Howdy, folks. I am sorry about the scarce posting, but I have been the victim of lucky enough to have been on a month long vacation with my in laws. I am back. I squeaked in with a few hours to spare before my first class. I survived four hours of lecture in dim lights on three hours of sleep. Now I should be taking a nap, but something got me riled up. I can't see of a way to comment on the post, so I figured I would just put my thoughts here. I wanted to post on the original piece and on feministing at the new community site, (hooray, I am finally living the dream!) but neither one seems to be happening for me right now.
As a future Ob/gyn, I see no conflict at all in going from one clinic room with a infertile woman to the next room with a woman who wants an abortion. I have always had a real problem with people who somehow think one woman's fertility is worth more than another's. Fertility is incredibly random and totally fucking unfair, and I am not going to heap guilt or blame on a woman with an unwanted pregnancy because another woman can't conceive. They both have one thing in common: reproductive choice and a menu of shitty options. I will be serving both of their needs and desires, supporting both of them 100%, emotionally and professionally.
Of course I do not believe doctors should be forced to perform abortions, just as the author of this blog claims she does not support extremist anti-choicers.You know, the ones that kill health care workers, bomb clinics, terrorize doctors, have their children wave signs with gruesome photos on them, try to restrict birth control access, try incessantly to make the procedure, which is the most common surgery in the United States, illegal and unsafe, and succeed in forcing the discussion of abortion underground.
No, XX, the majority of the country is NOT anti choice, as any survey will tell you. Yes, the procedure is not pretty and causes uncomfortable feelings, but so does the birth process. Want to talk about fourth degree tears through the rectum from pushing right now? How about many of numerous gruesome and/or ethically challenging medical procedures that DON'T involve a woman's sexuality? Are you blogging about force feeding terminally ill cancer patients? Aren't they patients, too? Where is the outrage?
A child can be a patient. A blastosphere or embryo is a future child, not a patient as you claim. In the vast majority of cases, more than 80%, it is a small amount of tissue. If abortion was killing a child, almost 40% of women of childbearing age would not be getting the procedure. Killing a child is a horrid, gruesome thing, and I am offended you would accuse so many women in this country of doing such a thing or accuse the majority of the country of supporting it. Please stop using inflammatory language. You are kicking women when they are down. If you think it is wrong, don't get one, and don't become an abortion provider. It's simple.
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I am not going to heap guilt or blame on a woman with an unwanted pregnancy because another woman can't conceive. They both have one thing in common: reproductive choice and a menu of shitty options.
Thank you for this.
Come be my ob/gyn. You sound ten times better than the one I've got. You know, with the whole respecting my choices and all.
Awesome post and I agree with not seeing the conflict between an infertile woman and a woman seeking an abortion. That argument never made sense to me, I mean so what if she has an abortion? How would that in anyway decrease the infertile woman's chances of having a kid? Not one bit.
Thanks!
Yeah, the physicians need to respect women's choices, and people need to stop pretending like one woman's fertility somehow affects other women.
I will be in practice in about 3 years. Look me up!
My husband and I are trying to conceive and I frequent a “trying to conceive” website. Minus some of the predictable sexism there (pink=girl and blue=boy; don’t talk about the whole process too much with your husband or he won’t be able to perform), it’s nice to be around women who don’t tell me shit like “You just need to relax” or “It’ll happen when it happens” – uhg, thank you ‘o wise one, now kindly fuck off.
There is a forum for venting frustrations and one of the women was very upset one day. She just could not believe her friend had an abortion while she was struggling to conceive! Her friend had “killed her baby” when her friend knew she “wanted one so badly!” Now, I can understand if she was upset because her friend told her about the abortion knowing she was struggling with conceiving as it does seem a little inconsiderate, but she really felt that her friend’s abortion was a personal slight against her. I was too incensed to try to respond with anything resembling polite, so I didn’t. Thankfully, several of the other women calmly pointed out to her that her friend’s choice to have an abortion was a personal one that had nothing to do with her. Also, she found out she was pregnant about 2 weeks later (she was likely pregnant when she posted her rant), so everyone got what they wanted/needed in the end.