Over the last couple months, I’ve started multiple blogs about things related to the pelvic floor…none of them are finished. I knew what I wanted to be writing about, but I also knew that what I wanted to write about may rock the boat. I was supposed to keep this blog “non-political” and blah blah blah. But as a medical professional who works with women, I cannot just be quiet. Too many people are being quiet.
We’ve all been bombarded with the Facebook memes, the people screaming (on both sides) because they think it’ll help, and a situation that continues to worsen. If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’m talking about the recent laws made to directly take away a woman’s voice. And I’m talking about them because we desperately need to. If we are to truly foster a system in this country that allows for all of us to be equally considered then we have gone in the wrong direction….very far in the wrong direction.
It doesn’t matter if I believe abortion is morally right or wrong. That’s a philosophical debate that can go on until the end of time. There will always be people on both sides of the line, and that’s okay. Any logical human being can understand that. But what a logical human being should not be able to understand is why we are taking away body autonomy. It’s illegal to force someone to give their bone marrow, even if they are the only person on the planet that could save a life that’s in danger. It’s illegal to force someone to donate their organs, both when the person is alive and when they are deceased, if they do not consent. A woman’s uterus is in fact, part of her body, and she should have the basic rights that are given to everyone else. She should be the keeper of her body, not the white men in office.
We are unable to provide rapists with appropriate punishment, yet we are okay with controlling a woman’s body. Control. It’s all about control. If a baby is born gay/bi/trans, then at least they were born, right? But are we going to treat them as equal? Current situations would lead me to say, no. They aren’t really valued. We tell them that they aren’t worthy of love, that they cannot worship, and some of their families even choose to not speak to them. If a black mother is telling us that she’s in pain while giving birth, or is having a difficult time breathing after birth, she’s quieted. She’s not believed, because well, she’s just not important enough. The statistics on black maternal and infant mortality rates in the United States are alarming, and we should be ashamed of ourselves. Yet we’d rather have control of her decisions than view her as a human being who deserves the same attention and care as her white counterparts.
I kind of wanted to say that I’m 100% positive that if we tried to pass a law that all male rapists be immediately given a vasectomy, it would never pass (or any law that would force a man to do anything with his body that he didn’t give consent to) but I should probably leave that out of it 😊. Because, you know, body autonomy. Instead of control we need compassion, we need understanding. The basis of human nature is love, and without it we have nothing. Loving thy neighbor does not mean we turn our backs to them because they made a different decision than us. It does not mean that we condemn them. It does not mean we control them. It means we embrace them; we talk with them, we support them. It means we allow a safe space for them to share their light and their experiences and we listen to them. How are you loving others today?
♥ Ashley
