I have no problem using these two sociopaths in the same headline whatsoever. In their pursuit of retaining or expanding power, they show no qualms about the number of sacrifices they make to achieve their objectives. Both have targeted women in our most fragile condition. The propaganda both have signed off on is that their enemies are vermin and have no real independent existence.
This harks back to European Imperial conquests and theft—the extermination of Bison in the US conquest of America. Indigenous people either had to move or face starvation. Other examples include Stalin’s Holodomor, the Empire, Colonialism, and Famine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. I would also point to the Highland Clearances and the Irish famine.
Let us start with some observations.
‘Russia is targeting us deliberately’: how attacks on maternity hospitals fuelled a birth-rate crisis in Ukraine’ -The Guardian.
It was one of the most horrifying targets of Russia’s war on Ukraine so far. Reports showed a pregnant woman on a stretcher, her face ashen with shock, legs smeared with blood and a hand holding her bump. Behind her, the bombed-out ruins of Mariupol’s maternity hospital. More than a dozen people, including women in labour, were injured in the attack in March 2022. The woman photographed, Iryna Kalinina, later died along with her unborn baby.
In the three years since then, maternity care in Ukraine has remained under constant attack, with more than 2,000 strikes on medical facilities, including 81 affecting maternal care and delivery rooms. Just last month, Diana Koshyk, seven months pregnant, was killed when a missile struck a maternity hospital in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.
Over the past month, the Guardian has visited three maternity hospitals on the frontline to witness how Russia’s full-scale invasion and attacks on healthcare facilities have taken away women’s fundamental right to a safe childbirth.
Israel’s starvation campaign is systematic and intentional – new testimonies from Palestinians in Gaza — Amnesty International.
Impact on pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers
The combined impact of Israel’s policies of mass starvation, multiple forced displacements and restrictions on access to life-saving aid has been particularly devastating for pregnant and breastfeeding women. Of the 747 pregnant and breastfeeding women that Save the Children screened in its clinics during the first half of July, 323 (43%) were malnourished.
Pregnant and breastfeeding women interviewed by Amnesty spoke about the extreme scarcity of items indispensable to their survival, the agonising reality of being a pregnant or new mother while living in a tent in the extreme summer heat, and the desperate daily struggle to secure food, baby formula and clean water. They also shared feelings of guilt for failing to provide for their children, fears over who would care for their children if they were killed, and anxiety over the impact of malnutrition on the growth and wellbeing of their children.
Women This Week: UN Expert Reports on Israel’s Targeted Violence Against Women and Girls in Gaza — The Council on Foreign Relations.
Women and Girls are the Majority of Casualties
This week, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, described the violence against women and girls in Gaza as an unfolding “femi-genocide.” Amid the overall worsening conditions, women and girls make up 67 percent of reported fatalities, according to estimates from early July. There are around 55,000 women in Gaza who are pregnant, with at least 20 percent at risk of famine and acute malnutrition. Israel recently imposed customs duties on aid purchased outside of Israel to be sent to Gaza, which has hampered the entry of aid, including baby formula. According to the World Food Program, starvation in Gaza has reached “new and astonishing levels of desperation” as distribution sites have seen increasing rates of violence against aid seekers. Citing her recent report to the Human Rights Council, Alsalem told Al Jazeera that “Palestinian women and girls carry the promise of the continuity of Palestinian life, and therefore they are being deliberately killed, and they’re being deliberately exterminated.” Her report also raised alarm over reports of sexual violence, including rape, committed by Israeli forces.
I highlighted the obvious reasoning in the last link; it is indisputable.
Anyone not appalled by these facts deserves no consideration on my part.
Please take a look at my links in the diary; they are all from reputable and respectable sources. [The ones underlined.]
How The Placenta Responds to Famine — The Moore Institute School of Medicine
Key findings:
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Overall, babies that were either conceived during the famine or who were already in utero, had smaller placentas, were shorter, thinner and had smaller head circumferences at birth than those born before the famine. The reduced placental size changed the ratio of baby weight per gram of placenta, which is considered the measure for placental efficiency – or how well it’s doing its job. Depending on the stage of pregnancy during the famine, the placenta became either more or less efficient as a result.
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In early pregnancy, the famine affected the way the placenta implanted into the womb, impairing the placenta’s ability to establish adequate blood vessels for nutrient and oxygen supplies to the fetus. In response, the placenta stayed small relative to the size of the fetus. This suggests the placenta adapted by becoming more efficient as a result of exposure to famine during the early stage of pregnancy.
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Babies that were in mid or late pregnancy during the famine were smaller at birth in relation to the size of the placenta, than babies born before the famine. This suggests that the placenta became less efficient as a result of exposure to famine during mid or late pregnancy.
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There were sex differences in placental response to the famine. Among boys, famine during early pregnancy resulted in smaller placental size and thickness, suggesting the implantation process was impaired. In girls, thickness increased during late pregnancy. The authors speculate that the increased thickness is an attempt to compensate for reduced growth, by burrowing deeper into the utero-placental arteries for more nutrients.
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Women who lived through the famine and conceived a child afterward, also had reduced placental size and thickness, for up to 18 months post-famine (the end of the study period). Their placentas were also more oval shaped than those of babies born before the famine, suggesting implantation was impaired for some time after having been exposed to famine. The authors note this oval shape is similar to placentas from preeclamptic pregnancies – a disorder initiated by impaired implantation.
Women and hunger — Concern Worldwide
Hunger and maternal health: A close relationship
When a mother is undernourished during pregnancy, her own nutritional health isn’t the only health at stake. Any complications brought on by low nutrition during pregnancy, such as anaemia, hypertension, miscarriages, premature delivery, or maternal death, will have an affect on her child as well. Many children born to mothers who are undernourished will likely grow up stunted or malnourished themselves. As the UNFPA points out, as these children grow up (especially girls), their options and autonomy will be equally stunted.
Stunting, wasting, and other health complications that come from a lack of proper food and nutrients are contributors to the cycle of poverty. The related health issues that come from this very preventable cause include lower cognitive skills (which means they won’t get as much out of their education), chronic health issues, and fewer opportunities to reach their full potential and — ideally — break the cycle of poverty. When we talk about poverty being generational, this is what we mean.
This doesn’t just affect individuals and families. Communities and even countries suffer when we don’t consider the health of expecting and new mothers and their children.
These must end now.
By targeting women of childbearing age.
It amounts to words I rarely use combined: Genocidal Intent.
A deep Sadness and Disgust fill me.
~A
