Orgasmic Birth - The Best Kept Secret

Hi all,

Just thought I'd let you know I'm passionate about womens' autonomy throughout pregnancy. There are many ways I demonstrate my passion for good births in my private life and helping my friend launch the Victorian screening of Orgasmic Birth is one of them.

Birth Attendants.info presents:

Orgasmic Birth - The Best Kept Secret
by filmmaker Debra Pascali-Bonaro

A documentary that examines the intimate nature of birth and the powerful role it plays in womens’ lives when they are able to experience it fully.

A film to touch your heart and challenge your preconceptions of childbirth, this film is a must see for mothers-to-be and professionals who support birthing women. It encourages us to view the process of labour and birth as an event that can be ecstatic, a life highlight rather than a trauma to be endured.

In Orgasmic Birth, beautiful images of labouring women ripple through the professional commentary, revealing a phenomenon that is rare in public media today — a normal labour. Safely supported by sympathetic medical professionals, doulas and family, we see women giving birth who experience a monumentous life event that is both empowering and enlightening. Orgasmic Birth is a call to women everywhere: “Women of earth, take back your birth.”

Orgasmic Birth is an educational documentary and is exempt from classification. As it contains images of birthing women, we recommend viewing by Adults Only.

Screening at The Palace Como, located at the corner of Toorak Road and Chapel Street, South Yarra (2 hours free parking in Centre).

Premiere screening on Friday 3rd October at 6:30pm ($28, includes light refreshements and features guest speakers Dr Sarah J Buckley & Rhea Dempsey)

Second screening Monday 6th October at 6:30pm ($22, light refreshments only)

Bookings Essential
Contact: http://www.birthattendants.info/orgasmic_birth.html

Tell the Truth Coalition are at it again with exaggerations and lies

There have been more than a few hits on this blog through google searches for the Tell the Truth coalition. Here's why. With the Abortion Law Reform Bill to be debated in parliament soon it looks like the leaflet drops have started again. This article says the new leaflets were distributed in Ballarat, and it indicated that these leaflets differed from the first lot in March, depicting graphic images of partial birth abortions.

*sigh*

They are now acting in direct contravention of the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau ruling. Maybe they've received legal advice? Maybe they think that foot-soldiers for god are above the law? At any rate, this warranted some investigation, so here goes:

I just visited the Tell the Truth Coalition website and it's new and improved with the rather confused message that decriminalising abortion will give you no rights.

Most interestingly, the new leaflet seems to be on their website and old Ron Van Wegen (readers from March will remember him as the guy who accused me of possessing many unsavory character traits) seems to have authorised it as well as written it. The mobile number they ask you to call for their media contact is the same as the one on the pamphlet I received in March.

I could not find any reference to Ron's Blog (which has not been updated since July) on the website. Perhaps he is afraid of the kind of response he received last time? In March, many, many people were able to use his site as reassurance that they were not alone in their outrage. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't want a repeat of that kind of social solidarity.

Anyway, this new leaflet does not contain any photos that I would have thought were offensive or graphic, so they have probably not violated the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau ruling. The partial birth abortion is diagrammatic, with the usual depiction of the woman as merely a vessel for baby. In other words, there was no woman in the pictures. ("Heaven forbid we remind folks that there is a woman involved!!")

The leaflet does, however, contain the usual exaggerations and outright lies:

a) Ron does not mention that most of parliament seems to be considering Option B and says that the new laws will legalise "all abortions up until the moment of birth". This panicky statement made me laugh, birth does not occur in a "moment". Can you imagine a woman in labour deciding she needed an abortion NOW!?? Jeepers. A big red cross in the sanity stakes for use of dramatic language Ron. But seriously, he betrays a view of women as satanic harpies who would carry a baby for nine months then abort on a whim. It's so sad that he is not alone in this view.

b) "Punish medical staff who refuse to co-operate in an abortion." If anyone can find the bit in the legislation that says non-participation in an abortion will be a crime, please, point me to it. I have not heard of it. There HAS, however, been talk of the possibility of medical staff being discriminated against if they refuse to participate in abortions - discriminated against in the sense that they will not be employed by institutions who perform abortions. Ron is again, guilty of exaggeration to the point of falsehood.

c) "Deny legal protection to women being coerced into having an abortion." This one would be hilarious if it weren't for the gravity of the situation. Women have always had legal protection against coerced abortions, at least as far as the actual procedure is concerned. All she has to do is say she does not want one and the abortion becomes assault if it commences. Women who are coerced into unwanted abortions are made victims by their families or lovers way before they get to the clinic door. The new law will neither decrease nor increase their vulnerability.

d) "Allow violent offenders to end the life of an unborn child without murder or manslaughter charges." Do I really need to say anything here? To the best of my knowledge, the Child Destruction laws will remain mostly intact. So violent offenders who attack a woman with the intent of killing the foetus will still be prosecuted under that law. We also had laws against violence itself last I heard, it's not as though violent offenders will go unpunished.

e) As for "Do you want the Victorian Government to legalise Partial Birth Abortion?" Partial birth abortion has never been illegal here. The new bill will not affect the legality of partial birth abortions.

Seriously, I hope people DO write to their MPs saying "I heard you are going to legalise partial birth abortions!!!" and, "Now women who are being coerced into having abortions will have no legal protection at all!!!" Because they are going to sound like crazies who do not have the faintest idea about what is really going on.

Ron seems to have a loose grip on reality too. It's a shame he has enough funding to print leaflets. I note, however, that the Tell the Truth Coalition does not seem to have the numbers to fund or deliver leaflets Victoria-wide. This says a great deal about the number of crazies out there, that is, that there seem to be fewer crazies than sane people.

Those of you who have read this far might be interested in my other posts on the Tell the Truth Coalition, particularly this one on Pro-Life Lie Dissemination Tactics.

New Blog for my Family Stuff

I've done it. I've finally decided to cut the personal from this blog and stick it somewhere pink. Literally.

Blogger does not have a convenient tool to move posts from one blog to another so I am laboriously cutting and pasting. Progress will be slow. Since Blogger's failing means I will not be able to move posts and retain comments, I will not delete the few posts that have comments and redirect readers to them.

Because issues like birth and breast feeding are both personal and political, I may post some items on both blogs. I don't know how it will pan out yet.

I'm doing this because posts about taking your toddler into the disabled loo didn't gel well with posts about pro-life pollies. Also, I wanted to get my mother off Emervents and into a more family oriented blog. I want to write about her, then I see my most recent posts here and it feels all wrong.

Hopefully this will cure my writer's block re my mother, because I think some of the stuff I found out is useful, especially for anyone having to care for an alcoholic.

I don't know what to do about my Orgasmic Birth writer's block though... maybe I'll be able to get to it once I start my new job tomorrow... speaking of writing... I still haven't found any Jane Austin :-(

For Non-providers of Abortion - a Notice to Patients

Labour MP Christine Campbell wants to push for "amendments to protect women" whatever the result of the vote in Victorian Parliament on decriminalising abortion. More precisely, she wants this:

"mandatory counselling for women deciding to have an abortion; no career disadvantage for medical professionals who object to performing or assisting with abortions; and a requirement that those performing abortions have obstetric or gynaecological training" from The Age, August 21st 2008

Now, do ya think the last one might reduce the availability of abortions by reducing the number of people qualified to perform them? Hmmm, I don't see how restricting services for women with problem pregnancies protects women. And why should a reproductive health clinic that provides abortions hire a theatre nurse with religious objections to abortion? Methinks the moral objections held by said nurse would make said nurse unsuitable for the position, so, denying said nurse employment on those grounds is a perfectly acceptable form of discrimination practised by employers the world over. Giving said nurse inappropriate employment does not protect women, it endangers them. As for mandatory counseling? Just another way to treat us like moral infants. It's insulting.

I think, that if she truly wants to protect women, she will protect them from the humiliation of asking a medical professional for help who will refuse to assist her due to religious beliefs.

Thanks to the blog Abortion Clinic Days for this, a notice that doctors could place in their clinics to provide accurate and impartial information for women regarding their reproductive health care:

NOTICE TO PATIENTS

I follow my own religious beliefs ahead of your medical needs. Therefore, I will not support, offer, or approve any of the following checked off below.

__ I do not subscribe to a woman's right to make her own decisions about her reproductive healthcare.

__I do not believe that a woman has the right to choose her method of contraception and therefore will not sell prescription birth control.

__I do not believe in Emergency Contraception, even if you have been raped, and will therefore not give you Plan B to prevent pregnancy.

__ I do not believe in abortion and therefore will not provide an abortion nor will I offer a referral for an abortion elsewhere.


When this sign is posted in all healthcare institutions from doctor's offices to clinics to emergency rooms to pharmacies, then women will have true freedom of choice. Women will know before they make an appointment, spend money and time whether their healthcare provider offers the services they are seeking. We are informed of the contents of our food, our haircare products, our drinks. Why not which healthcare needs we will be denied before the humiliation!

Thanks also to Lauredhel for the link to Abortion Clinic Days. A truly interesting read.

Leslie Cannold always says it better - on men and the abortion debate

This is what I have been wanting to say about men's involvement in the abortion debate, but I lacked the time and probably the simple eloquence (I haven't got my "writing me" back from the Indonesian yet).

Leslie Cannold is a passionate advocate for our choices when confronted with problem pregnancies. If you wish to thank her, you can write here: admin@prochoicevic.org.au

If you also wish to thank Colleen Hartland for her moving story in the age on the 19th of August you can write here: colleen.hartland@parliament.vic.gov.au

Pregnancy Hotline Gravid with Hidden Costs

Can somebody tell me please, how 11 counsellors sitting by the phone costs us 15.1 MILLION dollars?

Are they housed all year in five star hotels? Are their headsets gold plated? Do they get a bonus every time they convince a woman to "choose life"?

*sigh* I was wrong. Tell The Truth is UP.

I forgot that it had changed its address and changed ownership. See this post for all the details...

Oh, and just in case anyone finds their website, the picture they say is of a foetus in the mother's womb is not in a womb. That foetus is dead. It is still impossible to get a picture of a live foetus with that kind of clarity.

Here is an interview with the guy who pioneered the techniques used for creating crystal clear images, Lennart Nilsson. He also pioneered the use of endoscopes to take pictures of live foetuses, however, the ones I've seen still lack the clarity obtainable when the foetus is removed from the mother.

I really need to sleep, I haven't slept properly for days... perhaps tonight is the night?

Tell The Truth is still down, so why am I depressed?

It's midnight, I've been running around all day on four hours sleep and now I'm trying to relax. Why then, am I reading the stuff that causes me the most depression? (The Victorian Abortion Bill coverage.) Possibly because I am depressed.

Why? Who knows? The two people who have read my thesis really like it, I've got a good offer for a Masters candidature investigating consciousness at the nexus of philosophy of mind and neuroscience (a huge dream come true), I've been head hunted by a malaria lab back in biochemistry (very flattering) and I've agreed to interim work with them that should knock our big debt on the head. Also, my Indonesian student got on a plane last week, so that particular irritation is gone, and I finally had a conversation with a woman who's been avoiding me for years for reasons I never quite understood so was able to show that I'm not scary really. My Aunts have kindly told me that they will worry about my mother for me, which is a huge relief, my kids are gorgeous, my husband is a hairs breadth from finishing his PhD, and, I'm having a week off. So why all the symptoms? Bursting into tears at random, sleeplessness, grumpiness and general apathy?

Maybe because I'm not having a week off? I'm now busying myself attempting to market a documentary film called "Orgasmic Birth" (blog post about it coming on Friday I reckon), helping out at my son's school and integrating my daughter into her new childcare room. Add hunting for second hand clothes to fit the new figure and that's my holiday over :-(

Apart from buying clothes, which is a necessity really, there's no me time in there, so I'm grabbing it late at night by blogging a little and adding to any discourse on abortion that crops up in the Victorian public sphere (or what passes for discourse, it's usually a lot of name calling). Here is my contribution to a commentary at the Herald Sun, most of you will have heard this one before I think...

I don't regret my abortion. I have never met anyone who has, and I talk about my abortion a lot, as I believe in reducing the stigma. Those who do regret tend to make the news though, don't they? They are over represented because the rest of us are getting on with our lives.

Most arguments from the pro-life camp, though they do not mention it, are arguments from POTENTIAL. "Give the baby a chance at life." "It's a separate person from the mother." That sort of plaintive mewing is based on the idea that the embryo or foetus has the potential to live a fulfilling life. My beautiful son was a potential life, I mean, he must have been, because he's here, right? But if I had carried my first pregnancy to term I would have been a single mother (I would never have considered the scarring experience of adoption for either of us). If I had been a single mother the father of my son would not have looked at me twice, thus, my son, in all his genetic uniqueness, would not have been born. Are you following this, pro-lifers? It's not terribly complex, you see, if I had continued the first pregnancy, my son would not have come to be. We already agree that he was a potential life, don't we? Because he's here and alive and all. So, by having the first child I would have snuffed out his potential for life. According to you I'm a murderer whether I had that abortion or not.

The upshot is, that if you force a girl to carry her first pregnancy to term, you are possibly preventing other babies from being born. Retrospective analysis of the idea of potential can be tricky for some people. Take your time pro-lifers.

That's it. Off to bed, perchance to sleep....

Tell the Truth Coalition - pamphlet update.

I'm sorry this took so long to post, I wanted to do it PROPERLY, which is BAD because it means that I put it off. So now I am going to do it ROUGHLY.

I received some feedback from one of the plethora of people I wrote to on that occasion (I don't know who because I'm not looking for the letter - that would be doing things PROPERLY). What I do know, is that they said that after the complaint was upheld by the Advertising Standards Bureau the matter was referred to the Victorian Police Crimes Theme Desk.

Now I have no idea what that desk does. Finding this out was part of doing it PROPERLY. However, if I wait until my desk is clear no one will know this at all. Perhaps, given that abortion is in the news again, some of my lurkers from the old days will come back for a squiz and they will know. I tried to find out using a cursory google search, and there are at least three theme desks, but none of them seem to be general, or in a category which would cover the Tell the Truth Coalition leaflet drop. It wouldn't come under organised crime or gambling, for example.

So, there it is, the latest. Sorry that it's not the pinnacle of informed perfection that I wanted it to be, but it's better than nothing! I dropped in on Ron's "Pro-Life Conference" blog the other day. He's all alone, barking at the moon. Just like me!

I like to think that I'm not quite as mad, but that's a matter of opinion.

I need you Jane Austin.

I hate Indlish, and tonight, just now, I hate non-native speakers. This is a tortuous way to make money, not only do I have to correct English so broken that it needs three passes before it’s respectable, the subject matter reminds me of all the old teachers I had and my negative frame of mind means that I’m thinking of teachers I hated with a passion.

I hate this kind of work, I can feel my written expression slowly drivelling down the plug hole of the stilted expression of a non-native speaker of English who comes from a low-context language. I need to read some Jane Austin, feminist writer's comfort food if there ever was any. Full of simpering idiots, but what well written idiocy! Written by a woman who truly had a room of her own…and I can’t find her. There’s some dickens I suppose, I haven’t read Barnaby Rudge yet and there’s always finishing the Pickwick Papers. But I want Jane Austin damn it. I want fluff - and well written fluff at that - to drive out the horrors that my writing brain has been exposed to over the past few weeks. I looked at a first year essay yesterday, it was brilliant compared to the drivel I am producing now. I used to be able to coin a phrase, now I couldn’t work a synonym slot machine. My writing style has been reduced to the basic and often erroneous grammar of a 7 year old by this pure shite I’m being asked to correct. I am NEVER doing this soul destroying work again.

Looking for Jane…. looking for Jane…. DAMN IT!! Why do my bookshelves have to be full of high felutin bullshit?!! I don’t WANT oliver sacks, or quatitative chemistry, or derrida for beginners, or freud, or the latest on the daliah lama, or an encyclopedia of witchcraft, or “what is mathematics really?” or anne summers or books on conspiracies, politics, history, brains, minds or religion. I want Jane, and my complete collection is nowhere to be seen.

I think I must have put her into storage. Why? Why did I ever put her in a box? Her books used to snuggle up next to my bed on the night stand, always there when the likes of Kate Atkinson and Tom Robbins drove me nuts by trying too hard or the latest SciAm mind or New Scientist just seemed too dry to swallow.

Now, at midnight, with two hours of academic shadow writing on a topic that bores me to tears ahead of me, I am taking her absence very hard indeed.