miércoles, 26 de octubre de 2016

MercatorNet: Single? Then you are labouring under a disability!

MercatorNet: Single? Then you are labouring under a disability!

Single? Then you are labouring under a disability!



Single? Then you are labouring under a disability!

According to the WHO in its infinite wisdom.
Marcus Roberts | Oct 26 2016 | comment 

Well, just when you thought that the world couldn’t get much more insane, the WHO comes and reassures you that there is no bottom to the depths of madness. What am I talking about? Well, the World Health Organisation includes infertility in its list of disabilities. Currently, infertility is defined as “a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse”. Which seems about right, if you are in the fertile age bracket (15-49), have sex over a period of time and do not get pregnant then the WHO will define you as suffering from infertility and therefore suffering from a disability. You, or your partner, are unable (temporarily or permanently) to do something that generally humans can do – conceive a child through the act of having sex.
But now, in a sign that the WHO has jumped the shark and moved from health issues to social justice warrior territory, it has expanded the definition of infertility to include:
“Single men and women who have not found a sexual partner to have children with.”
That’s right, all you singles, looking for love, but unable to find Mr or Miss Right are all disabled according to the WHO.  Your inability to find a suitable sexual partner is a disability, equal to someone who cannot conceive after years of trying.
What is driving this crazy change, apart from mental disability on the part of the authors? Well, it can be seen in the comment that “the revised definition gave every individual “the right to reproduce”. Ah, there it is. Reproduction is a right. And if you can’t reproduce because you are not able to, or because you cannot find a willing partner, or because you are in a relationship that by its very nature cannot reproduce, then you are disabled because you cannot fulfil your “right to reproduce”. Where does this right come from? Whatever happened to the idea that children are a blessing? A gift? That being a parent was something to yearn for, hope for and pray for, but not something to demand as a right?
And of course, changing this definition will “likely to place pressure on the NHS to change its policy on who can access IVF treatment”. If you are having no luck on the speed dating scene, or if you are in a committed, long term relationship with a globally-recognised wall, then your “disability” is impeding your “right” to reproduce and you should demand taxpayer-funded IVF to fulfil your right. Perhaps the WHO needs to consider the (novel I know!) idea that single people cannot conceive because single people cannot conceive. A single person cannot run in a three-legged race and it takes two to tango. These are not instances of a single person being disabled. They are instances of a single person, completely able to do things a single person can do, but UNABLE to do things that A SINGLE PERSON CANNOT DO.
We have, of course, lost sight of the idea that sex is not just about pleasure, not just about intimacy, but also about making babies. We demand to have sex without babies, and we will now demand babies without sex. And the idea that babies are intrinsically worthwhile in themselves and should be valued for their own sake, has been replaced by the demand hat babies be provided as a right so that the parents’ “rights” be fulfilled. Babies are no longer subjects, but objects. The WHO is no longer about health but about being bien pensant.

MercatorNet

New Media Foundation | Suite 12A, Level 2, 5 George St | North Strathfield NSW 2137 | AUSTRALIA | +61 2 8005 8605 

Many years ago I attempted to read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a story set in what was known in the late 19th century as the Congo Free State – "free" hardly being the word for what was a personal fiefdom of King Leopold of Belgium. I had to abandon the book at the point where Marlow, the narrator, describes a scene where Africans who had been forced into labour on a railway line lay spent, diseased and dying under the trees. “The horror” (Kurtz’s famous last words) got to me.
Ever since the colonial period, and despite gaining independence as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the resource-rich country has been a byword for international manipulation, exploitation, internal corruption and bloody civil wars. And now violence threatens the long-suffering citizens of the country again, as Mathew Otieno writes in today’s lead article. His outline of the history of the Congo tends to confirm that self-interested Western interventions can take a lot of the blame for its continuing troubles.

The Patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church of Antioch, Ignatius Joseph III Younan, has a similar complaint about his country.
Are we learning anything from the toll of suffering that mounts in the war-torn regions of the world?


Carolyn Moynihan
Deputy Editor,
MERCATORNET



Congo could become a warzone again
By Mathew Otieno
Joseph Kabila’s attempts to overstay his presidential mandate has the country on the edge
Read the full article
Pleading the cause of Middle East Christians
By Ignatius Youssef III Younan
A Syrian Catholic patriarch describes the campaign to drive Christians from their homelands
Read the full article
Unravelling ‘recovered memories’
By Denyse O'Leary
Transgender tots? Part II: How did cognitive psychologists go about unravelling the increasingly frenzied stories?
Read the full article
‘Sweet Land of Liberty’: Colin Kaepernick and freedom of speech
By Thomas Ascik
Football celebrity Kaepernick is no Martin Luther King or Jackie Robinson.
Read the full article
What to do in Post-Truth Politics?
By Ray Pennings
God used Cyrus to help his people. He used rulers to punish His people.
Read the full article
A tribute to A.A. Milne
By Susan Reibel Moore
Pooh at 90 still enthralls!
Read the full article
Single? Then you are labouring under a disability!
By Marcus Roberts
According to the WHO in its infinite wisdom.
Read the full article
Can Hollywood improve on the 1959 version of Ben-Hur?
By Juan Orellana
The classic tale of revenge and redemption has been adapted for contemporary viewers
Read the full article
PopCorn
What would life be like without amazement, wonder and awe?
By Margaret Somerville
We need them to give us hope
Read the full article
A parent’s love
By Charbel Najem
A first-time father begins to understand his own parents.
Read the full article


MERCATORNET | New Media Foundation
Suite 12A, Level 2, 5 George Street, North Strathfied NSW 2137, Australia

Designed by elleston

New Media Foundation | Suite 12A, Level 2, 5 George St | North Strathfield NSW 2137 | AUSTRALIA | +61 2 8005 8605 

MercatorNet: Single? Then you are labouring under a disability!

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario