The feminists think these headlines up, and the media blow them at us until "everybody knows" they're true. Except they aren't true; it's all feminist claptrap. |
Posted on 02/23/2005 1:22:49 PM PST by LibertyJihad
The killing of a pregnant woman is horrifying enough. But the murders of Lisa Underwood, who was carrying a baby, and her 7-year-old son underscore a problem largely unknown to the public: Homicide is the leading cause of death among pregnant women.
"What pregnant women do not know is that instead of facing joyful celebration at the announcement of pregnancy, too many face violence and death," said American College of Nurse-Midwives Executive Director Deanne Williams, in a 2003 report on maternal homicides.
"When we think of all the other things that cause women to die during pregnancy, such as infection or hemorrhaging, the fact that homicide far outweighs those things tells you it's a significant problem," said Phyllis Sharps, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University's school of nursing who researches violence against women.
Many women who are pregnant or have just delivered a baby and are fleeing an abusive partner find their way to The Family Place in Dallas, a domestic violence shelter, said Executive Director Paige Flink. "Where we think it's a time where women should be revered and taken care of, these men think it's taking the focus off of them," Ms. Flink said. "Sometimes it's a question of jealousy or paternity."
Two studies published in recent years have shed light on the problem of maternal homicides: A 2003 study in the American College of Nurse-Midwives' Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health identified homicide as the leading cause of death among pregnant women. That conclusion also was reached in a study published in 2001 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In January, after studying death records across the country, The Washington Post reported that 1,367 pregnant women and new mothers had been murdered since 1990.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
We as a culture have removed barriers which have stood for thousands of years, forgetting why they were there in the first place.
Ok, if your point is that by focusing on pregnant women the article implies that pregnant women are more important than others or implies that the risk is bigger than it is, I see your point. I think motherhood is special and that the murder of a pregnant woman should be treated as a double murder, but I see your point. But what you said before seemed to miss the point of the article--the article looked only at pregnant women and never compared murder rates for pregnant v. non-pregnant women, yet you started talking about how being pregnant doesn't make you more likely to be murdered than a non-pregnant woman.
The article implied that homicide is the no. 1 killer of pregnant women because men are killing their pregnant girlfriends/wifes. That is false and the numbers do not support such false implications.
Look at these quotes from the article, and tell me if they don't imply that pregnant women face a higher risk of violence a the hands of their mates?
"An infant needs a lot more care, attention and time," he said. "Some men don't like that, and are threatened by children and even fetuses. So we see an escalation of violence during pregnancy."
"Where we think it's a time where women should be revered and taken care of, these men think it's taking the focus off of them," Ms. Flink said. "Sometimes it's a question of jealousy or paternity."
So you're saying that the statement:
"What pregnant women do not know is that instead of facing joyful celebration at the announcement of pregnancy, too many face violence and death,"
Is not trying to scare women out of becoming pregnant?
The feminists think these headlines up, and the media blow them at us until "everybody knows" they're true. Except they aren't true; it's all feminist claptrap. |
"Homicide the No. 1 cause of death for pregnant women"
Woman Charged With Cutting Off Boyfriend's Penis (and flushing it)
"One quibble with your analysis, it should be 141 victims expected to be pregnant because each is pregnant for only three quarters of the year."
The National Center for Health Statistics recorded approximately 4.04 million live births in 2000 for women between 14 and 44, so all of these women were pregnant during 2000. Approximately 1 million women between the ages 14 and 44 who were pregnant in 2000 didn't give birth until the first three months of 2001. This brings my total to 5.04 million pregnant women in 2000.
(My count is incredibly conservative because I don't include the 1 million fetal losses in 2000—miscarriages from eight weeks forward—or the 1.3 million abortions estimated by the center. Some of these women could have aborted, miscarried, and given birth—or any combination of two—in the same year and ended up being counted a couple of times. For the purposes of streamlining my argument, I deliberately ignored the minuscule number of women who had two successful pregnancies in 15 months in 2000.)
Its hogwash, both studies eliminate any cause of death that is not deemed "pregnancy related" including accidents and illnesses not associated with prganancy but arbitrarily decide to classify murder as "pregnancy related". Easy to come to this kind of conclusion if you care to follow the authors' taste for data manipulation.
Agreed. This article is bull. What it fails to mention is the number one cause of murder of unborn babies is women..and "doctors."
The shamelessness of the world is staggering. What kind of evil concocts lies like that? What kind of fools believe it?
According to the article (and I have no idea if it's numbers are right or not but for the sake of argument let's assume so) the number one reason for death among pregnant women who die is murder. If a higher number of those murders come at the hands of a boyfriend/spouse than someone else, then yes, pregnant women do face a higher risk of being murdered by a boyfriend/spouse than of dying by other means. That doesn't mean pregnant women face a higher risk than any other type of person or that all (or even a large number) of pregnant women face that risk. But some do, and it may well be that more pregnant women die under that risk than do under the risk of infection, illness, etc. during pregnancy.
I never said that these numbers could or should be used to support some crusade against men or that it means all (or even many) men are abusers. But some are, and sometimes two people die as a result. I know that the feminists like to use these numbers to attack men, but that doesn't mean the numbers themselves are anti-male. In fact, as we saw during the Laci Petersen case, when a pregnant women is murdered some people become more willing to see the unborn child as a human with a right to live, so the numbers about murder of pregnant women could be used to support a decidely un-feminist cause.
Ahh, that does change things. I didn't realize that they didn't include accidental death in the numbers. I guess that proves the point that you can make statistics say anything.
However, I still think that instead of having a kneejerk "this is crap" response and assuming that any mention of a man killing a woman is propaganda, we should look for ways to refocus the debate to address the fact that when a pregnant woman is murdered by anybody, including another woman, it is a double murder. Obviously the feminists don't like this because it opens the door to saying abortion is murder.
I agree with the substance of your post, but I'm still left asking "why did the newspaper run this story?" What was the purpose other than to advance an anti-male agenda?
Out of 5.04 million pregnant women per year, 97 are murdered. Thats 1.92 murders per 100,000, far less than the national average. Printing "Homicide is no. 1 killer of pregnant women" along with anectdotal stories of men hurting/killing pregnant mates, does nothing but create the misperception that lots of men are killing lots of pregnant women. That is misleading and thus, the story is bad journalism with an agenda.
I don't view reports of domestic violence or reports of the murder of pregnant women as propaganda - but I view these two papers as being slipshod.
I do however agree that revulsion at the murder of a pregnant women and her foetus *does* do quite a lot to raise the view in peoples' minds of unborn children as human beings and thus makes things difficult for those who would gladly view any infant as not a human being until he exits the womb.
Ok, I was viewing that as a different issue. I thought we were talking about the numbers themselves, but you're right if we shift to looking at the motives of the writer and paper. I just misunderstood what you were reacting to--I thought you were calling the numbers themselves liberal concoctions (although I didn't realize that the study ignored other causes of death for pregnant women, which does call the numbers themselves into question. Car accidents are probably a higher cause of death among pregnant women than murder.)
And it makes as much sense that sex is the main cause of pregnancy, therefore it was sex that caused the murder. Or, not really....
Stats are for fools needing encouragement and for the government to spend more money.
Good response. You may just survive!! LOL
Freepers know their stuff!
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OK, so the media repeats feminist claptrap. I already knew that. The media ran with the "Superbowl" hoax, the "more women murdered in the US than soldiers killed in Vietnam" hoax, the "domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women" hoax, the "March of Dimes" hoax, the "1-in-4 college women raped" hoax, and countless others.