It’s been happening since the beginning of time. Women
stand in the way of their own progress. When some women fought for the
right to vote, other women opposed women suffrage – even going so far as
releasing pamphlets
like this one stating all the reasons why women should not have the
right to vote. Yeah…. WOMEN did that.
When some women fought for the right to hold a job without
being subjected to sexual harassment and sexual violence, other women told
those ladies to sit down and shut up, because they had jobs and they should
count themselves lucky.
And while some women fight for the right to safe, legal
access to family planning services, other women fight to
criminalize any woman who needs or wants these services.
But today, there is a newly realized (but not newly
practiced) form of social humiliation and injustice for women: Birth
Rape. And like with everything else, some
women want to make these women victims all over again by denying that such
thing exists.
Birth rape is a term that many women apply to the treatment
they may have suffered under the care of a maternity provider who forced,
coerced, and/or threatened their way into a woman’s genitals without her
expressed permission. Make no mistake – this
is a criminal act. A woman whose provider performs procedures on her
against her will is in violation of the law and the AMA and ACOG Codes of
Ethics. It is grounds for criminal assault charges, malpractice filings
and loss of license. Even in cases where a women may not suffer any
long-term physical damage from the act, these incidents can cause extreme
physical and emotional trauma on a woman. These events can cause a woman
to develop Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder, or suffer from long term anxiety, depression,
and fear. These events should not be tolerated by a civilized society.
But they are. Why? Because some women refuse to
acknowledge the suffering. Instead, they blame the mother for her
feelings. They tell her “at least you had a healthy baby, who cares
what happened in the process?” They so eloquently tell her to “shut
the fuck up” when she talks about her genitals being forcibly touched,
entered, or even cut open. They tell her that she is not allowed to call
what happened to her “rape” – and that her attacker “had the best of intentions”
so they couldn’t possibly be to blame. They marginalize her – the way
women have always done to other women when they don’t understand, empathize, or
care what has been done to them. It is too difficult to see the truth, so
they choose not to.
But don't get me wrong - A woman does not have to experience any negative feelings
from a cesarean, or any other type of birth for that matter. Furthermore, a
mother does not have to experience any type of forced non-consensual treatment
to feel a great sense of loss or depression over an unhappy birth
experience. A mother is entitled to feel anything she needs to about the
birth she had. It is HER birth. HER feelings. HER
right.
But so many women will not allow a mother to have negative
feelings about her own birth experience. And of course, this upsets me a
great deal. Unrecognized and untreated feelings of loss, depression,
and/or violation can send a mother spiraling deeper into an emotional
chokehold. Her very real, and very justifiable feelings are invalidated
by some uneducated and ignorant voices. She may feel isolated,
misunderstood, and shamed. Some women never have children again because
they cannot bear to revisit the scene of the attack (i.e. a hospital.)
Some women choose to give birth without the supervision of any care provider
whatsoever because they cannot trust anyone to keep them safe. Some rise
up and empower themselves to achieve a birth experience that helps heal their
wounds. And some women try again, only be set up to fail by a system that
does not respect their need for bodily integrity or autonomy.
No woman should have to feel violated during her
birth. And I will not rest until this very real epidemic has the
recognition that every other act of sexual misconduct has. If the
suffragists or the Lois Jensens of the world agreed to “Shut the fuck up”
because some ignorant women didn’t want to rock the boat, imagine where we’d be
today.
Whether you are a doctor who thinks they have the right to
violate women’s bodies against their will, or you are another woman who
believes that doctors should have the right to do whatever they want to other
women, I only have to say this: NO MEANS NO – regardless of the
medical degree.
______________________________
If you are a mother who has suffered some form of birth
trauma, or unresolved feelings about a negative birth experience, please know
that you are not alone. Help is out there. Here are a few resources to
help you begin healing:
Solace for
Mothers – Healing after Traumatic Childbirth
International Cesarean
Awareness Network – Cesarean Recovery and VBAC Support
Citizens for Midwifery – Article on filing a formal complaint against a provider
BirthCut – “The Ax
Forgets, the Tree Remembers”
The Unnecesarean – A Resource for the Latest in Maternity News, Studies, and Information


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