Barefoot and Pre-Pregnant
Barefoot and pregnant—or if not pregnant, then “pre-pregnant.”
We’ve known for a long time that the American Taliban and their allies in the Bush administration view pregnant women as little more than incubators. Well, now guess what? New guidelines released by the CDC reveal that the Bush administration views women who aren’t pregnant as little more than empty incubators. You may not be pregnant/incubating now, ladies, but you could/should become pregnant soon! From the Washington Post:
Forever PregnantGuidelines: Treat Nearly All Women as Pre-Pregnant
New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves—and to be treated by the health care system—as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.
Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.
While most of these recommendations are well known to women who are pregnant or seeking to get pregnant, experts say it’s important that women follow this advice throughout their reproductive lives, because about half of pregnancies are unplanned and so much damage can be done to a fetus between conception and the time the pregnancy is confirmed.
Gee, it looks like Margaret Atwood was on to something. (It’s time to re-read or rent The Handmaids Tale.) Ordering American women and their doctors to regard every uterus as “pre-pregnant” at all times because a woman may do harm to a fetus she doesn’t know she’s carrying opens the door to one day prosecuting women for failing to regard themselves as “pre-pregnant.” Sound far-fetched? Well, so did a war on contraception a few years ago.
Of course, the Bush administration’s CDC has nothing to say about single, sexually-active straight men being treated as “pre-fathers.” As a parent and a male, I’d say that smoking, obesity, and chronic conditions like asthma and diabetes could seriously hamper a man’s ability to do the heavy lifting that comes with fatherhood. But men don’t have to “maintain a healthy weight” or quit smoking. When it comes to men’s bodies and choices, the CDC is silent. Weird.
There’s a Straight Rights Update in this week’s Savage Love—it takes up half of the column. Every time I write one I think, “Hey, this is the last one. Blocking life-saving vaccines, banning abortion, destroying sex education, moving to ban birth control—it can’t get much worse, right? Then you pick up the next day’s paper and wham! Things just got worse!
Three more years. Holy crap—how are we going to get through this?!?!
That is the most offensive thing I've heard in years. (And I've been reading the Stranger for years...ba-dum-BAH!).
Pre-pregnant????????? WTF!!!!!!!