Let’s Talk About Language
Let me rant at you for a moment. Let’s talk about the terms we all use when discussing childbirth and choice. I’m talking about words like “allow” “let” and “policy”. We talk about health care workers allowing us to go X weeks overdue or X hours of active labour before having to do a c-section; we talk about allowing food and drink or not; about letting women move around freely or having a policy of EMF monitoring, IV or epidurals. A friend of my sister’s was recently talking about how her sister was disappointed because she wanted a normal birth and was told she had to have an epidural for reasons unclear to me. WAKE UP WOMEN! It’s your birth and your body. No one need give you permission to do anything. I am completely amazed that in a medical society where refusal of chemo or blood transfusions are everyday and ordinary; where no one thinks twice of suing doctors for going against a patient’s wishes, that maternity care providers are still permitted to be gods and make choices for their clients. In this atmosphere of everyone knowing their rights, judges are still making blatently illegal rulings like the recent forced c-sections that have been in the news in the last few years. WOMEN STAND UP AND TAKE BACK YOUR RIGHTS! You know what is best for you and your body. Stop deferring to these “experts” who claim rights over your wellbeing because as a woman with child you suddenly forfeit all control. Okay, I’m done now.
