Thoughts: What I Say Is True (And That Means You Should Believe It)

[verasteine]

[Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault.]

So, choice.

I've been following, off and on, the abortion debates that are going on in the United States. Like most American things, I kind of watch these things with a bemused distance, because the alternative is endless frustration with a system that's not even mine. And most of the time, I

Comments

[eumelia]

The whole abortion debate in the the States is sick. The whole way sex crimes are frames is sick everywhere.

Despite how far we've come in the West when it comes to women's rights, we're still considered second class citizens when it comes to the autonomy of our bodies and if that isn't basic human rights, I don't know what is.

In Israel a woman between the ages of 19-45 has to lie to committee made out of a GP doctor, a social worker and another doctor of different qualification in order to get an abortion - because under and over those ages the committee will automatically stamp an approval and over between that age bracket the only way to get an automatic approval is through rape, incest and a danger to the mother's health (mental and physical). Despite the fact that more often than not the committee will approve the requested the abortions, the fact that they exist is utterly fucked up.

[verasteine]

Those committees are made worse by the fact that they're impersonal; how can three people who don't even know you decide about your life and health like that? God, that's awful.

Bodily autonomy would be a nice dream. What would also be a nice dream is knowing that a male doctor will believe me when I tell him my symptoms (don't get me started on that little can of worms.) In medical and justice cases, male privilege shows by far the most.

[marita_c]

Argh, THIS.

When I was still living in Israel I had an orthodox Jewish GP who decided that my (very first!) UTI was "just stress" because he couldn't bring himself to ask a teenage girl if she's sexually active.

Thankfully he's not the rule, but at the time that was hardly comforting.

[verasteine]

Oh, man. That's... Wow. That could potentially be really dangerous, if a doctor is unwilling to ask the important questions. And I can imagine that's not really reassuring either. It's tough enough to take stuff like that to a male doctor. To get fobbed off is even worse.

(This in opposition to the physiotherapist who refused to believe I hadn't been drunk and sprained my muscles due to alcohol-induced sleep. Oh, yes.)

[marita_c]

It's all female doctors for me these days. I find the whole experience a lot less stressful. I guess it's because I've just taken too much shit in the past, but I now become very combative around male authority figures and try to avoid them for everyone's sake.

[verasteine]

*nods*

If they are available, I see women doctors, too.