March 19, 2008

WASHINGTON DC EVENTS: Join us

LOCAL EVENTS: Post Yours! Update it.

FIND LOCAL EVENTS AT http://5yearstoomany.org
& IN A SEPARATE LIST AT http://worldagainstwar.org
 

Influence-Peddling

"..."Good government" types rightly abhor this influence-peddling, but they propose pointless reforms, like bans on lobbyist-sponsored gifts, junkets and rides on corporate jets. They also back a vicious assault on free speech: campaign-finance restrictions designed to reduce the influence of lobbyists in political campaigns. Despite all these "reforms," influence-peddling goes on.

For good reason. None of the reforms gets near the root of the problem.

The root is government power. When government is free to meddle in every corner of our lives and regulate the economy through taxes, regulation and subsidies, then "special interests" have every incentive to work on the politicians to preserve their turf or gain an advantage.

article by John Stossel

Book of the Month

Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth
and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block
(Hardcover - Jun 30, 2007)

Features accounts of midwife prosecutions and
the grassroots effort to legalize midwifery in Virginia

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews, (Starred Review) 5/15/07
"A gripping expose... Provocative and hotly controversial analysis of a side of reproductive rights feminism seems to have forgot."

Book Description

A provocative and incisive analysis of childbirth in the age of machines, malpractice, and managed care.

In the United States, more than half the women who give birth are given drugs to induce or speed up labor; for nearly a third of mothers, childbirth is major surgery - the cesarean section. For women who want an alternative, choice is often unavailable: Midwives are sometimes inaccessible; in eleven states they are illegal. In one of those states, even birthing centers are outlawed.

When did birth become an emergency instead of an emergence? Since when is normal, physiological birth a crime?

A groundbreaking journalistic narrative, Pushed presents the complete picture of maternity care in America. Crisscrossing the country to report what women really experience during childbirth, Jennifer Block witnessed several births - from a planned cesarean to an underground home birth. Against this backdrop, Block investigates whether routine C-sections, inductions, and epidurals equal medical progress. She examines childbirth as a reproductive rights issue: Do women have the right to an optimal birth experience? If so, is that right being upheld?

Block's research and experience reveal in vivid detail that while emergency obstetric care is essential, there is compelling evidence that we are overusing medical technology at the expense of maternal and infant health: Either women's bodies are failing, or the system is failing women.

About the Author

Jennifer Block is a former editor at Ms. Magazine and an editor of the revised Our Bodies, Ourselves. Her work has appeared in such publications as the Village Voice, The Nation, Mother Jones, and ELLE. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.