Post by leenahyena05 on Jul 14, 2011 10:58:41 GMT -5
I have seen over half a dozen doctors about it over the course of four years, yet have had no luck in any approval for sterilization. Not only have I been denied sterilization, some physicians have even tried to deny me temporary methods of birth control. What do they do to try to convince me that I don't want sterilization, that they know my decision better than I do? They tell me that I'll regret it in five years, in ten years, like most women do.
I have read the statistics on post-sterilization regret (Try the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology here: journals.lww.com/greenjournal/pages/default.aspx), and the first thing that I call them out on is the fact that no report of post-sterilization regret that has ever been done in history has shown regret in any more than 20% of subjects. 20%, hardly a majority, and not nearly a percentage large enough to justify saying that "most" will regret it.
1 in 5, however, is still considerable. But, of course, the 4 in 5 that do NOT regret their sterilization is four times as considerable. And there is something very damning about those 4 in five as well as that one in five: They had children to begin with.
Sterilization in childfree women is so rare that we really have no idea how many of them regret their sterilization, there are too few data to make any generalizations about it. So, the statistics that people gather about women who have been sterilized are gathered from women who had children before they were sterilized. Apparently, one in five of them go on to desire more children.
Now I ask: is there not a fundamental difference between these two groups, the women who do not want children and those who do or did at some point? Will a woman who has decided to remain childfree be more likely to stay childfree for the next five, ten, fifteen years than a woman who has decided not to remain childfree?
For me, I take ethical issue with reproduction. This is not likely to change in my future, for I have heavily researched the pros and cons of both options in the large picture of what will overall benefit the world, the people in it, and me. If someone can give me a reason to reproduce that is both rational and ethical I would be willing to revise my research, but there yet exists no such reason. And then, on top of it all, I simply do not want children. So, if someone can convince me that reproduction is both rational and ethical, I still would not have them because I think people who do not want children should be the last to have them.
However, there are some women who have already convinced themselves that having children would be beneficial and, in general, a good thing to do. Those are the ones that are studied in post-sterilization regret research. Of any group of women one could possibly choose as a subject, it seems to me that the women who take no issue with reproduction, who have already had children, would be the most likely group to experience regret over their sterilization. And, within this group, only one in five actually does regret it.
Where are the childfree left? The childfree are left bundled into a statistical minority from which they fundamentally differ in the first place. They are not treated as individuals, they are treated as statistics, with the idea that a statistic will better convey their identities than a personal understanding of said identities. Next time your doctor tells you that you will regret your sterilization, because 1 in 5 women do regret it, ask that doctor what he or she said to the last 4 women who came in requesting the same thing. Chances are, the treatment was the same, and that one in five has been inflated to five in five by the doctor's own cognitive dissonance.
I do not mean to imply that the only women who should be refused sterilization are those that already have children. I am simply implying that I do not believe that my moral code and conviction on the issue has anything in common with someone who has reproduced, because their conclusion is diametrically opposed to mine. Therefore, I do not believe that anyone should expect my choices to in any way statistically resemble the choices of someone with children. Of course, sterilization is something to which ALL women should have easy access, regardless of their parent-status, and it is a choice that, if regretted, one should be willing to accept was her own choice (You don't get mad at your tattoo artist if you decide you do not like your tattoo in ten years). I don't feel, however, that a doctor should blindly assume that I will regret not having children just because women who have had children tend to regret not having more.
However, I would like to open this up to discussion on this statistic that always seems to be the fall-back for any physician who is talked into a corner when confronted with a woman requesting sterilization: Is it misleading that the subject group is always women who have already had children? And, I reiterate; Is there not a fundamental difference between women who do have children (wanted them in the first place) and women who do not (did not want them in the first place) that would predispose them to having radically different rates of post-sterilization regret?
I have read the statistics on post-sterilization regret (Try the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology here: journals.lww.com/greenjournal/pages/default.aspx), and the first thing that I call them out on is the fact that no report of post-sterilization regret that has ever been done in history has shown regret in any more than 20% of subjects. 20%, hardly a majority, and not nearly a percentage large enough to justify saying that "most" will regret it.
1 in 5, however, is still considerable. But, of course, the 4 in 5 that do NOT regret their sterilization is four times as considerable. And there is something very damning about those 4 in five as well as that one in five: They had children to begin with.
Sterilization in childfree women is so rare that we really have no idea how many of them regret their sterilization, there are too few data to make any generalizations about it. So, the statistics that people gather about women who have been sterilized are gathered from women who had children before they were sterilized. Apparently, one in five of them go on to desire more children.
Now I ask: is there not a fundamental difference between these two groups, the women who do not want children and those who do or did at some point? Will a woman who has decided to remain childfree be more likely to stay childfree for the next five, ten, fifteen years than a woman who has decided not to remain childfree?
For me, I take ethical issue with reproduction. This is not likely to change in my future, for I have heavily researched the pros and cons of both options in the large picture of what will overall benefit the world, the people in it, and me. If someone can give me a reason to reproduce that is both rational and ethical I would be willing to revise my research, but there yet exists no such reason. And then, on top of it all, I simply do not want children. So, if someone can convince me that reproduction is both rational and ethical, I still would not have them because I think people who do not want children should be the last to have them.
However, there are some women who have already convinced themselves that having children would be beneficial and, in general, a good thing to do. Those are the ones that are studied in post-sterilization regret research. Of any group of women one could possibly choose as a subject, it seems to me that the women who take no issue with reproduction, who have already had children, would be the most likely group to experience regret over their sterilization. And, within this group, only one in five actually does regret it.
Where are the childfree left? The childfree are left bundled into a statistical minority from which they fundamentally differ in the first place. They are not treated as individuals, they are treated as statistics, with the idea that a statistic will better convey their identities than a personal understanding of said identities. Next time your doctor tells you that you will regret your sterilization, because 1 in 5 women do regret it, ask that doctor what he or she said to the last 4 women who came in requesting the same thing. Chances are, the treatment was the same, and that one in five has been inflated to five in five by the doctor's own cognitive dissonance.
I do not mean to imply that the only women who should be refused sterilization are those that already have children. I am simply implying that I do not believe that my moral code and conviction on the issue has anything in common with someone who has reproduced, because their conclusion is diametrically opposed to mine. Therefore, I do not believe that anyone should expect my choices to in any way statistically resemble the choices of someone with children. Of course, sterilization is something to which ALL women should have easy access, regardless of their parent-status, and it is a choice that, if regretted, one should be willing to accept was her own choice (You don't get mad at your tattoo artist if you decide you do not like your tattoo in ten years). I don't feel, however, that a doctor should blindly assume that I will regret not having children just because women who have had children tend to regret not having more.
However, I would like to open this up to discussion on this statistic that always seems to be the fall-back for any physician who is talked into a corner when confronted with a woman requesting sterilization: Is it misleading that the subject group is always women who have already had children? And, I reiterate; Is there not a fundamental difference between women who do have children (wanted them in the first place) and women who do not (did not want them in the first place) that would predispose them to having radically different rates of post-sterilization regret?
