Here’s our latest installment from Lisi Owen, an LSRJ international intern working at Engender Rights in the Philippines. The text of this post is an excerpt from a letter Lisi recently published in the Manila Times.

I arrived in Manila to intern with EnGendeRights, a women’s legal NGO, almost ten weeks ago. As I’m preparing to return to the U.S. next week, I’d like to offer my thoughts on reproductive health policy in the Philippines. My departure conveniently coincides with the CBCP’s recent vow to vehemently oppose the reproductive health bill pending in the House of Representatives as part of its “pro-life” stance on family planning, so this letter is all the more appropriate.

I have a staunchly Catholic friend in the U.S. with whom I shared all the recent news articles articulating the CBCP’s position and vow to oppose the RH bill, and his response was that Filipino Catholics need to “wake up.” Spain, Belgium and other Catholic countries have woken up and changed their laws on contraception, and even abortion, so why is the Philippines still sleeping?
In response to the Church’s so-called “pro-life” position, I have this to say: Life is more than the possibility of a fertilized egg. Life is children living in pushcarts on the sidewalk, wearing no pants. Life is women who risk death every time they get pregnant, but continue to do so because their husbands beat them when they refuse sex in the name of “natural family planning.” Life is sitting on your front step waiting to die, because you’re that miserable, and have nothing else to do.

If the Church is pro-life, then I ask this of the bishops: How do you justify the suffering you cause? This is not a matter of the Church or the government sitting idly by and allowing people to suffer, but an active promotion of misery, and it is wrong.
I recognize the American imperialism that has preceded me in the Philippines, and how that might influence your opinion of my views. But before you dismiss me as another American trying to impose my heathenous, western views on a country that’s seen enough outsiders meddling in its business, let me clarify my position: It is one of choice. If you want to practice natural family planning with your partner, that is your prerogative. If you want to capitalize on the benefits of scientific progress to control your own reproductive health, that is your prerogative as well.

It is not, however, the prerogative of the government to impose its own archaic, paternalistic religious views on the suffering people of a nation, (in violation of both the Philippine Constitution and international law, I might add) such that they are stripped of their power of autonomous decision-making.

It’s hard to believe it’s the last day of my internship with LSRJ. This summer has been fabulous. I’ve learned so much and gotten to participate in some fun events, like testifying before the California Commission on the Status of Women at their public hearings. We’ve had great guests for our Networking Lunches and heard about a wide range of issues–from transgender rights to the latest anti-choice proposition in California to young women’s activism and perspective on RJ issues.

My internship project paired me with Generations Ahead, a brand new organization that focuses on assisted reproductive technology and its implications for reproductive justice. I learned a lot about policy work and about some cutting-edge issues and got to know the GA staff. Today when I stopped by to say goodbye I learned that GA is guest blogging at RaceWire right now, so I’m going to use this space to do a little cross-pollination: Truc Thanh Nguyen, Project Director of Racial Justice and Human Rights, writes about the relevance of reproductive technologies to social justice movements.

And while you’re exploring the web beyond Repo Repro, check out the Generations Ahead website to find out more on what they’re about. This org is gearing up to do some great and necessary work in a relatively unexplored area of reproductive justice. I certainly hadn’t fully considered the impact of reproductive technologies before I started my work with them. My perceptions have definitely been widened on these issues.

I should also note that it’s International Blog Against Racism Week. As it happens, I did that here. But don’t let the fact that IBARW only officially lasts until tomorrow stop you if you haven’t had time to post on your own blog this week. Every week should be a week to speak out against racism and injustice.

It’s been fun! Thanks to everyone who read and everyone who commented on my posts. Blogging here has been an unexpected bonus in a summer of exciting RJ work.

–Erin Simonitch

In Nashville, Tennessee, a routine traffic stop turns into a nightmare for expectant mother Juana Villegas. Driving without a license would normally earn her a citation, but instead, Juana is arrested. An immigration officer at the police station finds she is in the country illegally. Imprisoned and awaiting a court hearing, she goes into labor three days later. At the hospital, the guard will not leave the room while she changes into a gown, forcing her to undress in front of him. While recovering, Juana is shackled by wrist and ankle to the bed; her ankles are shackled together when she gets up to go to the bathroom. The guard has disconnected the phone in her hospital room so she cannot call her husband. When she is taken back to county jail, the authorities take her newborn son from her and give him to her husband, whom she is still not allowed to see.

The sheriff’s deputy takes away the breast pump the sympathetic nurse has given Juana. Unable to pump, Juana’s breasts become painfully engorged and infected. Her child, denied her milk, quickly develops jaundice. The sheriff’s office ignores the damage done to both mother and child while Juana waits over the long 4th of July weekend for her day in court, in pain and unable to sleep.

All of this occurred pursuant to Nashville’s 287g deportation law, permitting immigration status checks at traffic stops. If Juana had been white, she would have received a citation and sent on her way by the sheriff. Because she is Latina, she was instead treated, in her own words, “like a criminal person.” (Story broken by local Latino blogger Tim A. Chávez at Political Salsa and covered there in great depth; picked up by Daily Kos, the New York Times and RH Reality Check.)

Biologist Susan Shane discovers her 7-year-old adopted daughter has begun to enter puberty. Alarmed, she makes a doctor’s appointment and searches the internet for clues on what has caused her little girl to prematurely develop breasts. What she finds is startling: scientists have linked chemicals in polycarbonate plastics (used in food packaging, water bottles, and baby bottles) and in phthalates (in food packages, time-release capsules, shampoos, lotions, and deodorants, among other things) to early puberty in girls.

Susan’s daughter is Black and has probably been exposed to these damaging environmental toxins since birth. In part because U.S. government’s WIC program discourages breastfeeding by dispensing free formula, 95% of Black women bottle-feed their children–and four times as many Black girls as White girls begin puberty around age 8. And early puberty puts them at heightened risk for breast cancer, type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease and polycystic ovarian syndrome. Susan stops using plastic water bottles and lunch containers, and her daughter’s pubertal symptoms disappear. “But I cringe as I watch her classmates line up for school lunches heated in plastic, and eat and drink food carried from home in plastic containers,” Susan says. “Some of the girls have already grown prominent breasts and with all that I have learned, I am worried about their futures.”

These two stories illustrate intersecting oppressions beyond those of gender, injustices that can’t be entirely linked to that old, familiar villain “patriarchy.” What we’re talking about here is the operation of kyriarchy perpetuating reproductive injustice for immigrant women, poor women, and women of color. We cannot blame patriarchy alone for these injustices.

So what is kyriarchy?

(more…)