veronica_rich | Flabbergasted and Utterly Aghast

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Flabbergasted and Utterly Aghast

This is a tale of one woman's confusion with the state of the world - well, scratch that. The state of my own country, specifically.

I've known a certain LJ friend in real life for several years, since she was a teenager - we'll call her N. She's like my second younger sister. Sooo, I know quite a bit about her medical history, including the fact she suffers from an almost-continual period. There's blood, clots, cramps ... you get the picture.

When she was about 19, she told me her doctor determined she had a condition which made her more susceptible to uterine cancer than the average woman, but that she couldn't have a hysterectomy until she was at least 21. After she turned 21, I figured she'd rush right out and have it removed, but she said her doctor wouldn't do it. This flabbergasted me, especially since I know N has no interest in being a mother and has a very REAL interest in being rid of pain and the inconvenience of continuous bleeding. I thought perhaps she hadn't made herself very clear to her doctor; why else would he refuse to remove an organ giving her so much trouble? This is the 21st century - there's hormones that make it quite easy for a woman without a uterus to continue with life as normal.

It wasn't until I had surfed the Internet a few more years and was exposed to a wider world that I understood N was not alone, and I realized it wasn't a misunderstanding that has kept a malfunctioning, renegade organ in her body at least six years longer than normal: It's plain old sexism.

How do I figure? Today alone, I've had to read four posts on my LJ f-list from frustrated women pulling their hair out over the inability to get doctors to listen to their reasons for wanting tubal ligations, IUDs, and other forms of birth control. This isn't the first day I've had to read this, and I know it won't be the last.

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of me and every other woman being treated like a uterus with a hairstyle. Worse yet, I'm tired of this bullshit coming from other women! A man who tromps all over a woman's rights - at least I can safely presume he simply doesn't know what it's like being female, and I have a hope of educating him. But a fellow woman - that's fucking treason, sister.

I'm tired of hearing "we can't do that because we might get sued." Well, guess what? Viagra makes men see blue! Not that that's stopped many of them. Viagra can KILL some 70-year-old, and yet, not only can other old farts keep getting it, they can have it paid for by the same insurance that WON'T cover birth control, abortions, tubal ligations, OR mammograms until age 40. (Because we all know no woman under age 40 has ever died from breast cancer.)

I'm tired of my body and the bodies of my female friends being treated as shrines for The Almighty Clump of Cells. Yeah, women can gestate babies. Yeah, they're the only ones who can do it. Many men - and far too many women - act like this is some unfair advantage women have in biology. Well, let me tell you what: I'd happily trade it tomorrow for a body that doesn't bleed at least once a month for days at a stretch for 40 years. Do you know what a menstrual cramp feels like? Imagine someone getting their hands inside your lower intestines, SQUEEZING AND PULLING AND TUGGING AND FOLDING THEM FOR SEVERAL HOURS STRAIGHT. At least.

I'm tired of the dominant cults in this country - Catholicism and various branches of fundamentalist Christianity - having more say over what happens to my body than I do! I say FUCK YOU. You want control of my body? Fine. Feed it. Keep it in clothes. Keep it properly examined and medicated (I haven't had health insurance in five years because it costs too fucking much). And while you're at it, don't require me to work, pay taxes, and be sure to properly lobotomize me, because contrary to the opinion that drives this sort of behavior, I DO POSSESS A WORKING BRAIN. (No, I don't have a penis to house it, but I've managed somehow for almost 34 years with that handicap. Incidentally, if I did have a penis, I'd have little to no problem getting the little tubes from balls behind it snipped. No, there's no sexism in regulated medicine.)

I'm REALLY really tired of pharmacists who won't dispense properly-prescribed birth control or the morning-after pill, because it goes against their beliefs. I've been in the workforce since I was 15 years old - nearly 20 years now - and I've had to do a LOT of things for customers and clients that I personally wouldn't do myself. I've had to help people do things I don't even believe in - legally speaking, of course - in the interest of getting a paycheck that is a mere fraction of what a pharmacist gets to take home at the end of the week. Wah, cry me a river - fucking just shut up, suck it up, and save your prosthelyzing for Sunday (or Saturday) morning.

This trend of treating women like they don't know which end is up is demoralizing, demeaning, and illogical. To ban abortion, for example, is to treat every woman the moment she gets pregnant like either a child to be ordered around or slave property to be watched and controlled at all times. She who is forced to gestate against her will is no longer a person, but an incubator. She who is kept from having a harmful, inflammatory LARGELY UNNECESSARY body part removed to improve her health is basically being told her life isn't worth the shit that comes out of it.

Apparently it's okay for us to work, pay taxes, and contribute to society, but not to govern our own life choices. And I find it wholly ironic that legislators and religious folk have no problem treating women like they don't know much when it comes to their own bodies, but they're instantly acceptable to raise the next generation once they roll out of the birth canal. But as I stated above, what really twists the knife is hearing any or all of this bullshit being seriously spouted by fellow women. I mean - damn.

Of course there is no organization to this. It's a rant, bitches. There's a lot more I could say. But do I have to?

(EDIT: Because this thing is getting more traffic than I expected, I removed my friend's specific tag; I'll just call her N for her privacy.)

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There is a contingent who believe abstinence is the best way, and from a purely pragmatic point of view, I can understand that. It'd be nice if everyone were perfect and could keep from having sex unless (a) they wanted a baby or (b) they were sterile or (c) they and their partner were certified disease-free or ... well, I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

But people aren't like that. And the fact of the matter, yeah, is that while both men and women like having sex, nature has burdened females with much of the risk from the act - and society must provide a way for them to counteract that. A baby isn't a punishment to be inflicted for a poor choice - it's a human being who should be wanted, treated well, and cared for. And if a potential mother can't do that, she should terminate and let some other parent(s) who WANT that child's soul have it in THEIR fetus.

Le sigh...responding to both comments at once.

forkgirl, yes, that was the point. I just got off on the subject of abortion because it's a hard subject not to go off on one way or another. And you SHOULD always get that choice, because, yes, that would make abortion obsolete, but looking at the way things are now...while we work toward a better society in which women are better off in terms of sterilization, birth control, etc, can we please stop killing unborn babies? Murder is murder, just like rape is rape.

veronica_rich...I don't believe fetus souls are recycled. Once that kid is dead, it's dead, and quite painfully from what I understand. Besides, the emotional impact of an abortion...no thank you.

And talking about parents who want the kid...why does no one EVER bring up adoption?

I know an older fellow and his wife, very well (I work with the husband), who have two adopted daughters (different sets of parents, years apart). One is just turning 18, the other 9. The 18-year-old has made her parents' life hell since about age 14 - drinking, drugs, running around, you name it. They have spent so much money on treatment, rehab, prevention, for her. She's not the only one of her peers like this, and many of the ones having the same problems were also adopted. The couple are worried the same thing will happen with their younger daughter in a few years and are trying to forestall it as best they can.

Now, on to an older friend to make this relavent. She's in her 70s and knows many people in different states of various ages, most of them parents. Of all these people, a few couples have adopted children. They're all good, non-abusive, caring parents. My friend has told me about those adopted children who are now adults, most of whom are now doing relatively OK - but that when they were teenagers, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, every one of the adopted kids had more problems just simply learning to cope than did other friends' teenagers (and we all know it's a rough time of life anyway). In other words, it's not all that uncommon for adopted kids to get to a point in their lives where the fact they were adopted badly affects them.

I was a mistake, but my parents kept me - they were going to have kids anyway, I just came earlier than planned. That's fine; they never made me feel unwanted. My opinion is a baby does not have to be planned, it simply must be *wanted*. A child who is so unwanted that its own mother doesn't want to keep it is going to hit a point where it does not feel welcome in this world - that it was an accident so heinous it had to be pitied and taken in by someone else. (That may not be the truth of the matter, but I'm only relating to you the observations from those adoptees and their adoptive parents.)

Another woman my older friend knew had given birth as a teenager and couldn't afford to keep the baby, so she put it up for adoption. Later in life, she married and had two children. One day at a wedding, she met someone new who tried to make small talk (my older friend was there and watched this happen), asking how many kids she had. The woman was actually poleaxed because she HAD three children, but nobody except her immediate family knew of the first one - she couldn't answer, and her husband had to actually answer for her, saying, "We have two daughters." According to my friend, the woman celebrated her oldest child's birthday each year and it had hurt her deeply to give that baby up - the woman actually said in later years it would have hurt her less to have had access to a legal abortion at the time.

And let's not even get into all the children who are NEVER adopted and shuttled through the foster system in this country alone. How many non-white, or disabled, or crack babies have you taken on?

I greatly respect anyone who adopts a child. There was a time I seriously considered it myself, before I decided years ago I didn't want to be a parent (I never wanted to give birth; still don't). I don't think worse of adopted kids than I do of biological kids. But the fact of the matter is, giving a healthy adult the option to adopt out their baby is saying it's okay to treat a life as disposable - "Hey, I don't want it, I'll just fob it off on this faceless system if I can't find anyone to take it before it's birthed, and trust that it'll make its way in the world all right." It shows an appalling lack of responsibility - I have more respect for a woman who makes the decision to abort an undifferentiated clump of cells because she knows the resulting child would feel unwanted, than I do for someone who pumps one out and shoves it off on someone else to raise.

People who are rabidly anti-choice seem to me more interested in punishing a woman for unladylike behavior than in assuring a child of a good future. There certainly aren't many who adopt, that's for sure.

How old were the children when they were adopted? I hate to say it, but after a certain point a kid's going to be permanently unattached and cause nothing but pain for everyone, including himself. I know, I know, blowing apart my own arguments in favor of adoption, but life is complicated.

What bothers me is that you're saying that adoption treats life as disposable, but abortion doesn't. What could give that message more strongly than terminating a pregnancy?

Keeping adoption in mind as a possibility for myself far down the road (I'm eighteen, for crying out loud), mostly because of my own terror at the possibility of having a son with the same psychological problems as my brother. Looks like I'll have to deal with some issues either way, but at least an adopted kid would have a fighting chance at getting through it.

It may sound coincidental, but honestly, all the children to which I am referring were adopted at birth - in other words, they never knew their biological mother or father.

Here's the thing: You never have to have an abortion. I wouldn't force you into it. I don't know any pro-choice person myself who would do any more than suggest it as a helpful option if you were to get knocked up tomorrow. That's up to you as an individual.

But by the same token, how could you make the decision for another woman what she should do with her body? For example, I'm almost twice your age. I've been working for almost 19 years contributing to society, paying taxes, choosing my own education, making decisions about fairly important things that affect other people from time to time (I'm a journalist - one of the things I have to do is decide the importance of a story, research it, bear the responsibility of quoting people, being wrong on occasion, etc.). I don't know anyone who would presume to tell any similar 33-year-old man what he ought to do with his testicles or stomach or penis or ribcage or career - but I have a whole host of society who would line up tomorrow, if I were to get pregnant, to try to determine my future for me ... and think it's perfectly OK and legal to do so.

And while you may not believe in "recycled" souls, some of the earliest Christian scholars certainly thought the soul wasn't even dispatched from Heaven until well after conception. I believe it was one of the early saints who wrote that the soul does not enter the fetal body until it is in its sixth or seventh month of development in utero. (No, Christianity isn't the be-all end-all of decision about when life begins, but it's certainly used as a big enough bat by plenty of people that it bears being brought up in that context here.)

The only problem I see with that theory is this: how on Earth do we know when the soul enters the body? For all we know it could be the instant sperm meets egg, or, as you say, it could be much later. Can we be sure? Is it worth it to assume the soul comes later when there's a chance we're wrong?

I don't want to sound simplistic, but quite honestly, I'm more worried about the rights of a person I can easily prove already exists, already has a personality, a life, a soul (for want of a better term) - i.e., the pregnant woman - than I am about a potential person. If the potential person being born means the existing woman will be miserable, poor, and lose out on realizing her own dreams in life ... well, you can guess my preference.

Some may feel this sounds callous - actually, I believe my attitude is fairly humane to kids, because it ensures any which ARE born will be loved and wanted. If a woman does not WANT a child, any child forced into her care is going to end up feeling unwanted at some point - or, if adopted out, will probably feel that way too.

If it makes you feel any better, I am all for the good treatment of children who actually end up being born. Likewise, if you do choose - CHOOSE - to go ahead and have the kid, you are then indebted to make sure that child is well-raised to at least age 18 and to banish any feelings of resentment you may have at having your own dreams cut short. I don't want to raise a child. It would be an utter misery for both me and the child to force me to carry a fetus to term and raise it.

It's a tough issue. The one thing that stops me from accepting your viewpoint is that I can't really look at it as a woman choosing what she wants to do with her own body. Once a woman gets pregnant, she's not just deciding for herself--she's deciding for the child as well. It's like...you take a person at the most vulnerable they will ever be, and you decide whether they get to live or die based on your own convenience. Which is why, of course, I'm all for contraceptives. While I'm dismayed to find that my classmates are going at it like bunnies, I find some comfort in the fact that they're at least using condoms.

The thing is, too, that I doubt all abortions are coming from cases where contraception failed. How many are just because people don't stop and think?

How many are just because people don't stop and think?

And my point is, it's none of your business. Or mine. That's the beauty of individual choice.

Once a woman gets pregnant, she's not just deciding for herself--she's deciding for the child as well.

It's not a child until it can survive outside the womb. And a fetus should not have the same rights as a birthed human being, let alone the adult gestating it.

It's a tough issue.

You ain't kidding. Look how acrimonious it can get just between two smart adult women on the Internet ...

We're going in circles....

And like I said, it just seems wrong that someone should choose to be irresponsible and then kill their unborn child because they don't feel like having it. Forethought would be a beautiful thing.

I almost spoke of accepting the consequences of one's actions, but you're right in saying a child shouldn't be a punishment. Still, though, it's like foisting the punishment onto the kid no matter what. Ifr you abort it, you've killed it for something it didn't do. If you keep it, it'll be mistreated--again, for something it didn't do.

Just goes back to the "why the frick won't people think ahead?!one!" thing.

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Flabbergasted and Utterly Aghast

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