tear gas = abortifacient. wow.

[NewOrleans]

So I might have dismissed this piece as too much of a stretch to connect abortion to (like, last week, this really awful public anti-choicer wrote about how abortion caused Robin Williams's suicide, and I was like ummmmmmmmm), but the bolded point gave me pause for a moment since I have heard with my own ears protestors single out black women on their way into the clinic.

What do you think-- too much of a stretch to connect Ferguson tear gas to pro-life hypocrisy?  (Even if so, it's an interesting detail about tear gas, and the idea of black life as a reproductive justice issue is an interesting connection)



A couple of years ago, when I was newly pregnant and reporting in the West Bank, some of my local colleagues insisted that I skip covering a protest at an Israeli checkpoint. At first, I was resistant to letting pregnancy stand in the way of my work, but they knew from experience that there might be tear gas, and tear gas, they said, causes miscarriages.

They were right: though rigorous studies are few, there is evidence that tear gas is an abortifacient. In 2011, Chile temporarily suspended its use after a University of Chile study linked it to miscarriage and fetal harm. Investigating the use of tear gas in Bahrain in 2012, Physicians for Human Rights found that local doctors were reporting increased numbers of miscarriages in exposed areas. And UN officials have connected tear gas to miscarriages in the Palestinian territories.

This means it’s likely that police in Ferguson, Missouri, have been spraying abortion-causing chemicals on crowds of civilians. Recently at TheNation.com, Dani McClain wrote about the killing of black youth as a reproductive justice issue, one that goes to the heart of the rights of parents to raise their children in peace, safety and dignity. She’s correct, of course, but if the anti-abortion movement were actually concerned about the well-being of the unborn, then the violence in Ferguson would be a pro-life issue as well.

Leaders in the contemporary religious right have long argued that they’ve transcended their movement’s racist past. “The white evangelical church carries a shameful legacy of racism and the historical baggage of indifference to the most central struggle for social justice in this century, a legacy that is only now being wiped clean by the sanctifying work of repentance and racial reconciliation,” Ralph Reed wrote in his 1996 book Active Faith. They have tried to align themselves with the African-American community by calling abortion “black genocide.” Now, in Ferguson, they could take a stand that is genuinely pro–civil rights and anti-abortion, by demanding an end to the use of tear gas on a traumatized community. At a time when some erstwhile small-government conservatives are openly supporting the mad excesses of the police state, they might even have an impact. So where are they?

[pixy0stix]

Is this part of why it's considered chemical warfare when used for war?

[debatethis]

Aug 20, 2014 20:57:21 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Is this part of why it's considered chemical warfare when used for war?

Not really. www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/02/why_isnt_tear_gas_illegal.html

It's more for prohibiting threat escalation and mass executions.

Also, I can't find any more studies on tear gas and m/c since the 1989 one mentioned in the OP, and the formula for tear gas was changed in the 90's several times to be more effective on people who are on drugs. It's worth investigating, but this doesn't really pass the sniff test.