Oh baby!

Well, here is yet another piece of news to add to Alex's Top Rantings. I swear, I've been on a feminist roll this whole day. First with unexpectedly playing Alex The Advocate in my first class (Ross asked me minutes before class started if I wouldn't mind handling disclosures during a presentation--which is fine by me, but I would've preferred advance notice), then ripping into Restoration-era sexual mores, and now this.

Apparantly there are some recent federal guidelines out regarding women's health. These guidelines instruct doctors to treat all women as either "pregnant" or "pre-pregnant" and to work with them accordingly. You can go here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/15/AR2006051500875.html) to find the whole story about it, but this is truly a strange set of rules.

While I am totally in favor of making prenatal care more affordable and accessible for everyone (something that's especially needed in poorer and more racially diverse communities), I think that this is a little much. It seems to be taking that need and trying to "fix" it by using a snow shovel where a trowel is needed. The regulations require doctors to tell all women to stay away from certain things that could endanger the fetus or prospective fetus, but they don't really do much in terms of taking care of a pregnancy that's already there. That is where the need lies, since for nine months out of the year, a woman who's expecting needs to keep herself extra healthy. By telling a woman who isn't pregant and might not even be considering it what she can and can't do, there is little that gets accomplished. It's more or less reducing women to wombs and not much else. While I agree that childbirth is pretty important to many women, I think that this is simply assuming that all women are geared for that and not much else and treating them like baby incubators. What about women who physically cannot procreate? Can they be "pre" anything their bodies simply cannot do? Does that make sense? Can a lesbian be pre-pregnant? (And yes, I know several same-sex couples who have children, but they can't get each other pregnant.) And what about women who aren't planning to have children or who would like to adopt instead? Or women who have miscarried? I highly doubt a woman who has endured a miscarriage would like to hear about how she can protect another prospective fetus after that loss.

Can you imagine what would happen if the roles were reversed? It would be ridiculous! But sadly, this is pretty normal for a society that seems to be ignoring the pretty basic need for comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education (read my March post "Tease Squeeze Please" for more). The necessity lies in affordable health care and comprehensive education, not a one-size-fits-all public service announcement.