Reproductive Rights Masterpost
Reproductive Rights - Women are being refused medical sterilization procedures
Women are being refused sterilization procedures - tubal ligations and endometrial ablations - for any and every reason a doctor chooses.
Women are powerless against their doctors’ biases and have no real power or control over their own bodies.
From being too young, to not being married, to not having children, or not having enough children, women are being refused to take charge of their own futures because of their doctor’s personal opinions.
Tubal ligations and endometrial ablations are minimally invasive outpatient procedures that rarely have adverse side effects. There is no medical reason a healthy adult woman shouldn’t be able to have a sterilization procedure.
Doctors are refusing women sterilization procedures because of personal opinions, religious beliefs, and blatant misogyny.
When it comes to sterilization, women are powerless against society, men, and doctors’ misogynistic biases and personal opinions.
It is so important for women to be able to get tubal ligations and endometrial ablations, but it is so rare for that to happen. It needs to change.
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Reproductive Rights - Links about women’s experiences
“My Experience With Endometrial Ablation and Tubal Ligation” https://fashionistamomma.com/my-experience-with-endometrial-ablation/
The Outrageous Reasons These Women Couldn’t Get Their Tubes Tied https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kxam7/tubal-ligation-requirements-doctor-denials
How Doctors Fail Women Who Don’t Want Children https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/sunday-review/women-sterilization-children-doctors.html
Women and Sterilization: Why Are Young Women Still Being Denied Tubal Ligation? https://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/if-youre-reading-this-sterilize-me
Doctors Reluctant to Give Young Women Permanent Birth Control
https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-xpm-2014-05-13-ct-met-sterilization-denied-20140513-story.html
Doctors Shouldn’t Be Able To Refuse Tubal Ligation https://www.headstuff.org/topical/women-tubal-ligations/
Why Is It So Hard For Some Women To Get Their Tubes Tied? https://www.chatelaine.com/health/canada-tubal-ligation/
Women discuss endometriosis: 'No one believed I could be in such pain from a period' https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/29/endometriosis-experiences-women-period
'I wanted control over my body': Woman, 27, shares yearslong fight to have tubes tied https://www.today.com/health/tubal-ligation-woman-27-shares-struggle-convince-doctors-perform-procedure-t157210
'My body is at risk': Aussie mums denied sterilisation due to young age https://www.9news.com.au/national/a-current-affair-tubes-tied-medical-quandary-women-reproductive-rights/88e0d54a-e3b3-4b74-9d50-f463e19803d7
For Those Struggling With Endometriosis, the Pain Goes Beyond the Physical https://rewire.news/article/2018/03/15/endometriosis-pain-physical-fertility/
I love my child-free life. Why do other people have such a problem with it? https://www.nbcnews.com/better/lifestyle/i-love-my-child-free-life-why-do-other-people-ncna1044866
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Reproductive Rights - Abortion is important for women
Abortion is important for women. Women need to have the option to get an abortion. But even before that, women need to have the option to get sterilized. Women need to be able to get sterilization surgeries such as tubal ligations and endometrial ablations. This way, they won’t have to make a decision on abortion because they won’t be able to get pregnant. And for women who know they don’t want children and know they will never want children, this is vital.
Reproductive rights and women’s rights to choose are being attacked and threatened. We can’t let that happen, but now it’s even more important for women to be able to get sterilization without question and without hesitation.
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Reproductive Rights - Medical Sterilization Protection
I propose a protective medical legislation that would protect women from doctors’ personal and religious bias when it comes to sterilization procedures.
Women aged 18 and older should receive tubal ligations and endometrial ablations upon request regardless of age, marital or relationship status, and the amount of children they have or whether they have children or not. Women should be able to have tubal ligations and endometrial ablations without the consent or knowledge of their spouse or partner. A woman’s decision to get sterilized should be respected and taken seriously and it should be entirely her own - the procedure staying between her and her doctor.
For too long in this country - and around the world - women’s rights have been overlooked and disregarded, especially when it comes to health and reproductive health. Countless women have shared their experience of having sterilization procedures refused by multiple doctors over many years. Doctors have refused women sterilization procedures based on their age, marital or relationship status, and for how many children they have or don’t have. Women have been told that they will one day have a husband who will want to have children, and that they have no right to take that possibility away from their future spouse. Women have been told that they will change their mind later and that they will regret having the procedure done. Women have been told that they do not have enough children to make that decision, or if their children were to pass away that they would want to have more children. Doctors have told women that they will not perform the procedure because it is not what they would choose to do. Doctors have told women that they will not perform the procedure because it violates their religious beliefs.
By telling a woman that she cannot have a medical procedure performed based on a hypothetical future spouses’ desire to have children is irresponsible, unprofessional, and blatantly misogynistic. By refusing to perform sterilization procedures because a future husband may want children tells women that they do not own their own bodies - they can’t make their own decisions about their own body, their own lives, their own future. It tells women that their body does not belong to them, and instead it belongs to a man who they may have never met before, and that they may never meet, given the fact that not all women want to be married, nor will all women choose to become married.
By telling a woman that she cannot have a sterilization procedure performed because she will change her mind tells women - and society - that we cannot trust women. It tells women that we cannot trust women to make decisions, nor can we trust women to follow through with or believe in those decisions. Again, this is blatant misogyny.
Women’s decisions about their own bodies, lives, and futures should be respected and taken seriously. They should not be questioned, ignored, or disregarded, and certainly not based on person or religious biases.
I am not asking for a solution to misogyny. All I am asking - and all I am proposing - is that women have legislation to protect them from doctors’ personal and religious biases preventing them from receiving sterilization procedures.
For those who are concerned about abortion, and call for abortion bans, and wish for an end to and criminalization of abortion - consider this: (I am pro-choice)
Women who don’t want children don’t want children, and an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy is not likely going to change that.
The same women who request sterilization and are refused are the same women who will seek an abortion if they become pregnant.
Given the fact that abortions are so easily accessible, it would only make sense that sterilization be just as easy to obtain.
It makes more sense to prevent a life from ever coming into existence than to have a life begin to develop and then terminate it. It seems obvious that sterilization would in fact prevent abortions from happening, and that women should have easy access to sterilization and not be refused these procedures.
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Reproductive Rights - Not all women want the same things
Not all women want to be married.
Not all women will have a male partner.
Not all women want children.
To doctors and health care providers, I agree that it is important for women to think about their options before making a decision, and that it is important for doctors to provide all the information that they can, but when a woman makes a decision, that decision needs to be respected.
If a woman says she wants a tubal ligation and/or an endometrial ablation, and there are no significant health risks, she should receive the procedure.
Doctors should not refuse to perform these procedures based on marital status, age, or number of children the woman may or may not already have. If a woman says she does not want children that should be respected and it should not be questioned or refused.
These procedures should not be refused based on the possibility of a future partner wanting children. Women should not be denied a medical procedure that she is sure she wants just because someone else doubts her decision making.
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Reproductive Rights - Gender Equality and the Child free Life
I want to make it clear that as a supporter of the equality of all genders and sexes and of reproductive and pro-choice rights, I support resources and options for child-free people of all sexes and genders, whether that person is assigned female at birth, or assigned male at birth. This means I support abortion, tubal ligation, endometrial ablation, vasectomies, paper abortion, and the abolition of court-enforced child support from either parent.
Choosing to live a child free life is a valid personal choice with lots of benefits. No one should be forced to be a parent if they do not want children. Sex should not have to mean parenthood. Sterilization for both men and women - vasectomies and tubal ligations and endometrial ablations should be provided without refusal, question, or hesitation due to any personal bias or belief. The child free life should be taken seriously and be validated. Abortion is a fundamental right for women. Gender equality needs to be supported in the concept of child free living. Women should not be forced to be parents when they do not want to have children, and men should not be forced to be parents when they do not want to have children. Sex should not automatically mean parenthood. In the event of an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy, women need to have access to abortion, and so do men. For men, it would not be a physical abortion, but rather a paper abortion. A paper abortion is the proposed ability of the biological father, before the birth of the child, to opt out of any rights, privileges, and responsibilities toward the child, including financial support. This would mean that, before a child is born, a man would be able to absolve himself of both the privileges and demands of fatherhood. Abortions for women and paper abortions for men are a step in the right direction towards gender equality. Parenthood should always be voluntary, and sexual activity should not deem absolutely parenthood. Saying that women should have the ability to choose to live a child free life but that men should not be able to make that same decision is intrinsically unequal. Women should not be told to not be sexually active if they want to avoid parenthood as an excuse for abortion refusal, and the same principal goes for men seeking paper abortion. Women should not be forced into parenthood in the face of an unwanted pregnancy, and neither should men. Gender equality means including abortion rights and access for both men and women, in the forms of physical abortions, and paper abortions.
“If women’s partial responsibility for pregnancy does not obligate them to support a fetus, then men’s partial responsibility for pregnancy does not obligate them to support a resulting child.” (Elizabeth Brake in the Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2005)
Yes, I understand that a fetus is different from a child that has been born, but supporting paper abortion for men and individuals who were assigned male at birth, will also help bring equality for women and people assigned female at birth and abortion rights. I do not believe that a man/person assigned male at birth has the right to tell a woman/person assigned female at birth that they cannot have an abortion, even if they have fathered the fetus. I believe, in turn, that the person who has conceived and is carrying the fetus should not be able to tell the person who has fathered the child that they cannot chose to have a paper abortion. No one should be forced into having a child, whether they are the person who is carrying the fetus, or the person who has fathered the fetus. Abortion rights and the right to live a child-free life is a right that extends to all people, whether they are male, female, assigned male at birth, or assigned female at birth.
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Reproductive Rights - Some links for Sterilization Info
https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/
MEGATHREAD: Doctors lists and sterilization info
https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/comments/uhhk6f/megathread_doctors_lists_and_sterilization_info/
Childfree Friendly Doctors
https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/wiki/doctors
https://norugratsnoragrets.wixsite.com/binder/
Sterilization Build-a-Binder
https://norugratsnoragrets.wixsite.com/binder/build-a-binder
