Maternal Rights in Australia

There is a woman lying in a morgue in America with her belly gouged and ripped open . Her 8 month-old baby had been stolen from her after she had been murdered .

There is a woman in NSW, Australia who has had police arrive at her door, sent by a hospital who was ‘concerned’ she had not ‘complied’ with the hospital’s instructions about how and when she should birth.

So what was really going to be the next step – a taser?
What really were the differences from the point of view of these mothers?  One lived to tell the tale of her onslaught. Neither was offered too much choice about her own life.
Draw a line between the two scenarios and see how far apart they are. Just how different was the mindset in each case?

United Nations: ‘We must unite. Violence against women cannot be tolerated, in any form, in any context, in any circumstance, by any political leader or by any government. SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON’

Defining Intention

Here in Australia, we give honour to our forefathers who steadfastly believed in and fought with their very lives over the last 100 years and more for the rights of human beings to live their lives in freedom and peace. Our Anzacs stood as one, rising up and uniting, representing a whole community which itself was growing into a country ,who gathered together and declared : ‘Enough. No more. Not acceptable.’ And today we have an armed force willingly standing up for the ‘cause’ of protecting the rights of humans to determine their own fate. We like to think we all embody those pure and free principles and we call this the ‘Aussie’ spirit, the ANZAC spirit.

One of the real reasons the Anzacs were such a formidable force was that they willingly and deliberately, men and boys alike and women too, joined to stand together as ‘one’ to deny oppression and tyranny. They believed in free choice so deeply, so profoundly, that they were willing to do everything they had to, in order to protect their wives and children, and their children’s children. Every year we honour their memory and we remind ourselves: Lest We Forget.

So what would we tell them about how we are treating the very people they died to protect?
Did our grandfathers fight, “out there” and “away”, for the very principles we deny ourselves and each other today? Do you think they might have something to say to us right now?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 was born of this world-wide unity of desire to embody principles which cost the world so very dearly, and there are 30 Articles named. It begins with:

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Have we forgotten what human rights are all about?
In amongst the all the people who make decisions and policies – and that includes us as voters of our representatives – where are the men and women who are willing to embody the very principles we say we believe in and that are worth standing up for?

Where are the men who resoundingly honour and protect their own mothers, wives and children?  Where are the women who cherish and value their own lives enough to stand up for their mothers, sisters and daughters and their families.

Who will stand up now?

© 2010 Jo Carey-Bradshaw.  All rights reserved.