Oh, the irony!
Its motto is: Don’t Freak. Know the Facts.
You might think, therefore, that Jen Kamel’s website and Facebook page VBACFacts is committed to bringing you all the facts about vaginal birth after Cesarean (VBAC) so that you can make an informed decision. You would be wrong. Kamel is actually committed to bringing you all the facts about VBAC except the most important one; VBAC can and does kill babies and mothers.
The withholding of facts about the dangers of VBAC is intentional. How can we be sure of Kamel’s motivation? Simple, her destruction of evidence is an indication of consciousness of guilt.
Consider Kamel’s quick move to delete the fact that members of adjunct Facebook community have a very high rate of deadly uterine ruptures.
According to Wikipedia:
The spoliation of evidence is the intentional or negligent withholding, hiding, altering, or destroying of evidence …
The theory of the spoliation inference is that when a party destroys evidence, it may be reasonable to infer that the party had “consciousness of guilt” or other motivation to avoid the evidence. Therefore, the factfinder may conclude that the evidence would have been unfavorable to the spoliator.
Yesterday I wrote about that a poll of members of the VBACFacts community revealed a rate of uterine rupture 70% higher than the typically quoted rate. In keeping with the general cluelessness of VBAC activists, community members were actually congratulating each other on their “great” outcomes.
On the VBACFacts Facebook page, they were asked to comment on my post. There were any number of possible responses including acknowledgement of the hideous rupture rate, apologies that the significance was not recognized sooner, disputation of the meaning of the rupture rate, questions about the statistical validity of the poll, etc.
But Kamel and other members of the community offered none of those responses. Instead, Kamel deleted the question making her consciousness of guilt inescapable. Kamel did not dispute my post because she couldn’t. She did not deny the numbers because she couldn’t. She did not argue that the results weren’t hideous because she couldn’t.
She also did not discuss the results and what they mean for women contemplating VBAC. She did not alert the community to the high rate of deadly outcomes that their own survey revealed. In legal terms, she spoliated the evidence, because she recognized that it was unfavorable to her agenda of promoting VBAC and discrediting anyone who disputes the deadly risk of VBAC.
Jen Kamel KNOWS that her own website demonstrates that VBAC is deadly far more often than she acknowledges. She KNOWS that if women were informed of the real dangers of VBAC, they would be far less likely to attempt one. She KNOWS, but she doesn’t want her readers to know the facts, only the facts that she, in her infinite wisdom, believes should be revealed.
And that’s the primary difference between Jen Kamel (and other birth bloggers) and myself. I believe in the intelligence of my readers, not just those who agree with me, but also those who disagree. I believe that they are fully capable of reading and understanding ALL the evidence and drawing valid conclusions. I believe that when given ALL the facts about VBAC, women will make be able to make a truly informed decision. I don’t care what decision they make, just that they make it armed with all the relevant information.
In contrast, Kamel and other birth bloggers believe in the gullibility of their readers. They believe that withholding key facts is somehow ethical, or justified by the agenda of promoting VBAC. They don’t want women to make informed decisions; they want women to make decisions that reinforce and validate the decisions that the bloggers themselves have already made. They are invested in women attempting VBAC in nearly every case, and they will hide the relevant information to ensure that women make the “right” choice, NOT the informed choice.
Those who prefer to reject my claims out of hand have to ask themselves an important question: Do you want to get your facts from someone who respects your intelligence like I do, or do you want to get your “facts” from someone who assumes you are a gullible, easily manipulated fool?
It’s your choice. Think carefully before you answer; your baby’s life may depend on it.
