May. 10th, 2011 11:11 am
Ladybits politics
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
textualdevianceAs a side note to my surgery thing...
Dealing with this issue has made it abundantly clear to me exactly how important it is to keep fighting for abortion, contraception and other reproductive health rights.
Entirely aside from the fact that abortion and contraceptives should be legal and readily available anyway, so much of the stuff I've had to deal with WRT this problem of mine has involved procedures and medications that many anti-abortion activists have wanted to restrict or ban outright.
My very first experiences with this stuff came when I was very young, and was having periods from hell, and no real way to deal with it properly. What saved my ass? Planned Parenthood, which put me on BCPs to get me regular (in addition to keeping me from becoming a teen pregnancy statistic, given everything else that was going on with me then.)
Later on, when I finally got properly diagnosed with my illness, I also needed plenty of other kinds of drugs, and was on a regular progesterone regimen for years. Then there was all the infertility stuff we tried to do (something else that some have argued should be restricted.)
Finally, with this stuff, I was on two medications: a high-dose progesterone med that stopped the horrible bleeding I was having, and the drug they gave me to start dilating my cervix. Both are medications that are also used for chemical abortions. The high-dose progesterone stuff is what they use for Plan B, and the other drug is part of what's in RU 486. Both medications have therefore been targeted by anti-abortion legislation, and are also often refused dispensing by "conscience" pharmacists.
Now that I've had this procedure, the chances of me getting pregnant are very low (even lower than they were before, with my dud eggs), as it would be next to impossible for a fertilized egg to attach to a uterine wall without any proper endometrium there to attach to. However, some anti-abortion activists would argue that I should stop having sex entirely because of this, because they believe that that fertilized egg is a person, and without a giving it a hospitable location for it to take up residence, I'm deliberately killing that person.
What's also possible, however, is if I did fertilize an egg, and it found a tiny bit of live endometrium to attach to, the resulting pregnancy would very likely kill me, because it would rip loose all that nuked scar tissue and I'd start hemorraging. At the very least, I'd need an emergency abortion and probably a hysterectomy.
Of course, M and I are being scrupulous about avoiding this (and we've decided to get him snipped to seal the deal) but nothing's perfect. There's always that .01% chance of an egg getting fertilized, and if that did happen, I'd want to know for certain that I'd have available the procedures I needed to live through it.
And all this doesn't even count the fact that I'm extremely lucky to have access to proper health insurance. Trying to deal with all this without that would probably mean I'd be dead by now.
So there it is in a nutshell. Having access to a full range of reproductive health care is what's kept me alive all these years, and what will continue to do so now.
It's true that some anti-abortion activists make exceptions for life/health of mother, but I think very few of them truly understand exactly how complicated these things can get, and how legislation on this stuff just gets in the way, and can literally be the difference between life and death for a woman in crisis. Even legislation that seems somewhat fair on the surface--like conscience clauses for pharmacists--can turn an unfortunate-but-livable situation into a tragedy pretty damned fast.
Men who fight this stuff I get. Most of them have no clue whatsoever how women's bodies actually work, and even if they're married or have sisters or daughters, they're usually the kind of guy who doesn't want to be around when their kids are born, who make stupid PMS jokes and who would patently refuse to buy tampons. (And frankly: If you're married to/dating a guy like this? Dump his ass. Even being alone is better than being with someone who thinks you're a second-class citizen because you don't have a dick.)
But women? IDGI. I just don't get why any woman would fight against reproductive health rights. I spose some women who have always been regular and never had a complicated pregnancy may just blow this stuff off, and assume that access to abortion and contraception is someone else's problem. They figure that if they're not being promiscuous, these issues will never be a problem for them.
They're wrong.
Even the healthiest, most chaste woman can have something go wrong at any time, and if you think you don't know a woman who's ever had to face this stuff, well, hi. You do now. Even if you're not specifically anti-abortion, if you're voting for politicians who support anti-abortion legislation, you're voting against my health. And if you vote for these people because you think bombing brown folks or saving the rich a few bucks on taxes is so much more important than the risk of me or any other woman suffering or dying because we have fucked-up ladybits? Then please, piss completely off.
The bottom line is this: This is a medical issue, not a political one. Each reproductive health problem is as individual as the woman dealing with it, and therefore absolutely no one but that woman and her healthcare providers should have any say in it at all. Blanket legislation that restricts access to this care in any way doesn't just punish stereotypical Jezebels (who, by the way, are just as entitled to proper healthcare as anyone else), but turns women like me into collateral damage in that war.
Dealing with this issue has made it abundantly clear to me exactly how important it is to keep fighting for abortion, contraception and other reproductive health rights.
Entirely aside from the fact that abortion and contraceptives should be legal and readily available anyway, so much of the stuff I've had to deal with WRT this problem of mine has involved procedures and medications that many anti-abortion activists have wanted to restrict or ban outright.
My very first experiences with this stuff came when I was very young, and was having periods from hell, and no real way to deal with it properly. What saved my ass? Planned Parenthood, which put me on BCPs to get me regular (in addition to keeping me from becoming a teen pregnancy statistic, given everything else that was going on with me then.)
Later on, when I finally got properly diagnosed with my illness, I also needed plenty of other kinds of drugs, and was on a regular progesterone regimen for years. Then there was all the infertility stuff we tried to do (something else that some have argued should be restricted.)
Finally, with this stuff, I was on two medications: a high-dose progesterone med that stopped the horrible bleeding I was having, and the drug they gave me to start dilating my cervix. Both are medications that are also used for chemical abortions. The high-dose progesterone stuff is what they use for Plan B, and the other drug is part of what's in RU 486. Both medications have therefore been targeted by anti-abortion legislation, and are also often refused dispensing by "conscience" pharmacists.
Now that I've had this procedure, the chances of me getting pregnant are very low (even lower than they were before, with my dud eggs), as it would be next to impossible for a fertilized egg to attach to a uterine wall without any proper endometrium there to attach to. However, some anti-abortion activists would argue that I should stop having sex entirely because of this, because they believe that that fertilized egg is a person, and without a giving it a hospitable location for it to take up residence, I'm deliberately killing that person.
What's also possible, however, is if I did fertilize an egg, and it found a tiny bit of live endometrium to attach to, the resulting pregnancy would very likely kill me, because it would rip loose all that nuked scar tissue and I'd start hemorraging. At the very least, I'd need an emergency abortion and probably a hysterectomy.
Of course, M and I are being scrupulous about avoiding this (and we've decided to get him snipped to seal the deal) but nothing's perfect. There's always that .01% chance of an egg getting fertilized, and if that did happen, I'd want to know for certain that I'd have available the procedures I needed to live through it.
And all this doesn't even count the fact that I'm extremely lucky to have access to proper health insurance. Trying to deal with all this without that would probably mean I'd be dead by now.
So there it is in a nutshell. Having access to a full range of reproductive health care is what's kept me alive all these years, and what will continue to do so now.
It's true that some anti-abortion activists make exceptions for life/health of mother, but I think very few of them truly understand exactly how complicated these things can get, and how legislation on this stuff just gets in the way, and can literally be the difference between life and death for a woman in crisis. Even legislation that seems somewhat fair on the surface--like conscience clauses for pharmacists--can turn an unfortunate-but-livable situation into a tragedy pretty damned fast.
Men who fight this stuff I get. Most of them have no clue whatsoever how women's bodies actually work, and even if they're married or have sisters or daughters, they're usually the kind of guy who doesn't want to be around when their kids are born, who make stupid PMS jokes and who would patently refuse to buy tampons. (And frankly: If you're married to/dating a guy like this? Dump his ass. Even being alone is better than being with someone who thinks you're a second-class citizen because you don't have a dick.)
But women? IDGI. I just don't get why any woman would fight against reproductive health rights. I spose some women who have always been regular and never had a complicated pregnancy may just blow this stuff off, and assume that access to abortion and contraception is someone else's problem. They figure that if they're not being promiscuous, these issues will never be a problem for them.
They're wrong.
Even the healthiest, most chaste woman can have something go wrong at any time, and if you think you don't know a woman who's ever had to face this stuff, well, hi. You do now. Even if you're not specifically anti-abortion, if you're voting for politicians who support anti-abortion legislation, you're voting against my health. And if you vote for these people because you think bombing brown folks or saving the rich a few bucks on taxes is so much more important than the risk of me or any other woman suffering or dying because we have fucked-up ladybits? Then please, piss completely off.
The bottom line is this: This is a medical issue, not a political one. Each reproductive health problem is as individual as the woman dealing with it, and therefore absolutely no one but that woman and her healthcare providers should have any say in it at all. Blanket legislation that restricts access to this care in any way doesn't just punish stereotypical Jezebels (who, by the way, are just as entitled to proper healthcare as anyone else), but turns women like me into collateral damage in that war.
