Health – Page 3 – Feministe

If your cause is solid, you shouldn’t have to lie about it. (Yeah, there’s more video.)

When I was little, in our house, lying was basically the worst offense you could commit. Honesty was a huge thing then, and it remains a huge thing for me now. That’s one reason all of these attacks on Planned Parenthood have been especially heinous to me — the lying to get undercover footage, the misleading editing to create violations that were never committed, the video Carly Fiorina lied about seeing. And now there’s more footage, more Carly Fiorina was right! footage, showing an abortion, unless it doesn’t, but no it totally does, or at least it looks like an abortion, but okay that’s not important because Planned Parenthood is evil.

More blatant lies about Planned Parenthood: The video that Carly Fiorina didn’t see

[Content note: Graphic, if factually questionable, description of purported abortion]

At the Republican presidential debate last Wednesday, Carly Fiorina made waves with an incredible and impassioned story, describing hidden-camera footage of (purportedly) a Planned Parenthood clinic (purportedly) performing a brutal procedure. It was a very dramatic moment, recounted with great intensity, and one can only imagine how painful it must have been to watch that footage.

If it existed. Which it doesn’t.

Woman faced with deportation after going in for her gyn appointment

Do you remember the movie Heathers? I doubt it could get made now, but it came out before the modern wave of school shootings, and I watched it over and over again (until my parents got worried and took my copy away from me; then I watched it at my best friend’s house), drunk with the fantasy of a cool boyfriend who offs the popular kids (also, the main character’s name is the mark of a quality story). For that hour and a half, Christian Slater was the cutest boy in the world.

Anyway, there’s a great scene in the beginning when the school’s two king jocks, Kurt and Ram, decide to harass JD (Slater doing his best Jack Nicholson impression), the new kid in town. [content note for homophobic language]

“Hey, Ram,” says Kurt. “Doesn’t this cafeteria have a ‘no fags allowed’ rule?”
“Well,” says JD, “they certainly seem to have an open-door policy on assholes, don’t they?”

That’s what this country’s attitude toward immigration makes me think of. We certainly seem to be OK with home-grown assholes.

Remember doctor-patient confidentiality? It means that unless you represent an imminent danger to yourself or others, what you discuss with your doctors and other health-care providers is between you and them. That way, people won’t suffer and die unnecessarily, contagious illnesses won’t go unchecked, and your doctor can give you the best treatment possible because he/she/ze knows whether or not you, for example, have taken any illicit drugs lately.

Unless you’re in Texas and you’re an undocumented immigrant, apparently, in which case going to your gynecologist and giving a fake ID will get you turned in. They kept her there for hours, people. Hours, so that the sheriff’s deputies could get their shit together and arrest her in a leisurely way. Now her husband, also undocumented, is no longer going to work for fear of deportation and the family, including an eight-year-old daughter, is scrambling for income, while Blanca Borrego faces deportation because she had a fake social security card in her purse, found after her arrest.

Well, that’s great. That’s fantastic. Terrific. It’s not like there’s any reason to want undocumented immigrants to be able to get health care safely. It’s not like they and their families will suffer and die if they avoid doctors for fear of deportation, or that, if their kids aren’t able, for example, to get vaccinations, infectious diseases could spread across any number of populations, maybe even including homegrown white assholes. It’s not like ob-gyn care is essential to a woman’s health.

Oh, wait, it’s exactly like all of those things are true.

And what about the clinic that did this? They can’t comment because, according this article, of patient confidentiality.

Investigations reveal that no, seriously, Planned Parenthood isn’t selling baby parts

Recently, I disassembled accusations that Planned Parenthood is selling baby parts. (My argument was basically, “No, both Planned Parenthood and just about everyone in the medical field who knows anything about tissue research and donation agree that Planned Parenthood isn’t selling baby parts, and here’s supporting data.”) Following multiple independent investigations, however, it was revealed Friday that… Planned Parenthood still isn’t selling baby parts.

Going Off: A chronicle of becoming unmedicated

[Content note for depression, anxiety, and the medical treatment thereof]

In a series of posts on the NYT’s “Anxiety” blog, starting in February, Diana Spechler has been documenting the process of (with her doctor’s supervision) going off of the prescription meds that had been treating her anxiety, depression, and insomnia for over a year. Going Off opens with “Breaking Up With My Meds,” outlining how she came into psychopharmacology and why she wanted to get out of it.

No, Planned Parenthood isn’t selling baby parts, and here’s why the lie is so toxic.

The anti-choice narrative since Planned Parenthood’s inception has been that PP has been ghoulishly profiting off of abortions, both by dragging in huge amounts of cash for the procedure and (as is currently under discussion) selling baby parts for exorbitant prices. First of all, I have to inject some basic common sense: If you’re hearing rumors that gloriously satisfy your hate-on for an organization while simultaneously sounding like a late-season plot of Charmed, they’re probably not entirely, or even a little bit, valid. “They sell and/or eat dead babies” has been a charge, throughout history, lobbed against the Chinese, Jewish, pagan, and so many other marginalized people, and never substantiated because people don’t do that. Even the people you’d really, really like to paint as monsters.

Anyway.

Nigeria bans female genital mutilation

[Content note: female genital mutilation (obviously)]

A new ban, passed in May and signed into law by outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan, outlaws female genital mutilation in Nigeria. The practice was banned worldwide by the U.N. in 2012 and already outlawed in several states within Nigeria, but the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 represents a nationwide commitment to the ban. The new law also outlaws abandonment of spouse and/or dependents without financial support, and battery.

Apologies, Explanations, and Temporary Sign-Off

Trigger warning: pregnancy-related health emergencies

Hello all,

I’m really, really sorry I dropped off the face of the earth. I didn’t mean to. At first it was just an unfortunate concatenation of events (somebody should organize an F/SF con called CONcatenation, don’t you think?)–the site went down for a few days, I went away to a conference, etc. This happened right around the time I hit the third trimester, and the third trimester of pregnancy was really kicking my ass: I was going to sleep at 8 or 9 in the evening, even after taking a two-hour nap in the afternoon (I know, tough life, your hearts go out to me). I was starting to re-organize my routine and had hopes of getting on top of shit when this week just blew the legs out from under me.

On Monday, I experienced a very frightening placental abruption–it was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever gone through, there was so much blood. I had to go straight to the hospital, and while I and the baby are all right and eventually the bleeding subsided, they’re keeping me here until I deliver the baby. We’re hoping I make it to early June, which will be 37 weeks, so that the baby will be full-term. That’s not so far away, after all, so I have hopes that there will be no further incident. You’d think that being here would give me all the time in the world to catch up on stuff, but what I’m finding is that I’m so emotionally exhausted and changeable day by day (one day I’m fine and perky; the next I’m literally shaking as I think about how frightening Monday was; then I’m fine again; then I’m weeping and homesick) that I just can’t focus well enough even to read the news and essays I need to read to write a decent post, let alone write one. So I’m capitulating. I will try to start posting again in mid-July or so, provided all goes well (knock wood).

I am grateful for any number of things–there’s sheer luck: I wasn’t taking care of my godchildren when the bleeding started, so I could get directly into a cab without having to worry about childcare; it was 11 in the morning, so there was literally no traffic. I have an amazing doctor who’s affiliated with an excellent hospital, so I am very grateful to be here, and I’m very grateful that they’re keeping me here, because I’m in Brooklyn and the hospital is quite far away, and of course the fear about going home would be what if it happens again and I can’t get there in time? The person I was with when it started and the taxi driver who came to pick me up were both wonderful. And of course, I am in a good position vis-a-vis insurance, which is a sick and barbaric feature of this country that anybody should have to think about it during an emergency, but there it is, we do, and I didn’t have to think about it–I could just go straight to the hospital. I have family and friends coming to see me every day.

People talk about how bored I must be in the hospital for weeks, but I am welcoming the boredom: it is infinitely preferable to the fear.

Another thing I’m grateful for is that I was rejected by the Brooklyn Birthing Center. I volunteered at a birthing center about fifteen years ago, and have always been intrigued by feminist ideas of “reclaiming” childbirth. When I found out I was pregnant, I called the Brooklyn Birthing Center, told them a little about the pregnancy, my age, and the medications I was on and asked if they would take me on, and they said, with barely a pause “Absolutely not.” I was irritated at the time, but clearly they were taking my health much more seriously than I was, and because they stuck to the straight and narrow in their protocols, I’m at a world-class hospital with a doctor I know and like and have a good relationship with. I kind of want to send them a thank-you note. My best friend says this is why she doesn’t trust birthing centers; I said it makes me trust that one even more, because they knew to say no to me. Just an anecdote.

Anyway, I’m sorry for my absence, I miss the convos here very much. I hope to see you all again, so to speak, in a couple months.

Want to do something for Autism Awareness Month?

This series of tweets from @twoscooters sums up the major division in autism activism – the parents of autistic children not listening to the opinions of adults living with autism based on their own life experiences, and too many media and medical organisations siding with those parents:

Trans women and the future

CONTENT NOTE: VIOLENCE AGAINST TRANS WOMEN; DISCUSSION OF RAPE

This article, by Kai Cheng Tom, is a moving and beautifully written piece about what it means to be a young trans woman of color and to read over and over again about the violent death of women like you.

I have argued for years that male rape of women is a terrorist act, reminding all women what men can do to us, how vulnerable we are, how we have no way to exist in safety in this world. That the knock-on effects of one woman’s rape extends to her family and friends (if she feels comfortable enough to share the story) and beyond, if the news media picks it up. I do not mean to imply by this that survivors of rape should keep quiet or that rape should not be reported in the news. The problem is not knowledge. The problem is rape.

I gave up an extra unpaid job writing for a local Queens newspaper more than fifteen years ago because I was having to cover community board meetings etc. that took place in the evening, and thus had to take the G train back home to Brooklyn late at night. The G train ran seldom and was usually empty, and this was just the time that a man dubbed by the local news as “the G-train rapist” was operating. So much for a career in journalism.

Edit: I think this kind of unremitting, unrelenting violence against trans women is also terrorism. Look at the effects on the trans women who are not its direct victims. Look at the way Kai Cheng Tom has to live in fear, how hard it becomes to envision a future free of that violence and the fear of it. I felt something that I think is a little similar when I was 18 and I started to find out how many of my friends had been raped: I started to think that being raped was inevitable. But as a cis white woman, I had many more resources for support, ways to help me move past that feeling.

And at least I could give up that job–women who had paid jobs late at night on the G line couldn’t. And what are trans women supposed to do? Stop being?

Trans women need a future. They deserve a future. So what I’m posting here is a link to a piece on trans people over 50. Some transitioned later, some earlier. But they’re still here, still living, still making lives and happiness. If we are all lucky, this is what the future looks like.

Edited because I lost the thread originally and forgot to make the parallel between rape of cis women and transmisogynist violence that I was trying to create clear. Sorry about that. That’s what I get for composing directly on-site instead of drafting.