The Most Normal Thing in the World

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Clarissa

July 9, 2013

I did not have a single pill in the house before I got pregnant. And now I have all this and I have to go to the hospital to have a monitor attached to me twice a week and get an ultrasound once a week and visit an OB-GYN (at a different location) once a week. That’s more often than I go to the office during the busiest semester.

The idiot who came up with the “Pregnancy is not a disease” meme is all kinds of stupid. Does this photo look like one depicting the lifestyle of a healthy person? There is more stuff, by the way, but I couldn’t fit it all in here.

And while I’m at it, what’s with the obnoxious “In the XIXth century women gave birth in the fields or at best in their beds with no doctors or hospitals, so what kind of feminist are you to sacrifice this kind of female independence and rely on male-dominated medical establishment”?

People who think that women gave birth in the fields as some sort of a feminist statement should contact a psychologist. And those who think that I should risk the XIX-th century maternal and infant mortality to make any sort of a statement should head straight for a psychiatrist.

How is it anti-feminist to make the medical establishment serve my needs anyway? If most of the workers in the automotive industry are men, should women stop using cars?

Yes, I’m grumpy.

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19 responses to “The Most Normal Thing in the World”

Sarah

July 9, 2013

I was toxoplasmos negative so had to go for a monthly blood test to check I didn’t catch it while pregnant. They’re a bit obsessed with toxoplasmos in France. I must be resistant because I’ve always lived with cats and eat a lot of salad and the odd pink steak.

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Tim

July 9, 2013

“male-dominated medical establishment”

woot!
I have never heard of this 😀 Pray tell, where did you find this?

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 9, 2013
  
  Three people said this to me verbatim only last week. Another person a week before that. This week nobody said it but it’s only Tuesday. These are all highly educated, progressive men and women.
  
  I feel floored every time I hear it.
  
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Stille (@aperfectbalance)

July 9, 2013

Quite common around the radical birth lot. They’re starting from the true fact that 19th century doctors killed more mothers and children than 19th century midwives, who at least did not deliver babies straight after an autopsy with no proper handwashing in between, and fixate on the “doctors” and “midwives” categories to help them pretend 21th century midwives are better than 21th century doctors.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 9, 2013
  
  What shocks me is how many perfectly normal people turn out to subscribe to these ideas.
  
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  1. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
    
    July 9, 2013
    
    Heh, I kinda subscribed to some of them for about 2 months, until figuring out that the solution to medical practices that lead to more difficult natural births than you’d have without those particular medical practices is to change the practices rather than get rid of the doctors. In my defense, many doctors I’ve known don’t react well to being contradicted 😛
    
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Shakti

July 9, 2013

The advances in medical technology, aka germ theory, are directly responsible for the increase in the average female lifespan.
Two words, one phrase: puerperal sepsis.
This is what the anti-choice people want for women: They ignore science, they let women die even though the fetus has no chance of survival. They’re more than happy to let women give birth to babies they know are dead. Every single one of those people who bleat about how medical complications are just an inconvenience are the same people who’d have been bleating about painkillers in the 19th century because childbirth is part of “Eve’s lot”.

Where are these anti-choicers who are agitating for 100% free prenatal checkups and care and delivery? I mean, fetuses are people according to them and are innocent and helpless and pure, so they should have been ALL over that shit. But NO, didn’t hear a peep from those fuckers. Instead they started screaming and whining about contraception and abortion at some new dog whistle level for the past four years.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 9, 2013
  
  “The advances in medical technology, aka germ theory, are directly responsible for the increase in the average female lifespan.”
  
  – Exactly!!! Science has improved women’s lives in countless ways over the last 100 years. Anti-biotics, contraception, even household appliances. Why should we now give all that up to live like XIXth ventury women whose lives were not that liberated, to put it mildly?
  
  “Where are these anti-choicers who are agitating for 100% free prenatal checkups and care and delivery? I mean, fetuses are people according to them and are innocent and helpless and pure, so they should have been ALL over that shit.”
  
  – This is exactly what I ask. If anti-choicers are REALLY interested in helping fetuses, why are they not advocating for all this? I’m now finding out first-hand how crucial prenatal care is. But I can afford great pre-natal care. How about all those people who can’t? Who cares about their “unborn babies”??
  
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el

July 9, 2013

It’s not connected, but I think an interesting post in Russian:

Об оружии, школах, климате и благотворной роли рынка
http://scholar-vit.livejournal.com/331258.html#comments

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 9, 2013
  
  Ha ha ha! It is a really great post. 🙂
  
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musteryou

July 9, 2013

Many people are insane. There are all sorts of brands of paranoia. A really prevalent one is that communists/feminists/the educated elite/the government is trying to take your essential nature away from you, to make you something you are not. This is the subtext of most of the YouTube videos I’ve perused today. There’s a lot of muttering about the methods these groups are using to take away your essential nature. They somehow coordinate their devious activities in such a way that you don’t notice your nature has gone missing. Not until some leader or prophet points it out. Then, howdy doody ma’am, you have to thank that messenger for pointing you back onto the straight and narrow.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 9, 2013
  
  Yes, because then they get to define what my “true essence” is and therein lies power.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    July 9, 2013
    
    Or they get to pursue their essence and so life has meaning. Actually, though, pursuing is a form of creating.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      July 9, 2013
      
      “Or they get to pursue their essence and so life has meaning. ”
      
      – Totally. A very limiting, pathetic sort of meaning, I believe.
      
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Bob Basil

July 9, 2013

This post cracked me up. You can be very very funny. Thank you!

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 9, 2013
  
  Don’t let anybody claim that autistics have no sense of humor. 🙂
  
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David Gendron

July 9, 2013

But…pregnancy causes no harm, ya know!

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el

July 11, 2013

Have you read Huxley’s “Brave new world”? I loved 1984, but not it, however, I think Huxley’s novel will be exactly in your valley:

Beyond providing social engagement and distraction in the material realm of work or play, the need for transcendence, solitude and spiritual communion is addressed with the ubiquitous availability and universally endorsed consumption of the drug soma … a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free “holidays”.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  July 11, 2013
  
  I liked 1984 more. It rang very true while Huxley’s novel was a little strained, in my opinion.
  
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