From: regard@sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: FOCA: And I quote.....
Date: 26 Aug 1992 12:27:16 -0700
Organization: Hewlett Packard, San Diego Division
NNTP-Posting-Host: hpsdde.sdd.hp.com

In article <nyikos.714846005@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:

A bunch of stuff, deleted.

>|||- Ms. Birmingham
>||- Dr. Nyikos
>|- Ms. Regard
>||| You cannot fit a baby's head through a birth canal without some
>||| tearing.
>|| I know this is false as regards pregnancies other than the first.
>|  You're wrong.
>I'm right.  Our second and third children came out with no tearing
>whatsoever.  And one of my wife's sisters had only one child, and he
>came out with no tearing whatsoever.

Ah.  I see.  That your wife didn't need a second episiotomy means that
ALL WOMEN NEVER need a second episiotomy.  That your wife had one with the
first child means ALL WOMEN DO.  Your wife is all women.  I *get* it.

Also note: Linda said "tearing", which includes but is not limited to
the tearing one hopes to avoid via episiotomy.

Of course, the *STANDARD*
medical practice in the USA today is to perform an episiotomy ANYWAY.
Regardless of whether or not it's a first second or third child, regardless
of whether or not one 'thinks' there will be tearing, etc.  Your wife was
lucky or something, I guess, to avoid this standard treatment, given that
she didn't need it.

>I looked through Derek
>Llewellyn-Jones' multimillion copy bestseller _Everywoman_, which 
>I already knew to be loaded with pro-abortion propaganda in the 
>parts where abortion is dealt with, and it is full of dark hints that
>an episiotomy will probably be the best way to go, and nowhere could
>I see any acknowledgement of the fact that at least a few women in the
>long history of our world have actually given childbirth without tearing.

Heck, there are probably a number of women who don't require episiotomy
to reduce the cost of tearing the openings of the vagina.  How many suffer
*no* tearing at all?  That is, no tearing of cervical tissue, vaginal tissue,
or perianal tissue?  Where do you think infection beings if it's all so
smooth and unbroken?

>>>Sometimes I wonder about Adreinne.
>So do I.

I don't know what you two are wondering about.  It should be abundantly clear
to both of you that I think your insistance at 'informing' women 'adequately'
is bogus -- merely a ploy to force upon women *your* biases.  And that I 
personally don't believe that any women on this planet need your biases 
foisted upon them.  I believe that *people* make a lot of choices all the
time based on limited information, because that's what *people* do, and I
don't support holding pregnant-women-who-don't-want-to-be-pregnant to any
different artificially high standard than we hold other *people* to.  Get
it?  Nothing left to 'wonder' about, is there:  quite clear.


>This kind of waffling (...acknowledging that ... may become informed)
>is vintage Justice Blackmun.  Look for a post, 

Well, I've been 'vintage' most-everything today, according to Peter.  
Including, probably, vintage.talk.abortion.  Nothing new, folks.  Just
OTHER PEOPLE trying to force their opinions upon women-who-don't-want-it
thankyouverymuch.  

The world must really be a very messed up place with those millions upon
millions of ignorant/misinformed/vulnerable/put-your-favorite-patronizing-
adjective-here women wandering around so mislead and lost.

Pfffft.

Adrienne Regard


Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.flame