At 19 I was told my health came second to my future husband.
At 22 I was told I would feel differently once I was “in love”
At 24 my boyfriend was asked if he would still love me if I couldn’t bear children.
My autonomy was violated for 5 years for a hypothetical baby
I had severe endometriosis and adenomyosis. My periods hell. They were irregular, heavy and painful. I would lay on the bathroom floor in unrelenting pain, throwing up and too weak to move.
As the years dragged on I became more disabled from the pain and anemia.
Surgeries to control the blood loss failed.
Medications to put me into chemical menopause failed.
Birth control pills failed.
I needed a hysterectomy.
I had never wanted children. I wasn’t even sure I wanted marriage. I was also far too disabled to get pregnant or raise a child.
So I asked for the surgery. I asked my doctors to remove the diseased organ destroying my quality of life.
I was firmly told “No” because I might meet a man who wants kids.
That even though I was too sick to survive pregnancy and likely infertile, I couldn’t make the choice to remove my womb in case I changed my mind when I met my dream man.
I told the doctors I didn’t want kids, it didn’t matter.
I pointed out I was too sick to care for myself, let alone a child, and it didn’t matter.
I said that my “dream man” would love me even if I couldn’t have kids, and the doctors laughed.
I had no bodily autonomy.
Medical misogyny was ruining my life.
I spent the next few years getting second and third opinions. Fighting like hell to get the surgery I knew I needed to have any shot at a “normal” life. When I began dating someone, I brought him to my appointments hoping he could convince them to operate.
They asked him if he would love me if I couldn’t give him biological children. He didn’t want kids either, but they said the same thing to him they kept saying to me: “You might change your mind”
Why is the medical system so obsessed with us having babies? Misogyny and patriarchy.
We could have changed our minds. We could have also broken up.
What “could” happen in the distant future should never be given more weight than what was happening in the present.
I was slowly dying. Bleeding to death and confined to bed. Relying on blood and iron transfusions to survive.
I tell this story every few months because I think it’s incredibly important we talk about our lack of autonomy.
The post Roe landscape is putting our lives in danger, and my story can hopefully help people understand why.
If I wasn’t able to make the choice I needed for my body when there was no fetus involved, imagine how hard it must be for pregnant people who need to access abortion?
Forced birth advocates love to trumpet the “exemption for the life of the mother” rule to justify abortion bans
But if doctors weren’t willing to remove my uterus when it was literally killing me, why are we trusting they will terminate a pregnancy when the mother’s life is at risk?
A hypothetical baby came before my life… imagine what would happen if there was a real fetus involved?
We know what happens.
Women die.
They bleed out in parking lots.
They become septic, lose their fertility or spend months fighting for their lives in the ICU.
Their care is delayed because the fetus comes first. And delayed care comes at a cost.
I finally got my hysterectomy, but only because I was bleeding out in the ER and transfusions couldn’t keep up.
By the time they finally gave me the surgery I spent years asking for, my survival odds were only 50/50.
Had they done it when I asked, it would have been 99%
It’s the same thing for those experiencing miscarriage or abortion complications.
If they could get timely healthcare, their odds of survival would be excellent.
When we tell doctors they can’t intervene until the life of the mother is “clearly” in jeopardy?
That’s when we start dying.
We deserve better. We need full autonomy over our reproductive systems, and that includes access to sterilization and abortion.
It’s time.
More on what my hysterectomy taught me about medical misogyny:
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/what-my-hysterectomy-taught-me-about
#uspol #fascism #hysterectomy #abortion #AbortionRights #reproductiverights #misogyny #patriarchy
Gail Waldby ❌👑
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