# Does "Birth Rape" exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 16, 2009, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995 "2009-10-16T04:37:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![schnuckiputzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@schnuckiputzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schnuckiputzi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/41 "2009-10-16T16:05:54Z")
I think that she’s way out of line. I’ve been in the birthing room three times, and although I had a great OB/GYN, when things go badly and the baby seems to be in trouble, they get very focused on getting that baby out ASAP. Seconds count. I don’t think she’d be very happy if they sat down and spent ten minutes explaining everything to her, but at the end of that time, the baby had brain damage from oxygen deprivation. I know there are medical people who are asses, and have no people skills, but let’s not ascribe motives to them that they don’t have. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/42 "2009-10-16T16:07:48Z")
We’re specifically discussing women who feel mistreated by medical professionals. In other words, patients. Your opinions about whether women should give birth under medical care are somewhat tangential to the discussion at hand. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/43 "2009-10-16T16:10:39Z")
> [@LunarPlexus](#): > > But why is a woman giving birth under medical care? Birth isn’t an illness. Sometimes there are conditions that warrant medical oversight (either definition may be applicable), but all out of proportion to the numbers (in the US, at least). My point was to address the default assumption of roughly half the posters who preceded me that woman giving birth = patient. Well, as **DianaG** said, the women in the OP’s quote are under care. So all the women being discussed are patients by definition as we’re discussing the care they get from doctors and nurses in hospitals. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/44 "2009-10-16T16:15:13Z")
If the “reproductive activist” in the link gets her way and procedures like allegedly unnecessary C-sections get grouped under the umbrella of “birth rape”, then home birth will become more than an “attractive option” - it’ll increasingly be mandatory when OB-GYNS refuse to put up with the craziness. And seeing how midwives are being stigmatized as “rapists”, maybe more home births will become do-it-yourself affairs. Unassisted birth - it’s normal, it’s natural, and what could possibly go wrong? ---
**Author:** ![LunarPlexus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@LunarPlexus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LunarPlexus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/45 "2009-10-16T16:42:16Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Well, as **DianaG** said, the women in the OP’s quote are under care. So all the women being discussed are patients by definition as we’re discussing the care they get from doctors and nurses in hospitals. OK. It seemed to me the discussion had moved into more general birth territory than just the OP and the consistency of referring to women as patients struck me. It was a small window and I made a small thrust. Sorry if I nicked anyone’s uterus. ---
**Author:** ![Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4bbf92/32.png) [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heart_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/46 "2009-10-16T17:07:16Z")
> [@tilde](#): > > Against your will can also mean without informed consent, IMHO/IME. \ And yes, generally rape is tied to sexual acts, but it is a violation of the woman in and around the genitals. Just like one might argue that killing Matthew Shepard was “just a random torture and murder” rather than specifically a hate crime. While rape is certainly “a violation of the woman in and around the genitals”, such a violation is not \*always \*rape. What matters is motive and intent - and to me, a case like Matthew Shepard’s is a perfect illustration of that. It \*wasn’t \*a random torture and murder, \*because \*of the intent of his assailants. If they’d had some other motivation, then it would not have been a hate crime, even if he really, really felt it was. The same physical actions would be classified differently, based on the intent. Similarly, a doctor’s intent is (usually) not to sexually violate the patient. It certainly didn’t seem so in any of the examples here. So while the same physical actions may occur (foreign objects or fingers are inserted in a vagina, the woman is drugged or physically restrained, etc.), it matters that the intent is \*not \*to sexually humiliate her, dominate her, degrade her, or gratify the doctor sexually. The intent is to deliver her baby safely. If the doctor pursues this goal without regard for the mother’s wellbeing, then she may well \*feel \*sexually humiliated, dominated, or degraded. But that doesn’t make it rape, because that was not the intent. For example, when I was 14 or 15, I had an ovarian cyst rupture: I didn’t know that’s what was happening at the time; all I knew was that I felt like all of the muscles between my belly button and my knees were being pulled apart, while knives were being stuck into my pelvis and anus. I thought I was going to die. When we got to the emergency room, they asked me if I could possibly be pregnant. I said no. A few minutes later, someone else asked me again. No, absolutely not. They asked if I was sure. Finally, I screamed, “Look, I’ve never had sex, I’ve never even kissed a guy, so unless this is a miracle, I’m NOT pregnant!” Then, because I was barely coherent with pain, the nurse stripped me out of my clothes and got me into a gown, and the doctor stuck a hand up my vag, and started palpating my abdomen. Then he made me stand up on my toes and drop down onto my heels. It hurt like nothing I’ve felt before or since. As soon as it was clear to the doctor that it was “merely” a ruptured cyst and therefore not life-threatening (ie. a burst appendix), he became very dismissive. He gave me some ibuprofen (I told them I had already taken about 1200mg at home) and told me I’d be fine. When the nurse came to check on me a half hour later and found me doubled over and silently weeping, she suggested I be given a shot of Demerol. That finally made the pain manageable.That experience was incredibly traumatic, sexually humiliating, and degrading. But it was not rape. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/47 "2009-10-16T17:48:18Z")
> [@LunarPlexus](#): > > Does your browser not have the facility for right clicking on words to look them? That may be TRWTF. Why should I need to right click because someone is too lazy to type a few letters? I agree with the general response that it exists but rape isn’t the right word to use. There’s appropriate words, like “malpractice;” in Spanish “abuse of power” (“abuso de poder” or “abusar de sus atribuciones” - overstep his permissions). ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/48 "2009-10-16T17:53:01Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Shake a little harder\*\*, the fetus isn’t the one paying the bill.\*\* While I agree with your sentiment regarding the issue of this thread, I don’t care for the implications of the bolded clause. If I pay my wife’s medical bills, does that mean I get to decide what happens in her care irrespective of her wishes or what is best for her? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/49 "2009-10-16T18:00:27Z")
> [@LunarPlexus](#): > > Does your browser not have the facility for right clicking on words to look them? That may be TRWTF. Mine doesn’t. Maybe it’s a Firefox acronym I haven’t added. But apart from that, using such uncommon acronyms in that way goes against the very purpose of writing a post – that is, communicating clearly. It forces the reader to stop mid-sentence to decipher it, and perhaps to look it up in an online dictionary, thus disrupting the flow of reading and comprehension. It’s is as I wrote “Needless acronyms give you a headach, Diana Try taking a couple of C9H8O4,” rather than simply writing, You have a headache? Try taking a couple of _aspirin_." ---
**Author:** ![LunarPlexus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@LunarPlexus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LunarPlexus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/50 "2009-10-16T18:00:34Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Why should I need to right click because someone is too lazy to type a few letters? Does using an acronym = (I mean equal) laziness? Maybe. What if someone is too lazy to only use words you know the definition of? Maybe having a browser that provides a simple mechanism for looking things up is a good solution. Sorry to have derailed the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/51 "2009-10-16T18:09:48Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Mine doesn’t. Maybe it’s a Firefox acronym I haven’t added. That should be Firefox **addon**. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/52 "2009-10-16T18:14:18Z")
> [@LunarPlexus](#): > > But why is a woman giving birth under medical care? Birth isn’t an illness. Sometimes there are conditions that warrant medical oversight (either definition may be applicable), but all out of proportion to the numbers (in the US, at least). My point was to address the default assumption of roughly half the posters who preceded me that woman giving birth = patient. [Are you kidding?](http://www.momlogic.com/2009/04/home_birth_advocates_baby_dies.php) All these women are going to accomplish is making treatment like this even worse, not better. No one is going to take their claims of abusive medical treatment serious when it’s referred to as “rape.” Try malpractice. (I’m reminded of the time we had a girl here who said she felt like she was “gang-raped” after she got her ass kicked – mildly!-- in the Pit) ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/53 "2009-10-16T18:18:47Z")
> [@tilde](#): > > Rape isn’t about sex it’s about power. > > I can see quite clearly where birth rape is a similar violation, that involves a similar exertion of power of one over the other. Maybe more of “I’m the professional, and I know what’s best,” and different from the usual exertion of power as part of random, date, spousal, molestation, or incest, but fits the category of rape as far as I can see and read from others. And IMHO/IME. Ahhh, now some of my career experiences make sense. I was work raped ! And I wasnt even paid very well. They turned me into a cheap prostitute ! That speeding ticket ? I was road raped ! ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/54 "2009-10-16T18:22:19Z")
> [@LunarPlexus](#): > > Does using an acronym = (I mean equal) laziness? Maybe. What if someone is too lazy to only use words you know the definition of? Maybe having a browser that provides a simple mechanism for looking things up is a good solution. > Sorry to have derailed the thread. Yeah and maybe actually using real words instead of uncommon acronyms will solve the trouble altogether. :rolleyes: And if a woman is in a hospital getting treatments from doctors, she’s a patient. The end. ---
**Author:** ![LunarPlexus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@LunarPlexus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LunarPlexus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/55 "2009-10-16T18:40:01Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > The end. OK. Edit: Okay. ---
**Author:** ![tilde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/58956e/32.png) [@tilde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tilde)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/56 "2009-10-16T19:13:51Z")
re: Dental ‘rape’, work ‘rape’, traffic ticket ‘rape’. I don’t see how these are equal to violating a person’s physical body in the area of their sexual organs and their psyche. Generally, a birthing mother is not ill, but being overseen or purportedly in the care of someone who is designated as a birth assistant, whether their title is doctor, midwife, labor coach, birth assistant, nurse or other attendee. Whether they are at home, in a birthing center, in a hospital, on a subway train, or in a storm cellar. Violation, depending on your experience, how you view the human body, your spirituality, your customs, and so on, can be: as little as being seen by a male who is not your husband in an unclothed fashion, in his professional capacity (for example, you picked an all-female practice for a reason) or not, or as much as having ones membranes removed, water broken, cervix manually dilated, episiotomy given, or examined without explicit informed consent, or over a woman’s protestations, by consent given under extreme duress, by consent given under the guise of various evasions, half-truths, or lies. Violation != rape But a number of those factors can spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, and physically feel like rape. Among the women I have spoken to, some have and have not been raped in the other legal senses of the term, some do and do not find their comparable birth experiences to be the same as or nearly identical to rape. Each case is different. Each birth attendees actions and attitudes and reasons or “reasons” for what they do is different. Misogyny? Some. Golf tournament? Look upthread. I just can’t wrap my mind around “to sexually violate” meaning only “to force to perform or have forced performance of sexual acts upon a person”. And yes, sexual violation != rape, legally, and probably for very good reasons. Blow it off as PR if you want, but I think ‘birth rape’ gets womens’ experiences across much more effectively than “medical assault of the sexual and childbirth organs and mechanisms for various reasons that may really have not much to do with medicine, childbirth, but more expediency, disrespect of the mothers wishes, rights, intelligence, and actual situation so one can get in a golf game or because one thinks she shouldn’t be having a seventh child [or other excuse, ‘need’ or ‘reason’]”. “[Everything](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113764557)” may have changed in the last 60 years, but we still have a long way to go. ---
**Author:** ![StaudtCJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@StaudtCJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StaudtCJ)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/57 "2009-10-16T19:17:09Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > In the US, anyway, I wonder whether the lawsuit potential associated with an unhealthy baby helps to drive this sort of approach on the part of the doctor or midwife. I think societal attitudes are such that a jury may be predisposed to assign blame for an unhealthy baby to the doctor or midwife (especially if it were shown that they held off from some sort of aggressive but invasive technique), while an unhealthy postpartum mother is just written off as “what can you do; sometimes a pregnancy is difficult.” I’m not suggesting that that attitude is fair or justified, only that it probably exists in a lot of people. I agree. I think that lawsuit avoidance for damaged babies is probably the main goal. Nobody really cares if the woman is healthy afterward. (That’s a longstanding pet peeve of mine, and I think it’s related to perceived relative value of the people involved. As in, the baby/toddler/child is far more important because they have more “potential”.) As I said, I’m not sure that kind of “birthrape” stuff still happens anywhere close to commonly, but I’d not discount it in previous generations. I’m definitely of the opinion that using the term “rape” may not be appropriate in all circumstances, but I’ve heard of a FEW cases where it might be, primarily midwife-homebirth transfers, where the doctors/nurses are supposedly “punishing” the woman for daring to try to give birth elsewhere, or with older doctors that trained in the dark ages and have a god complex. In those cases where it could be established that the caregiver is being malicious and deliberately violating the woman to cause pain for whatever reason (which I’m sure does happen, because there are sickos in every profession), I can see it being called “birthrape”. Outside that, though, calling it malpractice, simple assault, or sexual assault is far more appropriate, IMHO. \*ETA: Tilde has a good point, too. “Birthrape” caused a lot more thought and dialogue than other terms would have. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/58 "2009-10-16T19:27:43Z")
If this weren’t such a serious topic, I’d be laughing right now. Some posters want to stretch the meaning of ‘rape’ to include almost any activity the woman finds objectionable. Others want to restrict the meaning of ‘patient’ so as to exclude what most people would clearly a doctor - patient relationship. Definitions, by definition, can mean anything we want them to mean. And although we can by agreement expand or contract a definition, one key to good communication is to use words as they are generally understood by the person with whom you are trying to communicate. We should also try to avoid cheapening a definition by broadening it to include meanings far from the original one. This is why, for example, some people objected to Seinfeld’s use of the term “soup nazi” to describe a rigid restaurant server, it lessens the impact of the original term. So, too, if a doctor who is rough while treating one of his female patients can be called a rapist and put in the same category as the sex maniac who drags a school girl into the bushes and rapes her, the word has lost all value in describing the real world and the people in it. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/59 "2009-10-16T19:30:57Z")
> [@LunarPlexus](#): > > But why is a woman giving birth under medical care? Birth isn’t an illness. Pregnancy does meet all the conditions that define an infectious disease, though. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995/60 "2009-10-16T19:33:08Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Pregnancy does meet all the conditions that define an infectious disease, though. Really? What are these conditions, may I ask, and how does pregnancy meet them? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-birth-rape-exist/513995.md?page=4)