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Winter 2003

Science, Politics, and Reproductive Rights: The Case of Ultrasound Technology

DifferenTakes Series
18 ~ Winter 2003
[PDF Version]
By Jael Silliman

Science, politics and women’s reproductive rights are not easily disentangled. They often collide to contain and expand women’s rights and freedoms. It is this difficult terrain of science and politics that feminists must negotiate in their struggle to protect women’s interests.

Jael Silliman is an assistant professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Iowa. She is a founding member of the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment, an executive committee member of the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights, and co vice-chair of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project. She is the co-editor of Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment and Development (South End Press, 1999) and Policing the National Body: Race, Gender and Criminalization (South End Press, 2002), and is the author of Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women’s Narratives from a Diaspora of Hope (University Press of New England, 2001).

References

  1. Crary, David, “Activists tout ultrasound to discourage abortions.” AP/Seattle Times, 2/2/2002
  2. A New York Journal of Medicine article has aroused great interest in the anti-choice community. The researchers found that women viewing their unborn children early in pregnancy, before movement is felt by the mothers, may “influence the resolution of any ambivalence toward the pregnancy itself in favor of the fetus.” The researchers, Drs. John C. Fletcher and Mark I. Evans, concluded that: “Ultrasound examination may thus result in fewer abortions and more desired pregnancies.” Washington Times, December 27, 2000.
  3. Crary, AP/Seattle Times, 2/2/2002.
  4. Ibid.
  5. Very recently the police in Alwar, Rajasthan have demanded records of abortions and pre-natal diagnostic tests conducted in the last two years from nursing homes and ultrasound laboratories as aborted fetuses and carcasses of abandoned newborns, mostly female, have been found in ditches and garbage heaps. They still have to reach the unlicensed facilities where sex-determination tests are conducted illegally (Soma Wadhwa, “Waifs of the Gutters”, Outlook, July 8, 2002, New Delhi: India).
  6. This gender imbalance is not only an Indian phenomenon. Sen and Druze popularized the concept of “missing women” when they estimated that 100 million women are simply not there - women’s mortality rates exceed those of men due to gender bias. Amartya Sen, “Many Faces of Gender Inequality,” Frontline, Cover Story, Volume 18, Issue 22, October 27 - November 09, 2001, p.1. Gender inequality and other differential treatment that impede women’s health and reduce their life span begins before birth and continues through the life span. Whereas the biologically common ratio across the world is 95 girls born per hundred boys, there is a great deviation among countries. For example in Europe and North America the female to male ratio on average is about 105 women to 100 men. (Ibid, p.6) The norm in East Asia where son preference is great is much more unfavorable towards girls. Singapore and Taiwan have 92 girls, South Korea 88 and China 85 per hundred boys (Ibid, p.12.) The one-child policy in China has encouraged the use of sex selection to ensure that the child born is male. In China too sex selection is illegal. It is estimated that there are now 60 million more males than females in China. This has led to a dire shortage of women and there have been numerous articles in the news about the kidnapping of rural women to be sold as wives on the black market. The number of abductions has risen sharply. Rosenthal, Elizabeth, “Harsh Realities Feed a Blackmarket in Women,” New York Times, June 25, 2001.
  7. Kerala has not had a decline in this ratio while some of the richer states including Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Maharashtra have experienced a reduction in female to male children ratios.
  8. UNICEF statistics from the State of the World’s Children (1997) noted that 50% of the population of children in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India are malnourished. UNICEF states that it is the low status of women that results in these outcomes. Dolores Chew comments that women are so disempowered as to be unable to even act on behalf of their children. See Women and Work in South Asia, Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Dolores Chew and Usha Thakur with H Iqtedar (1996), and Labor, Capital and Society: A Journal of the Third World, Volume 29, Nos 1 & 2, April/November, Montreal, Canada, p.8.
  9. Amartya Sen, “Many Faces of Gender Inequality,” Frontline, Cover Story, Volume 18, Issue 22, October 27 - November 09, 2001, p.11.
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The “Youth Bulge”: Defining the Next Generation of Young Men as a Threat to the Future

DifferenTakes Series
19 ~ Winter 2003
[PDF Version]
By Anne Hendrixson

In an article analyzing the 9/11 terrorist actions, Newsweek asks, “Why do they hate us?” Under the heading “The Politics of Rage,” the article comments on possible reasons for terrorism in the Arab world. It reads, “Arab societies are going through a massive youth bulge, with more than half of most countries’ populations under the age of 25... A huge influx of restless young men in any country is bad news. When accompanied by even small economic and social change, it usually produces a new politics of protest.

Anne Hendrixson is a freelance writer and activist. She is a member of the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment.

References

  1. Fareed Zakaria, “WhyDo They Hate Us: The Politics of Rage,” Newsweek, (October 15, 2001), 32.
  2. Excerpts from Hassan Fattah “The Middle East Baby Boom,” Washington Times (September 11, 2002), www.washtimes.com/ culture/20020911-25730380.htm
  3. Betsy Hartmann, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1995), 102.
  4. General Anthony C. Zinni, commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command, Prepared Testimony, Federal News Services, Inc.(2000).
  5. Timothy Mitchell, “The Object of Development: America’s Egypt,” in Jonathan Crush, ed., Power of Development (London: Routledge, 1995).
  6. John L. Helgerson, “The National Security Implications of Global Demographic Change,” address to the Denver World Affairs Council and the Better World Campaign, Denver, Colorado (April 30, 2002), www.cia.gov/nic/speeches/speeches/Denverspeech.htm
  7. Anthony H. Cordesman, “The U.S. Military and the Evolving Challenges in the Middle East,” Naval War College Review (Summer 2002), vol. LV, no.3.
  8. Ibid.
  9. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 103.
  10. Christian Mesquida and Weiner, Neil, “Young Men and War: Could We Have Predicted the Distribution of Violent Conflicts at the End of the Millennium?” Woodrow Wilson ESCP Report, 2001, issue 7, 230.
  11. Ryn Gluckman. “The Scapegoating of America’s Youth: Past and Present (Mis)Conceptions.” DifferenTakes, Issue 13, Fall 2001.
  12. Jennifer S. Holmes, quoted in “Radicalism: Is the Devil in the Demographics?” New York Times (December 9, 2001).
  13. Henrik Urdal, “Is the Devil in the Demographics?: How Population Pressure and Youth Bulges Influence the Risk of Onset of Domestic Armed Conflict,” Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, (Spring 2002).
  14. Mark Edelman Boren, Student Resistance: A History of the Unruly Subject (New York: Routledge, 2001), 249.
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Ten Reasons Why Militarism is Bad for Reproductive Freedom

DifferenTakes Series
20 ~ Winter 2003
[PDF Version]

Lately, it seems whenever we need a reminder about why it is the U.S. should budget more national funds for the military, or take aggressive action in another small poverty-stricken country, the battle cry of equal rights for women is sounded by the most unlikely people. When U.S. soldiers invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 and unseated the Taliban, they were hailed as the liberators of Afghani women. Bush has repeatedly referred to women’s rights in Afghanistan and Palestine as a positive outcome of U.S. intervention in those areas as well as in Iraq.

Prepared by the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College.

References

  1. Joni Seager, “Patriarchal Vandalism: Militaries and the Environment,” in Jael Silliman and Ynestra King, eds., Dangerous Intersections, Boston: South End Press, 1999.

    Nancy Lee Peluso and Michael Watts, eds., Violent Environments, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.

    Military Toxics Project and Environmental Health Coalition, Defend Our Health: A People’s Report to Congress, 2001, accessed at http://www.miltoxproj.org/magnacarta/DefendOurHealthReport.html.
  2. Cynthia Enloe. Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives. Berkeley: CA: University of California Press, 2000.
  3. Angela Robson, “Rape:Weapon of War.” New Internationalist. Issue 244 (1993).

    Associated Press, “Military Murders: Series of Slayings Shakes Fort Bragg Community.” Crime and Justice, http://pub86.ezboard.com/ fcrimeandjustice13552frm51.showMessage?topicID=75.topic

    Cynthia Enloe, “Sneak Attack: The militarization of U.S. culture.” Ms., December 2001/January 2002:15.

  4. “Bush Unveils ‘War’ Budget.” BBC News. 4 February 2002. Accessed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1798732.stm.
  5. B’Tselem. www.btselem.org
  6. Azi Shariatmadar, “Anti-Immigrant Alert!” Political Environments. Issue 9 (2002): 8-9. Amnesty International. www.amnesty.org
  7. Jennifer Pozner. “Casualty of War: The U.S. Press Corps wimps out.” Ms. December 2001/January 2002: 33-34.
  8. National Organization for Women, www.now.org/news/goodnews.html#abortion Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, www.crlp.org/hill_military.html
  9. Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. www.crlp.org
  10. Barbara Kingsolver “Jabberwocky.” High Tide in Tucson. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995.

    International Action Center. www.iac.org/iraq.htm
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