Politics of Babies
Just read this "by the way" news on CNN
Friday, February 17, 2006
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- The corpses of at least 20 newborn babies and fetuses are found each week in the sewers of Zimbabwe's capital, some having been flushed down toilets.
The report talks about how inflation is causing a lot of disturbances to the population, killing babies being one of them. The report was one of the worst written with random statements like; a govt spokesperson said "Apart from upsetting the normal flow of waste, it is not right from a moral standpoint." But that aside it just made me feel really depressed and pissed off. Yah, I know nowadays I just need an excuse to launch into that emotional state but...
ok lots more to follow on this since my next paper is centered around this very topic. SO BEWARE
It'e evening and windy. Some church roof just blew off cos of this storm and so I am back to blogging! One of my friends back home suggested I stop wasting my time writing irrelevant stuff and instead share my "work" ideas thru this blog, I laughed her off, saying this is my creative space, my chance to not think sociology or women's studies. But then, as you can see I lied! I never thought I would actually get interested in writing about activism around women's reproductive health but then I also never thought I would be sitting in New England, shovelling snow and drinking martinis (Don't know why but that sentence makes me sound really awful)
Anyhow, to cut the background attempts at wittiness short, I am planning to write something on transnational activism and how activists in India "frame" issues using western discourses, when it works, when it doesn't, how they adapt it and blah.
One of the most intersting instances is around the issue of amniocentesis & how the "pro-life vs. pro-choice" debate, so much in vogue in the west, was not appropriate. Let me quote from my paper...
"In November 1985, activists from some women's groups and health activists in the city of Mumbai formed the FASDAP to pass a law banning sex determination tests. The public debate the campaign generated was partly because the demand for the ban was seen as “exposing” the ambivalence of women activists’ stand on abortion. If feminists were not fundamentally opposed to abortion, it was inconsistent to oppose sex determination on the grounds that it could lead to abortion of female fetuses.
Others expressed the opinion that legal prohibition of sex determination was unethical, as it was tantamount to infringing on the reproductive rights of women.
Interestingly not only were the arguments opposing the ban couched in the language of rights - the right of a woman to decide whether she wants a female child or not; the frame women organizations used to mobilize people for their campaign was also uncomfortably close to those used by anti-abortionists in the North esp the right wing pro-life campaigners. For example a petition filed in the High Court in Bombay by Mahila Dakshata Samiti (a women’s organization proposing the ban on the sex determination test) contented that the tests violated Article 2 of the constitution, i.e., the right to life. The argument was that a foetus has a right to life, hence by extension, no foetus should be aborted. However, in the case of this particular campaign, using the rights frame also exposed the movement’s overall ambivalence about the issue of abortion.
Umm, you are going to kill me for this but doesn't this sound like a good place to ask one of my "makes u want to go ain" questions??
Is female foeticide 'better' (for lack of a better word) than female infanticide, or severe ill treatment of girl children?
Friday, February 17, 2006
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- The corpses of at least 20 newborn babies and fetuses are found each week in the sewers of Zimbabwe's capital, some having been flushed down toilets.
The report talks about how inflation is causing a lot of disturbances to the population, killing babies being one of them. The report was one of the worst written with random statements like; a govt spokesperson said "Apart from upsetting the normal flow of waste, it is not right from a moral standpoint." But that aside it just made me feel really depressed and pissed off. Yah, I know nowadays I just need an excuse to launch into that emotional state but...
ok lots more to follow on this since my next paper is centered around this very topic. SO BEWARE
It'e evening and windy. Some church roof just blew off cos of this storm and so I am back to blogging! One of my friends back home suggested I stop wasting my time writing irrelevant stuff and instead share my "work" ideas thru this blog, I laughed her off, saying this is my creative space, my chance to not think sociology or women's studies. But then, as you can see I lied! I never thought I would actually get interested in writing about activism around women's reproductive health but then I also never thought I would be sitting in New England, shovelling snow and drinking martinis (Don't know why but that sentence makes me sound really awful)
Anyhow, to cut the background attempts at wittiness short, I am planning to write something on transnational activism and how activists in India "frame" issues using western discourses, when it works, when it doesn't, how they adapt it and blah.
One of the most intersting instances is around the issue of amniocentesis & how the "pro-life vs. pro-choice" debate, so much in vogue in the west, was not appropriate. Let me quote from my paper...
"In November 1985, activists from some women's groups and health activists in the city of Mumbai formed the FASDAP to pass a law banning sex determination tests. The public debate the campaign generated was partly because the demand for the ban was seen as “exposing” the ambivalence of women activists’ stand on abortion. If feminists were not fundamentally opposed to abortion, it was inconsistent to oppose sex determination on the grounds that it could lead to abortion of female fetuses.
Others expressed the opinion that legal prohibition of sex determination was unethical, as it was tantamount to infringing on the reproductive rights of women.
Interestingly not only were the arguments opposing the ban couched in the language of rights - the right of a woman to decide whether she wants a female child or not; the frame women organizations used to mobilize people for their campaign was also uncomfortably close to those used by anti-abortionists in the North esp the right wing pro-life campaigners. For example a petition filed in the High Court in Bombay by Mahila Dakshata Samiti (a women’s organization proposing the ban on the sex determination test) contented that the tests violated Article 2 of the constitution, i.e., the right to life. The argument was that a foetus has a right to life, hence by extension, no foetus should be aborted. However, in the case of this particular campaign, using the rights frame also exposed the movement’s overall ambivalence about the issue of abortion.
Umm, you are going to kill me for this but doesn't this sound like a good place to ask one of my "makes u want to go ain" questions??
Is female foeticide 'better' (for lack of a better word) than female infanticide, or severe ill treatment of girl children?
posted by Amrita Pande at 9:43 AM
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