Reddit reviews Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species

In Sarah Hrdy's excellent book Mother Nature she talks about how, in the US, women are treated like second class citizens to the children they carry. A woman who gets an abortion is selfish, a woman who refuses cancer treatment to give birth is a heroine. She discusses how 'maternal instincts' are not as natural as many people believe and that it is quite normal and natural for a woman to place her own health first before that of any potential offspring. I've seen several of my friends, determined to have natural births, break down when that birth becomes impossible. I'll never forget arriving at the hospital bedside of one of my friends who went into labor at 34 weeks after she was induced due to complications. She was crying because she'd taken the epidural and she felt like a failure because of it. I reminded her that we are bipedal with big heads, and that childbirth is painful and dangerous to us. If a mother and her doctor decide she needs an epidural or a c-section that's what she needs and no one should judge her for it.

Throughout this pregnancy, I have done a lot to put my boys' health before my own as is my choice. However, I'm not carrying to or past 40 weeks, and I'm getting a c-section if I feel that is the best option for me and my boys. If I need an epidural, then I need an epidural. Unless someone is willing to carry, give birth, and nurse my babies for me, they have no fucking right to judge me on my choices.

3 out of 4 SIDS cases are actually the mother deliberately smothering the infant.

Maternal infanticide has been observed in both humans and primates, across cultures and classes.

Where gender is concerned, at risk of being smothered are boys born to low-status women, and girls born to high-status women.

A blog on this topic by Brad.

sure, it's good to have a discussion about it without pointing fingers. I'm always happy to give my perspective from the actual experience of a crisis pregnancy. and back in the day I was a staunch pro-lifer myself.

i regret that.

i even carried protest signs. this was in college, maybe a year after i had placed my son for adoption. i guess the idea i had was: if i had chosen life, why couldn't every other woman? It took me a long time realize that it's a far more nuanced topic. Not every woman has the support structure that I had. Not every woman was born into a relative position of comfort and privilege. In the end, it needs to be allowed to be a very individual choice because each woman is a unique individual facing unique challenges at that particular moment of time in her life. But that was a very gradual shift for me, despite the fact that i had had my own experience of crisis and trauma. It should have opened my eyes sooner. It's not to my credit that I took as long as I did to gain better perspective and process it the way I came to but I had to find a historical perspective too (as I outlined above. I was going to note, if you have not read Mother Nature by Sarah Hrdy, it would be well worth your time.)

you might find the link that I linked about in one of the other comments helpful as well. it's kind of a history of the pro-life movement. I can remember when this whole "issue" started generating controversy so for me, i can see how it could be seen that this has been cultivated to be a highly-charged emotional issue generated for use by further control by the church. there is literally no stone of human sexuality and suffering that the church will not be willing to use to "bring people to god" (read: generate/keep adherents). but that's my little rant on the subject ;) i don't mean to detract from a thoughtful dialog at all!

edit: all kinds of crazy grammar stuff

I am not good at articulating myself, so I will suggest a book for you. Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. It is not just about abortion, but motherhood from a sociological perspective. It's the book that really helped me nail down my feelings about abortion, because although I am not religious, I love babies and once felt the same way that you did.

Partly true. Note kanuk876's point about SIDS cases. The book he quotes looks interesting, too.

> many of the patterns of abuse and neglect that we see in cultures around the world (including, of course, our own) are neither unpredictable nor maladaptive in evolutionary terms. "Mother" Nature, as she points out, is not particularly concerned with what we call "morality."

See also this oft-linked essay by Brad Hicks