The New York Times unwittingly opened up a can of worms when
they wrote about a recent report on the health risks of sharing prescription drugs. The
warning was targeted mainly at women of child-bearing age, since drugs can pose
a risk to a developing fetus. Many women commented on the article, but not
because they cared a whit about the health issues discussed.
Rather, they were outraged that the danger of sharing
prescription drugs was framed as specifically problematic for women of
child-bearing age. “Not all women are “pre-pregnant,” one reader wrote. “We are
more than our uteruses!” Another wrote that she was “tired of being thought of
only as a breeding machine who should be regarded as ‘pre-pregnant’ at all
times.”
While I am completely sympathetic to these sentiments, I don't quite
understand the outrage these women felt toward this particular article—if you
don’t want have to kids, ignore the warning. Enough women in their twenties and
thirties do want to have children that it only makes sense to issue warnings to
this age group about how to avoid cause harming to fetuses.
That said, I definitely think that many doctors inappropriately
view women as “pre-pregnant.” An OB-GYN once said to a happily childless, 30-year-old
friend of mine, “Now go out there and make some babies!” Needless to say, my
friend got a new gynecologist.
Image: svmomblog.typepad.com
