Behold birth rape!
According to HuffPo UK:
Birth rape, they call it … Rape is really to do with having your body disrespected, contorted against your wishes, without your consent. The way the medical establishment sees it is, when you’re on the hospital bed, you have already given consent. Some men say the same thing about the marital bed, or any bed that you get into with them.
There’s even a website called Birth Rape:
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]This isn’t the first attempt to censor me and it won’t be the last. It also won’t be effective.[/pullquote]
The idea of being raped while giving birth is difficult to imagine. In most people’s minds, rape means forced sexual intercourse where a penis is inserted, forcefully and without consent, into another person’s body. Some broaden that definition to include objects as well as body parts… And it doesn’t just happen in dark alleyways, bedrooms tinged with the smell of alcohol and ‘mixed signals’, or in war zones. It can (and does) happen in some of the most respected and revered institutions in the land – hospitals.
And another website called Birth Raped:
Birth rape is the violence and assault women are subjected to by those they are trusting to safely care for them while they give birth…
Those who abuse pregnant and birthing women under the guise of care giving need to be called to account. Sadly, most people are unwilling to admit women are routinely assaulted by doctors, nurses and midwives. Women need to tell their stories so that one day these abusers can’t hide behind claims of doing their jobs to avoid the legal and professional repercussions of their abuse.
In each case, natural childbirth advocates are claiming that the way they were treated during birth isn’t merely “like” rape; it is rape. I’m not aware of a single celebrity natural childbirth advocates criticizing the use of the term “birth rape” or cautioning that it is disrespectful to or triggering for women who have survived sexual assault.
You can understand, then, why I’m not moved by the faux outrage about my post pointing out that rape is natural; forced copulation occurs across the animal kingdom including humans and in some cases is an evolutionarily successful strategy. I noted that just because something is natural does not mean it it good or worthy of being emulated. Unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding may be natural, but rape is, too. At no point did I suggest that unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding are the same as rape or that rape is acceptable because it occurs in nature.
No matter. Those who fear me and the power of my words have set out to censor me. Kaci Dean CLC, Doula, Herbalist has set up a Change.org petition to get me banned from Facebook.
Who is Kaci?
Kaci is a birth/postpartum doula, placenta encapsulator, herbalist and certified lactation counselor. She has two beautiful daughters and 4+ years of personal breastfeeding experience. Her thirst for knowledge was born when she was left wanting more following the cesarean birth of her first baby. Her passion for birth and postpartum care bloomed after the gentle home birth of her second daughter. She strives for excellence in every aspect of her work and celebrates each client with the love and support every blossoming mother deserves.
Why should I be banned?
Amy regularly spreads false information (proven time and time again by science). She has been quoted as saying “rape is natural” and a “successful evolutionary strategy.”
But that’s not the real reason. As she acknowledged on her personal Facebook page, she just wants to shut me up:
Help me take down the Skeptical OB. I’m done with her trash littering our society.
For people like midwife Hannah Dahlen, it’s not enough to hide from me by blocking on social media, she is so afraid of what I say that she wants to prevent anyone from hearing it.
We are calling on Facebook to remove The Skeptical OB. I am all for debate and respectful disagreement but Dr Amy demeans, defames, attacks, insults and promotes ideas that are contrary to the evidence and recommendations. Her hatred for midwives, normal birth and homebirth and anyone who supports either of these is well known. It needs to stop #ENOUGH
I understand why they want to silence me. As Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee has observed:
The punitive gesture of censoring finds its origin in the reaction of being offended. The strength of being-offended … lies not in doubting itself; its weakness lies in not being able to afford to doubt itself.
They’re not really offended; their unwillingness to call out their own colleagues for comparing hospital birth and C-sections directly to rape makes it clear that it doesn’t matter how the word is used, just who is using it. They’re afraid of me and my critique of the many ways they bully women and profit from that bullying.
These natural mothering advocates are hardly the first to attempt to censor me and they won’t be the last.
As I wrote more than 6 years ago before embarking on a lawsuit against a blogger who tried to censor me:
…[T]here has never been any chance that The Skeptical OB would disappear. There may continue to be disruptions until the matter is sorted out, but my writing will continue to appear in the marketplace of ideas that is the Web.
It ain’t over ‘til it’s over and this ain’t over.
