And I will be until I have a hysterectomy, get my tubes tied, or go through menopause.
And so will all the other women and girls I know. I think my cousin Jessica is pre-pre-pregnant at 9, but she still needs to make sure she does nothing to endanger the eventual fetus she will carry.
I'm almost a year late with my outrage, but I can still say what the hell?
This story is so sad and needs to be untrue.
But the words “federal guidelines” and “pre-pregnant” are not just sending up red flags, they’re sending out a fireworks show and a marching band.
I have been unable to obtain adequate medical care for my epilepsy because I am what they’d call pre-pregnant. As my neurologist puts it, I am a woman of child-bearing age. As such, they flat-out refuse to try me on any medicines other than the ones proven least likely to affect a fetus (read: the ones that are paying off my neurologist). Despite the fact that I have declared my belly a no-fetus zone.
My neurologist does not trust me to not get pregnant. My neurologist puts a potential fetus’s potential health over my health.
And now the government wants to officially sanction that.
Oh HELL no.
I should not have to get my fucking tubes tied in order to not have seizures and/or get medication that at least doesn’t have me dropping weight. (90.5 on the Craftsman’s bathroom scale; even taking into account that it’s a different scale from my doctor’s, it’s a significant enough difference that I have to look at it. I’m 89 on my scale right now. Which slips, but - still.) Toget off a medication that’s caused what’s essentially a whole-body crash.
Pre-pregnant? Hell no. I am post-pregnant by 11 years. Pregnancy and me do not belong in the same sentence.
Screw that noise.
EDIT: When I first posted this, I was writing just for myself and my friendslist, so I didn’t put in a whole lot of background.
Now this post has been linked all over LJ and in DailyKos. So. Background for people who have not been reading me since the dawn of time, quick-and-dirty version: I was diagnosed with epilepsy in October 2003. My first neurologist put me on Lamictal, which caused some pretty untenable side effects, including the first 2/3 of what became a catastrophic weight loss - 50 pounds in total, to a low of 85 pounds.
She tried me on Keppra, which was worse - then gave up for the sake of the potential fetus. I switched neurologists and medications, trying Topomax and Trileptal, the latter of which (plus Zonegran) I’m still on. The weight loss continued. Uncontrollably.
There are medications that have, as their side effects, weight gain. I have begged for these medications, but been refused. Direct quote from my neurologist: “You’re a newlywed. You’ll want a baby.” I’m a newlywed with an 11-year-old daughter and a body that’s falling apart. Trust me. I do not want a baby. But my stated desires are irrelevant - I cannot get prescribed a medication that will keep me from losing weight and may control my seizures better than the one I’m on now, due entirely to increased risk of birth defects.
THIS IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!
A potential fetus is more important than a person who is already alive, who already went through the fetus stage of life.
We were all fetuses at one point in our life or another, unless you're a cloned human reading this.
But once we're out of the womb, we don't matter anymore. Once your born, you're worthless. Or else why would the politicians screaming about criminalizing abortion also scream about the eeeeeeeeeeeevils of government programs like WiC, HeadStart, and socialized healthcare for the people outside of wombs.
Hey, if we're all pre-pregnant, from our first menstruation to menopause or sterilization, we should have free medical care. Think of the fetuses!
Some assholes have said that Walter Reed is a sign that government can't do healthcare, so socialized healthcare will result in rats and such.
I think it's a sign that the powers-that-fund don't give a rat's ass about the soldiers when they come home. Or even when they're there - no armor. So all that Iraq money... paychecks for the soldiers, MREs (thing in the paper today about how soldiers in Afghanistan lose 20-30 pounds eating MREs), and no-bid contracts for companies that donated money to the powers-that-fund. Fuck them. They'd rather the soldiers die than come back injured mentally or physically.
Anti-single payer medical system look at public schools and say, "Look, the kids are still stupid. The kids who go to an inner-city public school do worse than those at a private school in the same area, therefore private schools are better."
One, public schools get most of the money locally, so kids who live in a poor town, go to a poor school, while kids who live in a richer district in the same county system get a laptop for every kid. Two, teachers are underpaid and overworked. They get burned out by things like No Child Left Behind. And private schools do better because they don't have to take in every child in the district, as public schools do. And some kids have learning disablities that bring down school test scores.
There used to be schools devoted entirely to special ed kids, and they were the best in the district because the special ed kids could learn in an environment made for them, and teachers and assistants had quiet rooms and didn't have to worry about tantrums.
Now, those schools are failing. And the schools that fail get less money than the schools that pass. And we will never reach 100% in all categories for one reason off the top of my head - once a kid in the English-as-a-Second-Language category gets more proficient in English, they're taken out of the ESL category.
So that category can never reach 100%!
To those that want no public education - I say, why stop there? Let's do away with everything else funded by taxes like libraries, roads, prisons, police departments, fire departments, government regulatory agencies, I could go on...
Private police force: "Help, there's a man in the house! You need my credit card number before you'll come over?" "My sister was brutally murdered, but we can't afford the investigation, so we'll never know who did it and for all we know, the killer is still out there."
Private fire dapartment/EMS: "My husband's having a heart attack! No, I don't have one hundred dollars on hand!" "Our apartment building's on fire, please come put it out, we have a lot of elderly people living there. Yes, most of the apartments are Section 8. Hello?"
Private FDA: More rat feces for everyone!
Back to pregnancy and being pre-pregnant.
Someone said this in the comments of a pandagon/feministe (don't remember which, sorry) post: they need to build a robotic womb, because some men are upset that the woman is the only one who can choose to end the pregnancy. I wonder why?
Could it have something to do with the fact that the woman does all the physical work of the pregnancy?
Oh, I forgot, the man contributes half the genetic material.
So with a robotic womb, the man can have the pregnancy himself, without the fun of child birth or a C-section. A robotic womb would keep the fetus much, much more safer than if it was in its natural home. No physical danger, no chemical danger from the food or drinks of the mother. The nutrients would be inserted into a mechanical umbilical cord - like an IV for us post-womb losers.
It would be an alternative to abortion. Remove the weeks old fetus, put it in the incubator, and then strap the incubator onto the man's chest - it will only come in one size - the big-as-a-house 8+ months pregnant model.
Since the father does't want the mother to have the abortion, but he wants the kid and she doesn't want to go through the pregnancy or the child, problem solved!
I may not actually be pre-pregnant. I'm on Lupron right now (along with 13 daily meds - including a birth control pill - not to mention the 5 PRNs which includes a prescription painkiller) and to stop the pain of endometriosis and ovarian cysts, since they only cause pain when you're ovulating or pre-pregnant.
I'm a (potential) murderer! I'm making my body inhospitable to a potential fetus.
Oh woe and such.
Let me close with this.
There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them.
I'm a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They'll take you as soon as you're warm.
You don't have to be a six-footer.
You don't have to have a great brain.
You don't have to have any clothes on. You're
A Catholic the moment Dad came,
Because
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.
Every sperm is wanted.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.
Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood!
Every sperm is useful.
Every sperm is fine.
God needs everybody's.
Mine! And mine! And mine!
Let the Pagan spill theirs
O'er mountain, hill, and plain.
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite iraaaaate!
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