Rounding out this week’s theme of Empowered Birth Awareness, I’d like to invite you to look at my most recent Christianity Today blog post. In part, it is a response to several blog posts by the bloggers collectively known as Femina, who happen to be the wife, daughters, and daughter-in-law of the controversial Moscow, ID pastor Douglas Wilson, who criticized women who used birth as an occasion to become “self-absorbed fusser[s]”– The Femina bloggers are not the first to claim... Read more
It’s time again for my favorite search terms collected over the past weeks: “anything can be taken too far” True enough. Witness the “Keep Calm and Blankety-Blank” thing. It was so cool, all vintage graphic and British chic. Now it’s just so not. “essay to convincing people try your brand of junk food” Read “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell. That should help you on multiple fronts. “toys getting skinnier” Yes. Yes, they are. Read more here. “i... Read more
Every so often I hear the insinuation that women (like me) who advocate for ‘normal’ childbirth are inordinately self-focused (even selfish) and that women who are dissatisfied with the treatment they’ve received in hospitals during labor are “uncheerful” and, possibly–according to the women in controversial pastor Douglas Wilson’s life–confused theologically. Don’t get me wrong: Ricki Lake’s memoir, at least as it concerns childbirth, definitely looks at the birth experience as if it is all about her. But while there’s no... Read more
Continuing right along in Empowered Birth Awareness Week, I’d like to highlight the amazing work of Ruth Lubic, who, in 1993, used the $375,000 “Genius” Award from the MacArthur Foundation to found a health and birth center in Washington, DC, which, at the time, had some of the nation’s highest maternal and neonatal mortality rates. In the family birth center’s own words: In 2011 our midwives assisted in the births of almost 250 babies. Our Cesarean section rate is just... Read more
I had intended not to post today, but I just heard that today, September 3, is ImprovingBirth.org’s “National Rally for Change” day; they’re calling for a “full scale birth revolution on Labor Day” to launch a week of “Empowered Birth Awareness,” and I’d like to stand with them on this. ImprovingBirth.org emphasizes that these rallies, which will be taking place in more than 100 cities today (often in front of hospitals), are not protests. Instead, they are an opportunity to... Read more
I make no secret of the fact that there is a big soft spot in my heart for the tremendous gains of the labor movement in American history and a big sad spot for how certain unions–like those representing meatpackers and agricultural workers–have been all but killed. Since many–probably most–of my ancestors made their way in the world and in this country as laboring folks, I am proud to acknowledge that the privileges I have had owe to their hard... Read more
We had a great time in Colorado meeting with all kinds of people who are passionate about God’s mission in Malawi. While we were there, I had the chance to share this piece in person. everyone asks me why did you say yes to this? You’ve never even been there. And I say, because of a story Because of a story on a blog Because this world is a Facebook-Twitter-blogosphere And we can share stories. And this story, this story,... Read more
Hamlet: A man may fish with a worm that has eat of a king, and eat of the fish that has fed of that worm. King: What dost thou mean by this? Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a-progress through the guts of a beggar. (Hamlet 4.3.2) I’ve been having little arguments with myself all week: one one hand, like many good Americans, I believe in the idea and potential and creativity and wonder of... Read more
It’s been an interesting couple of days for me. Truthfully I hadn’t realized that there were a host of people who were linking their decisions not to vaccinate to their Christian faith: because some vaccines may have been developed using fetal cell lines (from several decades ago) because we should trust God–not medicine because the greatest good for the greatest number is “socialism”–not Christianity and, of course, because of the plethora of internet articles denying vaccine’s safety and efficacy As... Read more
I have a new post up at Her.meneutics, the Christianity Today women’s blog (apparently its most ungodly post yet!) called “Love Your Neighbor. Get Your Vaccines.”And that’s pretty much the point: getting vaccinated is not just about keeping yourself (& your kids) safe. It’s about keeping everybody safe. The thing about writing a post praising vaccines is that most of us who like vaccines, or, at least, regard them as something we all gotta do, are pretty quiet about it,... Read more
Rachel Marie Stone
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