Something I missed at the time

[james_davis_nicoll]

More than 200,000 people in rural Peru were pressured into being sterilised by the government of former President Alberto Fujimori, an official report has revealed.

and

Sterilisation: Peru's darkest secret

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Has anyone blamed it on Chevron yet?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

And someone would want to link them to this program for what reason(s)?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Chevron and Peru have a history . . .

http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/17/judge-chevron-ecuador-2/

[kjn]

Another country with a sordid history of sterilisations…

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

How about a tag, "Attn Foreskin Collectors"?

Oh, woops. Default circumcision is happening right now in our own local hospitals, where we could actually do something about it. So, never mind.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of old Virginny.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Vasectomies don't remove foreskins, and tubal ligations certainly don't.

The US has a shameful record on involuntary/coerced sterilization, so far be it from me to throw rocks, but the scope of this is absolutely startling, given that Peru's population is about 30 million.

[sesmo.livejournal.com]

Are you seriously comparing infant circumcision with forced sterilization of indigenous people?

[nelc.livejournal.com]

What a bizarre connection. Were you sober when you wrote that?

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

In the hospitals where we might have influence, by the time people are of the age of consent to sterilizations, there are very few foreskins left, most of them having been arbitrarily removed without even the parents' consent.

[elusis.livejournal.com]

One has to get to "what about the mens?" somehow.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Reproductive system surgery performed on massive numbers of people without their (or their parents') consent. Do you condemn this only when the victims are indigenous?

As for power imbalance, that's featured in most such sterilization stories. In the US, the victims were POC, or poor, or classed with mental problems -- and the proponents were faceless respectable elites doing something then considered quite acceptable -- "for their own good".

Now the supporters of involuntary circumcision are the same kind of faceless elites -- and the victims are everyone not rich or powerful enough to get special treatment for their own baby.

[sesmo.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry if you can't tell the difference between "lacks foreskin" and "can no longer have children" you are sufficiently far off the edge that I don't think we can have a conversation.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Consent. Choice.

[felila.livejournal.com]

Could James perhaps ban this rabid anti-circumcision activist? I forsee a continuing assault unless he/she/it is stopped.

If James wants to have that incendiary discussion, let James start it.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Circumcision isn't sterilization. Bemused leftist, please take that discussion to a more appropriate thread.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Actually my point was snarking at these repeated entries -- "Oh tally-ho look what someone else did long ago and far away, where we can revel in condemnation with no cost to ourselves."

Maybe I shouldn't have answered those illogical replies at their own level of literalness. Or at all.

Others, with their gentle mockery about Chevron, may have been doing a better job, anyway.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

You might have been more successful had your selection of topic not made you look like some sort of one issue activist trying to hijack the discussion. Better luck in future endeavors.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I don't know any parents who have had that experience, and I know a lot of parents. But it is certainly not appropriate for any hospital to perform any elective surgical procedure on an infant without that infant's parent(s)' or guardian(s)' permission,

Nobody is going to argue otherwise here, I predict.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Because the important thing here is how US multinationals are mistreated by those wicked Latin Americans. OK.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm a one-target snarkist -- at your repeated topic of "Oh, birth control, talley-ho!"

Next time, maybe I should go meta instead of gently meeting literal replies at their own level.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Actually, state sanctioned forced birth control but I'll understand if the distinction is beyond you.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

That said, my deepest sympathies that your rhetorical skills are not up to the demands you place on them.

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

Actually, state sanctioned forced birth control

A disclaimer you sometimes add. When that does not apply, of course, adding some reference to little brown babies.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It's an important distinction and it makes me sad that you apparently cannot tell the difference between people choosing to limit the number of kids they have, which I have no issue with and someone deciding to limit the number of kids they can have for them, which I do.

so poll: do people think bemused leftist is angling to get banned so they can off and talk about how they got banned or are they really so clueless they cannot tell the difference between voluntary and involuntary birth control?

[bemused-leftist.livejournal.com]

tell the difference between people choosing to limit the number of kids they have, which I have no issue with and someone deciding to limit the number of kids they can have for them

Or facilitating the choice, for those who wish it? I seldom see you making that distinction; it usually sounds like you are condemning any third party for even wanting to offer birth control help.

Ah, well, you have summoned reinforcements, so....

/closes window/

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Can I vote: doesn't matter, please make him stop?

[editrx.livejournal.com]

Definitely a troll trying to bait you into banning so they can go off elsewhere and whinge about how mean you are.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

I vote for alien who doesn't know hoe the human reproductive system works. Ban them anyway.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah, James has never discussed eugenics programs in the United States or Canada. No, he only focuses on the ones that took place in the distant past of the 1990s -- gosh, that's so long ago that the people subject to the program are probably long dead, and any still alive are too old to have children anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

the troll wanting to be banned should in now way deter you from banning the troll. the point of banning is not to punish, but to eliminate.


Doug M.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

While safe condemnation of distant atrocities is a real phenomenon, it is a strange accusation to level at James, whose political posts usually deal with current events in Canada and the US, often within a subculture of which he considers himself a part. Noting something that happened in Peru in the 1990s is actually kind of unusual for him.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Please don't ban him until he tells me which hospitals in the Boston area perform elective surgeries on infants without their parent(s)' or guardian(s)' permission, because I would honestly like to know about that.