'Maternity homes' again!!!! The Magdelene Laundries!!!!!

by Joni Mitchell

I was an unmarried girl
I'd just turned twenty-seven
When they sent me to the sisters
For the way men looked at me
Branded as a jezebel
I knew I was not bound for Heaven
I'd be cast in shame
Into the Magdalene laundries

Most girls come here pregnant
Some by their own fathers
Bridget got that belly
By her parish priest
We're trying to get things white as snow
All of us woe-begotten-daughters
In the streaming stains
Of the Magdalene laundries

Prostitutes and destitutes
And temptresses like me
Fallen women
Sentenced into dreamless drudgery
Why do they call this heartless place
Our Lady of Charity?
Oh charity!

These bloodless brides of Jesus
If they had just once glimpsed their groom
Then they'd know and they'd drop the stones
Concealed behind their rosaries
They wilt the grass they walk upon
They leech the light out of a room
They'd like to drive us down the drain
At the Magdalene laundries

Peg O'Connell died today
She was a cheeky girl
A flirt
They just stuffed her in a hole!
Surely to God you'd think at least some bells should ring!
One day I'm going to die here too
And they'll plant me in the dirt
Like some lame bulb
That never blooms come any spring
Not any spring
No, not any spring
Not any spring.

Copyright © 1994; Crazy Crow Music

Round up all those slutty girls, stick 'em in homes somewhere, put 'em to work to atone for their sins.

which means there is obviously a fan base for a return to a point where we shipped young women off to homes for unwed mothers.

goddess help us.

:kick:

Bigtime.

Well, WE need to turn back the clock, too. A few years. To when Democrats owned it all - White House, Senate, AND House of Reps.

This is just the first step to keeping us womenfolk in line.

Round em up! Let em have them babies and then sell the (white) kids
to the highest bidder. (The less desirable ones can be sent to 'orphanages' where they will meet their end by *natural* causes,
thereby decreasing the surplus population.)

As for the mothers, indentured servitude for a little while will teach them!

Hey, we could even farm them wimmen out as maidservants (quasi mistresses) for all of those right thinking, good rich families out there.

Yup. . .sounds Atwoodian to me--

and I do not believe that any woman should be denied the right, as a last resort.

the same crowd that is so opposed to abortion is the same crowd that is trying to deny women birth control pills.

I do not believe their chief concern is "the unborn."

I believe their chief concern is that females have sex and then do not always have children.

The issue of abortion is not about the partial birth scare tactic. The issue of abortion is about the CHOICE of not bearing a child just because you have sex.

and this song is a heartbreaker, but if you haven't already, you really need to see the film The Magdalene Sisters.

I had thought for several years the song talked about something that happened in the 19th century; the film makes clear it continued well into the late 1960s, possibly the 1970s ( I disremember when they were finally shut down.)

The dvd has extras that are just staggering.

And the documentary about the real laundries is heartbreaking.

The Handmaid's Tale is very good book. Like 1984...very chilling.

I could not believe he said that again! Who the hell is supporting that frigging medieval idea, locking up young pregnant girls like they're criminals or something. How does that cut down on abortion, anyway? Does he think that a girl is less likely to have an abortion if she gets pregnant and knows she's going to be shipped off to the Home For Wayward Girls? :wtf:

That's the last place I'd want to be! What century is this man living in? Or is the idea to force them to go in these places and not give them the option of abortion at all? Because that's the only way that idea would cut down on the number of abortions.

'Or is the idea to force them to go in these places and not give them the option of abortion at all?'

That is exactly their idea.

I kept thinking of Hitler's "maternity homes" for all the little Aryan children born in the Third Reich duirng the war years. He gathered all the young mothers into indoctrination camps where they were lavishly treated as the progenitors of the new "master race".

Yet somehow, I don't think the women in Bush's "maternity homes" would be treated with any respect at all. They'd probably get a barrage of fire and brimstone lectures with Chick pamphlets as study guides....

Another example of this concept in action.

Here's a link

http://www.canadiancrc.com/Butterbox_babies.htm

:cry:

Magdalines and the Florence Crittenden Homes. Or who don't remember having to seek "a friendly doctor" five states over and taking a bus or train to terminate a pregnancy alone.

Then, the ones who didn't have either of the above alternatives who ended up in back allys bleeding to death or never able to have children again.

I wonder sometimes if folks have any idea what life was like for young women not so long ago.

The Chimp doesn't. He sees himself as an avenging angel...and what the hell have he or Laura done? She runs book fairs. They even cut back on the children allowed to go to the annual Easter Egg Roll on White House Lawn and the Tree Lighting Ceremony. And that was before 9/11...

I hope that woke folks up...but I wonder if people think...oh that will never happen to me...I use birth control..

I use birth control..."

...until they can't get any...:(

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/wbal/20041013/lo_wisc/2408324

A former pharmacist says he couldn't help a college student fill a birth control prescription because it would be a sin according to his religious beliefs. A disciplinary hearing in Madison is focusing on whether a pharmacist can refuse to refill such a prescription and refuse to refer the patient to another pharmacy. Department of Regulation and Licensing attorney John Zwieg says pharmacist Neil Noesen violated medical standards of care with his refusal. Noesen testified Monday that he felt he would be committing a sin if he helped the student. Noesen was filling in at a K-mart pharmacy in Menomonie in July 2002 when the University of Wisconsin, Stout campus student brought in her birth control pill prescription. A complaint filed with the Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board said Noesen wouldn't fill the prescription and didn't refer the woman to another pharmacy.

Made it seem like * would do more for women than Kerry would. The ad totally floored me; here is * trying to set women's rights back a hundred years, and he's trying to tell us that he'd better for us than Kerry??!!!:wtf:

Edited for spelling error.

There's one in Michigan and I worked with them on a case about 12 years ago. It was a nice place. The young women there had no place else to go and were mostly already court wards. It was a place where the kids could stay with their babies and not be separated from them, and receive pre and post natal care. They also went to school there, participating in parenting skills programs and came out prepared to live independently with their kids. It's very different from the Magdelene Laundries, where the nuns exploited the girls for free labor.

Between having a maternity home as a choice and having the government directly set up something like this to do away with social problems that apparently only women commit.

I was in class at the time, and missed his exact comment.

Thanks!

includes "Maternity homes" for unwed mothers.

Does hiding pregnant girls away and then selling their babies support a "culture of life"?

Is that what it's a code word for?

Her song is about her experience as a pregnant teen and being sent to an unwed mother's home.

I'm a birthmother also who went through the horror of being forced to go to a maternity home in 1978. When * started talking about 'adoption being a wonderful option' and 'supporting maternity homes' I literally had a flashback to that awful time. PTSD is not just for soldiers, you know. We were brainwashed, emotionally and mentally abused, isolated, and pitted against the other residents in 'group therapy sessions'.

Anyone who actually believes adoption is such a great 'alternative' for a pregnant woman is f*cking insane. I have spoken to literally 100s of birthmothers -- none have come away from that experience feeling 100% good about it, and all have experienced lifelong grief, regret, or trauma.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2991/mbbpage.html
My birthmother story

I'll never forget Googling my mothre's maiden name a few years ago when I first got the Internet at work. One of the results was a letter from a woman searching for her birth sister. As a 15-year-old in the 1940s, her mother had gotten pregnant. After the birth she was told by her father that the baby died. Only years later did the mother find out that the baby had actually been sold through an adoption ring, by this girl's own father. The woman had since died, but her daughter was continuing the search.

I absolutely agree. I did not get sent to a maternity home, but went through the adoption experience when I had just turned 16. People have no idea what it's like.. When my doctor found out that I was not going to let his attorney friend handle the adoption, as I had found a private adopter thru my home-school teacher, he flipped out and basically made delivery a living hell. Did not talk to me, did not comfort me, and had my hands strapped into leather restraints on the table.. with no drugs, except for nitrous oxide at the last minute. I will never get over the trauma of that day.. never. The doctor did not come to see me in the hospital, I was not examined again.. just discharged with no comment. I challenge anyone who thinks adoption is a walk in the park, to walk in our shoes.

grew up in a magdelene home. Her mom was an unwed mother. It was totally f*cked.

..THAT'S what he has in mind. Remember.. it's always about money and religion with that guy!