"Freedom" is one of the most common words in our time. We talk about religious freedom, political freedom, economic liberty and even the term “reproductive freedom” is used. Dr. Edith Breburda
The
American Civil Liberties Union has defined reproductive freedom as:
"Everyone's right to form intimate relationships and to decide whether and
when to carry a pregnancy to term.” The ACLU believes that “Government has to
respect and support reproductive freedom as an essential to women's equality,
autonomy and dignity.” This term seems to amount to little more than the
chemical “liberation” of women for a state of infertility.
We
all know that we engaged into wars to (re)gain freedom we lost due to some
injustice. At what time has any person experienced a period of reproductive
freedom? This is not a biological or natural state and not at all a God-given
freedom. But why do we mention reproductive injustice in such context? It is as
if biological facts of life are unbalanced, and females could not enjoy life
because of bearing the burden of childbirth. Remember Sandra Fluke who felt
discriminated against by Georgetown University because the Jesuit University
refused to pay for her contraceptives.
Was
Georgetown University or even nature itself responsible for the injustice
Sandra Fluke experienced? If an institution does not cover the costs for
chemical sterilization are they discriminating against women? And can we thus
speak of a "war against women"? (Somarriba "Is nature sexist? April
30, 2012 (thePublicDiscourse.com).)
Wisconsin
State Journal columnist Chris Rickert wrote May 3, 2012, about a so-called
"War on Women". He wondered if the wars on terror, crime, drugs,
poverty, etc. weren't enough. For Rickert women are discriminated against in
Wisconsin and the main weapons of attack are the state laws tightening access
to abortion, stressing abstinence in sex education classes and cutting funds
for Planned Parenthood. The Democratic counterattack against all these measures
is significant, according to Rickert because women have the right to be
defended.
Is
Chris Rickert’s opinion widespread? Janet Morana and Georgette Forney wrote in
an April 25, 2012, LifeSiteNews.com article, "Ready to fight the real war
against women?” that the “Entertainment media devalue talented, beautiful women
by expecting them to be provocatively dressed. It seems that the value of
females depend on unlined faces and her silicon implants. Does it matter that
those implants will leak or break and might cause cancer? Do we consider that
hormonal contraceptives are linked to cardiovascular diseases, cervical, liver
and breast cancers, high blood pressure, infertility or stroke?” The writers
quote Angela Lanfranchi, a New Jersey oncologist, who asked: "Why would you
want to put a Class 1 carcinogen in your body three out of four weeks, when you
are fertile 100 hours a month?" This oncologist’s concerns and similar
ones are belittled in the media. Contraceptives, sterilization and abortion are
rather seen as the means of choice to gain reproductive freedom.
Mary
Rose Somarriba, in an April 30, 2012, article raises the question of whether
reproductive freedom and reproductive justice will deliver females from the
cards that nature dealt them? What are we dealing with? A kind of rebellion
against our own biology? Or do we want sexual license without consequences–or
maybe only with health consequences?
The
Obama administration is requiring that all health insurance must cover the
costs for contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion. The US Supreme Court
upheld President Obamas health care law. Yet we have excellent medical means to
prevent serious medical conditions like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.
Why aren’t those preventive services free of charge? Proponents of this HHS
mandate argue that giving these contraceptives and abortifacients free to
employees and students, serves reproductive freedom and justice. Does it mean
females have a right to sexual liberty? A liberty that would overthrow
patriarchal traditions of marriage and sexual ethics? And must religious
institutions, which par excellence uphold moral and ethical norms, now betray
the natural law, or be found guilty of discriminating against women?
Merle
Hoffman, an activist for reproductive rights reveals in her recent memoir,
"The Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley
to the Boardroom", that she was running an abortion clinic herself purely
to make money. She discloses the reasoning of those who champion reproductive freedom.
She writes: "Even if abortion ends a life, it is defensible in the pursuit
of true reproductive freedom for women. The anti-choice movement claimed that
if women knew what abortion really is, if only the providers had told them the
truth, they would never have killed their babies... But women did know the
truth, just as I knew it, deep down, when I allowed myself to recognize it.
Mothers saw the sonogram pictures, knew that .. as antis say-- abortion stops a
beating heart... I wasn't immune to the physicality of abortion... but I
quickly came to realize that those who deliver abortion services have not only
the power to give woman control over their bodies and lives but also the
power-- and the responsibility-- of taking life in order to do that. Acknowledgement
of that truth is the foundation for all political and personal work necessary
to maintain women's reproductive freedom." Hofman further writes,
"the comparative history of abortion is actually the history of power
relations between states and their female population... The battlefields are
different, but the war is always the same.. True reproductive freedom for women
is never under consideration."
The
World Health Organization defines reproductive rights and freedoms to include
that individuals should decide freely and responsibly the timing of their
children. Today women often decide to defer pregnancy. The service of fertility
clinics to freeze egg cells for an annual storage fee of $440 is increasing. It
is seen as a way to free women from some of the biological constraints of
fertility. In this way motherhood can be pursued when the personal
circumstances are optimal for a child. From this perspective in-vitro
fertilization should belong to the category of reproductive rights and freedoms
and one might wonder why health insurances does not cover this very expensive
infertility treatment. Women over the age of 39 are even required to accept egg
donations. Is it only a treatment for wealthy couples? (E. Breburda, Promises
of New Biotechnologies, ISBN-10: 0615548288, ISBN-13: 978-0615548289). Will the
new HHS mandate grant reproductive justice for the poor people?
However, abortion, contraceptives and
in-vitro-fertilization are techniques that destroy human life at its very
beginning. The question remains, should we be allowed to employ modern
biotechnologies just because we have the means and financial resources? Modern
societies seem to disregard ethics and morality but have no problem upsetting
nature itself.
Dr. William E. May wrote in the Foreword
of the book Promises of New Biotechnologies: "We have a responsibility for
the well-being of our human descendants and the environment in which we live. In
the preface to the book Bishop Klaus Küng- St Pölten- Austria wrote: “We are recognizing hybrids, stem
cell research, clones and other technologies. Many admire the new techniques.
Only few question them. Moreover, the world is proud about the outcome of the
modern biotechnologies. They are appreciated as a sign of progress…” He then
continued: “Nevertheless, the relevant question is what humans are allowed to
do. The answer depends on the question what is a human being. The only answer is pointing to our relationship with God (emphasis
added), our dependency on Him as His creation.”
"These
words in some ways express the main message of this remarkable book,"
writes Dr. May. He concluded: "In the chapters of her book Breburda takes
us on a guided tour of the “achievements” and “promises” of these
biotechnologies. In doing so she discloses that an unintentional effect of
overzealous British efforts to produce genetically enriched food for cattle was
the Mad Cow disease. She shows how the artificial insemination of horses in the
18th century led to the development of the new reproductive
technologies of in vitro fertilization, its
permutations and combinations, the cloning of animals and efforts to clone
humans, and how all this has resulted in the dehumanizing of women—valued now
only because they produce oocytes—to various maladies suffered by the children
thus manufactured, and other tragic consequences. She shows how genetically
manipulated antibiotics have led to resistance to such antibodies with the
consequence that new kinds of gastrointestinal, respiratory, and hematological
diseases have sprung up, along with miscarriages and the increase of genetic
abnormalities in mammals and men. I could draw this list out much further, but
from what has already been said we can see what Brebruda does in the different
chapters of her work. Breburda’s fascinating study is intended to help ordinary
people understand the complexity and perils of the new biotechnologies."
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