Barefoot and Back in the Kitchen
The Centers for Disease Control has taken a break from containing bird flu to determine that I'm pre-pregnant. By edict.
Pregnancy, it seems, is the new normal for women. You're pre-pregnant, and then (sperm willing) you're normal and fulfilling your duty to god and country by being pregnant, and then you're useless and they ship you off and turn you into glue. The three stages of womanhood. Defined, not by personality or achievement or contribution to society, not even by reproductive ability, but by the act of reproduction alone.
Men, presumably, aren't pre or post anything, so long as their boys can swim.
Alright, CDC, I'll see your pre-pregnant, I'll take your vitamins, and I'll refrain from chewing on the windowsill lest there be lead-based paint. But let's up the ante here. Pre-pregnancy is a delicate, delicate state. I will need you, CDC, to provide me with weekly housecleaning service because I mustn't overexert myself and some of those fumes can be toxic. I will need you, CDC, to cover all of my pre-pregnancy medical expenses, annual pap smears, and the birth control that keeps my cleaning service coming. CDC, I expect that you will assist in my education costs as well, because educated parents raise better children. Oh CDC, will you organize my union drive, will you contribute to my IRA, will you offer marriage counseling? Will you give me the job security and economic security and emotional security that will surely improve the prospects of my future pregnancy?
Or will you take me out of the workforce altogether, so that I can concentrate on my duty as a baby maker. Will you endorse an unwanted child from a rape, from incest, from a loveless marriage, because the state of being pregnant trumps the health and well-being of the woman. Will you outlaw abortion and take away contraception because they interfere with the one societally useful purpose of womanhood.
Will you follow through on all the logical implications of defining women as baby making factories?
Will you ever, finally, treat me like a whole woman?
|
May 25, 2006 |
Anne Martens | Comments (102 so far)
| Share on Facebook |
Sponsored Advertising
Comments
Posted by: Pat Ryan | May 25, 2006 1:14:13 PM
Is this the same CDC that promotes "abstinence only", rejects condom use, suggests that abortions lead to higher instances of breast cancer?
There are two possible avenues to appointment to a management position in the Bush CDC:
Be a fundamentalist Christian opponent of abortion.
Be a drug company executive.
Actual scientists with relevant resumes need not apply.
Not surprising then, that they would think of women as baby factories, first and foremost.
After all, there must be some personal moral weakness common to all american women, otherwise our infant mortality rate wouldn't be in the cellar among industrialized nations.
Right?
Posted by: jami | May 25, 2006 1:19:21 PM
can you imagine the laughing if the centers for disease control deemed it important to call all men pre-fathers? i mean, laptops are totally cooking their goods, but you don't hear any edicts on high about how men should stop computing forevermore.
Posted by: LMAO | May 25, 2006 1:20:45 PM
Eyes wide shut feminism strikes again.
The BUSH CDC is trying to control your life! Let's rally in front of Gordon Smith's office, or put an Impeachment Now bumper sticker on your Prius.
That'll teach 'em.
Posted by: Jesse O | May 25, 2006 1:25:57 PM
Yeah, it seems pretty much overkill to name it "prepregnant" .... I'm not sure which of the suggestions (folic acid?) don't apply once you pass menopause, but CDC shouldn't be using capacity to become pregnant to give out health advice.
From the CDC:
all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.
Posted by: LMAO | May 25, 2006 1:32:16 PM
Of all the nerve: the Centers for Disease Control thinks you should stop smoking, maintain a healthy wait, and keep chronic conditions under control. Bunch of ideologues: that's what they are!
Other righty-tighty groups involved include the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the March of Dimes, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention's Division of Reproductive Health and the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.
Posted by: LT | May 25, 2006 1:33:47 PM
So will the CDC take a stand on whether teenagers (who have had their first periods but are not 18) need a parental consent form? Does NY have a law to cover the questionaire at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y.?
And what other problems are there with this idea?
Obstacles to preconception care include getting insurance companies to pay for visits and putting the concept into regular use by doctors and patients. Experts acknowledge that women with no plans to get pregnant in the near future may resist preconception care.
Some medical facilities have already found a way to weave preconception care in with regular visits. At Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y., a form that's filled out when checking a patient's height, weight and blood pressure prompts nurses to ask women, "Do you smoke, and do you plan to become pregnant in the next year? And if not, what birth control are you using?"
Whenever Democratic agencies come up with pronouncements like this, Republicans make fun of them.
I suggest the same should be true here.
It was wise to take care of one's health before this article appeared.
But do the "pro-life" folks who think tax cuts are more important than national health care really want to implement all the suggestions in the article?
How would they do that?
Posted by: Don Smith | May 25, 2006 1:37:31 PM
This is clearly an edict from the Folic Acid Supplement lobby to boost sales now that Daisy Fuentes is no longer fronting folic... :)
Posted by: Idler | May 25, 2006 1:37:44 PM
Suddenly prenatal care is a manifestation of Christian Fundamentalism.
I sense more hostility on the part of the author toward motherhood than on the part of CDC toward the other pursuits a woman is likely to engage in during her life.
What could be worse than being thought of as being the half of humanity that gives birth! How insulting!
Posted by: sasha | May 25, 2006 1:43:38 PM
Yes indeed there is a sexist conspiracy under every government bureaucrat.
Jeez, Anne, get over it. You give non-whole women a bad name. Are they all as emotionally distraught and irrational as you? Or is that just the hormones involved with being pre-pregnant?
Posted by: LT | May 25, 2006 1:45:22 PM
Is the goal marriage and then motherhood. or is the goal motherhood by whatever means?
sense more hostility on the part of the author toward motherhood than on the part of CDC toward the other pursuits a woman is likely to engage in during her life.
What could be worse than being thought of as being the half of humanity that gives birth! How insulting!
Should contraception be outlawed because there is nothing a female can do that is more important than giving birth?
Should married women who don't have children take fertility drugs even though those might cause cancer?
Maybe the role of women to control their own bodies as much as men do is under attack?
If there were an edict that men and women of child bearing age should take care of their health, that would be another thing, but that is not what this article says.
Posted by: I M Nuts | May 25, 2006 1:58:17 PM
I oh my goodness... Bill Morrissette and Peter Courtney are running the CDC?
How crazy to suggest that young people should not smoke or eat junk food and that maybe they sould exercise and take their vitamins.
All you Minnis supporters who love the tobacco industry, want keep vending machines in schools, and don't want to mandate PE need to quit bashing the CDC. They are just doing what your "Queen" refused to do last session and actually protect them from themselves!
Posted by: mconley | May 25, 2006 2:02:59 PM
Did you hear that the Justice Dept wants to regulate testosterone in boys/men from puberty to death? It's a new initiative to curb violence.
Now, that's what I call public policy.
Posted by: Idler | May 25, 2006 3:00:32 PM
LT, I think the goal is to maximize the conditions of prenatal development. Since men don't bear children, their health is not a big issue for prenatal development.
In the paranoid hyperfeminist mind, mere concern about this morphs into some kind of fundamentalist menace.
Posted by: paulie | May 25, 2006 3:06:38 PM
Betty Friedan must be rolling over in her grave. Gender treachery rears it's ugly head in the form of CDS's worship of the healthy uterus. Now the CDC would have women standing in a feedlot, force fed organic food, happily chewing away, waiting to grab the golden ring and achieve the glory of pregnancy. Margaret Atwood wrote a damned good book, "The Handmaids Tale' foreshadowing the CDC's current rhetoric. Perhaps the CDC should print out tee-shirts with this quote, "Give me children, or else I die." (Genesis 30.1)
I'm headed out to find some Jezebel's enjoying their post-mentapausal zest. Make mine a double barkeep.
Posted by: Bob Fancher | May 25, 2006 3:30:42 PM
I remember about thirty years ago overhearing my then-brother-in-law, a physician, on the phone to a company that routinely hired him to do their their pre-employment health screenings. He told the employer they couldn't hire the women in question because yes, indeed, she was a perfectly normal, fertile woman. I was shocked, and I guess naive. When he hung up, I asked him why. "Because she'd be working around chemicals that would be noxious to a fetus," he explained. "She might get pregnant without knowing it and sue the company if she has problems with her pregnancy."
That--not the issue of whether or not it's smart to take good care of one's self, or whether one favors or hates motherhood--is the problem with the CDC recommendations. They implicitly endorse what is, I believe, now an illegal status discrimination.
"Might get pregnant" was a deeply-engrained, pervasive justification for discrimnation against women, and the feminist movement won a great many victories against it. Unless you're really in favor of returning to pre-feminist policies, it makes sense to be concerned to see a major Federal government endorsing "might get pregnant" as a basis for policy.
Posted by: LT | May 25, 2006 3:47:59 PM
So, Idler, those of us who are old enough to remember the 1950s and 1960s are hyperfeminists because we believe women's medical decisions and men's medical decisions should be under the same level of control by the government?
In the paranoid hyperfeminist mind, mere concern about this morphs into some kind of fundamentalist menace.
Thanks for proving the premise that when some see a girl/ woman of any age they think "baby making machine".
There are those who believe women should be denied certain jobs while in their child bearing years. Calling those who point that out hyperfeminist or some such doesn't change that.
Elizabeth Dole (not really an old person) has told a story about being hassled in law school "the place you took in this class should have gone to a man".
Posted by: Jenni Simonis | May 25, 2006 3:50:13 PM
Bob--
Thank you for the comments. To me, this is at the heart of our opposition to what the CDC said.
Yes, we should all eat healthy, not drink or smoke, etc. We should do that just because we'd want to be healthy human beings. That's not really the issue here-- it's that women in their child bearing years are being singled out to be treated differently.
Posted by: Steven Maurer | May 25, 2006 4:22:00 PM
Jenni: That's not really the issue here-- it's that women in their child bearing years are being singled out to be treated differently.
OK, so women in their child bearing years are being "singled out" by the CDC for, um, health advice about what you should do if you're a woman in your child bearing years. I, on the other hand, am not yet "singled out" for advice on heart attacks, but I'm sure that eventually I will be, as an old male.
So explain again why receiving circumstance-specific health advice is so bad? I just don't get it.
Posted by: LMAO | May 25, 2006 4:22:34 PM
LT: How is the government trying to "control medical decisions"?
The Centers for Disease Control (like the Surgeon General) is tasked with the promotion of health and welfare, and the prevention of injury and disease. To suggest that concern for fetal health is tantamount to discrimination against women belies your extremist views on abortion. To wit: a government publication regarding the promotion of fetal health is anti-woman?
The government requires warning labels on cigarettes. It's irrational to suggest the government is preventing you from smoking based on that warning label.
Posted by: Jenni Simonis | May 25, 2006 4:33:15 PM
There's a big difference in recommending that older people of either sex should follow certain guidelines to keep the heart healthy and what the CDC is doing.
What they're doing is classifying women of child bearing years into a a category called "pre-pregnant." This is basically what was done a few decades ago, although it didn't have an official name. That led to a lot of discrimination against women, instances of which are listed above.
Posted by: paulie | May 25, 2006 5:23:37 PM
Women and men have increasingly become too comfortable with the creep toward an authoritarian government with no problems limiting civil liberities, listening to thousands of phone calls, data mining, bribing and corruption. The subjugation of women into a pre-pregnancy class may not sound too serious in the scheme of things. Is anyone wondering when the CDC will start issuing the burkas?
Posted by: Steven Maurer | May 25, 2006 5:36:46 PM
So... the CDC is such an arbiter of popular weltanschauung, that its categorizations will singlehandedly bring back the worst of the 1950s? ('Cause, you know, the Journal of Emerging Infectious Disease Reports is in just all the salons.) Companies will stop hiring women because "the girls" are all prepregant, or perhaps even post-prepregnant, or even post-post-prepregnant (with daycare), Fair Employment Act be damned?
The mind boggles.
Well, maybe you're right. Who am I to say? But if you're going to jump all over the practice of medical classification, I would suggest you learn a bit more. Medical "discrimination" against the elderly is hardly benign, not only in terms of insurance, but also for things like organ transplant waiting lists. Perhaps it's necessary, perhaps not, but a hell of a lot more important to the affected individuals than use of a politically-incorrect word.
Posted by: Jenni Simonis | May 25, 2006 5:43:40 PM
I never said there wasn't medical discrimination of other groups of people. I said that saying those who are at risk for heart problems to take good care of their heart is not the same as classifying people as "pre-pregnant." Just because it's already happening with other groups doesn't mean we have to live with it. It's wrong when stuff like medical discrimination happens to any group.
The Journal of Emerging Infectious Disease Reports may not be everywhere and read by many; however, publications like the Washington Post (which reported on this) most definitely is. And that's just the beginning.
Posted by: Steve Bucknum | May 25, 2006 6:18:57 PM
On the surface, the CDC's position seems mild and beneficial to our society.
The reason lots of us get bent out of shape about these little beneficial things is that we are worn out with a history of these things turning out to be a "tip of the iceburg" sort of thing.
Example: No child left behind. Great! What an idea! Let's pump some Federal money into Education so that we educate a new generation to take care of us as we age. Nothing better. Of course, the Federal Government will only put their money into education so long as there is "accountability". And of course, if the public sector can't respond to the standards of accountability, then we should hand over our education system to the private sector because education is so important. And by the way, the private sector won't have the same standards of accountability. And by the way, the standards of the public sector, slowly phased in, are actually impossible to meet.
We have a war on terrorism that has become a war on American freedoms.
Hmm, where have I heard this all before??? Orwell? Hilter??
So, nothing is as it seems. Every woman has every reason to quake in her shoes when she hears that the government has taken an interest in her reproductive abilities.
I guess I'm starting to be in the Libertarian wing of the Democratic Party - keep the government out of my life!
If there is no purpose behind the CDC's interest in reproduction, then why are they doing what they are doing?
Yes, there is a conspiracy under every rock in the Bush Administration.
Posted by: LMAO | May 25, 2006 6:33:03 PM
Jenni:
You need to read the entire CDC Report entitled "Recommendations to Improve Preconception Health and Health Care " and then climb down off your high horse. It does not suggest that all women are "pre-pregnant" breeding machines which must be subjected to government or physician monitoring.
Here's the agenda from the national summit which preceeded the report which offers scant evidence of a vast right-wing conspiracy.
The Washington Post journalist (Ms. January Payne) clearly intended to stir up a hornet's nest (what other purpose can the reader infer from the Post's title "Pregnant Forever"), and she succeeded, at least on B/O. Remember: the primary goal of a newspaper is to sell newspapers. Conversely, the primary role of the journalist is to draw attention to their writing.
Posted by: Matt Harpold | May 25, 2006 6:35:52 PM
Oh CDC! How dare you try to solve the conundrum of elevated infant mortality rate! Telling women they should make sure to have lots of folic acid in their diets? You sexist fascists!
"Politics here is death."
-William S Burroughs
Posted by: Steven Maurer | May 25, 2006 6:41:03 PM
Of course saying those who are at risk for heart problems to take good care of their heart is not the same as classifying people as "pre-pregnant"! People at risk for heart problems can't get insurance and may be denied health care. People who are "pre-pregnant" are being told to take pre-natal vitimins, just in case they're a little less "pre-pregnant" than they think they are.
So, hmmmm. "Insulted by being Told To Take Vitamins and not booze it up" -vs- "Denied Care/Allowed to Die". They're different, alright. But which is worse?
Or perhaps, more aptly, "Insulted by being Told To Take Vitamins and not booze it up" -vs- "Having a kid with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome", which is what the CDC is really concerned about. A lot of people actually - the post-pre-pregnant ones especially; they have 9 long months to worry about it.
Now if you're right and this really is "just the beginning" of some new insidious right-wing attack on women being able to work, I'll put on my walking shoes and go canvass against whatever else they're trying to do. But so long as it seems like you're merely trying to conjure up offense at doctors telling fertile, sexually active, young women to be a bit more realistic about the chances of an accident, I'll treat you like I do all those "abstenence only" idiots with similar unrealistic expectations about teenagers' self-control.
Posted by: LT | May 25, 2006 7:27:44 PM
How much of the infant mortality rate is caused solely by women not taking folic acid and otherwise "not taking care of themselves"?
How much of it is due to women who can't get health insurance, are not well nourished because WIC (or any other nutrition program) doesn't work as well as intended, can't get prenatal care or can't get transportation to health appointments?
Steve is right about NCLB.
The fine print (until lots of people screamed) included telling rural schools (who often have one person teaching several subjects--and rural schools are lucky if they can hold onto teachers if the ones they have decide they'd rather live in larger communities)that unless they had teachers qualified (college major or pass a test) in each subject they taught, letters would go to parents saying the teachers were "unqualified" even if those teachers had been succesful for years. No warning, no additional time given (until people screamed) and the Sec. of Education called those teachers who questioned any detail of the NCLB implementation "terrorists".
Yet we are supposed to believe a CDC report because someone said so, and the report should be believed as written given the track record of this Administration?
Bush just now is admitting mistakes in Iraq policy, but of course teacher were responsible for NCLB results as soon as it went into effect. The only "accountability" allowed was NCLB tests--not improvement from year to year, not how many kids went on to college, just high stakes tests.
If you have faith that a CDC report is nothing more than it appears on its face, then fine.
But after years of Bush tricks (didn't he once praise now-convicted felon Ken Lay?), don't ask me to believe Bush if he tells me it is raining outside (unless I go outside and get wet).
According to the Constitution, "we the people" are the government. We are not required to trust a government report (CDC or anything else) will be implemented as it appears on the surface.
If you don't like that attitude, tough luck.
Posted by: Madam Hatter | May 25, 2006 7:36:10 PM
Thanks for posting this Anne. Call me another "paranoid hyperfeminist" if you want, but in light of the CDC's other proclamations (see Pat Ryan's post above), So. Dakota's ban on abortions, the FDA's crazy rulings on the morning after pill, and the huge debate about the new cervical cancer vaccine, I think I have a right.
From the WaPo article:
The report recommends that women stop smoking and discuss with their doctor the danger alcohol poses to a developing fetus.
Research shows that "during the first few weeks (before 52 days' gestation) of pregnancy" -- during which a woman may not yet realize she's pregnant -- "exposure to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs; lack of essential vitamins (e.g., folic acid); and workplace hazards can adversely affect fetal development and result in pregnancy complications and poor outcomes for both the mother and the infant," the report states.
So now what? Am I going to be charged with child abuse or endangerment because I have a beer after work - because I MIGHT be harming a THEORETICAL baby? Or, like Bob Fancher wrote above: they want to legalize discrimination against women because of POSSIBLE workplace hazards to POTENTIAL babies.
Why would anyone go to the bother of issuing "new federal guidelines" if these are just common sense health tips that we all are well aware of already? Stop smoking, control asthma and diabetes, avoid lead-based paint... Really? How earth-shattering. We needed a federal study, report and guidelines to tell us this? Duh... What's the point?
Give me a break. This is ALL about control - it just happens to be directed at women of child bearing age - this time.
How ironic is it that they can preach about maintaining good health - in this country with 17 million women who lack health insurance - not for the sake of the woman, but for POTENTIAL fetuses. How hypocritical to focus on these things when poverty (and all its associated problems - poor nutrition, health care, etc.) is the #1 cause of infant mortality.
Why do you suppose U.S. infant mortality increased in 2002 for the first time? Hmmmm.... Let's see if we can figure that one out. It has absolutely nothing to do with the ever-increasing income disparity in this country, does it? No, no, it must be all those selfish, ignorant, health-neglecting "pre-pregnant" women!
Posted by: Frontal Lobotomy | May 25, 2006 7:38:30 PM
Before you embarrass yourselves further, you ought to at least skim a few pages of the CDC Report.
This report is as dry and esoteric as they come. If y'all are going to politicize the CDC's effort to reduce birth defects and infant mortality, then the moderates on this blog don't stand a chance.
Posted by: Bob Fancher | May 25, 2006 8:25:49 PM
From the CDC report:
“The target population for preconception health promotion is women, from menarche to menopause, who are capable of having children, even if they do not intend to conceive.”
“ . . .limited evidence is available to determine effective methods for delivering preconception care and improving preconception health. Only a limited number of studies regarding effectiveness of interventions have been tested.” (emphasis added)
“The recommendations are a starting point to make comprehensive preconception care a standard of care in the United States . . .”
If the motivations, or frame of reference of the recommenders, have nothing to do with politics, why (a) bother to issue a report when there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of the recommended interventions, (b) seek to make those admittedly-poorly-evidenced recommendations a "standard of care," and (c) target all women "even if they do not intend to conceive."
Posted by: jrw | May 25, 2006 8:47:13 PM
Y'know, if the CDC is sufficiently concerned about endangering developing foeti, they *might* also want to be issuing warnings to all men capable of producing reproductive sperm to avoid mutagenic and teratogenic substances.
Or, if engaged in an intimate relationship with a woman of childbearing age, mandate strict rules which decrease a woman's exposure to any dangerous substance they might be carrying around on their clothing?
You notice they ain't doing that.
Gee. Wonder why.
(and, for the record, I done did my childbearing thing, produced a productive member of society to boot. And I *still* get a kink in my knickers when I hear about this sort of thing.
Don't equate attitudes such as Anne's to resentment of childbearing. Those of us who've served our time in the childrearing, childbearing trenches often feel the very same way.)
Posted by: LT | May 25, 2006 9:34:31 PM
I clicked on the link to the report. Women of childbearing age are listed as aged 15-44. Will we soon be hearing about parental consent forms for 15 year olds to be told by doctors to make sure they get enough folic acid?
What if they live in poor neighborhoods where they might encounter lead based paint? Is telling them to say away from it enough, or should there be programs to get rid of lead based paint? (But then, that might require not giving tax breaks to landlords who haven't cleaned up their properties which still have lead based paint.)
Here's part of that report--the title is quite a mouthful.
Recommendations to Improve Preconception Health and Health Care --- United States
A Report of the CDC/ATSDR Preconception Care Work Group and the Select Panel on Preconception Care
The 10 recommendations in this report are based on preconception health care for the U.S. population and are aimed at achieving four goals to 1) improve the knowledge and attitudes and behaviors of men and women related to preconception health; 2) assure that all women of childbearing age in the United States receive preconception care services (i.e., evidence-based risk screening, health promotion, and interventions) that will enable them to enter pregnancy in optimal health; 3) reduce risks indicated by a previous adverse pregnancy outcome through interventions during the interconception period, which can prevent or minimize health problems for a mother and her future children; and 4) reduce the disparities in adverse pregnancy outcomes.
Since I have never heard of "preconception health care" before, I decided to Google the term.
Among other things, I found this:
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/gettingpregnant/menpreconception.htm
As couples prepare for pregnancy, it is easy to focus only on the woman’s health. However, there are several habits men need to be forming during these critical months of preparation, too. Issues of fertility do not rest solely on the female. According to the Organization of Teratology Information Services (OTIS), "Agents that may cause birth defects do not reach the developing fetus through the father as they do from the pregnant mother." But we do know that male exposure to certain things can lead to some preliminary problems with fertility and also slighly elevate the risk of certain birth defects.
OK, Idler, Steven, LMAO, tell us what you think of that.
Or are we only supposed to be discussing the health of women because men are allowed to do whatever they please?
Posted by: Jenni Simonis | May 25, 2006 9:47:45 PM
LMAo--
Maybe you need to read people's posts before you post.
Never did I say anything even close to:
"all women are 'pre-pregnant' breeding machines which must be subjected to government or physician monitoring."
If they really wanted to reduce infant mortality and the like, this isn't how you'd go about doing it. You'd push for sex ed in schools. You'd push for more access to family planning, contraception, etc. You'd have fought hard for insurance companies to be required to cover birth control. You'd push for family clinics where pregnant women and children can go for health care at free or reduced prices. You'd help pregnant women get the healthy foods that they need, and often can't afford. And you wouldn't have the system set up to treat them like idiots or bad parents just because they can't afford health care, healthy food, etc.-- because right now the treatment of parents at these places is enough to make you never come back.
Posted by: Idler | May 25, 2006 9:59:51 PM
The aptly named Madam Hatter asks:
Why do you suppose U.S. infant mortality increased in 2002 for the first time? Hmmmm.... Let's see if we can figure that one out. It has absolutely nothing to do with the ever-increasing income disparity in this country, does it? No, no, it must be all those selfish, ignorant, health-neglecting "pre-pregnant" women!
Maybe it's all those selfish, overpaid American physicians counting infant mortality in a more concientious way than their colleagues in other First World Countries:
The Orange County Register reported last year:
Since the United States generally uses the WHO [World Health Organization] definition of live birth, in their 2004 book "Lives at Risk," economist John Goodman and his colleagues conclude, "Taking into account such data-reporting differences, the rates of low- birth-weight babies born in America are about the same as other developed countries" in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Likewise, infant mortality rates, adjusted for the distribution of newborns by weight, are about the same.
American advances in medical treatment now make it possible to save babies who would have surely died only a few decades ago. Until recently, very low birth-weight babies - less than 3 pounds - almost always died. Now, some of these babies survive. While such vulnerable babies may live with advanced medical assistance and technology, low birth-weight babies (weighing less than 5.5 pounds) recently had an infant mortality rate 20 times higher than heavier babies, according to WHO. Ironically, U.S. doctors' ability to save babies' lives causes higher infant mortality numbers here than would be the case with less advanced treatment.
Posted by: Levon1715 | May 25, 2006 10:09:15 PM
The Orwellian term "pre-pregnant" illustrates the "pre-intelligent" state of the Crusaders in charge.
Time to end this pre-inebriated state I'm currently experiencing.
Posted by: Idler | May 25, 2006 10:50:43 PM
Too bad Levon1715 has moved past his pre-inebriated state. Perhaps, had he remained sober, he could have explained exactly why the term "pre-pregnant" is "Orwellian." (Infelicitous, perhaps. Somewhat silly, maybe. But "Orwellian"?)
I think Steve Bucknum provides the key: “Nothing is as it seems.”
Steve, normally a fairly sober commenter, sees the CDC announcement as providing women “every reason to quake in [their] shoes.” His slippery slope drops him into regions sufficiently sinister to lead him to reflect, “where have I heard this all before??? Orwell? Hilter??” He must have been thinking of that Monty Python episode where the dictator concealed his identity by shifting those same consonants. Bucknum concludes that “there is a conspiracy under every rock.” Possibly. And maybe, to paraphrase a character in another Monty Python sketch, there are communists under every bed, eating the wife's jam. There certainly appear to be conspiracy theories under every rock.
To a certain turn of mind, a concern for public order equates to “fascism,” simply arguing against people with whom one disagrees is branded “censorship” or even “crushing dissent,” and a reconsideration of any part of traditional wisdom about a mother's role in child bearing and rearing amounts to the imminent establishment of the misogynist dystopia limned in The Handmaid's Tale.
Thus the CDC's recommendations for maximizing the chances of healthy pregnancy amount to “worship of the healthy uterus.” (Shall we give three cheers for the unhealthy uterus...?) To focus on childbirth is to convert women to chattel or, in paulie's world, cattle. The feedlot awaits, he warns, complete with locally produced organic oats.
Noticing that women get pregnant and men do not is, as Bob Fancher puts it “an illegal status discrimination.”
LT's language is interesting, in that it bears the same implied contempt for motherhood present in Ann Martens' post. She says:
Thanks for proving the premise that when some see a girl/ woman of any age they think "baby making machine".
Of course there's no evidence that the authors of the CDC think that way when they see a woman, but they are simply recognizing reality when they make recommendations related to the fact that women of a certain age are the only such “machine” (to use LT's repugnant phrase) humanity has. Who is LT to say that the recommendations aren't made with awe and wonderment, or simply clinical diligence? Again, that doesn't fit the predetermined fantasy of the heirs of the prophet Atwood.
Jenni comments with her accustomed gravity about “women in their child-bearing years being singled out” for advice pertinent only to women in their childbearing years. Shocking! And the overwrought, Area-51 enthusiast-worthy commentary continues:
Men don't actually carry children to term, but it's highly suspicious that they're not given the same advice…
Evidence is incomplete, leading the CDC to describe the recommendations as a “starting point” rather than the last word. This is seen as extremely fishy…
At this rate “the CDC will start issuing the burkas,” as paulie puts it, before the Bush presidency is over -- perhaps right after The Handmaid's Tale moral regime is finally established once and for all.
Posted by: Lacy Underall | May 26, 2006 12:31:50 AM
Why do liberals feel so much hostility towards other people's unborn babies?
Posted by: Jenni Simonis | May 26, 2006 1:49:54 AM
Jenni comments with her accustomed gravity about “women in their child-bearing years being singled out” for advice pertinent only to women in their childbearing years.
Actually, the majority of advice is good for everyone-- healthy food, not smoking or drinking, etc.
And I love how this so often becomes people attacking those of us who disagree with this as being anti-motherhood, not wanting children, etc. I take offense at that, as I am a mother.
Posted by: LT | May 26, 2006 3:05:36 AM
It wasn't a "liberal" who said "you mean to tell me that we fought Communism just so we could tell women they couldn't make decisions about their own bodies?".
It was Barry Goldwater, a true conservative.
And Lacy, there always have been people of the MYOB persuasion (regardless of how they vote) who don't think other people's lives are there responsibility.
It is one thing to help others in a soup kitchen, food bank, or some other community activity.
But maybe the younger people here don't remember the early 1980s when there were clergy debating each other over the role of prayer in schools (would it have to be so diluted that some would consider the prayer too weak?) debate over infant formula (was it being sold to countries where there wasn't enough pure water to mix it?), over school lunches (was ketchup a vegetable or a condiment?), over politicians whose voting record included voting the Right to Life party line and then voting for cuts to nutrition programs for mothers and children--and of course supporting the tobacco subsidy because that was an important constituent group in some states.
There was a college back then where the linguistics dept. published a Journal of Doublespeak--a lot of that in the Reagan years.
Lacy, are you saying you want to be involved in the lives of expectant mothers in your community whether they want your involvement or not? Are you part of a program like Healthy Start, or just rhetorically active? Should there be a person visiting every new mother to see how she is getting along? Or is that government intervention because if all women of childbearing age would just take their folic acid (starting while still in high school?) and follow all the other suggestions they will automatically have easy deliveries and easy first weeks with their newborns ---and of course all women have great health insurance?
Or are you just upset that people would question the wisdom of Bush's CDC or any other agency?
Maybe the Bush Administration should worry more about hurricane preparedness and less about telling women how to prepare for pregnancy without saying how poor women are supposed to pay for medical care.
Posted by: LMAO | May 26, 2006 6:17:57 AM
LT:
I move the previous question: how is the government trying to "control medical decisions"?
If you want to defend your mindless statement, then please do so. If you want to chalk it up to rhetorical hyperbole, then you can regain some credibility.
Either way, the Washington Post author took an innocuous report on public health and injected it with polemics and religious zeal that ARE NOT PRESENT IN THE CDC's report. Anne Martens then expanded the zealotry and controversy by focussing on the word "Pre-pregnancy" which IS NOT CONTAINED IN THE CDC's report. Y'all have been duped by poor journalism, selective editing, and a pathological willingness to believe every bureaucracy has been corrupted by Bush ideologues.
Here is a direct quote that summarizes the heart of the CDC's report...I'd love to see a liberal take issue with any part of this mission:
Improving preconception health will require changes in the knowledge and attitudes and behaviors of persons, families, communities, and institutions (e.g., government and health-care settings). The purpose of preconception care is to improve the health of each woman before any pregnancy and thereby affect the future health of the woman, her child, and her family. The recommendations and specific action steps were developed as a result of SPPC meeting and implementation of CDC's preconception health programs. The frame work has incorporated both an ecological model and a lifespan perspective on health and recognized the unique contributions and challenges encountered by women, their families, communities, and institutions. Improving the health of women can increase the quality of health for families and the community.
Posted by: Idler | May 26, 2006 6:20:43 AM
Jenni, you say,
Actually, the majority of advice is good for everyone-- healthy food, not smoking or drinking, etc.
So what? It’s natural that good advice to be prepared for childbirth would contain elements of general good health. Of course it also contains elements that specifically bear on this population in relation to its reproductive capability. You might as well complain that men over 40 are “singled out” by a recommendation that they be screened for prostate cancer.
You say:
And I love how this so often becomes people attacking those of us who disagree with this as being anti-motherhood, not wanting children, etc. I take offense at that, as I am a mother.
I don’t recall anyone saying or implying that you were anti-motherhood or anti-child. I’m confident you’re a wonderful mother. And anyway, I don’t think you have said anything that could be construed as “anti-motherhood.” But others here have, starting with the headline of the post itself. The opinion that emerges is that some notion of “wholeness” is centered on women doing something other than being mothers and caring for children. Motherhood provokes jibes about being “Barefoot and Back in the Kitchen,” it conjures images of cattle pens and “feedlots” where mere ruminant “baby machines” serve their un-self-realizing purpose.
In LT’s net full of red herring, we find this:
Should contraception be outlawed because there is nothing a female can do that is more important than giving birth?
Never mind the irrelevant reference to something nobody here, nor the CDC, has argued for. Just notice the sarcastic comment directed at those who emphasize the importance of "giving birth." And ponder LT’s implied hierarchy of human activities. Now, it’s an interesting question in particular whether the most important thing a woman did in her life was to have children. Perhaps there are some people whose accomplishments are more valuable to the world than their children (though I would hate to be the child on the wrong end of that comparison). But there’s no question that giving birth is one of the most important things women do in general, and that reproduction is one of the most important things done by both sexes. It’s all very well if my or I wife write an important book, improve the standards of construction, make a medical discovery, discover new species, or do any number of useful things. But if people don’t reproduce, there won’t be any more of that, nor any need for it.
I’ve used the term “hyperfeminist” here because I don’t want to cede the word “feminist” to a certain point of view that believes women are elevated by becoming more like men and looking down on the unique power of women to bear children – a power that ensures the survival of our species. Contempt for motherhood isn't pro-woman.
Posted by: FP | May 26, 2006 7:20:55 AM
I think the more important qustion is: why does Anne Martens want to force pregnant women to pump their own gas?
Posted by: Steven Maurer | May 26, 2006 7:42:21 AM
jrw: Y'know, if the CDC is sufficiently concerned about endangering developing foeti, they *might* also want to be issuing warnings to all men capable of producing reproductive sperm to avoid mutagenic and teratogenic substances. You notice they ain't doing that.
The only thing I notice, jrw, is that you don't know how to use google: The Effects of Workplace Hazards on Male Reproductive Health
Posted by: LMAO | May 26, 2006 7:49:17 AM
Anne: just tell your mom to chill. She'll have grandkids when you're good and ready to procreate. If it's not your mom, then don't let peer pressure or your mother-in-law get to you.
Clearly, somebody is putting pressure on you to have a baby. Why else would you have the knee-jerk reaction outlined above?
This is the most alarming chapter in the Mommy Wars written to date.
Posted by: Anne | May 26, 2006 8:49:21 AM
I am truly amazed by these comments. I thought this was fairly uncontroversial. Silly me.
LMAO, don't be a jackass, nobody's pressuring me to have a baby.
I don't have a problem with motherhood, I have great respect for motherhood - at the time and under the circumstances of the woman's and her significant others' choosing.
I don't have a problem with being healthy. It's obviously a good idea to take care of yourself and take vitamins and stop smoking and exercise and eat vegetables and don't chew on lead-based paint and all of that. We should all be so healthy.
I have a problem with a government agency defining my life and my body in terms of my reproductive acts. I have a problem with being viewed as primarily a uterus with reproductive potential, and not a whole human being with other-than-reproductive potential and a brain. I have a problem with being told that I am a means to and end (pregnancy).
I am surprised and dismayed that so many of these comments are so willing dismiss my concerns about my control over my body as stupid or misled or overly-emotional or overly-liberal or just too much like a dumb girl. I thought Oregon was progressive and respectful of women's rights or at least women's rights to voice an opinion. I guess I needed a wake up call.
Posted by: sightunseen | May 26, 2006 9:12:12 AM
Reading the comments, its actually quite easy to determine the gender of the commenter. Men should bugger off.
Ms.Martens, wickedly good writer.
Posted by: Steve Bucknum | May 26, 2006 9:13:29 AM
Idler writes,
"Steve, normally a fairly sober commenter, sees the CDC announcement as providing women “every reason to quake in [their] shoes.” His slippery slope drops him into regions sufficiently sinister to lead him to reflect, “where have I heard this all before??? Orwell? Hilter??”"
Yep. I'd call you up to talk about this, except that we'd be monitored by the NSA, have a permanent record of the phone call, and be forever linked in our conspiracy.
Orwell wrote 1984 in the post Hilter era. We now have achieved "War is peace". Anyone remember the rest?
Posted by: Jonathan | May 26, 2006 9:20:49 AM
At some level, does this discussion start to overlap with a discussion of abortion, in that it implicates a woman's control over her body? It's a tension that I think pops up in many areas. What do we think should happen if a woman drinks so much while pregnant that her child has fetal alcohol syndrome? If we think that's punishable conduct, then should we be regulating whether a pregnant woman can drink anything (I think about the sideways glances my wife sometimes got, when she was pregnant, when she had the temerity to order a glass of wine)? And what if there was medical evidence that a "pre-pregnant woman," (what a dumb term) really meaning "not pregnant but still of an age where that'a possibility," who drank and smoked before she was pregnant actually posed a threat to any baby she might have? I think that would be a difficult policy matter. Of course, there is no such medical evidence, and the CDC report says it's coming from very little factual or medical grounding.
But the real difficulty for me then comes with inconsistency. We actually DO have LOTS of evidence that women who don't have health care end up giving birth to babies in circumstances where those babies have a lesser chance at a good life. So rather than suffering through the angst of whether the CDC should look out for things about which there is little or no evidence, why isn't the government looking to do things that will unquestionably help kids' chances?
Note: The presence of any individual above does not imply an endorsement by BlueOregon. The selection of faces shown is done by Facebook. Visit BlueOregon on Facebook.
Post a comment
Posted by: Koz | May 25, 2006 12:41:00 PM
What's wrong with taking better care of yourself? And if half of pregnancies are unplanned, maybe it's not a bad idea. Perhaps a great number of these pregnancies get carried to term.
By the way, just as young women are "pre-pregnant" aren't we all "pre-death"? Why else are there recommendations to exercise, to eat a more healthy diet, to stop smoking, etc. And if you have life or health insurance you have institutionalized incentives and punishments for living a healthier "pre-death" lifestyle, ie., your premiums go up or down. Why does no one protest against these steps?
Or how about vaccinations? Chances are a child won't catch one of those diseases, so why bother? Or how about the new vaccine against cervical cancer? If the federal government mandates vaccinating young women against this, is that bad? Oh my gosh, heaven forbid that we designate these women as "pre-cancerous".
Get a life. Take a multivitamin and try to live a healthy lifestyle.