I am NOT pre-pregnant, f*ck you very much.

[quietann]

So the new CDC guidelines, that tell doctors to treat all women between menarche and menopause as "pre-pregnant", has exploded all over LJ, salon.com, and various other websites I sometimes read.

Why am I not surprised that about 95% of the people who say, "Why is this such a big deal?" are MEN?

ETA: Some proportion of those men do eventually "get it." But being dissed for being genuinely alarmed by the CDC's approach gets me really, really steamed.

Republic of Gilead, here we come...

Comments

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the privelege is striking.

(I don't use privelege as a pejorative statement, mind you. I'm priveleged in any of five zillion different ways, too.)

The CDC, to be fair, doesn't use the words "pre-pregnant." They do talk about "preconception healthcare" for all women, though, so Same Thing, in my mind.

And, before people say it here, too, I'm not actually so worried about the CDC guidelines, in isolation. We don't live in isolation, though, and I'm worried about the CDC guidelines, /combined/ with the anti-abortion measures in many states, /combined/ with the pharmacies refusing to fill perfectly reasonable prescriptions, /combined/ with the people who already refuse to prescribe medications to women who might possibly eeventually get pregnant, because the medications might possibly potentially harm the nonexistent fetus... and so on.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Although it would be nice if I could spell privilege right.

Pri-vi-lege. Goood Kate.

[delennara.livejournal.com]

OUch.
When I first read taht post I thought this were only about giving out Acidum folicum to women. I wouldn't have trouble with this. But withholding medicaments taht are necessary and do help, is something that goes against human rights, I would think. Well, before prescribing them, I think a doctor shoudl *ask* if the woman is trying to concieve. But so many woman are NOT.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Here's a specific example, but that kind of thing happens /a lot/.

Here and here also have good discussion.

The article people are torked about, and the slightly less problematic actual CDC recommendations.

I'm spewing links at you because I'm trying to finish an article I'm writing, and any procrastination is better than the actual article.

[prezzey.livejournal.com]

*reads*

*blinks*

So women should not drink excessively, or smoke, or have lots of excess weight because it's unhealthy, but because it harms a fetus that in all likelihood isn't even there?

-.-

(but this would mean guys should smoke, drink like a pig, eat like a pig...?! A couple of years and there won't be any men left LOL! Or maybe they should get themselves a uterus?)

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

I am NOT pre-pregnant, f*ck you very much.

Me neither. I consider myself post-pregnant these days, and I really don't need to have my nose rubbed in it every time I go to the doctor.

Yet another point in favor of moving to Canada. I wish their gate fee weren't so darned high.

[prezzey.livejournal.com]

I think this stems from the following. You have a bunch of doctors specializing in reproduction working for the state trying to lower infant mortality. They're doing all they can, but it just won't lower beyond a certain point and is still much, much higher than for developed countries in Europe. They have no doubt realized that this is because people in say, Scandinavia lead healthier lives than people in the US. (I've never been to the US, but many people I know who had told me it was one of their first impressions that people on average had a lot more excess weight. The other very striking impression usually was that people drove larger vehicles ;] ) So, since these doctors are doctors of reproductive medicine, they try to convince people to get better not just for their own sakes, but for their prospective children's sakes. It's what's in their heads!

However, a bunch of doctors trying to solve problems looking at graphs might not pay any attention to the current political climate. And indeed they don't!

In Hungary there have also been measures like this, I think they are putting folic acid in flour and other kinds of basic foods... and of course a doctor asks before prescribing something that might be harmful for a fetus whether or not I am trying to conceive... but if I say no, not right now, it's OK and I get my prescription. All this is perfectly normal and I think the way things should be. But refusing medicine from someone just because they are of childbearing age, not trusting them that they wouldn't get pregnant when they say so, is just plain scary. And fundies trying to take over America is also scary. And if the two add up...

[goddessfarmer.livejournal.com]

"They are putting folic acid in flour and other kinds of basic foods..."

Yes, and have been ever since they figured out that milling flour at high speeds/temps utterly destroys any nutrition that the grain had in the first place. SO they replace it with synthetic vitamins to replace what is destroyed during processing.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Um, WRT folates and folic acid, whole wheat flour actually does not have as much as the enriched white flour does... Of course, you'll probably say that the USDA is just a huge conspiracy, but here are the numbers:

Whole wheat flour: 0 mcg folic acid; 52.8 mcg total folate per cup
Enriched unbleahed flour: 165 mcg folic acid; 202.5 mcg total folate per cup

However, whole wheat flour is better than enriched on almost everything else. And I don't see why whole wheat flour could not be enriched.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I think that what set people off was the global quality of the recommendations -- that all women between menarche and menopause act as if they could get pregnant at any time, *and* if they do get pregnant will not have abortions, and thus behave as if they are already pregnant. This includes women who don't want to have children, women who use contraception, women who are infertile either by chance or by surgery (this is me), lesbians who never have sex with men, etc. Women getting reduced to their reproductive potential is not a good thing.

Part of this is fairly realistic in that half the children born in the US are unplanned. So there are a lot of "oopses" out there. Hence my doctor friend prescribing prenatal vitamins to her non-pregnant, sexually active patients who do not use contraception reliably.

The real problem is that a lot of remaining infant mortality in the US is a function of poverty. The women who are most at risk for losing their infants are generally women who don't even have a doctor to go to, so they would not get all these recommendations. The report acknowledges this, but doesn't say anything about advocating for health care for *all* women (and all people), regardless of whether they want to get pregnant or not.

[klingonlandlady.livejournal.com]

Yeah- it would really, really make sense to go after the true "pre-pregnant" minority: women who are sexually active with men, not using contraception reliably, and not having access to or willingness to use abortion. This just falls under the heading of "family planning" I would think- yeah, hey, how about getting everyone healthcare, contraceptives and abortion rights? Think that'd improve babies health overall?

Those Numbnuts.

[(Anonymous)]

Why am I not surprised that about 95% of the people who say, "Why is this such a big deal?" are MEN?

I've noticed this as well.

oops, wasn't logged in

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Why am I not surprised that about 95% of the people who say, "Why is this such a big deal?" are MEN?

I've noticed this as well.

Re: oops, wasn't logged in

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

For the record, my reaction when I first read about this was "Holy f***ing s*** Batman. They're working on giving women the legal status of "Baby factories" instead of Citizens."

I've never read "The Handmaid's Tale," largely because my primary knowledge of it consisted of things taught to me during my very conservative upbringing. Specifically the "700 Club" review of the movie, and a promise from Lutheran High school Westland that no class would cover it because of "it's pornographic, overtly humanist and anti-Christan theme."

Of course Westland had no trouble making us read "The Chocolate War," but I won't go into that.

Anyway, I think I'll be checking "The Handmaid's Tale" out of the library in the near future.

Re: oops, wasn't logged in

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I'm not saying that no men at all reacted as most of the women I know reacted. :-} Just that, of the ones who don't think it's a problem, they're overwhelmingly male. But, as a counterpoint, I have a cousin who is quite political and agreed with us, then asked his mostly apolitical, pharmacist wife for her opinion, and she wondered what the big deal was. She was coming at it more from a health care standpoint, I think, and leaving out the politics, and if one could leave out the politics and reword the recommendations less insultingly, it wouldn't be a big deal. But I don't think we can leave out the sociopolitical context, and that plus the insulting framing does make it a big deal, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Re: oops, wasn't logged in

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

The insulting framing was probably deliberate on someone's part.

[3diff.livejournal.com]

I think that, while you can view this as part of the whole conservative anti-feminist thing, I think it is also part of the unfortunate cycle of health care in America.
- People are living longer, a lot of things that used to kill lots of people don't any more, so we are becoming more and more risk-averse about things that, in the bad old days, we didn't bother about.
- Americans are having fewer and fewer children, so we are more and more concerned about threats to the few that we do have.
- As research advances, we have more and more information about potential threats.
- Because adverse health effects can lead to legal liability for businesses and to increased medical expenses for governments, more and more medical and lifestyle decisions are being taken out of people's hands - especially in regards to children and childbirth. For instance, the recent decision to pull sugared soda out of schools - whether it is a good decision or a bad one, it was one made by the industry and activist groups, not by consumers.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Because adverse health effects can lead to legal liability for businesses and to increased medical expenses for governments, more and more medical and lifestyle decisions are being taken out of people's hands - especially in regards to children and childbirth. For instance, the recent decision to pull sugared soda out of schools - whether it is a good decision or a bad one, it was one made by the industry and activist groups, not by consumers.

There's a point in there, but I don't think the sugared soda decision quite backs it up. Children don't really make medical or "lifestyle" decisions on their own. The consumers in the case you cite are children, and one could make the case that we are making the decision for them because they do not yet have the wisdom to make better choices for themselves when the easy, less healthful choices are right in their faces. No one has yet suggested disallowing parents from buying sugared sodas on their children' behalf, though, which I think would be a better analogy.

[3diff.livejournal.com]

Better examples, perhaps: leaving a small child alone in a locked car for a short period of time; leaving a child of 10 or 11 or so home alone for a period of time; riding a bicycle without a helmet. I think most persons of more than 25 or 30 can remember these things happening routinely in their youth; now they can lead to criminal prosecution or fines.
I have every expectation that activists would love to ban sugared soda altogether, and that the major producers are looking nervously at studies showing that it promotes obesity in all age groups, and at the large sums being paid out by the tobacco companies, and the continued lawsuits by smokers. And this is only the simplest case - one can extend this logic to candy, fatty foods, salty foods - starting with children, moving on to pregnant women, "pre-pregnant women", and then the general population.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i guess the notion that's so surpassingly offensive here is that "pre-pregnant women" are somehow a special group in line for more controlling than "the general population".