Take my uterus, please!
I'm still sitting here trying to pick my jaw up off the floor after reading this article in the New York Times, by a doctor who was asked to perform a tubal ligation on a patient:
The condescension and the patronizing attitude that not only does he know what's best because he's the doctor, but that a woman can only be fulfilled if she has children, is something I would truly not have expected to hear in 2006, and it makes me very nervous about my ob/gyn appointment next month.
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Earlier this year, a patient of mine in her early 20s who was expecting her third child asked to have her tubes tied. A mother of two, with a full-time job and part-time school classes, she saw a fourth child as an impossible burden....My patient’s request wasn’t unreasonable. She was choosing a form of birth control favored by millions of other American women. For her, I just felt it was a bad choice because in 15 years, much could change: her children might go off to college, she might be remarried, she could have a higher income.He apparently tried to talk her out of it, by among other things, asking her "What if your children died in a fire? Would you want more children?"
The condescension and the patronizing attitude that not only does he know what's best because he's the doctor, but that a woman can only be fulfilled if she has children, is something I would truly not have expected to hear in 2006, and it makes me very nervous about my ob/gyn appointment next month.
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angry
tired
resigned
exhausted
horrified
hopeful