June 16 -Women's Health Rant

Today on the way home from the beach Jeff and I listened to Dr. Laura. Listening to her either makes you totally pissed off at the caller or totally pissed off at her, either way some topics are thought provoking. In the last hour of her broadcast she read a letter from an attorney/surgeon about a colleague of his, an OB-GYN. Evidently the OB and his wife were trying to have a child but only wanted a girl. They went through IVF, fractioning off only the XX sperms to fertilize the eggs and implanted them into the uterus. They got pregnant with quads, four healthy fetus' determined through amnio that were all girls. After some discussion the OB and his wife decided that they really didn't want to have four children and decided to kill two of the fetus'. They injected their hearts with poison at gestational age 18 weeks. Remember now we are talking about two HEALTHY fetus' here. This really angered me.

Don't jump to the conclusion that I am some pro-life freak, for in fact I am pro-choice. I do not think religion or government has any place in telling women what to do with their bodies or their reproductive organs, though I wish more women acted more responsibly with their bodies.

After having two miscarriages, and suffering with infertility I find it disgusting that a woman would chose to terminate two healthy babies at almost five months for the reason of inconvenience. This couple could have easily given these two healthy children to a couple who would have been happy to raise and care for them. I have to wonder what kind of values this couple has. What a lack of respect for life or the potential life of a human being. Maybe I would feel differently if these babies would have had some terrible defect that would have compromised the pregnancy and the other fetus'.

Women's health issues are a big source of debate for me. I am very opinionated about birthcontrol and sterilization(I am against both). I think women grow up not being told the truth about their fertility or taught how to be responsible for their own bodies, handing control over to doctors, men, and hormones. I wish for the days when women will be educated and stop being lead around like dogs and being lied too. I am all for choice but in some ways choice has blinded us as a whole and though it has appeared to give us freedom in a way it has trapped us. At a time when we wanted to be free to chose, we are now enslaved to the things that we wanted choice over, abortion, contraception, and health care.

How many women get on the pill because it seems like the only logical contraception in a committed relationship, filling their bodies with synthetic hormones, attempting to control our natural fertility cycles for the sake of convenience? I know that I made this choice. It was easy, readily available and allowed me to be oblivious to the natural functions of my body. For a control freak like myself, I had handed over my control to a little box of pills each month. Thank the goddess I got educated and stumbled across fertility awareness, a form of natural family planning. I know my cycles, I know when I'm fertile, when I'm not, and if my hormones are off. I now easily detect what day I'm going to get my period, and when I go to the OB-GYN I don't have a face of stupidity when asked when my last period was. Of course I firmly believed that if women had the truth about what hormonal contraception does to your body, and were given other options, they would chose a more natural means of contraception.

There is a terrific site for Herbal Abortion and Fertility Awareness.(http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/2279/index.html) Something that many women have no knowledge of. It is something hidden and forbidden. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were all given the knowledge that if we so desired we could prevent implantation or pregnancy early on in the privacy of our own homes without the use of invasive surgeries or pumping our body with large doses of hormones. I know when my daughter and niece enter puberty I will teach them about fertility, their bodies, and about the hidden secrets of natural and herbal contraception and abortion.

Childbirth is another touchy subject for me. It is illegal in my state to have a home birth, and it is illegal to have lay midwives attend deliveries. There is a lot of controversy over home birth and hospital birth, but shouldn't we be able to have the choice. My husband's grandmothers had 13 home births between them, two births included a set of twins and breech, and they all turned out okay. I'm also a proponent of natural childbirth(no drugs, no intervention), and even though I wasn't able to do it(c-section due to uterine anomaly) I believe it is the very best way to bring a baby into the world. I hope that the goddess smiles down upon me in the next pregnancy and I am at least able to attempt natural childbirth.

I could go on and on, as I'm sure you can tell. I've been ranting through this whole entry. I will step off my soap box for now.

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