I am a woman, not a walking womb
May. 16th, 2006 11:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperI've already seen many of you on my Friends list expressing your ire about this, the Washington Post article talking about the "new federal guidelines" that are recommending that all women treat themselves as "pre-pregnant".
For the record, yes, I find this extremely annoying. I'm all for taking steps to prevent birth defects and make it possible for the healthiest possible babies to be born, but this? This translates to me as telling women that "you should take all possible steps to make yourself healthy just because you might have a baby"--which is a very, very different message than "you should take all possible steps to make yourself healthy because in the long run, it will help you have a happier, less stressed, and more productive life". It puts the emphasis on the health of a fetus who may never actually get conceived, not on the health of the actual woman who is right there, right now. And it totally disregards the wishes of women who for whatever reason specifically do not want to get pregnant, and who will have every right in the world to be furious if their health care providers will not trust them to keep from getting pregnant, and who will insist on forcing them to make health care decisions based on a hypothetical baby they will never actually have.
If you think it couldn't happen, go read what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadesong has to say about how she can't get epilepsy medicines that will stop her body from falling apart because of potential birth defects, and never mind how she is swearing up and down that she has no intentions whatsoever of having another child. And then think about this some more. Hard.
Over onfilkertom's post on this same topic, one of the commenters pointed out that there's not a word uttered here about the male side of things, either. No hint of encouraging all men capable of siring children to eschew habits that could impact their virility. And another commenter pointed out that the sheer existence of these guidelines means that they start influencing court decisions... and those court decisions start influencing laws.
And that is a road down which we should not go.
For the record, yes, I find this extremely annoying. I'm all for taking steps to prevent birth defects and make it possible for the healthiest possible babies to be born, but this? This translates to me as telling women that "you should take all possible steps to make yourself healthy just because you might have a baby"--which is a very, very different message than "you should take all possible steps to make yourself healthy because in the long run, it will help you have a happier, less stressed, and more productive life". It puts the emphasis on the health of a fetus who may never actually get conceived, not on the health of the actual woman who is right there, right now. And it totally disregards the wishes of women who for whatever reason specifically do not want to get pregnant, and who will have every right in the world to be furious if their health care providers will not trust them to keep from getting pregnant, and who will insist on forcing them to make health care decisions based on a hypothetical baby they will never actually have.
If you think it couldn't happen, go read what
shadesong has to say about how she can't get epilepsy medicines that will stop her body from falling apart because of potential birth defects, and never mind how she is swearing up and down that she has no intentions whatsoever of having another child. And then think about this some more. Hard.Over on
filkertom's post on this same topic, one of the commenters pointed out that there's not a word uttered here about the male side of things, either. No hint of encouraging all men capable of siring children to eschew habits that could impact their virility. And another commenter pointed out that the sheer existence of these guidelines means that they start influencing court decisions... and those court decisions start influencing laws.And that is a road down which we should not go.
