the wallet and showed her the letter. The second
she saw the powder blue envelope with that little flower on the left, she took
a deep breath and said, "Young man, this letter was the last contact I ever
had with Michael."

She looked away for a moment deep in thought and then said Softly, "I loved
him very much. But I was only 16 at the time and my mother felt I was too
young. Oh, he was so handsome. He looked like Sean Connery, the actor."

"Yes," she continued. "Michael Goldstein was a wonderful person. If you
should find him, tell him I think of him often. And," she hesitated for a
moment, almost biting her lip, "tell him I still love him. You know," she said
smiling as tears began to well up in her eyes, "I never did marry. I guess no
one ever matched up to Michael..."

I thanked Hannah and said goodbye. I took the elevator to the first floor
and as I stood by the door, the guard there asked, "Was the old lady able to
help you?"

I told him she had given me a lead. "At least I have a last name. But I
think I'll let it go for a while. I spent almost the whole day trying to find
the owner of this wallet."

I had taken out the wallet, which was a simple brown leather case with red
lacing on the side. When the guard saw it, he said, "Hey, wait a minute!
That's Mr. Goldstein's wallet. I'd know it anywhere with that bright red
lacing. He's always losing that wallet. I must have found it in the halls at
least three times."

"Who's Mr. Goldstein?" I asked as my hand began to shake.

"He's one of the old timers on the 8th floor. That's Mike Goldstein's
wallet for sure. He must have lost it on one of his walks."

I thanked the guard and quickly ran back to the nurse's office. I told her
what the guard had said. We went back to the elevator and got on. I prayed
that Mr. Goldstein would be up.

On the eighth floor, the floor nurse said, "I think he's still in the day
room. He likes to read at night. He's a darling old man."

We went to the only room that had any lights on and there was a man reading a book. The nurse went over to him and asked if he had lost his wallet. Mr. Goldstein looked up with surprise, put his hand in his back pocket and said, "Oh, it is missing!"

"This kind gentleman found a wallet and we wondered if it could be yours?"

I handed Mr. Goldstein the wallet and the second he saw it, he smiled with
relief and said, "Yes, that's it! It must have dropped out of my pocket this
afternoon. I want to give you a reward."

"No, thank you," I said. "But I have to tell you something. I read the
letter in the hope of finding out who owned the wallet."

The smile on his face suddenly disappeared. "You read that letter?"

"Not only did I read it, I think I know where Hannah is."

He suddenly grew pale. "Hannah? You know where she is? How is she? Is she still as pretty as she was? Please, please tell me," he begged.

"She's fine...just as pretty as when you knew her." I said softly.

The old man smiled with anticipation and asked, "Could you tell me where
she is? I want to call her tomorrow." He grabbed my hand and said, "You know something, mister, I was so in love with that girl that when that letter came, my life literally ended. I never married. I guess I've always loved her. "

"Mr. Goldstein," I said, "Come with me."

We took the elevator down to the third floor. The hallways were darkened
and only one or two little night-lights lit our way to the day room where
Hannah was sitting alone watching the television. The nurse walked over to
her.

"Hannah," she said softly, pointing to Michael, who was waiting with me in
the doorway. "Do you know this man?"

She adjusted her glasses, looked for a moment, but didn't say a word.
Michael said softly, almost in a whisper, "Hannah, it's Michael. Do you
remember me?"

She gasped, "Michael! I don't believe it! Michael! It's you! My Michael!"
He walked slowly towards her and they embraced. The nurse and I left with
tears streaming down our faces.

"See," I said. "See how the Good Lord works! If it's meant to be, it will
be."

About three weeks later I got a call at my office from the nursing home.
"Can you break away on Sunday to attend a wedding? Michael and Hannah are going to tie the knot!"

It was a beautiful wedding with all the people at the nursing home dressed
up to join in the celebration. Hannah wore a light beige dress and looked
beautiful. Michael wore a dark blue suit and stood tall. They made me their
best man.

The hospital gave them their own room and if you ever wanted to see a
76-year-old bride and a 79-year-old groom acting like two teenagers, you had
to see this couple.


I found this beautiful story and had to share. Hope it's true and seriously makes you believe in the world's good again. I don't cry easily and I was in tears at the end. Hope you liked it.

More than just a OS, it's a Way of Life

"An anthropologist studying the habits and customs of an African tribe found himself surrounded by children most days. So he decided to play a little game with them. He managed to get candy from the nearest town and put it all in a decorated basket. at the foot of a tree.

Then he called the children and suggested they play the game. When the anthropologist said "now", the children had to run to the tree and the first one to get there could have all the candy to him/herself.

So the children all lined up waiting for the signal. When the anthropologist said "now", all of the children took each other by the hand ran together towards the tree. They all arrived at the same time divided up the candy, sat down and began to happily munch away.

The anthropologist went over to them and asked why they had all run together when any one of them could have had the candy all to themselves.

The children responded: "Ubuntu. How could any one of us be happy if all the others were sad?"

 

Ubuntu is a philosophy of African tribes that can be summed up as "I am what I am because of who we all are."

 

Bishop Desmond Tutu gave this explanation in 2008 :
"One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity, caring, empathy, sharing and respect (Pillars of Ubuntu Living). We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity."

This philosophy embodies the life I am striving to live.  I know I am only human, but in that humanity, I can attempt my humble best to enrich the lives of others around me.  Even if you don’t buy into complete selflessness, or that there is no such thing as true altruism, understand that helping others really just helps yourself in the end. Either way, we should all be trying our best to live out ubuntu, because it’s simply just a way of life.
This is what Africa can teach the world. We have forgotten how to be human beings, and we must remember quickly if we are to save the world. Life is an instrument and we have lost the ability to play it. People live but they are not alive. We must use life and play it like an instrument and make beautiful music.

Conversation between a Professor and Student

I'm sure a few people have read this, it has made its rounds on the internet and emails but I found it very interesting so had to share!


Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?

Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, you believe in God ?

Student : Absolutely, sir.

Professor : Is God good ?

Student : Sure.

Professor: Is God all powerful ?

Student : Yes.

Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn’t. How is this God good then? Hmm?

Student was silent.

Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?
Student : Yes.

Professor: Is satan good ?

Student : No.

Professor: Where does satan come from ?

Student : From … God …

Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.

Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And God did make everything. Correct?

Student : Yes.
Professor: So who created evil ?
Student did not answer.


Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student : Yes, sir.

Professor: So, who created them ?

Student had no answer.

Professor: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen God?

Student : No, sir.

Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?

Student : No , sir.

Professor: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God? Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?

Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.

Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?

Student : Yes.

Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?

Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.

Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?

Professor: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student : No, sir. There isn’t.

The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.

Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.

There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.


Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?

Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?

Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?

Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.

Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?

Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.


Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

The class was in uproar.

Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
The class broke out into laughter.


Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.

Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.

Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & God is Faith. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.
By the way, that student was Einstein.



I enjoyed the conversation but one correction will have to be that we can indeed see evolution in our lifetime and have.
Some critics have said that the kinds of rapid evolutionary changes in insects and bacteria referred to above are not good evidence of the process of natural evolution because they occur as a result of human interference.  
However, there is abundant evidence of rapid evolution occurring today independent of people.  An example was described by Cristina Sandoval in the May 23, 2002 issue of Nature.  A species of insect called the "walking stick" (Timena cristinae) found in the Santa Ynez Mountains of California now exists in two distinct varieties or forms that are in the process of evolving into two separate species by adapting to different environments.  The insect forms differ in terms of genetically determined color patterns--one is striped and the other is not.  The striped ones hide from predators on the striped chamise plant, while the unstriped ones hide on the unstriped blue lilac plant.  Those that have inherited the appropriate camouflaging color pattern for their chosen environment survive the onslaught of lizards and birds.  In this case, the natural predators, rather than humans, are the driving forces of natural selection.  Mating experiments show that each variety of "walking stick" prefers to mate only with others having the same color pattern.  This breeding isolation is leading to the evolution of two distinct species.

Women's Liberation going backwards - 10 Reasons The Rest Of The World Thinks The U.S. Is Nuts

I just read this article on Huffington Post by Soraya Chemaly and am in awe of her logical reasoning and passion. I am in complete agreement with everything she says.

I do know that this is targeted towards US and it's issues currently with a few states introducing bills that are going backwards in Women's Liberation. However, I know that the arguments are just as applicable to the rest of the world (which may not have women aware and educated enough to fight for their rights yet or are simply not in the spotlight). This is not about culture, religion, morality or life. This is about respecting another person's choice to do what he/she wants with his body and his life.

This week the Georgia State Legislature debated a bill in the House that would make it necessary for some women to carry stillborn or dying fetuses until they 'naturally' go into labor. In arguing for this bill Representative Terry England described his empathy for pregnant cows and pigs in the same situation.

I have a question for Terry England, Sam Brownback, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and too many others: I have three daughters, two of them twins. If one of my twins had been stillborn would you have made me carry her to term, thereby endangering both the other twin and me? Or, would you have insisted that the state order a mandatory fetal extraction of the living twin fetus from my womb so that I could continue to carry the stillborn one to term and possibly die myself? My family is curious and since you believe my uterus is your public property, I am, too.

Mr. England, unlike the calves and pigs for which you expressed so much empathy, I am not a beast of burden. I am a woman and I have these human rights:

The right to life.
The right to privacy.
The right to freedom.
The right to bodily integrity.
The right to decide when and how I reproduce.

Mr. England, you and your friends do not get to trade these rights, while "dog and hog hunting," in return for a young man's chickens.

My human rights outweigh any you or the state corruptly and cynically seek to assign to a mass of dividing cells that will eventually turn into a 'natural' person. Personhood-for-zygote based bills and related legislation, like Georgia's and hundreds of others, bills and laws that criminalize pregnancy and abortion and penalize women for being women, violate my human rights.

Just because you cannot get pregnant does not mean I cannot think clearly, ethically, morally, rationally about my body, human life or the consequences of my actions. Just because you cannot get pregnant does not mean that I do not have rights when I am pregnant. I have responsibility but am powerless. You have power but are irresponsible with my rights.

By not trusting me, you force me to trust you. And YOU are not trustworthy.

I gestate humans, you do not. I know how it feels to be pregnant. You do not. I know what happens to a fetus in a womb. You do not. I have carried three fetuses to term. You have not. What I experience when I am pregnant is not empathy. It is permeability. The fetus is me. And the state is you, apparently. But, no matter what you say or do I have fundamental human rights. What makes you think that you, who cannot have this fully human experience, can tell me anything about gestation or how I experience it? Especially when you compare my existence and experience to that of brutish animals.

The rest of the civilized world thinks this country has lost its mind. It's no wonder. Look at this list of frenzied misogyny:

1. Making women carry still-born fetuses to full term because cows and pigs do. This week, Mr England, you supported a bill, the net effect of which, taken tandem with other restrictions, will result in doctors and women being unable to make private, medically-based, critical care decisions and some women being effectively forced to carry their dead or dying fetuses. Women are different from farm animals, Mr. England, and this bill, requiring a woman to carry a dead or dying fetus is inhumane and unethical. By forcing a woman to do this, you are violating her right not to be subjected to inhuman treatment and tortured. And, yes, involuntarily carrying a dead fetus to term, although not torture to you or to a pig, is torture for a woman. It is also a violation of her bodily integrity and a threat to her life and as such violates her right to life.

2. Consigning women to death to save a fetus. Abortions save women's lives. "Let women die"bills are happening all over the country. There is no simple or pretty way to put this. Every day, all over the world, women die because they do not have access to safe abortions. Yet, here we are, returning to the dark ages of maternal sacrifice. Do really have to type this sentence: this is a violation of women's fundamental right to life.

3. Criminalizing pregnancy and miscarriages and arresting, imprisoning and charging women who miscarry with murder, like Rennie Gibbs in Mississippi or at least 40 other similar cases in Alabama or like Bei Bei Shuai, a woman who is now imprisoned, is charged with murder after trying to commit suicide while pregnant. Pregnant women are becoming a special class subject to "special" laws that infringe on their fundamental rights.

4. Forcing women to undergo involuntary vaginal penetration (otherwise called rape)with a condom-covered, six- to eight-inch ultrasound probe. Pennsylvania is currently considering that option along with 11 other states. Trans-vaginal ultrasounds undertaken without a woman's consent are rape according to the legal definition of the word. This violates a woman's bodily integrity and also constitutes torture when used, as states are suggesting, as a form of control and oppression. Women have the right not to be raped by the state.

5. Disabling women or sacrificing their lives by either withholding medical treatment or forcing women to undergo involuntary medical procedures. We impose an unequal obligation on women to sacrifice their bodily integrity for another. For example, as in Tysiac v. Poland, in which a mother of two, became blind after her doctor refused to perform an abortion that she wanted that would have halted the course of a degenerative eye disease. If my newborn baby is in need of a kidney and you have a spare matching one, can I enact legislation that says the state can take yours and give it to her? No. We do not force people to donate their organs to benefit others, even those who have already been born. One of the most fundamental of all human rights is that humans be treated equally before the law. Denying a woman this right is a violation of her equal right to this protection.

6. Giving zygotes "personhood" rights while systematically stripping women of their fundamental rights. There is too much to say about the danger of personhood ideas creeping into health policy to do it here. But, consider what happens to a woman whose womb is not considered the "best" environment for a gestating fetus in a world of personhood-for-zygote legislation: who decides the best environment -- the state, her insurance company, her employer, her rapist who decides he really, really wants to be a father? Anyone but a woman.

7. Inhibiting, humiliating and punishing women for their choices to have an abortion for any reason by levying taxes specifically on abortion, including abortions sought by rape victims to end their involuntary insemination, imposing restrictive requirements like 24 hour wait periods andempowering doctors to lie to female patients about their fetuses in order to avoid prosecution. In Arizona, Kansas, Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Arkansas and other states around the country bills that make women "pay" for their choices are abounding.

8. Allowing employers to delve into women's private lives and only pay for insurance when they agree, for religious reasons, with how she choses to use birth control. InArizona, which introduced such a bill this week, this means covering payment for birth control as a benefit only when a woman has proven that she will not use it to control her own reproduction (ie. as birth control). As much as I am worried about women and families in Arizona though, I am more worried about those in Alabama. You see, as recently revealed in a public policy poll in Alabama, conservative, evangelicals who support "personhood" related "pro-life" legislation and are fighting for their "religious liberty" -- 21 percent think interracial marriage should be illegal. So, what if they decide that an employee involved in an interracial marriage should not, by divine mandate, reproduce? Do they switch and provide birth control for this employee? Do they make contraception a necessary term of employment for people in interracial marriages? This violates a woman's right to privacy. My womb is one million times more private than your bedrooms, gentlemen.

9. Sacrificing women's overall health and the well-being of their families in order to stop them from exercising their fundamental human right to control their own bodies and reproduction. Texas just did that when it turned down $35million dollars in federal funds thereby ensuring that 300,000 low-income and uninsured Texas women will have no or greatly-reduced access to basic preventive and reproductive health care.

10. Depriving women of their ability to earn a living and support themselves and their families. Bills, like this one in Arizona, allow employers to fire women for using contraception. Women like these are being fired for not.

You presume to consign my daughters and yours to function as reproductive animals.

This is about sex and property, not life and morality. Sex because when women have sex and want to control their reproduction that threatens powerful social structures that rely on patriarchal access to and control over women as reproductive engines. Which brings us to property: control of reproduction was vital when the agricultural revolution took place and we, as a species, stopped meandering around plains in search of food. Reproduction and control of it ensured that a man could possess and consolidate wealth-building and food-producing land and then make sure it wasn't disaggregated by passing it on to one son he knew was his -- largely by claiming a woman and her gestation capability as property, too.

This is not about freedom of religion. If it were, we would, for example, allow Christian Scientists to refuse to pay for coverage of life-saving blood transfusions for employees. Religious freedom means I get to chose whether or not to be religious and if so, how. It does not mean that I get to impose my religion on others. Paying for insurance is part of the way we compensate employees, even when they use their insurance in ways we don't agree with and are in contravention of our own personal beliefs. I think that it is stupid, dangerous and immoral to chain smoke, especially around children whose lungs it irreparably harms. But, I still have to pay for an employee to have access to lung scans, nicotine patches and oxygen tanks. I do not get to say that my religious beliefs, which include keeping bodies as healthy as possible, make it possible for me to withhold payment of this employee's insurance. Guaranteed coverage of contraception and reproductive health care has overwhelming benefits for society, including reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortions. By inserting your religious beliefs so egregiously into government legislation and my life, you are imposing your religious beliefs on me. You don't like mandated insurance coverage for basic reproductive health humans with two X chromosomes? I don't like being bred by state compulsion like Mr. England's farm animals. I have a MORAL OBJECTION to being treated like an animal and not a human. You do not have to use contraception, you do not have to use birth control. But, that does not mean you have any right to tell me that I cannot if I chose. That is my right.

Property, control, sex, reproduction, morality, defining what is human. Sounds a lot like issues surrounding slavery 170 years ago. It is no surprise that of the 16 states that never repealed their anti-miscegenation laws, but rather had them overturned by the Supreme Court in 1967 more than half have introduced personhood bills. Like anti-miscegentation laws, anti-choice laws and bills that humiliate women, that treat them like beasts, that violate their bodily autonomy, are based on ignorance, entitlement and arrogance. These laws are not about "personhood" but "humanity." That women of color are massively, disproportionately affected by these assaults on their bodies and rights should also come as no surprise - their rights and their bodies have always been the most vulnerable assault.

This is about keeping women's wombs public and in other people's control -- the exact opposite of private and in their own control.

And, yes, I do know how complicated the ethics, bioethics and legal arguments related to these decisions are. You, apparently, do not. If you were truly concerned with sustaining life and improving its quality or in protecting innocent children, you would begin by having compassion and empathy for living, born people that require and deserve your attention. You feed them, educate them, lift them from poverty and misery. You do not compound these problems as you are with twisted interpretations of divine will. Only after that do you have the moral legitimacy to entertain the notion of talking to me about myuterus and what I do with it. By then, fully functional artificial wombs should be available and you can implant your own, since you are so fond of animal analogies, as was completed with this male mouse. What you are doing is disgraceful, hypocritical and morally corrupt.

And, no, I am not crazy. I am angry.

Mr. Santorum, Mr. England and Mr. Brownback and Mr. Perry you should consider not clinging so dangerously and perversely to the Agrarian Revolution ideas. Birth control and safe abortions are life-saving technologies. These archaic bills and laws, wasteful of time, money and lives, obscure an enduring and unchangeable truth: safe and effective family planning is the transformative social justice accomplishment of the 20th century. They will not go away. This is a revolution, too.

In a 1851 speech in which she argued for equal rights for women, Sojourner Truth said the following: "The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don't know what to do. Why children, if you have woman's rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won't be so much trouble."

Do you, Terry England, Sam Brownback, Rick Santorum and friends even know who Sojourner Truth is?

English Proficiency Test Rant

A few weeks ago, I was trying to sort out my student visa after getting accepted into a university in another country. It was like Déjà Vu since I had done most of the same things 3 years ago when I went to UK; except I’ll admit that although I did the research about universities and courses back then, my Dad did the rest. The cost estimates, visa processes, paperwork…all that jazz. Now that I’m 21, obviously I did these things on my own and I don’t resent the responsibility but like many people, I appreciate the effort it takes and can’t imagine how much harder and selfless it must be to do it for someone else (I guess parenthood is mainly about being selfless but that’s not the point).

1. 
   
   This really long-winded introduction is to get me to the point of the English Proficiency tests that both universities and embassies require. I can understand why a university wants a student to be proficient in English before they accept them to study in their classes where the medium of instruction is English.
   
   
   As a side note, I consider English my first language. Oriya is my mother tongue (quite literally, as it is the language my parents speak in) but even at home, we speak of mixture of English, Oriya, Hindi and Bahasa Indonesia (My sister and I also speak in Spanish because it’s easy to hide things from the folks that way.) I feel most comfortable in English and to have to take an English test as a FOREIGN language is very offensive. The SATs, on the other hand, were challenging and in hindsight, more enjoyable.
   
   
   However, once accepted, the embassies require you show them the same thing to grant you a student visa. Let me be honest here, I did the TOEFL in 2008, so that’s 3 and a half years ago and the TOEFL is only valid for two years. Because obviously everyone forgets how to communicate in a language after two years; during which time, they were attending university in the place that English originated from: England. I have high SAT scores in the Reading and Essay section. I have been studying in English from the time I was 3, so that’s 18 years but that was in Singapore and Jakarta (where I attended an American International School) instead of Canada, UK, Australia or USA. It’s amazing the amount of restrictions an embassy will place on you just to make you pay $250 to take a test that insults your intelligence, wastes 5 hours of your time, all spent in vain for a piece of paper that is only valid for 2 years. I don’t understand how someone’s English can deteriorate in two years (from a near perfect score, I might add) to the point that they are dumb enough to not be allowed into your country? By the way, I’m going to your country to study, with no guarantees of a skilled job in the future and paying international fees which are 3-4 times that of local students. If that isn’t a risky investment, I don’t know what is.
   
   
   Of course I wasn’t annoyed that I had to take an exam the first time I took it; it’s one of the most effective ways to gauge someone’s skills. However, for the reason that they have given me: validity…I am fuming. Their expensive tests are obviously not perfect, which testing system is? Anyone who has been to university has met those belligerent villagers from small towns who have somehow received entry into the country with the language skills of a monkey. I’m not referring to accents but to the type of people who legitimately don’t understand when a lecturer is speaking to the class, those who take notes on Human Anatomy in their mother tongue. How do you translate hypothalamus or coccyx? It’s ridiculous. I’m not denying that there are certain things you might understand better in your own language but since you will take your final exam in English, I suggest you practice throughout the year.
   
   
   If they want to check on my English, I besiege them, read my blog. I assure you, not only will you learn something but you will be more than pleased with my standard of English. If that is still not enough and you think I might have a scribe hidden somewhere, interview me. I swear, if you are not impressed with my diction, pronunciation and command of the English language within 3 minutes, I will take every bloody test you throw at me.

   
   

   Update: Finally did the TOEFL and Got a 118 out of 120. Better than my scores 3 years ago (116) so must've learnt something from the English and my blog-writing.

   
   

   And to clarify, this is about why it is required from someone with my language background; it's a complete insult to have to take a test that measures the skills of English as a foreign language, when it's my first language. It's about the US$500 and my 8h spent in the testing room. If time and money isn't valuable, what is (in this context)?