#770: A Woman Is Little More Than A Procreative Device, And Don't You Forget It*
Sunday, July 29, 2007 When I was in my early twenties, I wanted to get my tubes tied. It seemed like the only reasonable option for someone in my position. I had been on the Pill for a couple of years, but it didn't agree with my body, so I had stopped taking it, but I didn't feel any better. In fact, I felt worse and worse, and a few months afterward, I began to experience horrible abdominal cramps. An ultrasound confirmed that I had not one, not two, but three ovarian cysts. I could see the small pustules in sharp black and white on the monitor, two on the left ovary and one on the right.
Ovarian cysts usually clear themselves up within six weeks, she said.What if they don't go away? I asked.
Then we will have to operate, she said.
Why did I get them? I asked.
Ovarian cysts are common in women who stop taking the Pill, she said.
No one told me that! What can I do to stop getting these cysts? I asked.
You can go back on the Pill, she said.
But I don't like the Pill. And that's what gave me these cysts in the first place! I said.
So, from the minimal amount of information with which my doctor was willing to part, I deduced that I could go back on hormones, which I hated, and avoid the cysts, or I could use other contraceptives, none of which had high enough success rates to satisfy my pregnancy fears, and get cysts. I wasn't about to go the abstinence route, because I was living with a boyfriend and wasn't about to don ye olde chastity belt.
I went home and thought about it and decided that none of the options that had been presented to me suited my needs. I had never wanted children, and despite my young age, I was dead certain that I wasn't going to want them down the line. It seemed like such a waste of my time and money to spend cash on various contraceptive agents only to continue to live in fear nearly every day that I might be knocked up.
And I did live in fear. I lived in fear from the first time I had sex right up until this third of July when I had my hysterectomy. Every day was accompanied by its own small pocket of fear that at any time I might end up pregnant, and every time I had sex I had to actively push conception out of my thoughts so I could derive some pleasure from the act. At one point, I even considered becoming a celibate nun in the hills of northern California, where, aside from the very rare event of impregnation by their god, I could be relatively sure of a child-free existence.
Then, it hit me. I could get my tubes tied and be done with the whole nerve-wracking mess. One simple surgery, and voilá! I would be free to live my life as I chose without the constant anxiety that my body could dictate a hairpin direction change because I had a healthy and nurturing sex life. I made an appointment with my doctor and virtually flew there on wings of excitement two days later. I was going to be free.
And what's going on with you today? she asked.I've thought about my contraceptive options, and the one that makes the most sense for me is tubal ligation, I said.
You don't want to do that, she said
Yes, I do. I've never wanted children. I am terrified of pregnancy, I said.
Yes, but you don't know that you won't want them when you're thirty-two. You would be terribly disappointed that you could not have them, and what if you have a husband who wants to have children? she asked.
Then he would have to have them with someone else, I said. I want my tubes tied.
Well, I won't do it for you, she said. It would be wrong to make that decision when you're so young.
Then I'll go to another doctor, I said.
I can't think of a single doctor in this city that would agree to it, she said.
And with that, I hopped off the table and walked out without so much as a goodbye. I was both devastated and angry. It was my body, and I wanted something done to it that was truly of no concern to anybody but me. The possibility that I might have kids one day that I did nor did not want was of more concern to my doctor than my own desires for my life and my body. It was dehumanizing. Breadmakers make bread, and ladies make babies. I was a potential incubator that had to be kept in top notch condition.
What happened next is not surprising, although it was at the time. What with the cysts and general hormonal upset after going off the Pill, my periods were erratic, and so when one didn't show up, I wasn't sure if I was actually late or not. So, I trucked back over to my sweetheart of a doctor and took a pregnancy test. It came back light blue, which meant that I was either too early along in my pregnancy to know for sure yet or that I had been pregnant but had lost it. I went back and retook the test a few days later, and it came back dark blue.
I went into a dreamlike state. Everything seemed very far away, like if I reached out to touch anything, my hand might just pass right through. I was a hologram.
I would like to have an abortion, I said.Oh, no. Are you sure? Because there are other better options, she said.
I don't want a child, I said.
There is always adoption, she said.
But I've done acid and smoked pot and drank a lot of alcohol. I'm on welfare. I live on noodles, I said.
I know the idea of adoption sounds scary, but, well, I'll try and explain it. Remember when you were in kindergarten and made a beautiful painting? Remember how you felt when you forgot it at school? You only felt bad in the beginning when you could still see it in your mind, but then after a while it didn't bother you as much, right? she said.
I want an abortion. I have been drinking and doing drugs and do not want to ever be pregnant or have children. This is why I wanted a tubal ligation in the first place, I said.
I can refer you to another doctor, because I don't handle things like this. We won't be seeing each other again, she said.
She was right. That was the last I ever saw of that doctor.
I could not believe that she likened my creation of a baby with a five-year-old's fingerpainting and adoption with a minor childhood disappointment. Her severe irresponsibility in trying to downplay the seriousness of the situation in order to coerce me into a decision I did not want to make was appalling. At that time in my life I may have been a diagnosed schizophrenic who did far too much acid, but I knew what was what, and what was a gastrula in the sour uterine soup of a psychologically imbalanced outpatient with a penchant for hallucinogens. What was not what was me fingerpainting while I waited for mommy to take me home for milk and cookies.
I walked out of her office and sat down in the bus shelter across from an older hospital. I was startled when a wrecking ball swung into view, knocking a massive chunk of the uppermost floor to the pavement below. That was the hospital where my mother had worked in the 1960s. That was the hospital where I volunteered as a candy striper in high school. And now this pregnancy would be terminated in the new, shiny, white-tile and glass wing that had been built at the end of the block.
And I knew that no one would treat me kindly.
* This entry was inspired by Bonnie Zylbergold's article in American Sexuality magazine, "Are You Kidding?: Tubal Ligation Procedures Denied To Young Women Who Don't Want Children".
the body, the feminism
Reader Comments (25)
I am so glad you wrote this post. I read the same article linked from feministing and had very similar emotions (along with a similar blast from my own past) about women not able to/or being looked down upon for choosing what's best for their own bodies.
That's all. Thanks for your writing and I'm thinking of you during your recovery.
Recently a friend of mine fell pregnant with a baby that she couldn't afford. She already had three and was on anti depression medication AND the pill when she fell pregnant. She decided to have an abortion. She had it without any problems.
When she told her doctor that she wanted her tubes tied, she was told that she wasn't allowed to Make that Decision HERSELF: A Woman Who Had Already Had Three Children. A RESPONSABLE ADULT.
She could only have her tubes tied IF, and only IF, her husband authorized the procedure.
So... she can get pregnant and have subsequent abortions as much as she likes without telling the father of the child (if she chose not to....) ... but she cannot have her tubes tied without her husband's permission.
I'm still blown away by this. As these are "rules" set in France, I have to wonder what the "rules" are like in other countries...
Thank you for this post. It was riveting.
Yep, me too. At 23, after the birth of my third child, after having a third of my cervix removed, I was told I couldn't possibly know my own mind and wants/needs so early in life. My tubal ligation could have easily and noninvasively been performed in the moments after giving birth to the third child. Instead I was forced to doctor shop and to pay to have an entirely separate, invasive surgery 8 weeks later.
During that 8 weeks 2 of my male, twenty-something friends had vasectomies with no questions asked, no delay.
I'm still pissed.
How infuriating that you were treated with so little respect and regard for what you felt was best for you.
Every woman should be given a DVD of the new 12-minute educational video "Female Anatomy: the Functions of the Female Organs". The video can be viewed and downloaded free at
http://www.hersfoundation.org/anatomy
I really appreciate you sharing this. There is a lot of rhetoric talking about how far we as women have come, but then you hear stories like yours or about how more pharmacists deny birth control for religious reasons. There may are more mountains to climb yet.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, though surely things that are not pleasant to re-live.
You were treated abominably. There is no excuse for it. While I agree that the doctor should present all options, once the patient makes her INFORMED decision, that should be the end of it. No more preaching or prostletyzing (can't spell!). Particularly on a safe procedure. But you know us wimmins, we couldn't possibly be making a well thought out, logical decision. We must be having a bad hair day, and thus making an emotional, irrational decision. Silly silly women!!
Bravo to you for knowing yourself well enough to know that you don't want to raise children, biological or otherwise. Do you know how many people have children for reasons other than that they want them?
My best friend is one. She has never wanted children, and suddenly, now that her fiance does, so does she. Sad. I should forward this post to her.
It's sad that you had to have cancer, and potentially LOSE your life in order to be in charge of it.
Stay strong. Look to the roosters. :-)
It bugs me that doctors can get away with that.
There isn't a mechanic on the planet who would look at someone and say:
"Sorry, I won't fix your car. I could. But walking is so good for you. So I won't."
There should be a standard of care. I don't want to spin the wheel of morality everytime I walk into a doctor's office.
"Oh you don't belive in abortions?
How about contraception? Are you down with birth control? Why the fuck are you a doctor who treats women?"
If a doctor didn't believe in blood transfusions they probably wouldn't get to work ER. So why do doctors with moral hang-ups get to treat women?
It's things like this that make me wonder if I shouldn't have gone to medical school after all, if for no other reason than to try to protect women from treatment like this. And to treat them like adults who know their own bodies.
Astounding that you had to go through that, but thank you for sharing it with us.
Kudos to you for sharing this. Your post brought up old angers. Because as a female who knew from the time she was a very small child that she never wanted children, I have faced the same attitudes for almost my entire life. I'm still child free and still totally happy about it, but I still get the, "Are you sure that maybe SOMEDAY you won't want children?" spiel from relatives and even doctors. Uh, just what someday are these people talking about? I'm 43 freakin' years old, fer cryin' out loud! You think I'd know my own mind by now . . .
It's too bad you couldn't gift wrap your recently excised uterus and ship it to her (postage due, of course) with a note saying "See, I TOLD you I wasn't going to change my mind, you silly bint."
It's amazing that doctors don't refuse to treat my (morbidly obese) husband because his lifestyle choices (large amounts of takeout) offend them.
I've never heard of a doctor refusing to treat a male patient due to moral objections. You don't hear about men being refused penicillin injections on the grounds that they shouldn't have gone and gotten Syphillis, do you?
No, no, this absurd sort of nanny medicine seems to be reserved for women, who couldn't possibly be expected to be intelligent enough to correctly manage something as complicated as the female body, but ARE expected to both generate and be the sole caregivers for the bodies of others.
Doesn't quite make sense, does it?
I think we had the same doctor.
by all that's holy girl, they are still feeding that "you don't know" crap to 32 year old women? I had my kids at 18 & 21 but both were sections in an era where that was uncommon.(now 46)
i remember I spent 2 years arguing with gynos till i finally found one with some sense that my body is mine. i told him in no uncertain terms that there is NO freaking way i can look after more than i already have. stop desist finito. but i like sex and hate the pill and 1 copper 7 IUD has already grown in and had to be removed and condoms are gross and inefficient. he quit arguing. he wouldn't cut em cause i was so young (23) but he did give me clips. in fact it was my birthday present to myself that year.
10 months later while helping a friend move i got severe cramps and went to the emergency where they told me i was pregnant - oh no i'm not anymore? but i was fixed, right? so what should i feel then the evil incipient joy of motherhood or the relief of a divorced single mother of two who has told her current paramour that this could not possibly happen. oh yeah, that's right, he's the one that drove me to the hospital, duh!
a month later i received a letter from the hospital that said that the clips they used in my procedure were defective and i should see my gyno. apparently a certain number of women (who knows) had to be impregnated before they would even consider testing the clips, and then the testing took time yada yada yada
no shit.
i walked into the office and looked my doctor right in the eyes and said cut'em out and feed em to your cat. not a word of dissent.
no problems since.
however i think we should make a list of doctors who refuse to treat us as adults and post it where other women can use it as a reference. we don't have to say the docotrs aren't any good. just say that we like this list and don't like the other. no slander there.
think it'll be a long freakin' list
I was denied a tubal after my twins were born because I was "only" 24 and "What if you wanted to have more?" I think having twins while on the Pill (good job there, Pill) is enough to scare anyone into celibacy.
Oh dear, I considered not posting a comment. And my comment is going to be slightly off the topic as the topic here is more a discussion on how badly and disrespectful women are treated (and which I naturally agree with).
Unfortunately, my wish is to fall pregnant. It's been 4 1/2 years, and I would give my two front teeth. In fact I'll have them all pulled if need be. It's ironic that while women who fall pregnant have so much control over the pregnancy, another life, they don't have the same control over her own body.
Here I am, lucky enough to have all the say in my body but not in pregnancy. It sucks. It all sucks.
Sadly, this is the truth of the world we live in. Will we be able to change it?
Okay. Seriously? This is ridiculous. It makes me so angry that women are considered second class citizens when it comes to making decisions about their bodies. I'm sure if you had brought a boyfriend who agreed that you both didn't want children she would have agreed to it. Women need permission for things like that from me. Err!
This post is exactly why I want to be a doctor. I want to let women make their own choices. I want to support women and let them visit the gyn in a way that doesn't degrade them.
So thanks for reminding me why I'm about to kill myself being pre-med next month.
I have to stop checking this comment thread. It's filling me with paranoia. I came to work, checked it, dashed to my car and made tracks for home.
"Dear gawd did I remember my pill?"
I did.
I always remember. But, I've got Tje Fear. (Hunter S. Thompson was such a light weight. If he was a girl he'd really know.)
Even getting an IUD as a "childless" woman was very difficult. Fortunately, I was a receptionist at our local planned parenthood when I was in college, so I knew which local doctor would be willing to insert one for me. (It's been great, btw - I love my IUD!)
It's a typo. But, damn I really like the way "Tje" looks compared to "The".
With all the unwanted children in the world, it's hard to fathom that doctors won't snip the tubes of women who decide not to bring in more. And then, if the woman changes her mind later in life: tough, adopt one of the already-existing unwanted ones. We all have to live with consequences of decisions we made 10 years ago. At least let them be OUR decisions, not the decisions of doctors or men who may or may not be our life partners. I don't even agree with my husband about how long my hair should be; why should the world expect that I necessarily agree with him about my fallopian tubes?
I'm 35, have two kids under 4 years, and got a ligation during my last c-section. I still have people (usually strangers) telling me to start thinking about a third kid. I'm trying to come up with snappy comebacks beyond, "Thanks for your completely unsolicited and inapplicable input to the most personal aspects of my life. Kindly fuck off and if you want more kids, go have them yourself."
i love you, schmutzie. xo
Well said Kayayarai. Maybe I should make a little flash card with "Thanks for your completely unsolicited and inapplicable input to the most personal aspects of my life. Kindly fuck off and if you want (more) kids, go have them yourself." I'll just remove the word 'more' since I've got non. I've always wanted a snappy and bitchy comment to "So when are you guys having kids?' or "Maybe you (being my husband) should give her a baby." Well it's got nothing to do with you!
Thank Kay....needed to laugh about that. Seriously.
i think we should make a list of doctors who refuse to treat us as adults and post it where other women can use it as a reference. we don't have to say the docotrs aren't any good. just say that we like this list and don't like the other. no slander there.
I think that's an excellent idea, wench. Tom and Ray Magliozzi from NPR's Car Talk have an online list of good and bad mechanics based entirely on listeners' contributions. Individual women like us, or a women's group, should do the same for bad and/or patronizing doctors. Unfortunately, it might end up being the biggest site on the Internet.
A truly riveting post indeed... Reading that piece made me thankful for things such as college and the internet which have shown me that there's a much bigger world out there, outside the realm of churches and fundamentalism. I'm glad to say I can look back and see how my opinion has changed over the years, and frankly, I can't believe there are people out there in positions of leadership (medical, religious, teaching, whichever kind of leadership) who are trying to convince others that contraception of any kind leads to "immoral behavior."
I'll be 31 this year, and I've yet to change my mind about the fact that kids are not for me -- who knows me better than I know myself? No woman be questioned as to her knowledge of her own person.
I do like the idea of keeping a list of Doctors -- I know I can't stay on The Pill forever; one of these days I might give in and get over my fear of going under the knife.
I think of you often and wish you the best in your recovery!
I was 28 when I got married to my wonderful hubby. Within the first few months of being a newlywed my mother-in-law pulled me aside one day and said (in regards to having children), "I just want you to remember you're no spring chicken." WTF??? I was only 28. I smiled and nodded but I was pissed.
We never came out and told anyone we didn't want kids because we were actually on the fence about it. We just remained elusive when people would comment. I went through a period of about 5 years when people were asking me ALL THE TIME when we were having kids. It was getting really annoying. Then, seemingly all of a sudden, people stopped asking. I think they started to think we COULDN'T have kids and it would be impolite to ask. As if it wasn't rude to ask in the first place!!!
We are coming up on our 13th anniversary and no one ever says a word anymore. If you hold out long enough people finally shut up about it.
As for the blog, Schmutz I'm sorry you had to go through that. The whole thing is just WRONG. I have a feeling if I went to the doc to have my tubes tied they'd still try to talk me out of it because I don't have kids. Even though I'm 41! Sigh... I'll have to try it one of these days.
BTW, thanks for being so open and honest. It's not an easy subject to write about.
God, I wish everyone had my gyno. She has never mentioned the fact that I've had an abortion, and has offered me the option of an IUD as an alternative to a tubal before I make a final decision, mainly because she can do it in the office.
I am 29, have been on the Pill for almost 10 years and have no children, nor do my husband and I want any at this time. And probably not ever. My doctor respects this decision.
I also live in Los Angeles. This might make a difference.
My sister had a tubal at 23 after her third child in under five years - her doctor agreed since it WAS her third.
It saddens me that in the 21st century, doctors do not trust women to make decisions about their own bodies. I consider myself lucky that I've found a doctor who understands that I know what's best for me.