From home birth to home abortion.
By Kathryn Joyce
http://www.slate.com/id/2247379/Jackson, whose special-needs son was born after a grueling 98-hour delivery, says her motivation is to counter the stories of regret the anti-abortion movement has cultivated in recent years. As the controversy continues, one of the most interesting—and motivating—parts of her narrative has been largely overlooked: her intimate connection with a religious movement—one she now calls a cult—that glorified fertility and childbirth and demonized medical intervention even when mothers' labors were going very wrong.
Twenty-seven years before the YouTube video documenting her home abortion, Jackson was born at home in what her grandmother, a fringe Christian leader named Carol Balizet, called a "Zion home birth," conducted without doctor, nurse, or midwife; without any medicine or medical intervention of any sort; and relying only on prayer and faith in God to get through a safe delivery. Balizet is a Christian author of apocalyptic thrillers who came into her life's work when she started attending the home births of women in her Tampa community as a "spiritual midwife."
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Balizet's teachings on home birth came from extreme origins, notably the Pentecostal Word Faith movement, and as part of her teaching she said Christians must avoid the "seven systems of Satan," which included banking, public education, government, and formal religion. Jackson says Balizet herself was firm only about shunning institutional medicine. She considered it a pagan religion, with doctors serving as high priests or "sorcerers," making sacrifices through surgical incisions and offerings to Caesar and to the spirit of secular humanism through Caesarean-section births. Four of Balizet's own five daughters were delivered by C-section. Adherents were taught that medical problems in labor were of their own spiritual making, based on causes such as insufficient faith in God or disputes between the parents. It was an uncompromising conviction that has been condemned by many conservative Christians who embrace other high-commitment lifestyles—like having extremely large families or living off the grid—but it also appealed to some of that number.
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Over the years, a number of families suffered from Balizet's teachings. In 2001, a 31-year-old Australian mother of five died after several weeks of severe post-childbirth hemorrhaging and swelling for which she received no medical attention. (Above Rubies' Australian director told a local TV station that the mother's trials showed she had been "seeking truth and walking in faith.") Several children died as well, including two infants in the Massachusetts Attleboro cult in 1999—their parents followed Balizet's teachings to the point of severe neglect—as well as a toddler named Harrison Johnson whom Jackson had baby-sat during a "Born in Zion" conference in her grandmother's Tampa, Fla., trailer park. In 1998, Harrison fell into a yellow-jacket nest on the grounds of the park and, after suffering 432 stings, was treated with prayer alone until he died seven hours later.
More at the link:
http://www.slate.com/id/2247379Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement By Kathryn Joyce
http://books.google.com/books?id=WhhCQY_7sogC
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