From Feministing:
Careful, or you’ll regret not reproducing.
“For once, I’m not talking about the anti-choice movement. American Sexuality magazine has a piece describing one young woman’s travails in finding a doctor willing to perform a tubal ligation on her. She’s in her early 20s, and absolutely, positively, 100% certain she never wants children. Never.
Seems perfectly logical to me that she’d want her tubes tied. After all, birth control is expensive. And can be a nuisance. If you know you won’t want kids, why wait another 10 years to have this surgery? Maybe because doctors are refusing to perform it on her”
I can relate to this story. I’ve always known I never wanted children. And I also had difficulty making a doctor believe it.
As far back as I can remember I knew I’d never have children. I didn’t like playing with baby dolls because it was pretending I had a baby and that was “icky”. I preferred my stuffed animals because to me animals were better than babies. No one believed that I wouldn’t have children when I grew up. My parents stopped mentioning it because I got so fired up when they suggested otherwise. The other adults around me told me over and over again that I’d change my mind. I was too young to know if I wanted children. They knew better than I.
But I knew they were wrong. I learned to keep quiet about it as a girl because children weren’t supposed to talk back to grown ups. As a teenager I was told I’d change my mind when I fell in love and got married. After marrying I was told I’d change my mind after a few years. I was consistently told when I turned 30 I would start wanting children. Since I’ve passed 30 I’m told I’ll start wanting children any day now.
Before we got married I made sure Mr. Radical knew I never wanted children. It didn’t seem fair to marry someone without disclosing this up front. He didn’t want kids either so we’re well matched. After being married a few years we had grown tired of birth control and condoms and decided to find a more permanent solution. Mr. Radical suggested he get a vasectomy since it was less invasive than getting my tubes tied. I’m still touched that he volunteered to do this because not all men would.
Mr. Radical called a vasectomy clinic. When the receptionist found out his age and his wife’s age she asked that I come with him to the appointment. This was the first warning sign. We both had a feeling we were going to face opposition. And we were right. The doctor sat us both down and told us we were awfully young to be making such an important decision. (I was 24, Mr. Radical was 28 at the time.) Surely, we would change our minds when we got older. We should wait until we were in our 40s before deciding to do the vasectomy. Better yet, wait until we were in our 50s because his clients were normally in their 50s to 60s when they got the procedure done. We should have some kids first and then come back for a vasectomy when we were sure we didn’t want any more.
I wanted to scream. Here it was all over again-the lecture I had been getting my entire life. You’ll change your mind. Everyone has children. Of course you’ll want children someday. When you turn 30 you’ll want children. If you don’t have children you’ll regret it when you’re older. Who will take care of you when you’re old? Don’t you want a family? What’s wrong with you that you don’t like children? Everyone loves babies, why don’t you?
I remember grinding my teeth and gripping the sides of the plastic chair to control my temper which was close to boiling over. This man had something I wanted. He had the power to take away procreation. I didn’t want to go back on birth control-it made me cry for no reason.
As the doctor kept lecturing us it become apparent that he didn’t want to give Mr. Radical the vasectomy. I tried telling him I didn’t want children, that I never wanted children, that I was absolutely, 100% sure I would never, ever want children. He ignored me. My protestations made him lecture more.
Mr. Radical saved the day. In a very calm, cold voice he said, “Look. You know that woman Susan Smith? I think if I had children I’d put them in a car and drown them in a lake just like she did.”
The doctor’s face paled considerably. He stared at my husband. There was a resolute look in my hubby’s eyes as he stared back. The doctor cleared his throat and said he’d do the procedure but I’d have to wait in the lobby.
Part of my was still pissed. Why was all my protestations ignored while my husband’s wasn’t? But mostly I was so happy I could cry. Finally, no more worries about birth control! When it was over the doctor called me back into his office. He wanted me to know that many vasectomies were reversible. My anger flared up again but Mr. Radical was feeling pretty tender so I didn’t stay to argue.
I’m 31 now and am still being told I will want children one day. It’s still infuriating and disrespectful. Is this a feminist issue? Definitely. When women’s feelings and beliefs are habitually discounted or outright ignored it becomes a feminist issue. Sure, compared to abortion, equal pay and sexual harassment disregarding women’s childfree choice may not seem as pressing. But reproductive freedom is a huge issue and sadly still unattainable for many women. How can women expect to gain reproductive rights when their beliefs on reproducing are so continually ignored?
What to do then? How can we change the situation? First by fighting for our reproductive rights-for the freedom to have children, to not have children, to have access to birth control, abortion and sex education. Feministing chronicles this fight well. But I think it’s also important to voice our feelings on these subjects. Make your voice heard. It gets tiring repeating to countless people that “No, I’m not having children.” But I do it over and over again. Why? Because as a feminist I believe a woman’s body is her own and she should be free to do with it as she pleases.
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To lighten the mood I’ll stick in this postscript. After a vasectomy a man has to bring in an ejaculate sample so they can test it to make sure the procedure was done properly. We were told the testing was done at the nearby hospital. After cumming the man has an hour to bring his sample to the hospital. For most men who live in cities this isn’t a problem. They can jerk off at home and bring in the cum sample with plenty of time to spare. Mr. Radical and I were living in the country at the time and were two hours away from the doctor’s office. You already know where this is going don’t you? We borrowed a van with no windows in the back. In the hospital visitor’s lot we parked, went to the back of the van and got that cum cup filled. We sat in the van for about 10 minutes to make sure the cum had cooled down a little before walking inside to save ourselves any embarrassment.
Posted by Vixen as Political Rants at 8:18 PM CDT