This hospital has a c-section rate that is well above what the World Health Organization deems a safe c-section rate; if women are consenting to a c-section right off the bat (not to mention fetal heart-rate monitoring, antibiotics, episiotomies, and epidurals!) regardless of whether one is actually medically indicated, it’s certainly blurring the lines between what’s medically necessary and the power of suggestion from a medical “authority.” Where does an individual’s right to make an informed choice begin and hospital legal policy end?

— Does Refusing a C-Section = Child Abuse? [via]

The Daily Dish reader thinks abuse of girls happens less because girls have less sustained contact with priests, and it’s also possible that this lack of contact makes abuse of multiple female victims more difficult. However, the reader’s comments do reveal an interesting dichotomy: the girl-abuser is sad, pathetic, and fucked-up, while the boy-abuser is evil. Might this idea permeate the Church, and might it stem at least in part from the idea that homosexuality is itself a sin, and that gay men are naturally predatory and depraved? One Slate commenter thinks so, writing, “[T]he reason they focus so closely on the male victims is that then the church can (very, very wrongly) claim that homosexuality, not pedophilia, is the true sin in this situation.” But the true sin, of course, is abusing a position of trust to harm children — and this is no less wrong when the victim is female.

— The Forgotten Victims Of Priest Sexual Abuse: Girls - Catholic church sexual abuse