Letters to the Editor
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The Marching Morons
Thank god I am 50 and therefore exempt from the CDC's recommendations. Clearly, I am of no value to society, since I can no longer be considered "pre-pregnant".
I am now free to concentrate on being "pre-dead".
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What are ya gonna do about it?
I smoke, I drink anywhere from a glass to a bottle of wine a night, I'm 27, female, and I practice the withdrawal method! FREEDOM!!! EAT Shit BUSH
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What's wrong with THIS advice?
Most victims of canibalism don't anticipate being eaten. Don't make this mistake! Even if you don't plan on becoming someone's food, it's important to be prepared by following this advice:
Maintain a healthy weight. If you're undernourished, your body won't contain enough meat. You'll hardly be worth eating! In contrast, if you're obese, your meat will be very fatty. This is both unhealthy for the canibal who is eating you and also less delicious.
Stay away from cigarettes. Cigarettes will make you taste terrible.
Don't smoke marijuana or other illegal drugs. Chemicals in marijuana can stay in your system for years. The person who kills and eats you shouldn't face this exposure. Other illegal drugs have similar properties.
Always wear your safety belt. It's time consuming to find and eat accident victims who've been thrown from their cars. By wearing your safety belt, you help ensure that the canibal who runs you off the road will be able to retrieve your whole corpse without worrying about finding that missing limb!
Remember, even if you haven't been murdered yet, it's important to always consider yourself as "pre-cooked," and behave appropriately.
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Male behavior impacts the fetus, too
But the atuhor is enraged that women are asked to stay healthy just in case they might become pregnant -- for the sake of the baby?
I fully do not support a woman's right to carry a pregnancy to term while engaging in behavior (excessive smoking? drinking? drug use? undernourishing herself? whatever) that is *likely* to damage the human being she will be giving birth to.
For while it's her body as long as the fetus is inside it, it's another human being at some point, and no one has the right to expose another human to serious physical jeopardy -- or another future human being.
(emphasis mine)
Then by all means, the CDC should include men in their guidelines. What men do affects fetuses, too, first at the level of the sperm (what effect does all that smoking, that alcohol, those drugs, that frivolous mountain biking have on a man's swimmers?) and second in the area of environmental toxins. If we're going to be fair, doctors should be telling men that during the part of their lives that they have viable sperm, and could therefore be 50% responsible for creating an unwanted pregnancy at any time, men who are living with the pregnant woman, or who are around fertile females, should refrain from smoking, making and taking drugs, offering non-nutritious food, and - here's the kicker - inducing stress in said females. No yelling, no put downs, no avoiding common sense responsibilites around the house, no letting her get overly tired or anxious (which some scientists believe can cause hormone shifts that affect the fetus.) Men contribute a lot to the environment in which pregnant or pre-pregnant women live. They need to do those things that create healthy, positive environments and refrain from any behavior that creates unhealthy, stressful environments.
Now, given that doing this would probably make the males involved just as healthy as the women who we ask to forego cigs and wine and obesity, why isn't the CDC sending out talking points for physicians to bring up when talking to their pre-impregnating male patients?
(I mean really, it's only a matter of asking them to practice good habits to ensure the absolute best possibility for the next generation. Why should they mind?)
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Just because a doctor mentions your ability to get pregnant doesn't mean you have to
C'mon, you're overreacting to this. Of course a doctor is going to tell you to maintain a healthy weight, to not smoke, etc. for your own health. (And how many people follow it?) But, as they said, many pregnancies are unplanned, so there is a potentially additional reason to be healthy. It doesn't mean doctors are treating women as breeding machines. Feminists need to stop freaking out at the mere mention of pregnancy. It's as if a woman doesn't focus on her own personal self-actualization for one minute, we're going back to the stone age.
Also, read the fine print,ladies, the really big news in this is great news - this our big chance to get out of ever having to change the cat's litter box for many, many years.
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Miriald, you know you the answer :)
Remember, according to the conservatives, men are beyond talking to, so all the responsibility for wanted and unwanted pregnancies falls on women :)
Men are just big dumb beasts. ;)
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It's the assumption that's insulting
Judy M, the problem is that this CDC advice assumes that
1) all women will have children. that's why they're prepregant. if they don't want to or can't have children, this advice shouldn't apply to them. the presumption that all women will have children is what's insulting. it's defining women's health in relation pregnancy, which is incredibly insulting.
2) once women become pregnant, they will not abort
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Infant Mortality Rates Had Been Dropping For Years
Women have been doing healthy and unhealthy things to their bodies for decades. The infant mortality rate had been dropping for years. The year it started climbing again? 2002 It's been on the rise ever since. (This is per the CDC's website.) Women's behavior has not changed. What has changed? The reasonable public dialogue about *preventing pregnancy* and about *options for addressing an unwanted pregnancy*.
So, for those of you who feel that this is not about restricting the control a woman has over her own body and is not about devaluing women in relations to the babies they may or may not carry, then how do you address the statistics? And how do you explain why, as many folks have commented before me, men aren't given guidelines either? Unhealthy behavior by men, staying consistent with the CDC's explanation for the new guidelines, could lead to unhealthy sperm which could increase the risk of infant death.
I am in full agreement with those of you before me who have made the following point--I'm just going to voice it once again. I'm hugely in favor of doctor's giving proactive healthcare advice to women and men IF, the intent is to ensure a healthier future for those men and women. What is suspect here with these new CDC guidelines is the motive. It's not about the woman, it's about the baby that woman may or may not carry.
The CDC doesn't even try to mask the motive for these new guidelines, so I'm not sure why anyone would try to defend them as anything other than how they are intended to be understood.