May 2008 Archives
Woke this morning to the news that Save The Children have published a report. It describes how some UN peacekeepers are sexually abusing children in the places that they are deployed. I'm somewhat relieved to see that they admit to having sacked 3 of their own employees for breaking their guidelines, if not the law. Aid workers and UN troops are sent out there to help people on the edge of vulnerability, thanks to events beyond their control - especially children. Nearly all of them do the job properly. But it's funny how the gutter press aren't even reporting the news. It's harder to call charity workers and blue berets 'sick','perverted' 'monsters', isn't it? It's not nice to have it brought home to you, so very starkly, that abusers and rapists aren't frothing degenerates who are barely human.
No, The Sun would rather dismiss the Martian mission as boring. It's staff have evidently spent more time thinking up ways to scorn this (seriously, to the point of buying bags of red earth from B&Q; they're wilfully stupid sometimes.) than to spare a thought for the children whose collective vulnerability is being so horribly exploited. Which is funny, because they have always gotten all het up about child abusers (paedophiles, the term they involuntarily misuse for child abusers are regularly described as sick, perverted and monsters. It's like playing bingo with them. And they always seem to take a prurient interest in the crimes commited by abusers...) Anyway; small, brown children? They're not even remotely interested. They're much busier asking the Page 3 girl about the 'boring' photos from Mars.
Anyway, to calm down, I'm going to read the Independent's article about Phoenix... Fascinating, isn't it?
No, The Sun would rather dismiss the Martian mission as boring. It's staff have evidently spent more time thinking up ways to scorn this (seriously, to the point of buying bags of red earth from B&Q; they're wilfully stupid sometimes.) than to spare a thought for the children whose collective vulnerability is being so horribly exploited. Which is funny, because they have always gotten all het up about child abusers (paedophiles, the term they involuntarily misuse for child abusers are regularly described as sick, perverted and monsters. It's like playing bingo with them. And they always seem to take a prurient interest in the crimes commited by abusers...) Anyway; small, brown children? They're not even remotely interested. They're much busier asking the Page 3 girl about the 'boring' photos from Mars.
Anyway, to calm down, I'm going to read the Independent's article about Phoenix... Fascinating, isn't it?
Sanity continues to reign, just. Any reduction of the time limit for abortion in the UK has been rejected by the government in Westminster. The majority was about 70 in the vote regarding 22 weeks, and about 140 against 20 weeks. Some of my faith has been restored in our elected representatives.
On the other hand, I'm reminded of Mark Thomas. Anti-abortion campaigners disprove their own point every time they open their mouths on the subject. My faith in people has been sorely tested. I should know better than to go anywhere near the pages that the Daily Male lob onto the internets, really. I used to think that news sources were meant to report both sides of a story like this, to allow the reader to make up their own mind. Evidently, the Male don't trust their readers to make what they think is the right decision, as you can see from their reporting. Seriously, someone in the pictures department at that paper seems to have photo-of-foetusitis. They've run that photo on every article relating to any aspect of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. And they're claiming that it's a foetus at 23 weeks in the story I've linked too, which confuses me somewhat. Surely that's more like an embryo at about 16 weeks development? I don't claim to be any kind of expert, but how and ever.
Compare it with the article in the Guardian today. It's a left-wing, liberal paper. They regularly report on things from a feminist standpoint. I have a bit of a girl-crush on Kira Cochrane. As I explained to Ken yesterday, a girl-crush isn't the same as a crush. I don't want Kira Cochrane, I want to be her. Ditto Melissa McEwan. (the post I've linked to there is simply the most recent that she's written, at my time of writing, it's just handy that it's about feminist anger)
The thing that amused me and horrified me most last night, as I waited for the reports to come through about each amendment being defeated, was the BBC's Have Your Say section. The debate on abortion is a perfect storm of bad grammar, ignorance and closeted human selfishness. I have only one thing [edit - apparently it's more than one thing, but they're all on the one theme] to say to all the people who think there should be a reduction on the limits. Other than 'piss off back to the rock you crawled out from under'.
Who are you to impose your experience on anyone else? Every single woman who has an abortion has a good reason to be doing so. It's none of your damned business what those reasons are, but it's evidently more than good enough for her. Just because you've had a particular set of experiences in your life, that does not mean that everyone else's experiences have been the same. No-one has the right to impose their life view on other people. If you don't want an abortion, whatever your reasons, don't have an abortion. But the woman in the abusive relationship, who's partner starts hitting her at 14 weeks? Who are you to say she's 2 weeks too late to terminate that pregnancy?
Oh, and can someone please, please, please explain to me, what the fuck is a "social abortion"? As far as I've been able to figure out, it's a very nebulous term to describe terminations where the health of the mother or foetus isn't at risk. What's social about that? And how dismissive and minimising a term is that? A woman who is pregnant after being raped and decides to terminate? Social abortion. A woman who is pregnant by her abusive partner, who is desperate to escape the relationship (bear in mind that the same people who want abortion more restricted also bleat on about the importance of a father, as it's never occured to them that some fathers physically and sexually abuse their children; the level of cognition would blow their brain cell) because she is in fear for her life? Social abortion. These are but two of the examples that have been used a lot in recent debates, there are a million more permutations. But they're all written off in a way that makes it sound like the woman involved are more concerned about what other people think at best; being able to go out and get bladdered every weekend at worst.
I'll leave you with my most favourite comment from Have Your Say...
Emphasis mine, naturally. Chris from Dunstable is apparently advocating using a time machine to jail men who will go on to impregnate women by raping them. Gotta love his logical world view!
On the other hand, I'm reminded of Mark Thomas. Anti-abortion campaigners disprove their own point every time they open their mouths on the subject. My faith in people has been sorely tested. I should know better than to go anywhere near the pages that the Daily Male lob onto the internets, really. I used to think that news sources were meant to report both sides of a story like this, to allow the reader to make up their own mind. Evidently, the Male don't trust their readers to make what they think is the right decision, as you can see from their reporting. Seriously, someone in the pictures department at that paper seems to have photo-of-foetusitis. They've run that photo on every article relating to any aspect of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. And they're claiming that it's a foetus at 23 weeks in the story I've linked too, which confuses me somewhat. Surely that's more like an embryo at about 16 weeks development? I don't claim to be any kind of expert, but how and ever.
Compare it with the article in the Guardian today. It's a left-wing, liberal paper. They regularly report on things from a feminist standpoint. I have a bit of a girl-crush on Kira Cochrane. As I explained to Ken yesterday, a girl-crush isn't the same as a crush. I don't want Kira Cochrane, I want to be her. Ditto Melissa McEwan. (the post I've linked to there is simply the most recent that she's written, at my time of writing, it's just handy that it's about feminist anger)
The thing that amused me and horrified me most last night, as I waited for the reports to come through about each amendment being defeated, was the BBC's Have Your Say section. The debate on abortion is a perfect storm of bad grammar, ignorance and closeted human selfishness. I have only one thing [edit - apparently it's more than one thing, but they're all on the one theme] to say to all the people who think there should be a reduction on the limits. Other than 'piss off back to the rock you crawled out from under'.
Who are you to impose your experience on anyone else? Every single woman who has an abortion has a good reason to be doing so. It's none of your damned business what those reasons are, but it's evidently more than good enough for her. Just because you've had a particular set of experiences in your life, that does not mean that everyone else's experiences have been the same. No-one has the right to impose their life view on other people. If you don't want an abortion, whatever your reasons, don't have an abortion. But the woman in the abusive relationship, who's partner starts hitting her at 14 weeks? Who are you to say she's 2 weeks too late to terminate that pregnancy?
Oh, and can someone please, please, please explain to me, what the fuck is a "social abortion"? As far as I've been able to figure out, it's a very nebulous term to describe terminations where the health of the mother or foetus isn't at risk. What's social about that? And how dismissive and minimising a term is that? A woman who is pregnant after being raped and decides to terminate? Social abortion. A woman who is pregnant by her abusive partner, who is desperate to escape the relationship (bear in mind that the same people who want abortion more restricted also bleat on about the importance of a father, as it's never occured to them that some fathers physically and sexually abuse their children; the level of cognition would blow their brain cell) because she is in fear for her life? Social abortion. These are but two of the examples that have been used a lot in recent debates, there are a million more permutations. But they're all written off in a way that makes it sound like the woman involved are more concerned about what other people think at best; being able to go out and get bladdered every weekend at worst.
I'll leave you with my most favourite comment from Have Your Say...
The situation at its most logical:
chris, dunstable
1. We cannot prove conclusively that the foetus is not a person.
2. To kill it knowing it might be a person is therefore a worse course of action than allowing it to live.
Other circumstances are important to the individual, but not the main sacrosanct issue.
In cases of pregnancy by rape, frankly I'd rather work on a society that means rapists are shown no mercy and never leave prison, so there's less chance of it occurring.
Emphasis mine, naturally. Chris from Dunstable is apparently advocating using a time machine to jail men who will go on to impregnate women by raping them. Gotta love his logical world view!
I read this blog post, via feministe.
I'm not going to tell you about my experiences, for a multitude of reasons, other than to say that my number is 2. And the second one... well, I've only recently equated it to rape, so am still mentally resistant to calling it that. Even though I would call it that if it had happened to any other woman in the world. That's how pervasive and insidious all the rape myths and apologists are. Even though I know that it was rape, because it wasn't violent, because it was my partner, because I'd agreed to sex previously... I'm sure you can fill in the rest without thinking about it too hard. Anyway. Read the post; she writes about it far better than me.
*****
With apologies to Jud especially... I'm unlikely to be posting much for the next 10 days or so. I'm hosting an international visitor, so my time will be taken up somewhat. This is why I should be tidying my room, I currently have nowhere to put him! Not even in the wardrobe - the shoe mountain at the bottom would make it awkward.
So, do take care and I will catch up soon enough!
I'm not going to tell you about my experiences, for a multitude of reasons, other than to say that my number is 2. And the second one... well, I've only recently equated it to rape, so am still mentally resistant to calling it that. Even though I would call it that if it had happened to any other woman in the world. That's how pervasive and insidious all the rape myths and apologists are. Even though I know that it was rape, because it wasn't violent, because it was my partner, because I'd agreed to sex previously... I'm sure you can fill in the rest without thinking about it too hard. Anyway. Read the post; she writes about it far better than me.
*****
With apologies to Jud especially... I'm unlikely to be posting much for the next 10 days or so. I'm hosting an international visitor, so my time will be taken up somewhat. This is why I should be tidying my room, I currently have nowhere to put him! Not even in the wardrobe - the shoe mountain at the bottom would make it awkward.
So, do take care and I will catch up soon enough!
You may recall that I mentioned Judge Julian Hall some time back; a charity had raised concerns about his record of handling cases involving sexual assault of children. As I recall, I said in my post that I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he had more than the 2 dodgy sentences on his record. Well, knock me down with a feather; another blogger used Google and found out that there are no surprises. Other than that this man has gotten away with it for as long. And probably will continue to do so.
***
I have no other news. Been working every day since last Thursday, so there's virtually nothing to report. Is it just me, or are all the news reports regarding Joseph Fritzl basically just repeating the same thing over and over? And why am I not surprised that the Daily Male's frothing at the mouth over it? Just for my own curiosity, when the story broke, I looked at the comments on the Male's article. 35 out of 130 commenters expressed doubts that the woman's mother didn't know what was going on in the cellar. Isn't it amazing how quickly people like to blame a victim?
***
I have no other news. Been working every day since last Thursday, so there's virtually nothing to report. Is it just me, or are all the news reports regarding Joseph Fritzl basically just repeating the same thing over and over? And why am I not surprised that the Daily Male's frothing at the mouth over it? Just for my own curiosity, when the story broke, I looked at the comments on the Male's article. 35 out of 130 commenters expressed doubts that the woman's mother didn't know what was going on in the cellar. Isn't it amazing how quickly people like to blame a victim?
