Parachute Pants

Oh where to begin?

I have been extremely busy over the last couple of weeks so I will try to catch you up on what has been going on.

Firstly to say that on the 13 February my little darling turned 2! It was a happy birthday spent with family. We took her to the Dead Zoo exhibition at Collins Barracks and later had a family dinner for her, which she loved.

Secondly I was going to post (but never finished the post) on my anger surrounding the Prime Time investigative report on the practice of symphysiotomies in Ireland. I have written to my three TDs to demand that the issue of an independent review is opened by the HSE. Apparently over 1500 women were maimed, sliced and diced and left with incontinence between 1950 and 1983. The rest of the western world had abandoned this practice in the early 20th century. Its use here, encouraged by the religious orders who ran the hospitals (oh surprise surprise the Catholic church was involved?) was revived so that women could not be limited in the amount of children they could have as c -sections were limited to three at those times. The stories on Prime Time were particularly horrific and the one that really affected me what the woman who never talked about it, but 40 years later recalled how when they sawed open her pelvis they perforated her baby's head in the process. The injustice of it all makes my blood boil. Childbirth is the most vulnerable time in a woman's life and to have these decisions made about your body WITHOUT your consent is absolutely insane. Furthermore these women deserve to have their voices heard and they deserve answers as to why when the rest of the medical community had tossed out this practice as BARBARIC this was being inflicted on them.

Finally, I have been having issues with my c- section scar recently. I was bitterly disappointed when I realised yesterday that I have a keloid scar. I thought that every woman who had a caesarian suffered from this type of disfiguration! My scar has been very irritated lately and I am finding it nearly impossible to sit comfortably with jeans (or anything else) on. So I have resorted to wearing parachute pants. Yes granny underwear that goes up to my navel. I am hoping that it does not get worse as my uterus expands with this pregnancy but I am certain it will.

They want to send us back to the dark ages...

I am probably posting this to the blog a little late as this was announced last week but I have other things on my mind i.e. PhD, Baby, Cleaning, Sleeping. You may or may not have heard that Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern is proposing an amendment to the Defamation Bill. (See this Irish Times article) He wants to introduce legislation that would be punishable up to 100,000 euro for blasphemous libel. Seriously? Who is this NUTCASE? 

The amendment proposed reads:

“Blasphemous matter” is defined as matter “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.”

But wait there is more...  

Labour spokesman on justice Pat Rabbitte is proposing an amendment to this section which would reduce the maximum fine to €1,000 and exclude from the definition of blasphemy any matter that had any literary, artistic, social or academic merit.

But certainly we must have other things to be worrying about in these troubling times? Like recession? swine flu? Cutting the child benefit? Surely the rights of the individual must be protected over the rights of a religion?  So who would define artistic merit? The government? What is next burning books? Rounding up people into detention camps? Who voted these crazy people into government? Come on Ireland you can't be this fucking conservative, get rid of these bozos.

Some interesting points made by readers in the Irish times here and by Fintan O'Toole here.

The Courage Campaign vs Prop 8

At the moment, far away in my home state of California a battle for equality rages on. Last November Proposition 8 was passed by the California electorate (Not in my home region of SF though... Represent!) It invalidated thousands of same sex marriages. Today the Supreme Court heard the final closing arguments to overturn Prop "Hate" and restore equality to all of California's citizens. Gays and Lesbians should not be treated as second class citizens, they have the same right to freedom that heterosexuals enjoy. 

Check out this link. This seriously breaks my heart watching this. Why doesn't everyone deserve the same happiness?

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/divorce