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Showing posts with label Women's Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women's Rights. Show all posts

Dr John Coulter ✍ This incoming week sees Presbyterians from across the island meet for their annual General Assembly, with the role of women in the Church still a major talking point. 

Every year seems to see the usual ding-dong battle between evangelicals and liberals in one corner who mostly support the ordination of women elders and ministers, and hardline fundamentalists in the other who are vehemently opposed to women holding such posts in the Church.

Both camps will be feverishly searching the Old and New Testaments of the Bible to find suitable verses of Scripture to justify their deeply held theological positions.

The chances of this row, which has rumbled on since the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man, reaching a successful conclusion are very slim. Indeed, there is probably a better chance of me as a Presbyterian being appointed the next pope as there is to the rival camps reaching an accommodation.

The problem for me personally is that no fundamentalist has been able to justify what their problem is with women elders or pastors. Even in the Catholic Church, nuns must play second fiddle to priests. Could a day ever come in Rome where we will see a female pope?

I’m of a vintage when I still remember church functions where a man would announce - the ladies will now leave and serve the tea!

Indeed, there are still supposed Christian denominations where women must wear skirts and hats during worship.

It seems that women are constantly being punished by men in the Christian Church as if they are persecuting women because it was Eve who got Adam to eat the apple given to her by Satan in the Garden of Eden. Theologically, that led to sin entering the world, sparking what is called The Fall of Man.

But is the Christian Church generally of whatever denomination seriously saying in 2023 that the only roles for women in church life is serving tea at functions, looking after the babies in creche on Sundays, and baking cakes and tray bakes for church functions?

During my own spiritual journey in life, I have made numerous women elders and ministers. They have all fulfilled their roles with professionalism, dedication and dignity - so what’s the problem, lads?

Are male fundamentalists saying a woman cannot preach a good sermon, or as an elder, help with the running of the church?

Many denominations like to encourage women to join so-called ‘ladies fellowship’ groups. I sometimes believe such groups are a way of getting the women ‘out of the way’ in terms of running the church.

So its okay for women to run a Sunday school, or a junior youth club, but if those women feel called by the Holy Spirit to preach a sermon from the pulpit, you’d think by the reaction from some male fundamentalists that those women had tried to burn the building down!

Many denominations still have an ongoing Biblical debate about same sex marriage and trans rights. Fundamentalists will argue that recognition by the Christian Church of these issues is moving radically away from Biblical teaching.

But the debate over women’s rights within the Christian Church has caused intense debate for generations. It is not a new issue. Has it become a debate about male dominance in the running of churches, or are males still fighting the Garden of Eden row and the role of Eve in the Fall of Man?

Here’s a fundamental question for the ‘anti-women preacher’ lobby; how many women have ditched their Christian faith because of persecution by dictatorial or puritanical males?

Was it not the Indian Hindu nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi who once said - I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians; your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

Closer to home Biblically, what about the words of Jesus himself in the New Testament when the Pharisees challenged him about the woman who was caught in the act of adultery? He said, let he who is without sin cast the first stone!

As a Christian community, we cannot say that all people are equal in the sight of God, and then discriminate against women having a front and centre role in the Church because of their gender. To adopt such a fundamentalist or Puritan stance makes folk no better than the Biblical Pharisees which Christ faced.

What is the point in encouraging women to complete theology courses and then deny them the right to preach from our pulpits of whatever denomination. It’s not a case of diluting the Bible; it’s a case of recognising the genuine Christian role which women have played in the life of the Church over the centuries. The message is simple - free them from the pews and give them the power of the pulpit.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Listen to commentator Dr John Coulter’s programme, Call In Coulter, every Saturday morning around 10.15 am on Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. Listen online. 

From Pew To Pulpit 🞧 The Sensible Route For Women Pastors, Elders And Sisters

Peter Anderson ⚽ With the footy being on an international break I thought I would spend some time bringing you news on that other fave sport of the TPQ reader: swimming. 

Last week Lia Thomas won gold at the USA student championships. The interesting point of all this is that Lia Thomas is a trans woman and her victory has sparked a rather feverish debate on the subject of men transitioning to women and competing in women's sport. 

When Lia was a man, he was ranked 462nd; as a women, she wins gold and is ranked number one. It all kicked off on Twitter last week and was one of those threads that just sucks you in. On this side of the pond, former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies decried the victory as an attack on women's sport. She was roundly supported and attacked by the twitteratti. 

On the other side of the pond, the usual conservative groups were out demonstrating against the win, echoing much of what Davies was saying. Notably though, trans celebrity Caitlyn Jenner, also an ex-Olympian, spoke out against the inclusion of trans people in elite sport. It is strange, being socially liberal, to find myself on the same side as the conservatives, but you believe what you believe until convinced otherwise. 

Generally, I support trans rights and am conscious that many trans children take their own lives, much like gay children in conservative, religious environments. So, I am not going to join the ranks of the abuse givers, but on the issue of competitive sport I have yet to see a compelling argument for the inclusion of trans men in women's sport. 

The argument that Sharron Davies uses is compelling. Lia Thomas was allowed to compete as a female as she had taken testosterone blocking drugs for the required time, lowering her hormone level to that of a woman. Under official sporting rules that is all that is required, but as Davies points out anyone who has experienced a male puberty will have physiological differences to girls, specifically more muscle mass and, crucially, a higher VO2 Max. 

As a cyclist I know how crucial your VO2 Max is to how good a cyclist you will be. Your VO2 Max is how well your body processes the oxygen that you breathe to supply your muscles with energy. The average male has a VO2 Max of 42ml while a woman averages 31ml. Training may increase your score by 25%, but elite athletes are born with naturally higher levels. Tour de France winner Chris Froome was tested before a race and had a score of 88ml. So, while Lia had lowered levels of testosterone, she would have naturally bigger muscles producing naturally more energy. 

Depressingly, the chattering classes are now trying to get Davies to shut up and the push to have her cancelled is in full swing. They argue that she is being exclusive, but sport already is exclusive for reasons of fairness. Heavy-weights can't fight middle-weights for official titles and the under 50s can't enter Masters Cycling races. Trans people have the right to live how they want and be treated with respect, but a woman's right to fair sport should be inviolable.

Peter Anderson is a Unionist with a keen interest in sports.

A Woman's Right To Fair Sport Should Be Inviolable

National Secular Society ✒ Politicians around the world are using religion to restrict reproductive rights, a recent report has found.

Welcome to Gilead: pronatalism and the threat to reproductive rights warns "extremist, religious, nationalist currents" leading to clampdowns on reproductive rights in countries like Poland are "spreading across the globe".

The report, published by Population Matters late last year, finds "governments and politicians now want women to have more children, and some are resorting to coercion to achieve that goal".

Nationalist politicians may be motivated by fears that low birth rates will result in a loss of national power, or that minority groups with higher fertility rates will 'erase' the culture of the existing ethnic or religious majority, the report says.

It says a wave of "Christian white nationalism" has swept across the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe, and that politicians in the region have used the uncertainty of demographic change as an opportunity to increase support for their "nationalist, religion-infused politics" including anti-choice policies.

For example, in Poland extremist Catholic organisation Ordo luris has "bolstered" government claims that women are "selfishly choosing careers over their duty to preserve the nation through procreation".

Continue reading @ National Secular Society.

Report ✑ Politicians Use Religion To Restrict Reproductive Rights

Radicailín members ✒ call for the rights of women and girls to female-only, single-sex spaces and services.


On 27th November 2021, Radicailín, alongside the Irish Women’s Lobby, The Countess, The Irish Resistance, Socialist Democracy, LGB Alliance Ireland, Women’s Rights Network NI, and Deep Green Resistance Ireland, gathered outside Dáil Éireann to call for the rights of women and girls to female-only, single-sex spaces and services in line with the public consultation of the Equality Acts proposed by Minister Roderic O’Gorman.

Attended by people from various backgrounds, the demonstration asserted the importance of having single-sex provisions and services, including medical care, intimate care, nursing homes, rape crisis centres, domestic violence and homeless shelters. The protest ultimately called for a clear definition and distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ in Irish legislation. We also wanted to highlight the lack of safeguards to protect biological women from male violence as well as distinguishing their sex-based rights.

‘Sex’ refers to whether one is male or female, man or woman, boy or girl. ‘Gender’ refers to the social roles and stereotypes assigned to each of the sexes. Sex is the basis on which women have been oppressed throughout history and across the world. Women could not avoid being placed in a Mother and Baby home simply by verbally denouncing the reality of their femaleness. Little girls facing FGM in Somalia cannot do this either.

Continue reading @ Gript.

The Government Must Protect The Rights Of Women And Girls

Valerie Tarico ✒ Advocates for gender equality and family planning should brace for a new wave of resistance—a swell of depopulation alarmism coming from both the Left and Right. Depopulation narratives frame declining birthrate as a threat to power, prosperity, or survival. The discourse implicitly or, sometimes, explicitly blames this perceived threat on females having access to education and contraception. It re-centers woman back in the traditional role of child producer. Anyone who cares about reproductive autonomy should have this swelling wave on their radar.


Depopulation doomsaying is trending. You may have noticed some of the headlines and book titles as they’ve cropped up: “With global births expected to decline, experts warn ‘crisis’ looms”—CBS News; “The U.S. fertility rate just hit a historic low. Why some demographers are freaking out.”—The Washington Post; “The US needs more babies, more immigrants, and more integration”—Vox; Empty Planet—The Shock of Global Population Decline—Darrel Bricker and John Ibbitson. Though global population will grow for decades and maybe generations to come, a demographic shift is happening.

In the 20th century, population skyrocketed, but birthrates dropped from an average of over five children per woman in 1900 to just over two by the end. If you think about this in terms of individual empowerment or health, that’s an extraordinary accomplishment: Fewer women dying in childbirth, healthier babies, parents who are more able to form the families of their choosing and then invest deeply in their children, and more women able to pursue other interests and roles. (In a parallel trend, lifespans have doubled, partly due to lower childhood mortality and partly due to better health later on.)

This should be cause for celebration, but that is not how everyone thinks about it. Instead, recent reporting feeds anxieties about scarcity and competition, sometimes making the untrue claim that population growth is needed for economic growth or social security programs. These false claims have grave implications for the rights of women and wellbeing of children, taking us back toward the roles dictated in the Bible.

New Times, Old Roles

Historically and traditionally women tend to think about reproduction in terms of caretaking, family well-being, healthy children and the trajectory of their own lives. Men—especially men in positions of power—have often thought about reproduction in economic and competitive terms: More children means more workers for the field, more adherents for the church, more serfs or slaves, and more soldiers to help one clan or tribe or kingdom or nation beat others.

We glimpse this historical view in the iron age texts of the Bible and Quran, where women and children are economic assets belonging to a patriarch, the head of family. The Ten Commandments forbid a man to covet his neighbor’s house, wife, slaves, livestock or anything that belongs to his neighbor. A girl can be given by her father in marriage; virginity is guarded to ensure progeny of known lineage; a rapist can be forced to buy and keep the damaged goods; and a father can sell his offspring into slavery or even sacrifice his son. In one story God gives Satan the right to destroy Job’s wealth—including his children—and then later replaces them.

In recent centuries societies have gradually evolved toward a different view of women and children, one in which each is fully a person, valued not as a means to an end but as an individual whose thoughts, feelings, preferences, intentions, and life experience matter in their own right. Women and children are seen to merit life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the reasons that men merit the same. In his book The Prophet, poet Kahlil Gibran beautifully expressed this view:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow.

This is a radical shift from the culture that gave a man the right to sacrifice his son or daughter (like Abraham and Jeptheh in the Bible), but this transition is far from complete. Mixed feelings abound even at the liberal edge of the shift, and old scripts still dominate life in traditional and conservative subcultures. The World Health Organization estimates that each day 39,000 families “give” underage girls in marriage, often as soon as they are capable of pregnancy. Many of these child brides drop out of school, joining 129 million unschooled girls and 12 million teens who give birth annually. Among women, 190 million would like to prevent or delay the next pregnancy but lack modern means to do so. These girls and women have the highest rates of unsought pregnancy today, and they will stay vulnerable if depopulation narratives begin to drive philanthropic and government priorities.

Ironically, the second most vulnerable group may be those women in countries with the greatest degree of female education and contraception, the women whose below-replacement birthrates lie at the heart of the angst about declining fertility. These women lead very different lives than their sisters in the Global South, but depopulation alarmism poses the same threat for both groups. Psychologically, it creates a powerful subconscious shift in which the thought of female empowerment elicits anxiety, ambivalence, uncertainty, frustration or overt hostility.

This emotional shift has the potential to stall progress on female empowerment. Mixed feelings often lead to bureaucratic resistance, sluggish public investment, and philanthropic skittishness. That is because when people feel unsure about the fundamental goodness of a course of action, they cease to act.

The family planning sector already faces obstruction from the ongoing influence of religion in society. Conservative religious leaders laud motherhood as the pinnacle of female virtue. The Pope recently called Italy’s shift in family size a cold, dark “demographic winter.” Bureaucrats, aid agencies and charitable foundations often seek non-controversial strategies, leading them to avoid family planning investments even when these might be central to attaining their goals—as, for example, in PEPFAR (AIDS relief) or the Green Climate Fund. But till now, education of girls has been seen, at least by those in power, as an unmitigated good.

What Should We Do?

In recent decades, advocates have fought to protect women (especially poor brown women) from being pressured not to have babies. Now humanity may be returning to a phase when many women will face pressure in the opposite direction, as has been the case through much of history. Safeguards against coercion need to be broad enough to protect against both.

To avert problems, we need to start with the facts. Human population skyrocketed during the 20th century, and the curve is bending. Global population will grow for at least another generation, exacerbating climate change and resource depletion and some countries now face new challenges associated with shrinking populations. With women having fewer babies and people living longer, a few countries now have more retirees than kids—Japan, for example, and Spain. Others will soon follow.

Advocates for women and girls need to take seriously some of the concerns raised by alarmists, for example questions about geopolitical power dynamics, changing dependency ratios—meaning fewer working age people relative to everyone else—, and potential loss of creativity or productivity as populations become older. We need to press relevant experts (e.g., economists, social scientists, policy makers) to engage on these topics, and we need to be prepared with answers when hyperbole and legitimate questions come up. Unless there are credible paths forward, depopulation alarmists will continue to center on their current old “solutions” to new challenges—that women produce more babies or, temporarily, that wealthy countries recruit immigrants from places where women have less means to manage their fertility.

We need to ensure that women who do want more babies are supported in having them. Some portion of declining birthrates is due to factors that discourage women from having babies they might want—financial constraints, lack of childcare options, fertility problems, health issues, and in the most extreme, anti-conceptive policies or practices that are coercive. As depopulation alarmists raise these concerns we must validate and address them.

We must speak up against the doom and gloom. Depopulation alarmism often extrapolates unlikely trendlines. It relies on economic indicators that ignore individual prosperity. It brushes past dimensions of wellbeing that don’t have a dollar price tag. It ignores climate change and the wellbeing of other species. It underestimates technology shifts such as artificial intelligence and robotics that will make legions of low-paid economic foot soldiers obsolete. Lastly, it overlooks the many ways that a smaller, older population might be awesome. If we are well informed, we can round out the conversation.

The alternative to depopulation alarmism is creative innovation. Old school Malthusians made the mistake of underestimating human ingenuity, specifically our ability to feed people and grow prosperity as world population swelled from under two billion at the start of the 20th Century to almost eight billion at the close. Now reverse Malthusians make the same mistake and derive similarly wrong conclusions.

If we can reach Mars, we can create a future that merges declining population, broad prosperity and individual reproductive freedom. Rocket science takes will, work, smarts, imagination and teamwork; that’s how we as a species cross uncharted distances. So, let’s get on it. We can’t roll up our sleeves if we’re busy wringing our hands.

Valerie Tarico
Valerie Tarico is a psychologist and writer in Seattle, Washington. 
She writes about religion, reproductive health, and the role of women in society.

Female? Welcome To Your New Old Role ➖ Breeder

On this day in 2008 Azar Majedi published a piece in Butterflies & Wheels  slamming the notion that honour crimes is a suitable term of a particular type of violence against women.  
 
Today all speakers talked about honour crimes as a widespread form of violence against women. What bewilders me is the name given to this horrendous crime: honour. Honour has a very positive connotation. Regardless of one’s world outlook and beliefs, the word honour has a good ring to one’s ear. When you hear this word, you fill up with positive and good feelings. The combination of these two completely opposite concepts to describe one phenomenon brings a lot of contradictions and confusion: “honour crimes!”

I have given this phenomenon a great deal of thought. I posed this question: Why is this brutal act being described so positively? After reflecting on this issue for some time, I came to see a pattern. It is like crimes committed under the name of patriotism and nationalism. The more you kill, the more brutal you become, the more heroic your status. This is exactly the same. The more inhuman you become under the name of misogyny, the more elevated your status among the community.

Misogynist crimes which are sanctified by religion and old traditions are called honour crimes, in order to be glorified, to be elevated to the position of heroic acts worthy of medals. Honour crimes are encouraged by traditional values, which are passed on from generation to generation. I will argue here that a certain ideology is behind justifying and glorifying crimes against women and by doing this not only promoting such crimes, but also fostering the dominance of religion and patriarchy. I will then conclude that one way to fight against such crimes is to shed all religious and cultural romanticism and taboos surrounding this brutal act. This is to say that our fight against honour crimes is not only an educative one or in the field of law and order, it is a political and ideological one as well. Misogynist ideology is a vital instrument in justifying and glorifying honour crimes.

There may be an objection raised here and quite validly too: not all misogynist crimes are named honour crimes. True. However, those criminal acts committed against women and girls, because they dared violate the sacred codes of piousness of the community, are called honour crimes. Modern reformed misogyny has more or less come to terms with women’s ownership of their sexuality. Nevertheless, crimes categorized as crimes of passion, committed under the fury of jealousy still share that element of ownership of female sexuality by the male partner. It has only been privatized; it is an individual act punished by the law. But women’s rights organisations still struggle to have these crimes recognized as serious crimes, they still fight to get enough attention by the official institutions to these crimes that are mitigated or ignored by the fact they take place in the privacy of the home and in the confines of the sacred family. Our focus here is, however, on the first category.

Ideology

How is a value system formed? How are essential concepts and their definitions formed? How are we led to regard similar acts in so many different ways? How are we led to judge one act of violence as horrendous and inhuman, and the other one as heroic? Is this not a double standard? The answer to all of these is Ideology. Ideology is the means by which our minds are formed or manipulated to interpret the world, and thereby give different, and at times opposite meanings to similar actions. The dominant ideology is preserved and reproduced by the ruling classes in every given society. Religion is one of the main ingredients in dominant ideologies world wide.

Let us examine this in a more concrete historical context. We will only dwell on examples that can be related to our subject. Killing for a justified cause or terrorism: this is the question put before us time and time again. Depending on our political inclinations or our ideological tendencies, we answer this question one way or the other. At times it is more challenging to come up with a straightforward answer. Our sympathies are divided, so our response is confused. There seems to be no other way to judge. As a rule, if we sympathize with a cause we tend to justify the action related to it or stemming from it.

The African National Congress is a very good example to demonstrate how this dynamic works. The ANC was considered a terrorist organisation by the apartheid regime in South Africa and by some of its Western supporters. In the late seventies and early eighties this image changed. The ANC came to be recognized, universally, as a legitimate, progressive organization; its leader Nelson Mandela became an international hero and was awarded the Noble peace prize. Here we can see how an image or concept can change in people’s views, giving the political or ideological explanations.

Let us look at a more controversial case. Suicide bombings committed by Palestinians against Israelis are regarded as a vile crime by Israelis and heroic sacrifice by Palestinians. By the same token, in any war killing the enemy wins a medal for the killer and hatred and vengeance by the other party. How do we come to form these views? They are political views formed by our world outlook and value system, that is, ideology.

Misogyny is an old ideology and integrated into all religions. Passion and honour are names given by the official ideology to crimes against women by the men who are taught to believe women are their possessions, their properties.

One way to fight these horrendous crimes is to challenge the prevailing ideology. Sexism and misogyny have been the subject of many debates and protest movements. One way to shake this old value system is to attack its basis. I believe the so-called honour crimes should be called terrorism against women, just the same way female circumcision came to be called female mutilation. This change of name had a great impact on shedding all the absurd cultural romanticism associated with this brutal abuse (which led well known feminists such as Germaine Greer to defend it.) This is not an attempt to inflate a reality for the sake of propaganda. In reality “honour crimes” are nothing but terrorist acts against women.

What is terrorism?

Action aimed at silencing, subduing and blackmailing certain people for a political aim is terrorism. Ideologies have been created in order to justify and/or glorify a terrorist act. Historically nationalist, and certain left groups have been categorized under this title, e.g. the IRA, the left groups in Italy and Germany in the seventies, and groups fighting for independence in so-called third world countries. In these fights a well-defined political cause dominates. At present, there is a political/ideological battle over whether you can call fighters for a “just” cause terrorists, regardless of the methods they use. A heated debate is over what to call Palestinian suicide bombers: are they terrorists or soldiers of a nationalist army fighting for their land and independence? We have gone as far as calling some states terrorist, and the war they wage state terrorism, such as the United States and Israel, or the Islamic republic of Iran.

This is not the time or place to pass judgment on these above-mentioned cases. I merely stated these for the sake of argument, to demonstrate the similarities between these political cases and honour crimes, these seemingly unconnected acts. I believe there is a very strong common denominator between these acts, which bring them under the same category: terrorism. Honour crimes can be categorized under this term.

If straightforward political conflicts that lead to terrorist acts can cause confusion as to how they should be judged, i.e. legitimate or murderous, and at times there are endless debates involved in the process of judgment-forming, there is no confusion regarding honour crimes. Except the fanatics who endorse or carry out such crimes, everyone else condemns honour crimes as abhorrent murders. Moreover, there is a common agreement among all, including the fanatics, over the purpose of these crimes: to subdue the female population, to show her rightful place in the home and the community, to suppress any thought of rebellion. “Honour crimes” wash away the shame from the family and the community, and teach a “good” lesson not only to women but to the whole society: women are the property of the men of the household; they should remain subdued, pious, and silent, and obey the laws and their owners.

All the religious leaders who promote or condone honour crimes will testify to these, the elders, the youth steeped in this ideology, the mothers and the victims too will testify to this. We should conclude that honour crimes are carried out to put women in their place and prevent their rebellion or protest. Thus honour crimes are crimes with a political purpose: to foster or establish misogynist power relations in the society and the family. Moreover, they are not individual and isolated crimes. They are usually planned in the extended family. They are promoted by the “leaders” of the community. (Be it the leaders of a society in the case of societies under a backward religious state, or smaller communities in the West.) They are crimes sanctified by a community and carried out collectively. It is a crime with a socio-political cause and aim, justified by an ideology, carried out as a team. Hence, we have established the relation between a terrorist act and honour crimes.

It is important that we spread this word around. Start a movement demanding that honour crimes should be called by their appropriate name: terrorism against women. It will help us fight more vigorously against these crimes and to alleviate the situation of women and young girls in such communities. It makes it easier to punish the criminals. It gives our campaign a momentum to mobilize more strongly and to attract more support to our cause. As a final point, I would like to make the parallel once more between this and the campaign to change the name of female circumcision to female genital mutilation. It did not take very long to establish in the public mind that female circumcision is actually mutilating women in order to inhibit their sexuality. By bringing this awareness all the cultural romanticism or taboo was torn from it. Hence, it became easier to fight against it. We should do the same to “honour” crimes. By calling it terrorism against women we facilitate the fight to root it out.

This is based on two speeches made at 8 March conference in Gothenburg, Sweden and the conference in London to commemorate Dua, the young girl who was stoned to death in Iraq last year.

⏭ Asar Majedi is a  Member of Hekmatist Party leadership & Chairperson of Organisation for Women’s Liberation

Honour Crimes Or Terrorism Against Women

From Atheist Republic a report about the silly old men in the Vatican still trying to control women's bodies.



Photo Credits: Everything Everywhere Travel Blog
A hysterectomy could be a total removal of the body, fundus, and cervix of the uterus or a partial removal of the uterine body while leaving the cervix intact. It’s a surgical procedure that renders the patient unable to bear children.

The Catholic Church has been implementing control over birth and women’s health for decades, but now they are going even further. The Vatican has clarified its opposition to hysterectomies, saying it’s OK to remove a uterus that is “no longer suitable for procreation.”

If “medical experts have reached the certainty” that any future pregnancy would end in a “spontaneous abortion” before viability, then the patient can have a hysterectomy because it won’t have the (immoral) effect of sterilizing them, the Vatican said.

Removing a reproductive organ incapable of bringing a pregnancy to term should not therefore be qualified as direct sterilization, which is and remains intrinsically illicit as an end and as a means, the Vatican said.

In the United States, directives issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops govern one in six acute-care hospital beds; in some states the number is closer to half. In at least 46 regions nationwide, a Catholic hospital is the only accessible option. The problem is that the Catholic Church opposes reproductive health care that interferes with procreation—including abortion, tubal ligations, vasectomies, and most contraception. Anyone else who needs a uterus removed in a Catholic hospital will have to find another hospital for that.

A spokesperson for the group that represents U.S. Catholic hospitals said the Vatican’s ruling is unlikely to change patient care.

“These are the same principles that Catholic hospitals have been operating under so this really doesn’t change anything,” Brian Reardon of the Catholic Health Association told Rewire.News.

A woman on Twitter responded to this news:

I've had 9 (Nine) failed pregnancies, between ectopic and miscarriages, cysts on my ovaries, endometriosis, a fibroid, and they still won't do a god damned thing because I am of child bearing age. So ridiculous.

Some people noted that in their communities, the Catholic hospital is the only option. One woman wrote:

I live in a small Nebraska town and our hospital is Catholic-owned. Even if there is a medical need for a hysterectomy, a woman has to travel out of town to get it done. And men can forget about a vasectomy. That’s completely elective and will not be performed here.

The other one confirmed the same situation: 

Same here. And each of the towns surrounding me. Go 30 miles to the next town? Still a catholic hospital. Have to go over an hour and into a different state or 2 hours to stay in same state to get to a non-catholic hospital.






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Vatican - Only Infertile Women Can Get Hysterectomies

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