Gilead begins: domestic supply of infants

It's all chilling. BPAS are running a campaign about this issue with a petition to be sent to Liz Truss
bpas-campaigns.org/campaigns/roe-v-wade/
if you want to sign it.

are we back to the refrigerator-mothers causing autism again!
dr Mate sounds like a raving lunatic. Probably because he expresses himself in a patronizing and up-his-own-arse way too frequently.

what we are seeing in the US is the Endgame for the evangelical right. It looks depressingly like Putin’s Russia, and like the too far left.

It is sad to see, and even worse to live, I’m sure. But it has been gaining traction for quite some time.
what the antidote should be is not clear. Perhaps the breaking up of the Federation?

So women can be forced to continue a pregnancy they don’t want and can then be blamed for not doing it “right” and harming their child in the process - can’t bloody win!

I’ve long worried that some interpretation of the research around epigenetics and early trauma might be used as yet another stick to beat mothers with (eg didn’t get adequate ante natal care, didn’t have a good enough pregnancy, didn’t bond well enough).

@Jellycatspyjamas that is my worry also. And I think we are perfectly rational to worry because in past things women did or ate or even thought in pregnancy were blamed for the sex of the baby, birth defects, chronic illnesses, and so on.

There’s a lot of cross over in the presentation of children with developmental trauma, ADHD and ASD, but they’re very separate things. While I think a more trauma informed perspective is important there’s a danger that everything becomes about trauma - which means children then get overlooked for issues that are about neurodiversity and don’t receive the support they need.

My DD has extensive developmental trauma, she’s also being assessed for ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalcula. It can be tricky sorting out what’s about trauma and what’s down to neurodiversity and sometimes it doesn’t matter that much - but sometimes it really does.

I’ve long worried that some interpretation of the research around epigenetics and early trauma might be used as yet another stick to beat mothers with (eg didn’t get adequate ante natal care, didn’t have a good enough pregnancy, didn’t bond well enough).

@InvisibleDragon
Yes! Totally enraging. That is part of his “cancer personality” drivel that cancer is caused by having certain personality traits not by radiation, or viruses, or genetics which only pre-dispose you to cancer while you actually trigger it yourself. All those cancer patients gave themselves cancer because they couldnt express healthy anger or say no to social expectations and so on.

He’s like a faith healer in a sense. Saying if you change your life the way he says you should, you will be healed (or guaranteed to not get cancer).

Oh God, was just watching a film featuring Gabor Mate. He said something like "I find that people with cancer find it hard to express healthy anger." I'm still fuming (but at least I've expressed my anger healthily?)

Gabor Mate also thinks that racism gives you asthma. He’s very fringe.

Dr Gabor Mate ( medical Dr) has written on ADHD and does find a relationship between maternal stress, and stress in an infant’s life, and greater likelihood of ADHD symptoms.

Trauma doesn’t cause ADHD! His books simply blame parents (especially mothers) for a real medical condition. He even says that if you or your child do not have stressful lives but your child has ADHD anyway then you’re either in denial about stress or the child is hyper sensitive. He’s been long discredited for his theories.

Sue Gerhardt well known psychologist writes of damage to infants’ brains through emotional neglect, or general neglect.

I don’t dispute this, but we were talking about ADHD not psychiatric disorders due to child abuse (neglect is a form of child abuse.)

It is thought severe maternal stress can also make a child more likely to develop schizophrenia in adulthood.

The cause of schizophrenia is not known, but the current theories of a genetic component plus various biological and environmental factors all involve post birth factors. Not maternal stress of your mother while you were a fetus.

Dr Gabor Mate ( medical Dr) has written on ADHD and does find a relationship between maternal stress, and stress in an infant’s life, and greater likelihood of ADHD symptoms.

Sue Gerhardt well known psychologist writes of damage to infants’ brains through emotional neglect, or general neglect.

It is thought severe maternal stress can also make a child more likely to develop schizophrenia in adulthood.

Modern life is increasingly stressful for women who even though they have good jobs and may be a supportive partnership. So many can barely stop to have a baby at all, working as they must up to the last moment and soon after birth to even afford a place to live. And often they no longer have supportive community and family around. Look at the growing depression and eating distress among young women too.

Anyway, pro-life is contradictory as an idea imo unless it also includes promoting the well being of pregnant women and the actual life of children once they are out of the womb, where many are will grow up in adverse conditions.

There are certainly plenty of children with trauma which often leads to severely challenging and violent behaviour in schools, who experienced DV/DA through their mother in utero, and absorbed all her stress. Mother is usually the one dealing with all the very major stress of a very stressed child and an even more stressed school and nothing working (often including mother) about seven years later.

There has to be a realistic view of what 'pro life' means, where quality is a part of it, and what society is able to afford. Otherwise we're just creating mess through a kind of sentimental blindness to reality. Although goodness knows we're knee deep in sentimental solipsim at this point in history.

I had been thinking of this in general given how pregnant women often have to work and live in very stressful conditions almost up until birth. It is expected. As discussed the US is especially bad pre and post birth. Could this, and pressure to put young babies under stress in nurseries, be causing the apparent rise in apparent adhd behaviour?

I doubt there would be a causal link between stress in pregnancy and adhd or other LDs. Taking the US, for example, the stressors in pregnancy have been gradually reduced over the generations and yet ADHD rates have increased. ADHD is known to have significant genetic factors, such that it is likely an inheritable condition. I think it more likely that the increased awareness and assessment of children are behind the increased ADHD rates as adults being diagnosed with it now speak of being punished as “naughty and spoilt, or lazy and stupid” children depending on the type of ADHD they have…hyperactive vs inattentive.

Discovereads · 09/05/2022 10:23
ScrollingLeaves

“Artichokeleaves
Not to mention all the lifelong damage that can cause in the forming neural wiring of a foetus.”

“Yes, absolutely. People don’t seem to realise this much at all.”

Pro-life/anti-abortion people do understand that developmental damage can happen, but to them it isn’t a fate worse than death. They really believe abortion is murder and so is far worse than any potential damage a fetus might suffer in the womb or as an unwanted child in poverty

Discovereads - Sorry, I should have made clear that when I said people don’t seem to realise this much at all [neural damage to the foetus when the mother is stressed] I was meaning people in general, not necessarily people with ‘pro-life’ views in particular.

I had been thinking of this in general given how pregnant women often have to work and live in very stressful conditions almost up until birth. It is expected. As discussed the US is especially bad pre and post birth. Could this, and pressure to put young babies under stress in nurseries, be causing the apparent rise in apparent adhd behaviour?

But of course a mother who is in a position to need an abortion, may be particularly stressed.

Pro-life/anti-abortion people do understand that developmental damage can happen, but to them it isn’t a fate worse than death. They really believe abortion is murder and so is far worse than any potential damage a fetus might suffer in the womb or as an unwanted child in poverty.

Artichokeleaves
Not to mention all the lifelong damage that can cause in the forming neural wiring of a foetus.

Yes, absolutely. People don’t seem to realise this much at all.

Plus makes it more likely for employers to discriminate against women 'Well, if she gets pregnant she's going to have to have the baby whether she wants to or not'.

Not to mention the number of women who post on MN because they are under heavy pressure to abort a pregnancy from a partner who does not want the oncoming financial responsibility and ties. And the associated dangers of domestic abuse and violence to women that increase so steeply once a woman is pregnant - hardly stellar services available for that, are there? Not in the police, not in support, not in refuges. Not to mention all the lifelong damage that can cause in the forming neural wiring of a foetus.

@Artichokeleaves
As with surrogacy and all the rest of it, those passionately shouting about 'pro life' need to think past cute newborn to the reality of the life they are creating and the ability of the country to support them with any life worth having

Very well said.
Whatever life there is at conception, it is as nothing to the lived life of a child with all its neural pathways formed during its actual life once born. Real “Pro” life should be about that.

It is ironic to see how, where women have many children, how cheaply actual lived life is valued when it comes down to it. How young people are virtual slaves, or cannon fodder.

As for going off to bomb other countries with impunity, not only must scores of foetuses have been killed with their mothers but also adult foetuses aka innocent humans of that country.

The whole thing is grotesque. It's a sort of economic blackmail for the poorest 'You can't afford this baby, you'll have to let someone else have it'.

And the better off are put in a position 'Don't want a baby? But you could provide for it couldn't you? So tough if this wasn't your plan, you've got a baby/another child'. It really is a way of keeping women down. Plus makes it more likely for employers to discriminate against women 'Well, if she gets pregnant she's going to have to have the baby whether she wants to or not'.

It would be needlessly cruel to force a woman to carry a child and give birth to it, possibly at the cost of her own health and income, all the while knowing that she can’t give it a home. In many cases the suffering of giving up the baby for adoption after the pregnancy would outweigh the suffering she might experience from a first trimester termination. Those advocating this have no empathy for women.

Well yes.

Forcing non consenting women to carry and birth unwanted babies will feed a supply for adoption.

However, the impact on the foetus of being carried by a stressed, distressed woman who does not want to is not a neutral one, as anyone who works in child development will know. Or anyone who has worked with women who were pregnant in highly stressful situations.

And that's added to the risk factors pp have listed above.

It takes very little investigation into US states to realise that adoptive parents with children with reactive attachment challenges, mental health struggles, developmental disability, trauma, is a massive lottery, and there are plenty of these children already in the system. Many states have very limited support and families go bankrupt trying to get help for their child. And adoptions break down, and those cute and cuddly babies at this point not being so cute or cuddly but highly challenging and distressed children with complex needs, are very difficult to safely place and manage in schools and then in the fostercare system. And children with extreme needs are aging out in residential therapeutic centres (secure children's therapeutic homes) and many just move straight into the prison system because they are unable to live independently, to work and there is nothing else in terms of support for them.

It's already a huge mess. FAS is a big issue in the US, there are a hell of a lot of traumatised children and the system isn't there to support the ones they have.

As with surrogacy and all the rest of it, those passionately shouting about 'pro life' need to think past cute newborn to the reality of the life they are creating and the ability of the country to support them with any life worth having.

And there are two senses to ‘sacred’, as well, aren’t there? Religiously sacred (I’m not sure what I think) and sacred in the secular sense (untouchable but not holy). And that second one can’t tally, really, because if we regard the dependent foetus as sacred (in terms of society and our laws) that only works if we make the mother expendable.

‘Well, life begins ages before conception as the egg and sperm are definitely live cells. The sperm can even swim! Look at them go like little tadpoles. So life doesn’t begin at conception. Never understood that argument.’

I believe a human life (the unique individual whose DNA doesn’t exist before the egg is fertilised) starts at conception. It’s not an anti-choice argument, it’s just where I come out when I think through the facts.

‘I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind answering, if you would be a pacifist in the event of a war?’

No. People have a right to self-defence.

‘Also, would you think all life of what ever kind is sacred as having been made equally by God/other?’

I didn’t say I thought life was sacred at all. I’m not sure if I believe that or not.

The supply and demand language is economic jargon, usually applied to some market where those who plan to buy are the demand side and those who plan to sell are the supply side.

Why that terminology was adopted is puzzling to me, unless the person creating it actually thinks that infants should be traded in a marketplace.

Well, life begins ages before conception as the egg and sperm are definitely live cells. The sperm can even swim! Look at them go like little tadpoles. So life doesn’t begin at conception. Never understood that argument.