Last week I spent two hours with a group of ten women, and over coffee and muffins we had one of the most interesting conversations about women’s health. I would like to let you listen in and taste a flavor of what we were talking about:
Last summer, a colleague and I went to India to teach a basic bioethics course for a group of Christian doctors, nurses, and chaplains. One of the doctors I met was an obstetrician; I’ll call her Dr. Thomas. Dr. Thomas told us about a pregnant patient who developed caner. Other doctors recommended that the woman have the cancer treated, but if she did it could harm her unborn child.
So what do you think happened?
Her husband said, “Get an ultrasound. If the baby is a girl I want you to save my wife. If the baby is a boy I want you to save my son.”
This is the kind of problem that we are facing: women and girls around the world are discriminated against, from the womb, to the tomb. They are at risk in the womb if they are a baby girl in a culture that has a rigorous preference for sons. They are at risk at the end of their life when they do not have any functional value for the community in which they live. They are at risk in their reproductive years when they can have babies for other people; they can be used as sources of eggs for someone else’s reproductive purposes. They are at risk from complications during childbirth, which then that puts their other children at risk.
I read the book Half the Sky which tells so many ways that women and girls are discriminated against around the world. I found it a very powerful and compelling book. But there is a missing piece, the piece that the Center is going after. So many people who are concerned about these issues talk about things like “social justice” or “human rights.” Those are good and important, but social justice does not exist in a vacuum. Human rights are usually based on something like a United Nations document, such as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Here are comments that reflect a different approach:
“We know that women and girls have dignity because we are made in the image of God.
“Women’s dignity is human dignity.
“We don’t agree that “every woman has rights except when she is a girl in the womb.” We don’t agree that “women’s bodies should not be exploited except when a college student wants to sell her eggs to pay off her credit card debt.”
“Our effort is different than other campaigns, because we are grounded in a Christian theology and philosophy, and an understanding that women are spiritual beings, too. Women and girls are not just bodies to be protected, but we are whole persons.
“It’s different than a “women only” organization. Men are just as concerned about these issues as women are.”
At The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, through our Global Women’s Health Initiative, our goal is to lay a solid Christian theological foundation for women’s dignity as human dignity, with no exceptions. We are doing something about it. We have established Her Dignity Network to connect like-minded people.
If you are interested, we would like you to join us. I would like you to be part of the conversation. Visit us at HerDignity.net.