Click here to read Part 1 first.
This week I was watching the popular National Geographic television show “Cosmos: a Spacetime Odyssey,” hosted by America’s scientist sweetheart, Neil DeGrasse-Tyson. (If you have never seen the show, click here to check out his awesome explanation of weather variation vs climate change.) In this episode, he describes the concept of a positive feedback loop as it relates to climate change. His explanation goes something like this: increased greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere, which causes the permafrost to thaw, which results in more greenhouse gases, which warms the atmosphere, which causes more permafrost to thaw, which results in more greenhouse gases, and on and on, ad infinitum. The positive feedback loop is a concept that is very common in many branches of science. One of the most common examples we learn about as nurses has to do with the positive feedback loop of uterine contractions: oxytocin causes the uterus to contract, which causes the release of more oxytocin, which causes the uterus to contract, etc.
What occurred to me is that anti-choice, pregnancy-shaming, poverty punishers are also creating their own positive feedback loop: The Loop of Shame. It goes something like this:
Last year, I read a Census report that cited the biggest contributing factors for whether or not a woman will become a “welfare mother” as 1) how many children she has, and 2) her age when she has her first child. It is also a well-researched fact that women who are living in poverty are less likely to have access to family planning services, and more likely to become pregnant. Knowing these two things, it then becomes clear that the best way to keep women and children out of poverty is to provide education and early access to reproductive choices, including abortion and contraception. However, the people complaining about people on welfare and who want to get rid of social programs, are usually the same people who would cut funding for Planned Parenthood, refuse to allow condoms and sex education in schools, and block women from accessing the abortion clinic.
Dear Anti-Choice Pregnancy-Shaming Poverty Punishers: YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.
You can’t complain about the woman on welfare when it is YOUR policies that put her there. You don’t get to complain about having to use taxpayer money to feed her children that YOU forced her to have when you shut down the only clinic in her area that provided birth control. If you want to stop paying for other people’s children, STOP FORCING women to bear them.
I can hear you saying now, “Well, I didn’t FORCE her to open her legs.”
I’m glad you mentioned that, because it brings me to my next subject: Sex is a normal, biological function, in which all human beings, having reached the age of consent, should be encouraged to engage, in the manner in which they choose, with another enthusiastically consenting adult. There is nothing wrong with having sex. It is a normal part of the human experience. Any sex that happens between two adults who are able to consent is acceptable, reasonable, and healthy. It is unreasonable and unhealthy to expect an adult person with a functioning reproductive system to completely abstain from sex involuntarily, just as it is unreasonable to expect a person with a functioning digestive system to abstain from food involuntarily. Sure, the doctor can put in a gastric tube, and I can give you tube feedings for the rest of your life, but why would we want to do something for no good reason, that would have such a huge impact on your quality of life? All people deserve to enjoy the benefits of a healthy sex life – EVEN POOR PEOPLE. As a matter of fact, ESPECIALLY poor people, because it is probably one of the few things they can afford to enjoy.
As a nurse, I come in close contact with people’s body parts way more often than they would like. I have had my (gloved) hands in other people’s vaginas and anuses regularly, and have inserted tubes into every open orifice. And one thing I have learned with all this unsolicited familiarity with people’s bodies is that genitals are just another body part. People’s genitals are surprisingly similar, and there is nothing particularly mysterious, sinful, shameful, or amazing about your particular set. It is just another part of you, like your ear, or your stomach, or your liver, or your little toe. As such, your reproductive system is entitled to health care that allows it to function at its optimum level, just as we provide care to your digestive system to help it achieve its highest level of function. There is no one protesting outside the bariatric surgeon’s office that obese people should have to suffer the consequences of their behavior. It is unfair and unhealthy to pretend that someone’s sexual organs are somehow less important or less entitled to health care than other body parts.
If we are going to start refusing health care to people whose conditions were avoidable or caused by lifestyle choices, then we should start with people who have lung cancer from smoking tobacco, liver cancer from alcohol abuse, cataracts from not protecting their eyes from UV light, cellulitis from not properly controlling their blood sugar, and the list goes on. Those who would like to be first on the list to not receive healthcare because their condition was caused by preventable lifestyle factors such as poor diet or lack of exercise may sign up in the comments section below.
Nurses for Social Justice 