Comments on: Just when you forget how horrible and irresponsible women are with medical decisions, you can depend on the media to remind you

By: dew

dew — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:57:51 +0000

Isn’t a doctor coming along telling a woman who has just stated her experience with two births what’s “routine” and what’s not exactly the sort of overbearing bullying we’re complaining about here? Yes, they are routine. Maybe not 20 years ago and maybe not on the east coast. But the east coast 20 years ago is not my experience. And my experience is valid.

By: Cara

Cara — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:29:26 +0000

Indeed, Anna. Journalists are, in fact, professional writers. If they, or the copy editor, cannot come up with the word “unnecessary,” well . . . I don’t even know what to think. And though I know from living there for three years that Australians sometimes use words in ways that we might find unusual, “vain” is not one of them.

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 12:16:40 +0000

Michelle – I loudly applaud your comment.

As for the use of “vain” – it was NOT meant “in vain.”

By: Michelle

Michelle — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:22:15 +0000

My favourite quote about “socalised medicine” from a Mitt Rommney “vox pop”:

“Her friend Clare Roy said: “I don’t want socialised medicine. We’re free to go to the doctors we want and not be told by the government.”

*tries hard to remember when the Australian government last told me what doctor I had to go and see*

*gives up*

The most interesting thing about that comment is that it’s a lie. Sure the government is not telling you which doctor to go to. It’s some pen pushing office worker in an insurance company who decides what doctor you can go to (especially if you have an HMO). I have an American friend that has an extremely good health insurance policy and they still have to go to “their company’s” doctors.

US politicians make a lot of hay by telling voters that European socialised medicine is a terrible morass of government run hospitals which make you wait months and months for sub-standard treatment. They also claim that all medical decisions are made by faceless officials and that all doctors are somehow enslaved to the government.

Then again, they also claim that the rather tepid Clinton health care reform act of the 1990s was an attempt at a government takeover of US health care. Naturally, the lie has been repeated so often that most people automatically parrot it without actually knowing any details of the original plan. In any case, I find it funny that the women in the article who are in their 70s and likely on Medicare would be complaining about “socialised medicine”.

Jay – V. Baird reminds us that the medical profession has a large economic stake in retaining control over their patients – especially disabled and chronically ill patients – despite the fact that that most of the problems such people face are social and environmental. (Baird,1992,New Internationalist)

By: Ran

Ran — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:18:49 +0000

I think “vain” might have just been poor word choice; yes, it can have to do with vanity, but it can also have to do with pointlessness/futility (“a vain effort”), and I’m guessing (but obviously can’t know for sure) that’s what the headline writer was going for. Keep in mind that headlines are generally written to be as short as possible, and this is famous for introducing ambiguities that would easily be resolved by an extra word or more-precise-but-longer word.

(By the way, I’ve seen plenty of news articles complain about how stupid men are about medical decisions, e.g. choosing surgery for prostate cancer even when it’s sufficiently slow-growing that it’s likely never to be a problem. In all cases it would be nice if journalists simply stuck to the facts rather than advocating certain interpretations — e.g. that it’s the fault of patients rather than of medical professionals or of the structure of the health-care industry, or vice versa — but I don’t think this is a specifically sexist or misogynistic bias.)

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:18:04 +0000

Cara, I appreciate the clarification. It’s such a (needlessly) complex system. My profession has fought “socialized medicine” for over 60 years and we’ve succeeded – we don’t have government-run health care, we have corporate-run health care. Far worse in almost every way. This is one of the many reasons why I don’t belong to the county or state medical societies or the AMA.

By: Cara

Cara — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:12:04 +0000

Very scary. As I understand it, this is why a lot of doulas and other pregnancy advocates tell you to WAIT to go to the hospital instead of going as soon as you start having contractions.

By: brandann

brandann — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:54:49 +0000

VERY coincidental that you post this today. a friend of mine is getting ready to have a baby, just took her “labour and delivery” tour, at the end of which you fill out all of you pre-reg. forms. at the bottom of the form it reads “you have the right to refuse any medical treatment”. well, we are active duty. a lot of rules don’t apply to us. so my friend asked, “does this apply to active duty as well?”, and the nurse shot her a look. then answered, “no, active duty personel have no say whatsoever in their health care”. when she informed the nurse that she was active duty, and didn’t want pitocin or to “force” her baby to come b/f he is ready (her second, btw), the nurse told her, “you get five hours to deliver, and then we do a c-section. end of argument”. now i understand forcing service members to get vaccines and such, but this seems pretty unreasonable to me. also, it is a teaching hospital, and we are not allowed to refuse treatment by a student. not exactly on topic…but a strange coincidence…and an example of forced c-sections.

By: Cara

Cara — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:33:54 +0000

For the record, I mean the “birth is over-medicalized because it makes more money that way” comment as a criticism of hospitals, not doctors, but I can see how that might have been unclear. And the “many doctors don’t listen to their patients, particularly female ones” comment should actually say “medical staff” instead of doctors, because I have been in my share of hospitals and nurses and lab technicians are very often just as bad with acting like they know when a patient is in pain better than the patient does, not telling the patient what is happening, etc., as doctors are.

That’s my bad.

By: Mary Tracy9

Mary Tracy9 — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 23:25:16 +0000

JESUS CHRIST! How do they DARE say it’s women’s fault with all the women complaining they had an unnecessary c-section done without wanting to.

And at any rate, women’s voices are the LAST ONES being heard during labour.

Worse still, even if there were women out there getting c-sections out of “vanity”, it’s not difficult too work out WHY they would be concerned about their vaginas not being “the same”. HINT: MEN!.

Misogyny directed at mothers, the worst kind there is.