Category Archives: Lebanon

Video of Lebanese Woman Committing Suicide

The video below is disturbing. Watch it with caution.

Video link if taken down: here.

 

The video looks real. And according to the following news item (link), the woman in question, Amina Ismail, did throw herself off the balcony of her apartment at the 8th floor of a Beiruti building. She has been buried in her hometown, Tyr.

I wonder what got into her husband’s head to start filming though. It must be completely natural to bring up a camera when your wife straddles herself off a balcony in order to jump to her death. Or could he have sniffed out signs that his wife might do such a thing and figured a video is the best way to prove his innocence in court?

Either way, this tragedy, regardless of whether the video turns out to be true or not, is further proof that we are in dire need for two very important things:

  1. De-tabooing the idea of mental health across the country,
  2. Making psychiatry more accessible for everyone.

I don’t know what the conditions that led to this woman jumping are. But her death, if the video isn’t fake, could have been prevented if the idea of seeking help hadn’t been, in this country, worse than the idea of death itself.

May she rest in peace.

Update: according to an email from a reader who allegedly knows the couple, the man was filming their newly bought apartment when the incident happened.

Lebanese Tales You Don’t Hear Everyday

She was blowing the candles off her 35th birthday’s cake. This would definitely be her year. She had a man by her side she was marrying in a few days. She had a loving family. Her wedding preps were going smoothly. And yet, there was this one thing gnawing at her head: how was she going to tell him that he wouldn’t be the first, that the skin on which all dignity lay was not really there, that there were several men before him, that she had even had one ectopic pregnancy which she obviously aborted?

She had gone to her gynecologist a month prior. She asked for advice. She wasn’t worried like other women would be at that point. She knew that medicine can do wonders in that regards those days but she didn’t want anything major. So he stitched her up.

What if I didn’t bleed? She asked. Her doctor told her then that only around 35% of women bled on first intercourse, that the myth with which she was troubling herself was unfounded. But she wouldn’t take those odds. Who knew how those Eastern men thought, she told her doctor. Would any of those men she had slept with in years past marry someone like her?

He recommended she’d get a tube of her own blood with her and hide it. So on their first night of marital bliss, she faked being in pain as her husband thought he was giving his wife a new experience. Faking it all the way to the bathroom, she spilled the blood in the tube on a white towel and returned with it to her husband, clutching her abdomen as she faked the insufferable pain all the way the bed.

She was relieved. He was happy. And she told this to her doctor giddily.

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He was rounding on his patients as he normally does every morning, making sure their night had gone smoothly. After a weekend, Monday morning rounds are more complicated because they require you to catch up with two days of work which you hadn’t attended.

So there she was, a girl his age, suffering from a complication that happens in 1% of assisted reproduction therapy cases. She sat in her bed, obviously worried. But why would she be worried, he wondered. There was nothing about her condition that was troubling if it’s under the control similar to hers.

Mom, can you leave the room for a bit? She asked just as she saw him making his way inside. Her mom obliged. She gave him the bag of medicaments she was on: hormones here, hormones there. He went through them quite fast, still wondering why someone his age, who wasn’t married, would be on a therapy designed to eventually get women pregnant.

But she didn’t want to get pregnant. She was getting her body prepped for something far less motherly – She was preparing her ovules for sale.

It was against the law, sure. The hospital she was in had no clue and would never do such a thing, certainly. But no one was allowed to know.

I’ve got myself covered, she said when he asked her how she intends to carry on with her plan. Just don’t tell my mom.

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Why Haifa Wehbe (And Her Pranked Friends) Get No Sympathy From Me

Disclaimer: This is not about the starving children in many places of the world.

I guess you can say I’m very late for this. Haifa Wehbe’s prank happened last week. In blogging terms, that is way too passé. But like many things in this country, many seem not to have gone over it. Isn’t that why a surgeon, a resident and a nurse spent 20 minutes discussing it over a woman’s open abdomen yesterday? Or is that a doctors only thing?

For those who don’t know what happened to Haifa Wehbe, here’s a brief summary: she was led to believe she was filming something related to Egyptian tourism when she was taken to a newly discovered tomb where she was taken down underground tunnels only to be locked in a dark room where they let loose a snake, bat and a mummy on her.
The show of that Egyptian pharaoh-named wannabe person Ramez Ankh Amon is despicable. He wants to be the Arab version of Ashton Kutcher. What he does to the celebrities he pranks is near terrorism.

What happened to Haifa Wehbe is not acceptable. She had a panic attack, which – although not life threatening – gets the person to believe they are about to die, which only serves to increase their fear. Then you find out some Egyptian lawyer wants to sue her for not appreciating Egyptians enough, whatever that means. It’s all so sad and it sure gets you to feel sorry for her. After all, why don’t we stay in a room with a snake, a bat, a mummy and no vision whatsoever?

A similar prank took place last year with Cyrine Abdel Nour whose bus was fake-hijacked and she was forced to get off of it, get blind-folded while a fake battle raged around between the “terrorists” kidnapping her and the police. In what world is that acceptable celebrity pranks? Or are hijacking scenarios too far out to be plausible in these parts of the world?

It sure gets you worked up deep inside when you hear those celebrities go on and on about their tragedy: how they felt they were going to die, justifiably so; how they believe no one should ever go through what they went through; how this has made them better people who can encompass human struggles; how you can insert any Miss Universe answer here and it will make sense.

And for a while, the rhetoric works. I felt sorry for Haifa, for Cyrine, for the celebrities that were pranked. And then it dawned on me.

Q: Why hasn’t this ridiculous show been stopped yet?
A: Because celebrities like Haifa and her friends don’t want it to.

A day or so after Haifa’s prank took place, the video of that prank gathered almost 2 million hits on YouTube, which she even flaunted on Twitter. That’s more hits than some of her “music” videos. I didn’t bother to check so I might be mistaken. In those few minutes of them being “exposed,” the show gives them back tons of exposure, more fame and more money.

Haifa Wehbe and her friends don’t mind that despicable show. They don’t mind it extending to other famous people who will be pranked, in possibly worse ways, and of whom we might not know because they’re not “in” enough on our social media circles or our repertoire of famous people. They could have simply decided not to let their episode air for the public. They could have stood up against that despicable show and actively killed it. They certainly have the legal capacities and resources to do so. If enough celebrities refuse to air their episodes, as only few have done, that “prank” show won’t have any material to survive with. But many celebrities won’t have a reason to fuel in order to get more exposed, more known. So tell me again, why should I feel sympathy for them?

The Lebanese Fathers Who Hate Their Daughters

I didn’t believe when I was told she was getting a divorce.

The initial thought that crossed my mind, in sectarian Lebanon, was the how, given her sect. I then asked the why. They said her husband was beating her up. I would have never told. I knew her for a very long time. I knew her husband for considerably less but he never gave the impression of being a wife beater.

Or that could have been the reason why she liked wearing longer sleeves than usual during the times when long sleeves were intolerable.

What will happen to the children? I asked. Nobody knew. They said they might split custody. Others said their father didn’t have time to take care of them. In a few weeks since she took her decision, she became a single woman with children to support in a country that doesn’t accept cases like hers.

And I couldn’t have been prouder of her: standing up for herself, her body, her bruised arms, her children, their sanctity and all of their well-being.

I figured things could only get better for her now: she had family that should help her get back on her feet, she had the support needed to recuperate from months or maybe years of abuse, she had the strength to make herself whole again.

How wrong was I?

Her father was a man of ambition. He sought office many times. Sometimes through proxies whose campaigns he orchestrated, other times by running directly. His ambition surpassed the confines of the town in which he acted but he knew he wouldn’t get farther than that. He tried nonetheless, expanding his repertoire of friends to a growing list of much more influential men who gave him purpose, who gave him lists to drop in conversation, who gave him fake importance which he mistook as influence.

And her father beat her up as well.

He beat her up when he knew she was getting a divorce.

He beat her up when he knew she was going through with the divorce.

He beat her up when he knew she had custody of her children.

He beat her up when he asked her to stop the divorce and get the children back to their father and she refused. He beat her up so much that her ailing mother came to stand between them and was slammed across the floor, as she was withstanding for years, despite the chemo coursing through her veins and the cancer killing her insides.

He beat her up because he felt it gave him power, because he figured it would straighten her behavior.

She feared he’d beat her up if she visited her mother in the hospital. So she didn’t visit.

She feared he’d beat her up if she visited her mother to take care of her on the days her husband had her kids. So she’d wait in the car until he left before she’d sneak in.

She feared he’d beat her up if she did anything that he would think was out of the ordinary so she never did.

Her husband beating her up was something. Her father, on the other hand, was something else.

His abuse diffused to her siblings who mentally abused her as well. He rendered her a doormat on which they stepped every time the woes of life overburdened them. And she took all of it anyway.

Then, when it all became too much to bear, she decided to seek help. So she went to a lawyer. How can I sue both my father and my husband, she asked while clutching the medical reports detailing the abuse she was withstanding. The lawyer advised her not to. If you sued them, he said, the law will say there’s something wrong with you because they both beat you up.

There was nothing she could do. So she kept on taking it, hoping that one day things will get better.

That father is one of the Lebanese fathers who hate their daughters, who don’t deserve their daughters, their wives or any of the women of their lives. Those are the fathers who should stand by their daughters, forcibly weakened by society and by law, regardless of whether their daughters are in the wrong or the right, but not only fail to do so, they stand against their daughters forcing them to go down to where society put them. Those are the fathers who perpetuate the weakness that society has inflicted in our women.

I hope for a day when she wakes up and find the strength she has, despite it all, somehow rewarded. Until then, may her god be with her.

What You May Not Have Known About Abortion & Some Medical Ethical Issues in Lebanon

You’d think class discussing ethics in medical school are the most boring. The truth, however, is that those classes are the only ones capable of engaging the entire class. The sloths wake up because of a rising tone with their classmates. The conservatives rise because the liberals in class are infringing on their beliefs. The liberals get infuriated at everyone else because they just don’t get it. And the physicians giving the lecture sit back and watch.

Pop corn material? You bet.

Because I am receiving my medical training in Lebanon, we have to also deal with certain aspects of Lebanese law pertaining to these issues and to say our laws are bipolar, nonsensical and surprising is an understatement.

  • Abortion:

We all know abortion is illegal in Lebanon. There’s no pro-life, pro-choice debate. Women have no choice when it comes to this. However, did you also know abortion is illegal even when it comes to congenital abnormalities? In other words, it is illegal for a physician to abort a baby in Lebanon if the baby has, for example, Down’s Syndrome or any other defect which would render his life extremely difficult. The only situation in which abortion can be performed in Lebanon legally is when the pregnancy is endangering the mother’s life – and even that comes with its own baggage of morality clauses.

In fact, any physician who performs abortions that are not indicated – even if they are for what many perceive as common sense causes – can be targeted by the law especially if he rubs a prosecutor the wrong way. Some physicians refuse to do abortions fearing legal issues while others refuse to do so for religious issues. In fact, a physician who is training me said to my face: “I wouldn’t even abort my own sister if the baby was a product of rape.” I was outraged but this is how it goes.

Certain major hospitals in the country do not even do amniocentesis, which is a component in prenatal care and diagnosis to detect certain abnormalities. Their argument? We’re not aborting anyway so what’s the point of the mother knowing if the child has Down’s Syndrome or not? Besides, amniocentesis carries a theoretical 1/250 chance of causing a miscarriage – who needs that risk?

A relevant abortion real life story we were told is when a radiologist missed the absent right arm of her fetus, a condition called phocomelia. She later found out of the condition at a gynecologist’s visit and decided to abort. She then wanted to sue the radiologist for missing the condition but was eventually talked out of it because having the case reach a court of law would get both the mother and physician in jail.

  • Gamete donation:

I daresay Lebanon doesn’t need more fertility. If anything, we need to have population control. But some people just need those little bundles of joy in their lives. Some want to because they feel a need to be parents. Others want to because society looks down upon the women who don’t give their husbands children. Many couples resort to In Vitro Fertilization or other methods of Assisted Reproductive Technology. Insurance companies pay for such practices without knowing so because hospitals cover it up in their charts.

For some couples, however, gamete donation is required for them to have children. Yes, the child wouldn’t be theirs biologically but that’s not all that matters now, right?

Here comes the interesting part, Lebanon-style: There’s absolutely nothing – no religious decree, law – allows sperm donation. It doesn’t matter what the man’s fertility status is. It doesn’t matter if the woman is as fertile as they come. Oocyte donation, however, is an entirely different story that is governed by each person’s sect. Meaning: whether or not a person is allowed to donate or receive donated oocyte is correlated with that person’s sectarian personal status. Move over civil marriage, I guess.

Don’t worry though, the sects agree on this. The Christian, Druze and Sunni sects prohibit this. Shiites are the ones who have gone off the rails – but not all of them. Lebanese Shiites fall under two main branches. There are those who follow Mohammad Hussein Fadalallah in their practices while others follow Iran’s Khamenei. Those who follow the latter are not allowed to donate or receive oocytes while those who follow the former can do so as per a fatwa which he issued shortly before his death. The condition? The oocytes have to donated by someone by the man’s other wives.

  • Embryo Research:

Not a lot of research is being done in Lebanon. This is especially lower when it comes to embryo research – the number is zero. However, who would have thought that the law can actually be interpreted in a way that permits such research?

In fact, the Lebanese law pertaining to this issue stipulates that the embryo is a product of conception and can be manipulated as long as both parents agree. Other products of conception include the placenta. This effectively renders the embryo prone for research. So in a way, we are ahead Western countries in this regard.

Why hasn’t this law gained traction? Mainly because no institutions actually allow such forms of research to happen in their premises. Most of the country’s main hospitals are religious institutes at their base. The law has also passed unnoticed by the radar of sects because they’re all busy elsewhere and we still don’t know if it’s been put into effect. Interestingly though, at least some MP members (Kassem Hachem, I believe) tackled the issue at hand. Meanwhile, women are still waiting on their own domestic violence law.

  • Conclusion:

We were asked the following question about frozen embryos: if you freeze an embryo for 5 years and then implant it, is the fetus one day or 5 years old?

All hell would have broken loose if we hadn’t been a small group in the discussion. I guess it doesn’t really matter where we legally stand from such issues. What is clear, at least to me, is that we are lightyears away from having a decent discussion about them. But I still find them fascinating.