Do It For The Homeland
I'm fully aware that some people who read this article in the WaPo about how women should constantly perceive themselves in a "pre conceptional" condition might think it's sound advice. After all, taking vitamin supplements, not smoking and other healthy behavior is a good thing, right?
"New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon."
The federal guidelines related in the article are to help prevent unhealthy pregnancies. But what's the matter with women taking care of their own bodies for their own health's sake? Healthier women will translate to healthier babies, so why the hell does the government have to couch it in terms of a hypothetical pregnancy?
Could it be that our failing health care system and rising infant mortality rates are factors? That this incomprehensibly expensive and rotten system has to try to push the main burden and responsibility of it's failures on the people who try to use it? Nah.
Just like abortion, what first starts out trying to appear like caring winds up being a control issue. Women aren't baby factories. What a woman chooses to do with her body is her business, period, end of discussion. What's next from the government, criminal penalties for a woman who has more than one beer? Fines for being overweight? Jail time for not constantly fretting about her preconception duty to the Homeland?
"New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon."
The federal guidelines related in the article are to help prevent unhealthy pregnancies. But what's the matter with women taking care of their own bodies for their own health's sake? Healthier women will translate to healthier babies, so why the hell does the government have to couch it in terms of a hypothetical pregnancy?
Could it be that our failing health care system and rising infant mortality rates are factors? That this incomprehensibly expensive and rotten system has to try to push the main burden and responsibility of it's failures on the people who try to use it? Nah.
Just like abortion, what first starts out trying to appear like caring winds up being a control issue. Women aren't baby factories. What a woman chooses to do with her body is her business, period, end of discussion. What's next from the government, criminal penalties for a woman who has more than one beer? Fines for being overweight? Jail time for not constantly fretting about her preconception duty to the Homeland?
posted by nolocontendere at 1:11 AM
3 Comments:
it took a lot of patience for me to get through this article... what a bunch of bull. what about men and producing healthy sperm? is there going to be a new trend to treat all men the same way, as having the potential to fertilize an egg and therefore they should refrain from smoking, eat healthy, keep diabetes under control? wouldn't that be only fair? doesn't a healthy pregnancy depend upon a healthy conception, which depends upon a healthy egg and a healthy sperm? men's sperm are fertile until death so they would be harassed until the very end. at least a woman can say "gone through menopause now leave me the fuck alone!"
it's an insulting and unfuriating trend. let's focus instead on free and/or affordable health care (including birth control that is accessible for ALL who seek it) for all and let's increase funding for improved forms of birth control. how absolutely insane it is to want to eliminate or reduce sex education in the schools, allow the insurance industry to remain unregulated making health insurance now a LUXURY rather than a basic right, reduce a woman's right to choose.....how insane it is to put all of that on the table and THEN treat women like this???
let's look at other cultures whose infant morality rates are lower. let's stop this insane push to put all labor's into one category and instead focus on the idea that our bodies are intelligent in and of themselves. labor takes a natural course. too many c-sections, too many drugs to induce or speed up labor. let's realize that pregnancy is not just a medical condition. it is a natural event. home births are on the rise and i understand why.
my thoughts on this latest trend? stay the fuck out of my uterus, uncle sam.
i have often thought if men were able to conceive, abortion would be legal. pre-natal health care would be free and accessible. and monthly menstrual cycles would be considered federally mandated holidays. :)
Excellent points, nina. It's as if we're going backwards and women should be smiling, vapid baby factories who need a pat on the head and just some stern, fatherly advice.
That this trend appears in the Wash. Post means we should expect more of this crap.
Now I have to skip that beer and go contemplate how to care for my pre impregnative sperm :)
What about women who don't have and don't want babies? Oh, I forgot, we are a freak of nature that should be eliminated for entirely different reasons.
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