Fetal Cells and Pregnancy

78 thoughts on Fetal Cells and Pregnancy

1. *applause*

2. 1) Whoa! This site had a serious makeover! 2) Until the day parents are forced by law or coercion to give up their lives, organs or health for the sake of a child that *may* live, the pro-life argument will always have holes bigger than craters on the moon.

3. Good thing anti-choicers have succeeded in stripping the teeth (and facts) out of health and biology classes in their states, or more students might realise the stupidity of pro-life arguments on their own…

4. Thanks Jill!

   As a biologist I can say that the resource you’ve linked to is scientifically correct.

   It really annoys me when pro lifers ignore basic science.

   I want to tell them that if they choose to ignore basic science, then they really should refuse medical technology and drugs when they need it. Otherwise they’re cherry picking.

5. Some religious pro-lifers are of the opinion that a fetus is imbibed with a human soul at the moment of conception, and is from that moment forward a unique human being.

   I’ve asked such people on a few occasions, whether that means that my monozygotic twin-girls (age 5), are, infact, one person and not two, or atleast if it means they share only one “soul” between them. The responses are always amusing and tend to amount to some variant of special pleading.

6. Also does that mean Chimeras are two people?

7. Read through a handful of Q&A’s on that site and pretty much every argument put forth made me grind my teeth. So much stupidity, so much logic fail… it boggles the mind.

8. Oh, they’re masters at spinning amazing tales that manage to sound coherent even in the absence of logic, intelligence or basic sense. To cite one example of fabricating bull**** “facts,” the anti-choicers claim abortion has resulted in a loss of U.S. GDP that exceeds $38 trillion… yes, trillion. You can’t invent these stories — it’s my job to study the garbage they spew from their eighth commandment-impaired mouths.

9. Brilliant! I’m definitely going to remember that one.

10. Forced birthers don’t need your silly facts! They have all the power of misogyny to magically convert your “facts” into valuable misplaced outrage. Because babies.

11. Fascinating, I knew there was some transferral of cells at birth but had no idea it was so extensive throughout pregnancy. Interesting if this has any relevance to Rhesus incompatibility, since previously it’s only thought to be the cell transfer at birth that causes the mother to develop an immune reaction to the Rhesus group. The foetus is also an ‘immune-privileged site’ so that the mother’s immune system doesn’t react to the half-foreign tissue, but for this level of foetal cells to be present there must be some general immune tolerance or suppression or something… will be interesting to follow up!

    (apologies for the random biology rambling 😉 )

12. Disclaimer: I’m 100% pro-choice.

    …But I’m still concerned with the verbal attacks on pro-life folks. I’m not religious, so I don’t agree, but for those who really, honestly believe that there are such things as souls, I see how they’d feel that way, and why they’d regard it as akin to murder. I’d personally find myself strongly, strongly opposed to them, but the average pro-life person doesn’t offend me, if belief in souls in where they’re coming from.

    Now granted, the public figures and anyone trying to change education to reflect those views….often not so passable.

13. Weeeeird. I wonder why the mother’s cells don’t attack the fetal cells? (Related to above comment). And and and, we must somehow figure out a way to harness this fetal DNA for PROFIT! Since we are, after all, abortioneers. I want an Official Abortioneer Hat, please.

14. Weeeeird. I wonder why the mother’s cells don’t attack the fetal cells?

    Short answer: Many million years of evolution.

    Wikipedia has a longer explanation

15. im trying to remember if pregnancy does cause some very low immune suppression. pregnant women can be more suseptible to colds and average illnesses, plus the additional dangers some cause to fetuses. that’s got to be related to the mother’s own working immune system, right? but there’s also, IIRC, some separate immune response going on as babies can be born to HIV+ mothers who are HIV-, if it’s being managed properly. so i dont know. it’s fascinating though, and i think the uncertainity lends to being cautious on any policy and erring on the side of the freedom of the mother.

    there are so many changes to a woman’s body that are secondary to what’s going on at the actual growth site. plus the play of hormones can change everything – some women’s allergies (immune response) get worse, others better; acne (usually hormone related) gets worse or better; excema (allergy or hormone) can get worse or better – i know mine flared up horribly during my first pregnancy 8 years ago and has been off an on ever since.

16. If this ever becomes common knowledge, I predict we will promptly experience a change in narrative from the anti-choicers. There will be no more talk about “separate, unique individuals” or “distinct genetic makeup”. And they will swear to any/all their god(s) that they totally never said that, and you can’t prove that they did since you are a contracepting abortioneering-hat-wearing cheerleader and everyone knows that cheerleaders are notorious liars.

    The new narrative will be something like, “See, it’s just like we always said — killing the fetus is exactly like killing the woman, and abortion only causes the mother to die more slowly and in an especially psychologically/emotionally traumatic way from the lack of necessary fetal cells & DNA in her system.” Of course they’ll have to find some shorter phrasing, but I’m confident they can locate the lowest common denominator to distort the information into effective propaganda. I try to never underestimate their ability to twist anything into a misogynistic pretzel.

    Hey, now there’s a potentially profit-making opportunity in this political climate: Misogynistic Pretzels ™. We could run commercials with W eating one to demonstrate that they’re 100% man-safe and then donate all the profit to Planned Parenthood.

17. Richard@12, that’s actually a basic question, a 101 kind of thing. If blastocysts and zygotes have a right to remain alive because they have souls–even if their remaining alive is dangerous to another person, as is the case with pregnancy–then a little kid with advanced kidney disease is entitled to a kidney transplant from his father, if the kidneys match.

    But the little kid is NOT so entitled. There is no law compelling the donation. If the father said, “Suck it, kid, I don’t have time for you” and let his kid die, he couldn’t be prosecuted for any crime, let alone murder. Soul or no soul. I never heard an anti-abortion activitist insist on forcing medical donations. It’s only women who have to sacrifice in the name of “life.” Inconsistency, thy name is forced birth.

18. It’s good info, but I can’t help but think it continues to go after the wrong target.

    Abortion isn’t not wrong because it is not the killing of an independent human being. Abortion is not wrong because it is the killing of an independent human being *that is a parasite living inside your body, consuming your resources, weakening you and doing potentially permanent damage.* If you can kill a human being for breaking into your house with intent to steal your shit, you can kill a human being for *living in your abdomen without your consent.*

    Yeah, the fact that the fetus ends up so thoroughly entangled with the mother is good info, but more because it demonstrates the impact of the fetus on the mother’s body, not because it demonstrates that it’s not a separate being.

    As for the “they genuinely believe innocent babies are dying” argument that leads people to give the benefit of the doubt to pro-lifers… yeah, I thought that way once. And then I figured out that they are not nearly so exercised about, for example, making sure that born babies do not consume lead paint, and that they really don’t have much concern about the fertility industry’s creation of a zillion extra zygotes that never get born, and that they are going after *birth control*, which is the most reliable way to prevent abortion ever. (Given the frequency of rape, birth control works even better than virginity as an abortion prevention method.) So it’s become pretty clear that while individual pro-lifers may genuinely be concerned about the babies, most of *those* will actually agree with statements like “but if a woman’s health is threatened, she should be able to get an abortion if she wants”, or “but if a woman can’t continue to take care of the kids she’s already got if she gets pregnant, she should be able to get an abortion”, or even “it’s wrong, but it shouldn’t be illegal.” The movement, however, is really just about trying to keep The Woman down, and it’s become really, really obvious over the last ten years.

19. @Richard:

    If you profess to believe in souls as something getting created/bestowed on the fetus at conception, then you need to address the above question about twins and chimeras etc.

    I think the argument against late abortion can be fairly reasonable. If you claim that a fully gestated baby just prior to natural delivery should be granted independent human rights, then this is not unreasonable. (There are counter arguments – see Unree@17 for example – but the argument is not unreasonable to me).

    If on the other hand we are discussing a very early embryo just after conception things are different. A few cells like that simply can not be considered to have full human rights any more than a housefly has.

    There is an alternative argument around this early embryo being a potential human that we by our choices stop from being born, but that has separate problems. If that is your argument, you should really also be against all means of contraceptions as well as abstinence. Any woman who does not choose to be constantly pregnant is, by this argument, a murderer of potential humans.

    In short, I do not see any useful argument for the hard line pro-life position.

20. Unree @ 17 great minds think alike!

21. I wonder what effect, if any, this information would have on a custody case arousing from a gestational surrogacy gone wrong? Although the gametes did not come from the surrogate, the whole cells intertwining between pregnant person and fetus could account for something if the grounds for argument is biology and a fetus is a part of a pregnant woman’s body.

22. On a personal level…I find this kind of terrifying. When I think seriously of the possibility of getting pregnant I just full-on panic. Heart pounding, cold and hot flashes, derealization. It’s the invasion thing. Some thing doing what it wants to my body. And now I know that even if I get it out of me, some of it will always remain? How do they get replaced? Where do they keep coming from? Cells can’t live forever.

    I know this news probably gives warm fuzzies to people who want/have babies, but it is really creeping me out. No way to get it out of your body once it’s in. Never fully me again. Never alone in my skin again. Oh god.

23. Isn’t it also true that cells are continuously dying and getting replaced, though? I thought I heard this from Biology; that you essentially get a “new body” every year or few years or whatever.

    Then again I know virtually nothing in this area so I could be completely off-base, just throwing it out there to see if anyone’s heard the same.

24. I know this news probably gives warm fuzzies to people who want/have babies, but it is really creeping me out.

    Allow for a little more variation in the human condition here 🙂

    Pregnant people—not all of whom actively sought or wanted a pregnancy even if they have chosen to continue it or have had the choice to terminate denied to them—really vary in their experience of pregnancy, and actually some of them, including people with wanted and planned pregnancies, find it squicky in much the way you do.

    Others enjoy every bit of it. But there’s not a bright line in perceptions where warm fuzzies about housing a human go hand-in-hand with being pregnant or being a parent.

    I have a child, I’ll probably try and have at least one more. But while I didn’t find this fact completely repulsive or physically uncomfortable and it sounds like your level of creep about it is much much higher than mine, my first reaction was also “eurgh, really? and it’s probably still true? Hrmph, I didn’t sign up for that.”

25. No way to get it out of your body once it’s in. Never fully me again. Never alone in my skin again. Oh god.

    Yeah this is seriously creeping me out too!

26. Isn’t it also true that cells are continuously dying and getting replaced, though? I thought I heard this from Biology; that you essentially get a “new body” every year or few years or whatever.

    It’s a huge simplification: some cells have pretty short life-times (days or weeks), some intermediate (a few years) some have ones that is the same as your lifespan (some neurons, heart muscle cells, IIRC at least some memory T-cells).

    In the case of fetal cells, Wikipedia gives the effect as lasting for decades at least in some cases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microchimerism

27. I’m convinced that there’s inconsistency there, in the pro-life position. Though most pro-life folks I know would have to be questioned for the inconsistencies to show up. Which is the case with a lot of things, really.

    Anyway! Thank you both very much for the great replies.

28. Pingback: Life Links 1-5-12 | FavStocks

29. Murphy–

    I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the lump of flesh we so fondly look upon as “our own bodies” are actually composed of a fantastic variety of ‘non-human microscopic organisms’. Some of these organisms, such as the acidophilus family that lives happily in our guts, we actually need for the synthesis of certain vitamins required for health (some B-vitamins and also Vit K, at least). Some just hitch a ride, and we have no actual symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship with them but they ordinarily do us no harm. For instance most of us carry ordinary staph Aureus on our skin (NOT the newer, antibiotic-created and antibiotic-resistant variety, MRSA)–it’s harmless, unless it gets driven inside by an injury to the body of a person who is immuno-compromised (whether by disease, excessive stress or poor diet/lifestyle). We *all* carry, too, a certain amount of ‘infectious pathogens’ in our bodies, kept in check but not entirely eradicated by a healthy immune system. I could go on–but instead of doing that I’ll just say that in reality, this lump of flesh you call “me” is actually “us”; this is quite ordinarily a matter of your health needs as well as the nature of life. Life in vast and wondrous diversity is teeming everywhere, in every breath you take, every bite you eat and every surface you touch.

    So relax…unless you want to kill yourself with stress of knowing that you are not you, alone! Interconnectedness is not an emotional state–it’s a reality.

30. This news is quite fascinating to me, quite apart from matters of abortion. I, too, have thought about things like cell-replacement over time, and how fetal cells could possibly live on, beyond pregnancy. Well, clearly, if they are really doing so, it’s because they can replicate themselves in the same way the rest of our cells do (with a few exceptions as noted by a previous poster). I find the idea quite lovely and perfectly logical in the evolutionary sense–because despite some people’s belief, babies-in-utero are NOT parasites at all. They may ‘act as such’, in a womyn who is insufficiently well-nourished physically and emotionally–because in the interest of species continuation, the fetus does have the capacity to ‘steal’ some nutrients and calories from its mother for its survival. However, this ‘stealing’ is not a given–womyn are eminently capable of consuming sufficient nutrients/calories to comfortably support herself and baby both. Well, at least so long as poverty and/or ignorance and/or sexism do not prevent this equal benefit from occurring as it is meant to, biologically.

    Anyway–the idea that some of my children’s cells still live in me, or at least did for some period of time following their births, I think is wonderful on many levels. Pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding require an enormous amount of energy and all kinds of resources from womyn on all levels. It makes perfect sense that mothers would receive some benefits from fetal cells to their systems, to help them stay healthy. This benefits mothers and babies both–mothers of course, want to stay alive and healthy. Babies of course, need their mothers for quite some time beyond birth. And I think too, beyond the physical (but founded on the biological), perhaps this cell-sharing is part of what bonding is based upon. We already know that maternal bonding with babies is aided by hormones such as prolactin (in breastfeeding mothers) and oxytocin. These hormones literally prompt ‘loving’ behaviors such as the desire to hold one’s baby, keep it near and care for it. Not that we are helpless to ignore these hormonal prompts, only that they do exist and do prompt certain behaviors of mothering. Both prolactin and oxytocin also create feelings of relaxation and well-being for mothers (and oxytocin is also released with sexual arousal and orgasm, and can arise even from things like extended hugs, massage, relaxation exercises, quite apart from pregnancy/birth/mothering). In any event, knowing these things about hormones, it makes sense to me that maternal bonding might be further aided by a real cellular connection to our babies.

    I haven’t fully investigated this info, but I will be doing so and appreciate it being posted. In my study of breastfeeding, by the way, I have discovered that a mother’s milk not only contains antibodies produced in her immune system to help protect baby from pathogens in their environment, human milk also contains some immune cells. Antibodies are not actually cells, they are fancy molecules designed specifically to attack specific pathogens. We now know that milk contains actual immune cells from mom–macrophages, for one–which are large cells that consume pathogenic cells. But also B-cells and others–whose immune functions have more to do with prompting immune system responses of various types in an individual. These maternal cells enter babies gut and instead of being destroyed by stomach acid, or identified as ‘intruders’ by baby’s immune system, are able to pass unharmed into baby’s bloodstream to do their designated work. This is very important, because our immune systems work so primarily from ‘memory’–and new babies have no such memory yet, that only arises over time and with exposure to pathogens/foreign proteins. So mother’s immune factors, delivered via her milk to baby, helps keep baby healthy until it’s immune system develops. Knowing this, it makes me happy to think that baby is, in its own way, also serving mom’s health–both via sharing cells with each other.

    By the way, it is pure balderdash to say that pregnant womyn are more prone to illness than anyone else. A woman who is adequately nurtured during pregnancy–eating, resting, hydrating, exercising, playing, loving in accordance to her needs, is no more prone to illness than a non-pregnant person. We often see pregnant womyn with a tendency to colds/flu/other simply because the needs of pregnancy are not adequately understood or respected in our society. Even among fairly affluent womyn who could potentially afford to eat well and such, diets can be composed primarily of dead food, and any womyn is likely to have far too much stress in her life for good health (‘mental stress’–due to familial/relational, work/financial, environmental stressors–does have an impact on body functioning and health). I am a mother of 6 and a midwife of 30yrs, I’ve studied all of this extensively from a holistic basis.

31. Murphy, I felt that way too.

    Decades?!?

32. Hari B,

    Pregnant women are more prone to illness than not pregnant women. They also need more sleep. Their circulatory systems are burdened by the pregnancy.

    Also, the presence of fetal cells is believed to explain the fact that women are far more susceptible to autoimmune disorders than men.

    So, it isn’t all sunshine and roses.

33. Ismone–are you a midwife or obstetrician?

    Yes, pregnant womyn need more sleep, and more calories, etc. Pregnancy is WORK, 24-7 work. And if pregnant womyn do get the extra calories, rest, etc, that they need in accordance with their bodies performing all that extra work, they are simply not more prone to illness than anyone else. Their circulatory systems have to do more WORK…pregnancy is work, 24-7, so yes, you could say pregnancy ‘burdens’ circulation…in just the same way that any work does so. A healthy pregnant womyn who gets enough to eat and some exercise, finds this work no more difficult than anyone else doing any other work. It’s a basic input-output equation, really. Again…I’ve studied this for 30yrs, worked with numerous pregnant womyn and had 6kids…the research and the experience have taught me things equally.

    As for auto-immune disorders, there are many theories on why womyn get them some 8 times more often than men. The medical theories I’ve read have all been quite misogynist, all of them posing that there is some essential ‘weakness’ or ‘flaw’ in womyn’s design–our estrogen, our baby’s cells–which makes us more prone to auto-immune disorders (and depression). I have yet to read anything that includes solid science, it is all theory and all based upon western medicine’s fundamental premise that womyn’s bodies are flawed by virtue of not being male bodies. Also based on a fundamental idea that fetuses are ‘parasites’ when they’re not, that there is a basic ‘fight for resources btwn mom and baby’ when there doesn’t have to be at all. These theories don’t explain why womyn who never had kids also get auto-immune disorders, or how some womyn have a dozen kids and don’t get them–or why men get them.

    However, some theorize that excessive stress is actually at the base of these health problems for womyn. Since it is well-proven by now that stress has material, biochemical bad effects on human health, I’m going with that til proven otherwise. Because after all, living in a misogynist culture is pretty damn stressful.

    No, not all sunshine and roses, never claimed that. Just giving you some of the facts that explain why pregnancy is harder on some womyn than others. Just some basic science is all.

34. Yes, you are “giving us some facts” laden with the assumption that no one else here knows them, and if we just understood we couldn’t possibly have a different reaction to that knowledge than you.

    The facts are just fine. The philosophical conclusions drawn would be fine if you weren’t insisting everyone should agree with you.

35. Hari B,

    No, it is not the same as working out.

    Please stop spreading dangerous misinformation. Pregnancy is dangerous to health. That doesn’t mean it is not worth it, but physically and psychologically, it is more challenging than working out.

    And with regard to theories regarding autoimmunity, while the thinking can be misogynistic, facts are not. The fact is that having other cells in your body is not good. I mean, you opined that having fetal cells in our bodies could be good for women. That is a bizarre, and thoroughly unsupported assertion.

    My credentials are the fact that I can read and understand medical research, like many educated adults, and that I took a B.S. in Biology.

    What exactly, are yours? And where are the sources for your ridiculous assertions regarding the safety of childbearing?

36. I don’t get being “creeped out” by this. Does having a blood transfusion make me part me, part some other anonymous donor? Do I become partially my partner when we have sex? Am I secretly, as we speak, part whatever germ is causing my sinuses to be all achy and backed up? Part bulgaricus bacteria from that delicious Greek yogurt? Wow plus I have kids so I am part them too…I guess I’m barely a fraction of my former self! I mean come on. You can overthink anything to the point of “creepy” I guess. But I can’t help but see the “omg creepy cooties weird!” reaction to this specific kind of thing around pregnancy as being part of internalized misogyny and the way mothers are “othered” and looked down upon within what passes for mainstream feminism these days.

37. Thanks, Branwen–yeah, it does sound like internalized misogyny.

    Fenris–speaking with confidence of the knowledge I’ve gained over 30yrs of study, along with much experience working with childbearing womyn, is not the same thing as insisting anyone see it my way. Seems you misunderstood this.

    Ismone–“pregnancy is dangerous to womyn” is such a sweeping statement I won’t even argue with you. Clearly your mind is made up.

    “having other cells in your body is bad for you”…? You say you can read, so did you read the linked article that discusses how fetal cells benefit mothers? Have you ever investigated what I said earlier about how maternal immune cells benefit babies via breastmilk?

    As far as I can tell, the only thing that makes pregnancy generally dangerous is misogyny–same thing that makes every aspect of womyn’s lives more dangerous than nature does, by far. By nature, womyn’s bodies are wondrously well made to bring forth life–and do lots of other great stuff as well.

38. But I can’t help but see the “omg creepy cooties weird!” reaction to this specific kind of thing around pregnancy as being part of internalized misogyny and the way mothers are “othered” and looked down upon within what passes for mainstream feminism these days.

    Oy, once again if women don’t think their bodies are fully of woo, they’ve just internalized misogyny. You could just as easily argue that if you think childbirth is awesome it because you’ve internalized misogyny! See how condescending and unhelpful that is? People have different relationships with their body and their bodily functions. There’s no need to add to the shitstorm of shame and blame with our own very own brand of feminist shame.

39. You’re going a long way from what I said. In between “full of woo” and “creepy” is a lot of territory that looks something like “neutral.” As in, my body does things at a biological level that have no emotional or moral import, they are simply biological processes. And yeah, I think if you are “creeped out” by things that only happen to female bodies moreso than similar things that happen to all bodies, that’s internalized misogyny. I’m not saying people have to revel in their menstrual cycles or whatever, I’m just saying that when “ew gross CREEPY!!!!” is the kneejerk response to learning that the female body does something, that’s sure as hell sexism, not that female bodies are somehow just more creepy than other kinds of bodies.

    And giving a few strands of leftover DNA from a pregnancy the power to make a woman feel “invaded” and “no longer fully herself” is ridiculous to the point of self-parody. Just think what you pick up from sitting on the subway!

40. As a womyn with a definite ‘woo’ side and no shame about it, I also know myself as a person with developed rational/scientific capacities. And I agree with Branwen–there is a lot of neutral space between ‘woo’ and ‘disgust’ concerning our bodies. I happen to think it’s amazing and cool that we literally not only share space with such a great variety of ‘non-self’ life forms in our bodies–for me it serves my sense of interconnectedness with Life. I also understand that even as risky and fallible it is to have a body at all (of any type), the science we have–as much in-development as it still is–does validate the evolutionary, beneficial aspects of that interdependence between humans and other life forms even at the level of our very bodies. A person can appreciate that in a rational way, accept it as simply true in as neutral a way as accepting that we need to eat and drink to live, without going all woo over it.

    In the mind-over-matter mindset of patriarchy, we are all taught to despise and distrust the physical nature of being. A study of the the rise of allopathy (western medicine, in case some reading don’t know that tho surely some will) shows that it’s foundation is in a mechanistic understanding of the body. And further, that from the start allopathy quite literally viewed the male body as the example of human perfection, ‘correct form of machine’, with womyn’s bodies viewed as inherently flawed due to our lack of male genitalia coupled with the presence of female genitalia.

    Now, more than 100yrs later, allopathy is still very much in process of coming to terms with the different realities of womyn’s bodies. That process has been much confounded by the need to get past the countless medical myths imposed upon womyn and our bodies. Those myths were founded in patriarchal religion positing the inherent moral weakness (evil) of Eve, and very much added-onto with psuedo-scientific and grossly inaccurate theories of womyn’s body and mind. A major misleading element of the creation of these theories was allopathic man’s deeply inculturated belief that womyn need to be controlled by men (with their misogynist med science) for our own good in all matters of female health and especially birth.

    It is only in recent years, with the rebirth of both more ancient holistic healing modalities and especially the rise of feminist critique of allopathy, that allopathy has begun to seek a clearer ‘truth’ of the wonderful ways in which womyn are made. And even to seek a more whole understanding of even men’s bodies and what impacts their health.

    And I feel much the same about internalized misogyny as I do about sexism in general: that because it’s the air of culture which we’ve breathed since birth, it is very hard to see in all the ways it manifests. We are certainly not to blame for it’s existence in us…yet if we will be free of it, and begin to create a world that sees and values womyn as fully as men, we must try to see it so we can root it out. For myself, gaining a greater understanding of my female body and its beneficial natural capacities and realities–as much from a rational scientific standpoint as from the intuitive ‘woo’ standpoint–has been key to my own reclamation of self-appreciation and personal power. Not everyone must do this–it’s a personal choice, of course!

    Finally, I believe that there is no such thing as ‘total scientific objectivity’. All knowledge arises from a value system, a point of view. All of it. The questions asked, and the conditions of the study are themselves formed from a standpoint of some kind that cannot help but influence conclusions drawn. I read med literature (or any ‘science’) in light of this understanding and with a foundation of feminist critique of the questions asked and the conditions of a study. Because I’ve done so very much research of med studies, I see how it’s a lot like what they say about the bible–you can prove pretty much anything by it! Even completely contradictory things–and even from the same data, looked at by different people. Sorting through all the contradictions and limitations of the med lit over the years, alongside my experiences with self and others, has altogether informed my viewpoint about pregnancy and birth.

    I don’t say anyone has to agree with me. I do say, however, that it is of tremendous benefit to womyn and feminism, for us to actively seek to restore and reclaim our sense of the rightness of being an embodied female. And to actively reject (through rational analysis) theories that only reiterate the ‘dangers’ of being womyn.

41. People have different relationships with their body and their bodily functions. There’s no need to add to the shitstorm of shame and blame with our own very own brand of feminist shame.

    Nice ethic. Feminism sure could use a fuckload more of it. Got some available on bulk discount? Maybe we could keep it in a giant bowl by the door.

42. @Branwen,

    People don’t have to feel neutral about their own bodies. Are you seriously telling me that there is no bodily function you think is kind of gross? Telling women how they must feel about their own bodies and if they don’t agree with you they’re deluded is fucked up. Full stop.

43. I seriously doubt you really think that’s what I am saying, since every time you reply to me the “paraphrase” is so far off from what I actually wrote. So explain to me how invisible strands of DNA that you cannot see, feel, touch, or sense are on par with the kind of “bodily function” you are obviously referencing here as so unquestionably “gross.”

44. One doesn’t need to suffer internalized misogyny to believe that, for example, having to bleed from your uterus once a month is all kinds of bullshit.

    One also doesn’t need to suffer from internalized misogyny to recognize that a person who has things she needs to do with her life that are *not* pregnancy is going to have a harder time doing them once she is pregnant, because, yes, pregnancy is work, and doing a second job 24-7 is invariably detrimental to all the other jobs you were doing before taking it on. Pregnancy will be harmful to the health of *any* woman who has to work for a living, and this is not because we live in a sexist society that doesn’t support women enough (although we do, and it doesn’t); it’s because anyone who has stuff she’s gotta do is either going to be too tired to do it, at least to the level she was used to doing it, or she’s going to have to push herself and it will result in poor health… and anyone who works for a living has stuff she’s gotta do.

    So yeah, in Super Fairy Magic Unicorn Land where just the fact that you are pregnant entitles you to lie around on the couch being waited on by loving family and friends while the government cheerfully replaces your salary, your job is happy to hold your position for you for a year and not replace you, you’ve got plenty of mentally interesting and challenging things you can do that consume less energy than your day job did, oh, and your health was perfect to begin with before you got pregnant and nothing goes wrong with the pregnancy, well, then, yeah, pregnancy would be perfect! Unfortunately, none of us live there.

    This doesn’t mean that pregnancy is *bad*. Most of us hold marathon runners in some degree of honor and respect. Most of us recognize that running a marathon is hard, that doing it to win will consume a lot of your time and energy, and that it has significant health risks. Most of us believe that if a person chooses to run a marathon, it’s a worthwhile pursuit, despite the risks and the effort. How much greater than simply succeeding at a sport *should* we hold a person who engages in the work of building a human being in her body out of tools she has lying around the house? That’s where the misogyny comes in. Recognizing that pregnancy is hard and often very dangerous is not misogyny; in fact, the claim that of course if the pregnant woman does everything right her pregnancy will have no health risks whatsoever erases the lived experience of many, many women. The misogyny is the failure to recognize that a hard, dangerous job should be respected and granted honors and that no one who doesn’t want the job should ever, ever, ever be forced to do it.

    Women (in general) have the ability to perform an amazing feat. Not all women have the ability, but damn near no men do (folks like Thomas Beatty are incredibly rare.) That doesn’t mean we should minimize the dangers of performing this feat because we fear that singling out an activity that only women can do as dangerous is sexist. In fact, to me, telling women that pregnancy is invariably a wonderful, beautiful experience as long as they are able to avoid stress and work only as much as they are able is a lot more damaging to women than recognizing that until we have Star Trek replicators and no one needs money, it will *always* be hard. We don’t think it is disrespectful to Olympic athletes to acknowledge that what they do, a thing most people can’t, is incredibly hard and can be dangerous, so why is it disrespectful to women to acknowledge the same thing?

    Pregnancy is hard. It can be dangerous. It is also an amazing, astonishing feat, and women who choose to undertake it should be respected, honored, and treated as people who have undertaken a very difficult activity. And no one should ever be *forced* into it, or shamed for not taking it on, or treated as if it is her destiny to undertake it whether she wants it or not, or treated as if she is an inferior person because she chooses not to or because she cannot do it.

45. This is super neat! I love that human gestation and biology is so complex and weird. It’s a pity that they don’t teach this information in high school biology more often.

46. I seriously doubt you really think that’s what I am saying, since every time you reply to me the “paraphrase” is so far off from what I actually wrote.

    Please.

    You said:

    But I can’t help but see the “omg creepy cooties weird!” reaction to this specific kind of thing around pregnancy as being part of internalized misogyny

    Paraphrase: If you have a reaction that I disagree around your own body & pregnancy you’re deluded.

    That’s pretty much what you said. If you didn’t mean that, feel free to revise.

    But then you followed up with:

    As in, my body does things at a biological level that have no emotional or moral import, they are simply biological processes.

    Subtext: I think they’re neutral, they have no emotional import to me and I think that view is the one all women should have.

    And yeah, I think if you are “creeped out” by things that only happen to female bodies moreso than similar things that happen to all bodies, that’s internalized misogyny.

    Paraphrase: If you don’t agree with me, then you’re deluded.

    So I think you actually believe that women who find menstruation or pregnancy gross are deluded by internalized misogyny. Because we all are supposed to share your “neutral” view of biological functions.

    Except wait…many of us don’t share that view for reasons that have nothing to do with misogyny.

47. Ok, I give up. To hear this rabidly hostile stuff is too much for me. To hear otherwise intelligent thinking womyn say things like “pregnancy is hard and often dangerous” (unless a womyn can lay around on a couch while people wait on her all day???), is just way too much. It’s not accurate in any way, and the rage behind it –that just can’t help but drag in completely unrelated junk like “no one should ever be forced to do it” (no one said otherwise) is unfathomable to me.

    So have it whatever way you like, womyn. I’ll have it my own way, because that is what I’ve lived and witnessed (with *no* womyn laying on the couch being waited on) too often to have it any other way.

48. See http://bgladd.blogspot.com/2008/04/diploid-dave-et-al.html

    and http://personhoodusa.blogspot.com

49. Hari: Do you live in a world where facts apply? Most of your clients, I suspect, have had very easy pregnancies, but that’s not true of all women. As Alara says, pregnancy is very taxing to the mother, because there are always things she needs to do, and she may not always have the energy to do those things.

    Personally, I don’t really think about my body. It’s just an inconvenient meatsack. And I agree with Alara about menstruation: it is total bullshit, and messy besides.

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51. politicalguineapig–

    Do I live in a world where facts apply? What does that even mean? Oh, yeah, duh–it means you are pissed off that I say anything which contradict your opinions.

    Feel free to hate your womyn’s body and it’s realities. Feel free to have your opinions on birth. It sure doesn’t hurt me any, and certainly doesn’t change the realities of normal pregnancy for womyn who choose to value that work (and their children) at least as much as any other they may do in this life.

52. Pregnancy is hard. It can be dangerous.

    Hari, Alara didn’t say it was “often” dangerous, just that it can be. I’m wondering if maybe women with higher-risk pregnancies (wherein it *would* be dangerous–I’m not talking about pathologizing any woman who, horrors, gets pregnant after 30 or something, I’m talking about known birth defects or women who are already chronically ill or have disabilities) don’t tend to have midwives as often and thus that might be part of where this divide comes from? Otherwise, I really don’t understand why you’re saying that statement isn’t accurate and why it has “rage behind it.” I’m not playing coy here trying to trip you up. I honestly don’t understand where you’re coming from.

    For the record, I have a body which presents some unique challenges for pregnancy: I have bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder and take a lot of medication for it, medication which I can’t just quit entirely but that would be harmful to the fetus for the most part. (Pregnancy could be dangerous for me in a very real way in a mental sense alone–that fetus and I aren’t going to survive if my bipolar depression takes over or if I do something stupid while manic.) I have chronic migraines and also can’t just quit that medication. I plan to consult with a psychiatrist who has experience with pregnancy before I attempt to get pregnant and to try to find an OB who has experience with psychiatric disabilities. Plus, I’ll have to talk to my migraine neurodoc about that medication. It’s quite a juggling act! My current psychiatrist says it’s totally doable though (but he’s not managed pregnancy in years, so he doesn’t feel comfortable doing so) and so I’m planning to go ahead and try to work something out. Anyway, point is, pregnancy can be dangerous for a lot of reasons other than The Man getting you down over it. Right now, if I got pregnant, it would be a game of “do I go off all my medication right now to save this fetus from harm which could end up having serious short- and long-term physical/mental effects on me?”

53. Thank you, meredith, for being courteous in your reply. I was starting to think that was forbidden here, that feministe is just an intentional brawl.

    You are absolutely right that there are womyn with disabilities, underlying or pre-existing conditions (such as yours), for whom pregnancy is not necessarily so easy or straightforward as the picture I paint. To be clear, I’ve been talking about pregnancy in general, it’s basic design, and the way it can work in ‘reasonably/normally healthy womyn’. Obviously, there are exceptions–yet they are exceptions; the great majority of womyn do fall into that big category of reasonably healthy. And even with a great many of those womyn (and I’ve worked with some womyn like you, for instance, and those who have other health-issues), applying the general health rules of pregnancy does work to facilitate as healthy/normally-functional experience of pregnancy/birth. Of course, it is necessary to make adjustments wrt such things as medications or physical disabilities–but the general rules of holistic health can indeed be very fruitfully applied for all womyn. Not all can have a perfectly normal birth–but certainly LESS problematic than they might otherwise be if those health-nurturing rules were not applied.

    “pregnancy is hard and often dangerous” is a quote I directly copy/pasted from the post. Apparently that post has now been edited…apparently, once some of us challenged that line, Alara decided to edit. I’m glad she did. As for the ‘rage’ I mentioned, I saw it in various posts but didn’t make that clear.

    But there are still things in her post, and in the posts of others here, that reflect 2 things quite sadly and clearly to this self-loving, womyn-celebrating feminist: life in patriarchy STILL makes us hate our bodies, perhaps now more than ever. And womyn are STILL absymally ignorant about pregnancy and birth–and hey, why wouldn’t they be, I suppose. Men still define and control what passes for ‘medical science’ but is misogynist to its core where womyn’s bodies and health issues are concerned. And it applies, completely inappropriately and OFTEN DANGEROUSLY, both its general ‘pathology/dis-ease model’, and its ‘heirarchy/management style’, to pregnant and birthing womyn. Somehow, feminist critique of allopathic medicine has been lost. Somehow, ‘womyn’s empowerment’ stops short of our full ownership and understanding of our bodies–the very thing that makes us womyn in the first place (and this is not about trans, for better or worse–but about FAAB who menstruate, or might give birth, only because that is the topic here).

    Which all makes me quite sick to behold. What kind of feminism is this, anyway, that gives men and male-think-medicine so much control in our lives at our most vulnerable–which is precisely the time when we might also most intimately and fiercely know a deeply valuable element our female power? NOT the ‘only element’ of our power–but certainly, a potentially hugely important and formative one for those who choose to have children.

    Call me utterly baffled, but I have never accorded any of that control over my amazing, powerful womyn’s body to any man or any man-created theory of my womyn-self, ever. Have I at times availed myself of parts of allopathy and its practitioners? You betcha. On MY terms, within MY control and understanding.

    Not to mention, again, the rage applied by those insulted to hear a POV they not only disagree with, but somehow also offends their ‘feminism’. Not that I, or anyone, ever said anyone had to agree, or had to be forced to have a baby, or anything of the sort. If you ask me, that angry response is just another ‘typically patriarchal dominance tactic’ that we learned in the mensworld–and is employed, whatever one’s sex, by those who don’t have sufficient rational evidence to support their POV. They resort to bullying tactics in desperation to ‘win’ SOMEHOW. “If I can be pissy enough to make you feel ashamed/intimidated/look stupid to others/chase you away so I won’t have to see your POV or risk that anyone else might get some benefit from it–then I WIN! whoo hoo, baby, because that is ALL that matters, right?

    Hey, like I said, I give up. Have it your own way womyn, have the ‘win’! However little good it’ll do you, or the womyn you influence with your beliefs about your bodies and your ‘win/lose’ tactics.

54. Hari: Like Meredith said, you tend to see patients whose bodies are like a well-oiled machine, so naturally, you believe that pregnancy (and life in general) is very very easy and medical intervention isn’t neccessary. But there are quite a lot of women who have to have a toolset in place for gears that get out of place, bearings that get squeaky or jams in unexpected places.

    I don’t see how saying ‘pregnant women are immune suppressed’ is oppressive to women. That’s like telling a doctor zie’s homophobic because zie urges a patient with AIDs to take precautions against flus, colds and pnuemonia.
    A fetus is only half the woman’s, after all, and immune systems exist to repel foriegn matter.
    I’d also advise you to take a look at, oh, say, the mortality rates for the 1918 Pandemic. Men and women under 30 and pregnant women were in the majority of the fatalities.
    I’m sorry I got snippy, but I do not have a lot of patience for fluffy woo-based thinking. Please stop feeding the stereotypes.

55. politicalguineapig– “Like Meredith said, you tend to see patients whose bodies are like a well-oiled machine, so naturally, you believe that pregnancy (and life in general) is very very easy and medical intervention isn’t neccessary.” Oh. I see…since Meredith said it, it’s true….?

    To me it’s YOU who’s feeding the stereotypes. The stereotypes of womyn as the weaker sex, and pregnancy as a form of dis-ease.

    Pregnancy is work, requiring more calories and nutrients, more rest as well. I’ve worked with rich womyn, poor and in between. Worked with incredibly healthy womyn who eat great and exercise everyday–but these are the minority. Most are more average in lifestyle habits and some have downright crappy diets/habits. What they do tend to have in common is a strong desire to be healthy, grow a healthy baby, and have a normal birth…which means they also have in common the willingness to make some changes as needed. Less cheetos, more produce. Making an effort to get a little exercise. Cutting back on ‘extracurricular’ activities (non-essential) to have time for more sleep and a little exercise. Asking for more help from mate/friends/fam, so they can get that time for rest or whatever.

    I’ve watched many a womyn improve her habits during pregnancy, because she didn’t want to feel crappy, need meds, lay on the couch all day, miss work, or have an unhealthy baby or a lousy birth. No one has to follow a perfect set of rules or have ‘an easy life’ (LOL, that would be a good laugh for my Amish moms who have many kids and also keep gardens, preserve food, do all the housework/childcare, help their neighbors, sew all their own clothes, all on a very thrifty economy most often….). It’s just about understanding simple science like ‘you are what you eat’ and applying it.

    Most womyn are ‘normally healthy’. A smaller % have pre-existing or underlying health issues–and again, even they can benefit some from applying the science of nutrition, exercise, reducing stress, etc.

    Did you read the linked article? Regardless of what immune systems are made to do in general, the female immune system (generally speaking) has some special properties. Why wouldn’t it? We do, after all, have to carry young, unlike males; young who are 1/2 composed of ‘foreign DNA’. Natural selection has been capable of numerous amazing feats in the natural world–why is it so hard to believe that a mother carrying her babies’ cells is actually benefitting from that?

    In nature, I’ve found from my studies (of many areas of biological science including plants, soil, bacteria/viruses, other animals), there are many general rules–and many exceptions. We can’t base our understanding of ‘immune systems’ on the study of men’s immune systems, or everyone’s immune systems among those who’ve never been pregnant.

    As for the Pandemic you mention–what killed all those millions of people was essentially, dehydration. We did not have IV therapy for fluid replacement yet, and a bad flu works fast to cause drastic dehydration. Pregnant womyn do utilize more fluids than when not pregnant–they would be more prone to dehydration, more easily than non-pregnant womyn. Also, because pregnant womyn’s nutrition needs are indeed greater than non-pregnancy, any womyn whose diet was already insufficient (before falling ill) might have immuno-compromise already going on. But it was not pregnancy that caused that–it was nutritional deficiency.

    It is true that in some ways, pregnancy creates potentially greater vulnerability for womyn’s health–for reasons such as need for more fluids and nutrients, which may not be available to her. Still–it is not so much a flaw in pregnancy design as it is about living conditions. In the main, the things you and others have mentioned are just NOT about pregnancy–they are about a) either ignorance of nutrition/lifestyle (which your average OB can’t/won’t teach you) or unwillingness to apply the knowledge; b) the kind of life we’ve created in patriarchy, and the fact that it’s far harder on womyn, especially pregnant womyn (and on children) than on men. In almost every way. That’s about misogyny, patriarchy–NOT pregnancy.

56. Hari: I actually studied the pandemic, and that isn’t how flu works. Yes, there’s dehydration, but in that particular flu’s case, it wasn’t what killed people. The 1918 flu had some really cute tricks, including turning people’s immune systems against them and creating an opening for a pnuemonia strain that traveled along with it.

    I don’t get why you seem to think I’m some sort of raging misogynist. Immune systems attack foreign matter, that’s just what they do. And yes, a fetus counts as foreign matter. So would a liver transplant from an identical twin. It seems to be science you have a problem with. Maybe you should read some real science journals, or go through old issues of the Journal of American Medicine.

    Men and women’s immune system aren’t really that different. In fact, I suspect that women have a slightly better immune system. The immune-deficiency syndromes rampant among women might simply be overactive immune systems run amok. But it doesn’t do any good to pretend that men and women are totally different species.

    Finally, I disagree that women benefit from pregnancy. Pregnancy is *not* a symbiotic relationship.

57. No, pregnancy is not a symbiotic relationship. However, because it does have ‘parasitic’ features, it’s a good thing that it also has features in the realm of ‘symbiotic’. A true parasite only takes from the host without giving anything back, thus has the potential to kill the host. Babies in utero, according to the findings of the article linked, apparently do confer some benefit to womyn– over a lengthy period of time. While men’s and womyn’s immune systems have more in common than not, womyn’s immune systems actually DO have special features. It must be so–how can you deny the logic of this? We could not carry babies *at all* if it weren’t so, expressly because of the general capacities of human immune system.

    Another longterm benefit of making babies lies in breastfeeding–which also confers longterm benefits in prevention of breast cancer. Which translates to ‘serving breast health’. Google/bing it to learn more.

    I do not say womyn are ‘another species’. We absolutely DO have some different traits that are the result of being one aspect of a ‘binary species’–as do men, the other aspect. For the life of me, I do NOT understand how feminism got to be a place where womyn work so hard to prove that there are no differences (at least, none that can be considered positive/beneficial) between womyn and men. Abso-fucking-lutely, let’s throw out the patriarchally-constructed, genderized claptrap of ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’, and own our intelligence along with any other characteristic previously dictated as ‘masculine’ and forbidden to womyn. But with that, to also go about trying to deconstruct all things actually, biologically (and increasingly proven real, via the ‘real science’ you align yourself with) true of females? How does that help anyone, in any way?

    I have to go with those who call this effort ‘internalized misogyny’. That may be too simplistic a conclusion….still, I can’t help but think, from your comments and comments like “bleeding from the uterus every month is 100 kinds of bullshit”, that womyn have indeed internalized misogyny as fiercely as we ever did. Now, this occurs not *in spite* of feminism’s work to elevate the status of womyn, but *by its work* to erase womyn. No womyn has to have a baby, enjoy pregnancy/birth or feel her body is glorious, to love herself as a womyn…but when womyn express so much disgust for their bodies, and so angrily refuse to accept any notion of female bodies as particularly gifted by virtue of being female…? Just as men’s bodies have their special features that womyn don’t tend to have? That sure looks like internalized misogyny to me.

    Not that I would actually know. Just saying, this is how it looks from here.

58. Hari: Only 200 years ago, women’s education was viewed as a waste of resources. 50 years ago, women were going to college to meet men, not obtain an education. And around the world, talented women are being denied educations because their only value to their community is in how many children they can mother.
    You were part of the second generation to be liberated from the expectation of marriage and motherhood- how can you be so eager to step back into that cage?
    And I don’t care about my body- I am not my biology, and I refuse to live such a limited life.

59. I apologize to any mothers who are not Hari B. I lost my temper there. I do believe that ‘motherhood’ as a concept is very limiting, but I appreciate women’s efforts to stretch that limit. That said, I like my iron where it is, thanks, and anyone who demands that I worship a week long ordeal can go smoke a tampon.

60. Seems to you that by presenting positive information about pregnancy and birth, I am expressing a wish to remain in a cage of motherhood built and maintained by patriarchy. That I am saying that all womyn *should* want motherhood (in a cage no less), for their own good or some nonsense. I really don’t know where you get this, as I have not in any way actually expressed these things.

    If feminism (for anyone) is to mean anything at all, it must means CHOICE. Why is it so hard to believe that if I see pregnancy/birth/mothering in a positive way, I DO NOT also believe that ‘all womyn should have babies’? I do not even believe that if womyn choose to have a baby/s, they *must* enjoy the process, or believe it’s positive in any way, nor do I think they *should* do it any particular way. That is a womyn’s CHOICE, and I hold the power of choice sacrosanct as a feminist, for all womyn. I support informed choice in childlessness, abortion, birth control, just as firmly as I support informed choice in pregnancy and birth.

    I simply introduce information along with a point of view based upon both science and experience, to broaden our understanding of ALL the CHOICES involved. Including the choices that IME, support healthiest, most joyful possible experience of pro-creation. Indeed, in my path as a feminist on my own behalf, I have become a wary and careful student of choices regarding all elements of my health (well beyond pregnancy/birth/motherhood). In my work as a feminist midwife, I am constantly in process of helping illuminate all the choices womyn have, even where it seems they have none, and can choose differently if they want to.

    Too many womyn just don’t know–because patriarchy’s medical system sure doesn’t teach this growing up–that diet and exercise really DO make a difference in how we feel when pregnant, and how well the whole project goes from start to finish. Just for example–because there is more to healthy pregnancy/safe birth than diet and exercise. Too many womyn have been taught to fear/loathe their bodies and their ‘messy, dangerous, uncontrollable’ bodies, and as a feminist, I have made it my life’s work to study and share a more truthful and empowering understanding. So womyn can make more CHOICES, instead of being driven by cultural claptrap in a culture so dangerous to womyn.

    It seems to me, politicalguineapig, that you have made a choice to remain childless. And somewhere along the way, you learned to justify (at least partly) that choice by buying into the idea that it’s safer for you as a womyn to remain childless, because ‘pregnancy/birth are inherently dangerous to womyn’. I am telling you–remaining childless is a valid choice for womyn, IMO–and now as a grandmother who too-well knows the difficulties of motherhood in patriarchy, I understand more and more why womyn make this choice!

    And I am also telling you–making the choice to remain childless needs no support of any kind. As a womyn we all have the right and the responsibility to make the best choices for ourselves around motherhood. We need no reasons at all–or only, the reason of “this is what I want” “this is what I don’t want”.

    I invite womyn to have more knowledge and a more positive outlook on procreation–based on my study and experience both. I also invite you, and any other womyn who chooses against children, to have a totally positive, powerful and fully self-centered/womyn-powered outlook on remaining childless. I invite you to own your choice as a choice of your own, needing no support of any kind. As a womyn and feminist who has travelled this anything-but-easy and often extremely ardous path, I can say that the ONE THING that has saved my sanity and fed my power more than anything else is owning my choices as MY CHOICES.

    So, please do be satisfied and feel the power of your own choices. Pregnancy/birth is what it is, for better and worse….if you just want no children, there is really no need to gather ‘scientific info’ to support the choice. All you really need is your choice in this matter…and I celebrate your choice as fully as I do my own.

61. By the way–I see myself as a being both as much ‘my biology’, as ‘not confined to my biology’. As a homo sapiens, we are marvellously complex! Choosing to learn about my biology from an empowerment perspective, choosing to enjoy my biology (in all respects, not just pro-creative), is not the same as ‘believing I am just my biology’. The topic here was prompted by a link to a ‘biology article’, so that’s where I’ve centered my comments–but I am a whole being who’s spent as much time exploring myself and life metaphysically as well as physically.

    There is no binary, no either/or that is essentially operant in life. That is just the way patriarchy thinks. Mind and matter–spirit and biology–are not actually separate (nor fully separable) and one is not ‘higher’ than the other. We are unified beings who are marvellously complex. IMO, it is an extremely important facet of feminism for womyn to know that we are ‘not just our biology’–and to empower themselves in all possible ways we are capable of. A fundamental CHOICE we need, if we are to be fully alive as beings, to step free of patriarchy.

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64. The thing that I will still never understand is how the religious right, which makes up the majority of the anti-choice movement, ever came up with their own stance. As an ex-Christian I have been familiar with the Bible since a very young age, and although I am not a biblical scholar, I can assure you that nowhere in the Bible does it say anything that would ban abortion. Nothing. Anti-choicers are all about keeping women in the home by robbing them of the economic and social equality that comes when a person is denied control of their own reproduction.

65. Dear Hari,

    I have two cousins who nearly bled to death giving birth. Two separate women here whose birth experiences went badly, BADLY wrong and who would’ve left their babies motherless if not for emergency c-sections and massive blood transfusions. It happens! And it doesn’t just happen because of internalized misogyny, or people not believing in homeopathy, or The Secret, or whatever. It happens because pregnancy is inherently dangerous.

    And unfortunately a woman doesn’t know when she conceives if she’ll fall into the category of women who have easy pregnancies and births, or if she’ll fall into the category of women who’ll need major medical interventions in order to survive this wonderfully self-actualizing nine months of fabulous mommy-hood. If women knew in advance, probably fewer of them would choose to have babies. Feel free to call me hostile or irrational because I live in the reality-based community where women sometimes die in childbirth.

    P.S. My mother had three easy pregnancies followed by easy births. My younger brother was born at home while I watched (well, actually I was mostly sleeping, but people kept waking me up to watch the miracle of birth. I was five, okay. I didn’t give a shit). SHE WAS LUCKY. Later on in her reproductive career, she was less lucky, having a succession of miscarriages with severe complications that she wouldn’t have survived without allopathic medicine. This woman was a co-sleeping, La Leche League leading, child-led-weaning, organic food eating crunchy mama, and allopathic medicine saved her damn life when her body decided it really didn’t want to be pregnant anymore. As women’s bodies sometimes do.

    When a woman tries to conceive, or when she chooses to continue a pregnancy, regardless of whether it was planned or not, that woman takes on a substantial medical risk. It’s significantly riskier to a woman’s life to stay pregnant and give birth than than it is to have an abortion. Does that mean every woman needs every medical intervention known to medicine? No, of course not. But blithering on about the natural wisdom of women’s bodies is ludicrous. And insulting to those of us whose bodies weren’t paying attention when that wisdom was being handed out. Or to those of us who have loved ones whose bodies weren’t paying attention. So kindly knock it off.

    Signed, an angry, hostile, patriarchal, allopathic bitca with internalized misogyny up the wazoo.

66. um, nope, not going to knock it off. As long as there are people like you, who think their very limited anecdotal ‘experience’ (by proxy of a few friends/fam members) trumps the long and well-studied science involved–people like you who will speak blatant lies like “prengnancy is inherently dangerous–there will be people like me to say otherwise.

    You believe that pregnancy is inherently dangerous, and I don’t care if you choose to go on believing it. What I do care about is that attitude influencing other womyn’s understanding of birth. So yeah, keep on saying purely anecdotally-based stuff, and I will keep encouraging womyn to understand more about their bodies and birth. Because unlike you, I have not just the experience of my own births, and the knowledge I’ve gained from attending many births and reading thousands of birth stories, I have studied pregnancy and birth for 30yrs. I know, in way more depth and breadth than you do, the amazingly complex and efficient science of birth. I also know way more about what can go wrong, and why–including genetics and dumb luck but MUCH more often involving avoidable causes.

    Believe me or not, I don’t care. I do care very much about womyn generally viewing birth from a sane, knowledge-grounded perspective that can empower them to have the healthiest possible pregnancies/births, and make the best possible care choices for themselves. And I do care about preserving and promoting a feminism that respects womyn’s bodies enough to continue to study pregnancy and birth from a positive perspective. That is, a feminism that begins with a premise that however imperfect corporeal reality is in general, there is nothing wrong, and much very right about womyn’s biology in particular. And so, a feminism that continues to critique misogynist (and greedy) medical science which promotes not rational understanding of real risk, but irrational phobia and hatred of our bodies. Because no one benefits as much from womyn’s fear and hatred of female biology, most especially procreation, as Drs do. And no one is as harmed, body and mind by this fear and hatred, as womyn themselves are.

    Yeah, yeah, for some birth is difficult and requires med help. Just not anywhere NEAR as often as we are taught to think–because if we didn’t think birth was ‘inherently dangerous’, the med/pharm complex would not be able to make nearly the amount of $$ they do.

67. It’s official, I have heard more ” ewww gross thats disgusting!!” from feminists on feminists websites in regards to pregnancy and childbirth than I have ever heard it from teenage boys or grown men, misogynists or not. That is soo sad.

68. Raincitygirl: Thank you for standing up for rationality here. I hope your cousins are recovering and that your mama’s okay. I get so frustrated by people who demand that women’s bodies should be worshipped and regarded as temples when they’re just bodies. The whole-sale condemnation of medical science annoys me no end. I’d be an only child today if my siblings hadn’t been born in a hospital. (Pregnancy was fine, but they were both born blue and oxygen deprived.)

    Hari: As Raincitygirl said, pregnancy is a roll of the dice. Until a woman is pregnant she doesn’t know if she’s going to get lucky or have snake eyes. Even if she is totally healthy going into the pregnancy, that’s nine months of immuno-suppression and it does take a toll on the body.

69. Thanks, PoliticalGuineaPig. My cousins and my mom are all doing very well now, thank God. Yay for whoever invented blood transfusions.

70. “that’s nine months of immuno-suppression and it does take a toll on the body”

    Wow, you guys will take it however far you need to, regardless of the lies you have to tell to persuade your unwitting public, eh? What a ridiculous load of horseshit…spoken straight from the mouth of one who claims to be ‘rational’ and all ‘good medical science-y’ about everything health. LOL/gag me

71. Growing a whole new human being out of spare parts for nine months is HARD WORK (I cribbed that spare parts line because it’s so damn true. Whoever said it originally, you’re awesome). I’m not sure why we need to tell a midwife this. You’d think she’d know already. I know midwives in real life who know this perfectly well. I bet Hari is anti-vax as well.

    For the record, Hari, I happen to believe in natural childbirth wherever possible. If I were ever to have children (highly unlikely), I would use the highly-rated birthing centre at my local hospital. I’d probably even use a midwife (not you). Just because someone doesn’t believe pregnancy is nine months of sunshine and puppies does not make them a fully paid-up member of the allopathic medicine conspiracy. There’s a reason pregnant women are considered a priority group when doctors are doling out the seasonal flu vaccine: because pregnant women are more likely to get ill and suffer complications than non-pregnant women. That’s called immuno-suppression (fortunately, in most women it’s a minor suppression).

    I know, in way more depth and breadth than you do, the amazingly complex and efficient science of birth. I also know way more about what can go wrong, and why–including genetics and dumb luck but MUCH more often involving avoidable causes.

    Avoidable causes, huh? So basically, my mom and my cousins could have avoided their pregnant bodies trying to kill them? Feel free to explain what they did wrong in their pregnancies.

72. “Avoidable causes, huh? So basically, my mom and my cousins could have avoided their pregnant bodies trying to kill them? Feel free to explain what they did wrong in their pregnancies.”

    Here is what I actually said, which you even quoted, yourself:

    “but MUCH more often involving avoidable causes.”

    Please note: I did NOT say, “always involving avoidable causes”

    If you prefer a snotty way of deploying ‘persuasive tactics’, please at least try to be snotty about what I actually said.

    In fact, I have helped womyn overcome both seemingly ‘impossible’ bleeding issues, and repetitive miscarriage, too–using a holistic approach. And just as factually, I have met womyn whose underlying health issues DID pose problems impossible to overcome. Whether via genetics or longterm health habits diminishing their capacity to carry and birth normally, there are *some* womyn–a minority of womyn–who need some forms of medical help. I have also worked with such womyn, using a holistic approach, to help them have healthier, less problematic pregnancies and births than they’d had in their past. Very occasionally, random chance also plays a part in complications–just again, MUCH LESS OFTEN THAN WE ARE LED TO BELIEVE. Much MORE often, it is either poor lifestyle habits, or needless and damaging medical inteference, or a combination of both, that leads to complications.

    Just because *you* don’t have all that much knowledge of womyn’s bodies, nor of what a holistic approach really is, nor of the perils of obstetrical care, doesn’t mean that *no one* has much knowledge about womyn’s bodies and a holistic approach and the perils of obstetrical care.

    And by the way, snotty is not the least bit persuasive to me–and I suspect it’s not really that impressive to the other thinking womyn reading here, either.

    But whatever floats your boat. You’re the only one who has to live with it.

73. HariB:

    http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/articles/article/theimmunesystemandpregnancy/

    http://www.rialab.com/book_ch5.php

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3025805/

    I found these links within 3 seconds of googling. I’d include more links, but I don’t want to break the spam filter. It isn’t just me and Raincitygirl and Ismone, dreaming up immune suppression to oppress fellow women. It’s actual scientists saying this stuff, some of whom are women. Facts are not oppressive, they are just facts. And when the rubber hits the road, facts are far more useful than trying to access ‘ancient mystical truths’ from one’s navel. And I know a lot about my body and my mind, thanks much.

    Raincitygirl: Glad to hear that your mother and your cousins are doing great.

74. Well, you’re right about one thing, Hari, I shouldn’t have knee-jerked at you over the “avoidable” thing. I apologize for that. It’s an emotional issue for me, and I saw “avoidable” and saw red. I accept that you didn’t mean it that way, and I misinterpreted it.

75. Raincitygirl– sorry I knee jerked back atcha then.

    This stuff IS very emotional –for womyn and all those who love us. And it should be–loving other people, wanting their good health and survival *should be* really really important to us. Having some close relatives/friends who had life-threatening complications of pregnancy/birth is deeply impacting for most of us, and can greatly skew our view of these things.

    Which is exactly why we have to do the research–which is exactly why politicalguineapig’s “3 seconds of googling” is among the most dangerous of exercises for us to perform to gain any worthwhile knowledge at all, about….anything. If you don’t at least sample across a wide spectrum, the ‘most-read results’ can seem as if they actually *are* “facts”: immutable reality.

    And I have to wonder…do you think I, as a midwife, and even as a mother of 6, have not seen, very upclose and personally, the reality of the life-and-death nature of birth? And this is EXACTLY what I tell my clients from the start. It is exactly why my Professional Disclosure Statement, which prospective clients must read before we even meet in person, states explicitly that birth is a life-and-death matter, and that no one, in any setting and no matter who your care provider is, gets *any guarantees*.

    I also wonder–how is it such a terrible thing for a womyn to have a positive outlook on her body, even with respect to pregnancy and birth? How is it ‘irrational’ or ‘non-factual rainbows and unicorns bs’, to have a great love and deep celebratory respect for what our bodies are capable of–not in spite of the facts, but because of long study and experience of the facts?

    Looking at comments on this thread, and having recently read other posts on various sites, I am gathering the impression that a properly rational feminist is a womyn who hates her body, who is deeply distrustful of the physical/biological nature of her being, and who must feel cheated somehow for having been womyn-born. Who feels that her ‘biology is just an inconvenience having nothing to do with who I am or anything important in life’. In short, has bought, lock-stock-and-barrel, patriarchy’s dictates concerning all of life, and now agrees that being in a body, *especially* a female body, is at best an inconvenience and at worst, a plague on life.

    Just as if ‘being homo sapiens’ means that we are *solely* our minds/intellect, and not at all influenced by our animal existence. Ah, me, patriarchy’s ‘mind over matter’ dichotomy–the biggest destroyer of life and the biggest, most successful lie ever perpetuated–is now, even for feminists, the one and only significant ‘truth’ of our beingness.

    It takes more than 3 seconds, and more than 3 days, to figure out what pregnancy and birth really are and are not, by nature. Menstream science must be examined from various angles–a wide spectrum of information and POVs must be sought, to find one’s own most helpful truth. Rather than simply googling med databases, read books like Robert Mendelsohn’s “Confessions of a Medical Heretic”…..just as a foundation for an adequate critique of ‘the research’. Read anything by Dr. Michel Odent, another med person with several decades of research into birth–and visit the website ‘womb ecology’ to see current research that teaches much current info on pregnancy and birth.

    I won’t even work with families unwilling to face, head on, the real risks of birth, even though I also believe that a positive, empowered outlook is a fundamental element of successful birth. No one has to believe that knowing the ‘facts’ could possibly lead to a positive, empowered outlook–fine with me, it’s your body and birth after all.

    And if you are serious about being grounded in ‘facts’ and ‘real knowledge’ you will delve into that wide spectrum of information now available concerning pregnancy, birth and health. You won’t let emotional reactions to a few womyn’s harrowing experiences stop you from learning all you can. You won’t let people like politicalguineapig–people with a negative attitude in general about life as a biological being–tell you what to think. You’ll sort out the ‘rational fears’ from the ‘groundless fears’ you carry.

    Finally, there is no part of life that is without risk. Driving/riding in cars is actually riskier than birth (by nature–that is, not by virtue of a womyn’s personal habits that themselves make her less healthy), but no one harps on that fact. One powerful reason for this can be found by following the money: if people don’t drive, a lot of money cannot be made by big corporations of all kinds; not just the auto makers, but the fuel suppliers along with all the industries whose jobs we drive to everyday. Of course we’re not going to have all that risk put in our face all the time! On the other hand, promoting the idea of risk in birth is what leads to the med/pharm complex making billions every year. And along their way, doing a lot of harm to a lot of womyn and babies. If you look at even simple numbers, such as the present 30+% national cesarian rate, and compare those numbers to the actual ‘health served’ vs ‘harm caused’, it becomes easy to see that our cesarian rate is factually causing more harm, and introducing more longterm risk, than it is serving any womyn’s/baby’s health.

    Birth has been made by capitalist culture into a huge money maker, it has been deeply politicized and almost entirely taken over by corporate greed for money and power. If people will surrender their power to medicine, not only does medicine make more $$, its Drs get that wonderful rush of power most of them SO adore.

    Be wary–be a cautious and savvy consumer, empower yourself with knowledge and a will to be THE one who makes all the choices yourself, from a clear head rather than driven by fear–or by a socialized and uncritical worship of all things medical. Do the research, across a wide spectrum of both hard science and differing perspectives. Birth is not for the faint of heart–but then, neither is parenting. Neither is life itself.

    Don’t believe me. Womyn are smart and powerful enough to do what it takes to find their own way, if they choose to.

76. Hari B: First of all, if I were pregnant, or planning to become pregnant, I would be doing a lot more research, while carefully avoiding the resources you mentioned. Why do you think homeopaths/naturopaths are immune to the call of filthy lucre? Science has been known to harbor the occasional fraud, but they are quickly found and drummed out. Homeopathy/naturopathy are rife with fraud and have no mechanism for self-correction.
    Secondly, my attitude toward my body isn’t due to outside forces. It’s just a body, nothing special about it; I do take care of it, but I don’t need or want to do ten minutes of navel gazing a day. And the truth is, bodies are inconvenient sometimes. Last winter, I had a paralyzed facial nerve, that among other things, made it impossible for me to swim since I couldn’t close my mouth properly. I love to swim. If I were pregnant, I couldn’t run in the last three months, another thing I enjoy doing.

77. politicalguineapig–

    Well, see–the fact that you would state flatly that you will not read the authors I suggested, just tells me that you have your mind made up and that is that. Ok, your call. Otherwise, a statement like this one:

    “Why do you think homeopaths/naturopaths are immune to the call of filthy lucre?”

    well it just tells me that you boldly invent all kinds of stuff as a way to hold the door of your mind shut…as I never mentioned anything like what this statement asserts as ‘what I think’. I’d be insulted if it weren’t so plain silly to read that. I won’t even bother to go into the reality that western medicine is highly organized with a powerful lobby (funded with your health care $$), and the politics of why homeopaths/naturapaths simply *don’t* make the kind of $$ allopaths do.

    Then there’s this:

    “Science has been known to harbor the occasional fraud, but they are quickly found and drummed out. ”

    ROFLMAO! More pure invention there. Have you ever bothered to look into the disgraceful condition of most State Medical Boards? Somehow I think not…wow, your faith is so touching…and somehow you think *your* faith is so factual/rational, while mine is all just irrational woo!

    Let’s take the State of IL. Last time I looked for real facts, a few hears back, the med board was receiving more than 20,000 med practice complaints a year. About 20% of those complaints actually resulted in investigation of any sort by the med board. Very few resulted in any sanctioning of Drs, even if they were found guilty of something. A stern letter, a ‘go take some continuing ed and be good henceforward’. While on the other hand, the med board spent money seeking out homebirth midwives to prosecute–without any complaints brought against those midwives by any consumers at all!

    Or MO: it’s Healing Arts Board also receives thousands of complaints a year. It’s record of investigating Drs is even worse than IL’s. Levying a fine, suspending a license is extremely rare; in the few cases where a Dr is actually found guilty of something, the worst is a stern letter. Consumers looking for info on a doc are not allowed to get it; Healing Arts Board is mandated by law to keep those records hidden from the public. Thus, some doctors have continued to hold their licenses to kill and damage. I suggest you look into the St Louis Post Dispatch–they did a series of exposes on this during 2010-11.

    Um, ‘navel gazing’? Another invention…I said some things you disagree with, you invented an image of me, complete with ‘navel gazing’…apparently remain completely unaware that you made all that shit up…and now make statements as if what you invented has actually been proven ‘factual’. What, did you spend 3 seconds googling me?

    Hey, have your opinions and your choices. Won’t hurt me a bit. But if you’re going to blather on about rational science and being strictly factual, meanwhile inventing all kinds of drivel that you spout as fact, don’t expect me not to bust you on it. Sheesh.

78. Hari: Just out of curiousity, do naturopaths or homeopaths have any supervision? Any boards they have to report to? Anyone they’re held accountable too? Why do I get the feeling the answer is no?

    And as for doctors, well the mileage varies by state. Docs up here are more accountable and more likely to be called out then someone who works south of the Mason-Dixon line.

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