Wow, really?

The past few days I have been reading (again) one of my favorite books of all time, "Mountains Beyond Mountains," which chronicles the life of Dr. Paul Farmer who has accomplished many things on behalf of the "least of these." As a Harvard Medical Doctor, he gave all he had and persuaded to others to do so as well, all with the thought that quality medical care should be a basic human right, regardless of social standing. He's lived and breathed that mantra for the past few decades-- inspiring. READ THE BOOK.

That was just all the backstory-- here's the real story. After reading the book, I was reminded about a time last year when Farmer was on 60 minutes talking about what his organization (Partners in Health) has done and accomplished. And I remembered it to be a really moving piece. So I googled it at found it right away. I couldn't get the video to run since it was from over a year ago, but I re-read the story and yeah, got chills. This is a truly amazing man.

So time goes by and I start reading some of the comments at the bottom of the story. And a lot of them were really great, and a lot of them were getting a bit snarky. Like IGNORANT snarky. Let me offer you the direct quote on this one--

*****

Posted by: The Rock107 May 4, 2008 11:03 PM PDT

Dr. Farmer''s work is a ray of sunshine in a pretty bleak world.

Call me cold hearted but I think his program should include a sterilization program. The 45 year old woman with eleven kids with complications during her delivery infuriated me. No reason on God''s green earth for anyone much less an impoverished person to have that many children.

*****

My own commentary here-- hmmmm, yeah. Interesting thoughts. So provocative. SO IGNORANT. First of all the declaration that "no reason on God's green earth for anyone MUCH LESS AN IMPOVERISHED PERSON to have that many children." Wow. Really, The Rock 107, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

I'd like to offer a meek suggestion-- that it is none of my dang business how many babies anyone does or doesn't have. None. Maybe there is at least ONE reason on "God's green earth" to have 11 babies... I don't know. I'm fixin' to have about 23 before this is all said and done. Just seems really idiotic to me to throw out a blanket statement right at the get go.

Next, I'd like to offer the suggestion, it's just a suggestion, that PERHAPS forcing people into sterilizing themselves in a country who takes GREAT pride in their children and their ability to bear these children would be a tad, well, like a violation of their human rights. This is also a country where 10% of children will die before the age of 4... Parents depend on their children when they are older to care for them. Start limiting that now and what happens to the social structure later?

And not for nothing, but this is a MALE dominated culture. People ask this about Haiti all the time, "a woman knows how a baby happens, why doen't she just stop having babies?" Listen up here people-- this is another culture. There is no "No Means No" campaign teaching boys how to listen to girl's limits. It's extremely male driven, where children are highly aware of sexual things at early ages because of the way women are treated. A married Haitian woman has no say over anykind of intimate relations. They are all decided by the husband. And she has no right to turn her husband down. It's just the way it is. Now, the North American inside of us starts to stand up and say, "Well, that's just wrong. Equal rights for women! No means No! Someone needs to stand up to this!" But that's just the thing-- THIS IS THEIR CULTURE. This is NOT our culture.

So for so many people to make comment after comment about how "gee, Paul Farmer really would have hit the nail on the head with this one if he only forced birth control on people..." it torques me. This is a man who traveled first as an anthropologist to Haiti to learn and know the culture. This is a brilliant mind who graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard Medical School and who runs a $50million/year non-profit, while living the majority of his time in Haiti... I am pretty sure that a "forced sterilization program" isn't high on his list of priorities.

It is my (albeit, uneducated) opinion that IF a sterilization program was to EVER be put in place in Haiti-- it needs to come from WITHIN, NOT from the outside in. Because we have a term for things like forced sterilization on a group of (usually poor) people. We call it ethnic cleansing. And it's kind of a no no.