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Birth - A Human and Animal Rights
Issue ![]() This is an excerpt from 'The Issue of Birth Rights' by Sister Morningstar (originally published Midwifery Today 94, posted and accessed here 13 August 2014). "Birth
is
biological. At its most fundamental level, it is an animal rights
issue. When I
was working in Mexico, I was not surprised when, following a birth, a
grandmother asked me, “How is the mother?” But when
she endearingly
asked, “Y la
creatura?” (“And
the little creature?”), I stopped in my step. Something
powerful and deeply
instinctual came alive in me. I had watched wild and farm animals bond,
nurse
and protect their young. I had observed and studied the importance of
maternal-infant bonding from a professional viewpoint. I had dedicated
my
midwifery career to keeping one of my 1000 eyes on everything from
environment
to timing to security to states of mind and heart and
soul—anything that had
the potential of affecting or shaping those first glances and touch and
moments
of irreplaceable connection between the mother and her fresh born.
Nothing had
set things more clear and right in my mind as that
grandmother’s simple and
urgent question regarding her hope of the future—“Y
la creatura?” We
are creatures.
We are animals. It is not a bad or lowly thing to be. It allows us to
eat and
poop and get in out of the cold and enjoy mating and flee danger. We
embody an
instinct that is backed by millions of years of invested intelligence.
It
certainly includes birth. It most certainly includes birth. Who
thought of
holding legs above a pelvis with stirrups or shaving pubic hair to help
create
a sterile field or inserting enemas for cleanliness or providing
strangers for
companions? Certainly not creature mothers and babies. They would kick
and bite
and run for the hills. They wouldn’t need to consult books or
experts. Their
instinctual knowing only takes a second to be consulted. The answer and
response is automatic. It takes force, mighty force, to restrain an
instinctual
animal in the moment of performing a bodily function, especially birth.
Have we
successfully used intellectual fear to overpower the instinctual fear
of a
birthing human, so she will now submit to actions that otherwise would
make her
bite and kick and run for the hills?" And - as we are partly animals - it is also an animal rights issue. World, stop considering animals to be inferior to humans! They birth far more intelligently. We defend animals to birth instinctually. So why not humans?... |
Also see:- Birth & Evolutionary Psychology Animal, Human & Angel |
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