sexist

There are reasonable people on both sides of the abortion issue. And most women and men fall between the two extremes. I hope that you are able to steer clear of the extremes on both sides.

The people on the pro-life side are focused on the life of the developing fetus. It is a fact that abortion ends a life. There is room for different opinions on when this life becomes a human life.

The people on the pro-choice side are focused on the rights of the mother. It is a fact that an unwanted pregnancy puts a physical burden on a woman, and that many women want the right to end a pregnancy.

The rest of the name-calling is nonsense. Any reasonable discussion of abortion should focus on these two issues, not on "sexism" and "rape" and all of the other personal attacks on women and men who disagree.

Most Americans are somewhere in between the extremes They don't want abortion to be completely illegal. They do support legal restrictions on abortion, especially in the late stages of a pregnancy when a developing baby is more human and able to survive outside the womb.

This is a complicated issue. The name-calling on this thread (and elsewhere) isn't helpful to understand the different points of view, since reasonable people disagree.

i will protect myself but im sayin im still a vergin and i will be until i finally get married...then i will worry about this

I figured you were a virgin.

If I may ask, how old are you?

For a reference point when we're talking.

The War on Women's Health is Real.

Religious conservatives continue to push laws restricting access to women's healthcare across the
country. This short documentary brings attention to their efforts and outlines the importance of broad
access to contraceptive options.

Featured interviews include Rep. Lois Capps (CA-23), who as a former nurse has long been a leader on
women's health issues; Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY's List; and Dr. Kimberly Shepherd, an
OB/GYN who provides medical authority on issues that never should've been politicized in the first place.

Published July 30, 2012

In a real war, the participants all agree that they are fighting it. There is no one who says "I am fighting a war on Women's health". It is a made up political talking point.

When members of one ideological bubble invent a war, they use it as a political smear to attack people in the competing ideological bubble.

This is just a political talking point, no more real than the "war on Christmas".

I don't think our young Kaylie wants to be part of a war on anyone.

May 7 2019, 11:30am

The Outrageous Reasons These Women Couldn’t Get Their Tubes Tied
People are being denied tubal ligations because they're too young, childless, only have one child, aren't married—or for any other reason their doctor chooses.

Jay Levine, a 34-year-old in California, has tried to get her tubes tied three times over the course of 15 years. She still hasn’t been successful.

“The first time I casually mentioned it, I was 19 and a newlywed. My doctor told me that I had to either have kids already or be 25 to even consider it, that she would never do it on a teenager,” Levine says. “The second time, I was 26. That doctor told me that he didn't want to do it because he said, 'your husband is active duty [military]. What would you do if he was killed and you got remarried to a man who wanted kids?’” Levine walked out of the office and filed a complaint about him.

She ended up not having a ligation the third time she asked because of the way she was treated. “When I was 32, my doctor said that she only felt comfortable doing it because I have a history of mental illness and probably shouldn't have kids anyway,” she says. “As of now, at 34, I'm still trying to find a doctor who won't make me feel bad about being mentally ill or try to tell me I'm still too young.”

People who want their tubes tied (formally known as tubal ligation) can be denied the procedure for a multitude of reasons at various stages of their lives: because they’re too young, childless, only have one child, are not married, are married to someone with a risky job—the list goes on. Then there are insurance barriers: For those who have Medicaid, there’s a required 30-day waiting period between signing the consent form and having the procedure, whereas women with more expensive private insurance (and a willing doctor) can schedule it right away.

There is no good data on how many people are denied tubal ligation, as records on those matters aren’t kept in any kind of centralized database. In the most recent academic review of tubal ligations in the US, published in 2010, the authors found that the number of procedures performed annually declined from 687,000 in 1995 to 643,000 in 2006, despite a 4 percent population growth of women of child-bearing age during that period. (It’s worth noting, though, that an alternative—the sterilization implant Essure—was approved in 2004.)

Ariel Tazkargy, a health law attorney in Kansas City, Missouri, says these obstacles boil down to systemic patriarchal ideals and norms, and sexism at its base level. “People have so many opinions about women choosing to reproduce or not, and I think physicians in the position to make that decision are hesitant because they think a woman might regret it later,” she says. “And that comes down to: We don’t trust women. We don’t trust women to make choices for themselves.”

Tazkargy authored the 2014 paper “From Coercion to Coercion: Voluntary Sterilization Policies in the United States” while at the University of Michigan Law School. She says a lot of the policy in place surrounding things like the month-long waiting periods and signed permission forms months in advance were originally meant to prevent doctors from coercing women into sterilization against their will.

“They were well-intentioned to prevent the involuntary pressure for women to get sterilized,” Tazkargy says. “Women can have tubals sprung on them after birth or an unrelated surgery because doctors are already in there. The writing and waiting are meant to protect from that.”

Still, the policies that are in place vary by state, which means every experience will be different because there is so little regulation nationwide.

“There are states that don’t say anything about sterilization, and then it really is up to the physician to decide, and there is no check on that power,” Tazkargy says. “There are these rules that are unwritten, and whatever belief the physician holds, they get to evaluate whether or not the patient has legitimate reason.” People with low incomes, genetic disorders, and mental illnesses can be particularly discriminated against when seeking to get their tubes tied.

Even if women asking to get their tubes tied already have children, it might not make a difference—like in the case of Erin Thompson in Raleigh, North Carolina, who had the one child she wanted with her husband when she was 20.

“They told me I would need to see a psychologist to get cleared, and I had to write a two-page paper defending my need for this surgery,” Thompson says. “I spent two years trying to get them to give me one while I tried one terrible birth control [method] after another.”

Finally, her husband went to his doctor to ask for a vasectomy, which was completed a mere week later.

April Leamy was 24 with two children when she had a procedure to alleviate her endometriosis. She begged her North Carolina doctor to tie her tubes during that surgery, but he wouldn’t do it.

“I had my second child at 20. He was born with a severe brain malformation so I knew I didn't want any more kids after him,” Leamy says. “The doctor said he could not [perform the procedure] because I wasn’t 25, and I wasn’t married, and my [future] husband may want kids one day, and I'd change my mind.”

Leamy has since had three more children, none planned. She can’t be on the pill because of stroke risk, and other methods didn’t work for her. “We did try the progesterone-only [pill] but the breakthrough bleeding was constant,” she says. “Honestly, I love my kids, but I am also 100 percent sure I would not have planned for them.”

Melanie Greeke, who lives in Florida, had three children by the time she asked to get her tubes tied in her early 30s. Shortly after the Greekes found out they were pregnant with their third, they decided on vasectomy but they wanted to “double down” on protection, she says. Greeke had a tubal ligation right after her C-section and, later, she opted for a hysterectomy to treat endometriosis.

But her doctors made her husband give permission for both of the surgeries she wanted. “Pete had to sign off on my tubal, but I didn’t have to sign off for his vasectomy. He also had to give consent for my hysterectomy,” she says. Greeke blames her experience on being in the South and having military doctors and insurance.

Incredibly, having a medical need for ligation doesn’t interfere with a doctor’s right to refuse the procedure. Alexandra Sloan has a rare disorder called abetalipoproteinemia, also known as Bassen-Kornzweig syndrome, which makes getting pregnant dangerous and possibly fatal.

“There are only about 100 cases in the world,” Sloan says. “I don't digest fats or vitamins. I'm basically starving; getting pregnant could risk my life, plus I’m at high risk for bleeding.” She’s tried several different forms of the pill, an IUD, and the shot, none of which were right for her—they all made her feel sick, she says.

Sloan says she had to fight multiple doctors and insurance agents in central New York to get her tubes tied. It took her nearly ten years.

“The first time I was 25 or so...That time both the doctor and insurance refused, citing age, no children, no husband,” Sloan says. “The second time was at 33. The doctor wanted a full hysterectomy, but insurance said no, despite letters from my team of specialists. They refused multiple times because I was too young, and wasn't married. They made me sign plenty of papers and even called my boyfriend at the time and my mother, before they finally caved.”

Whatever the reason, many people just give up after being repeatedly denied permanent sterilization. That’s what Jackie Faulk Dotson did.

“I tried in vain to get my tubes tied when I was in my 20s,” Faulk Dotson says. “Back then, they wouldn’t even give you an IUD if you’d never given birth. Now I’m 45 and just running down the clock on the pill.”

She still doesn’t have kids. Because she never wanted kids.

When I asked to get my tubes tied, the doctor proceeded to ask me questions unlike any I’d ever heard at a medical appointment. “What if both your children were to die in a house fire?” he asked. “Are you sure you wouldn’t want more?”

He kept going. “You’re sure you understand that if we do this, you can never have children again? You definitely don’t want any more babies? You’re not going to change your mind? Have you talked to your husband about this?”

After asking me to imagine my children burning to death, and confirming that my husband was OK with my choice about my body, he scheduled me for the procedure. While my experience felt invasive and paternalistic, I was still approved after a single appointment. It was likely this straightforward because I’m 36, have two kids, and have been married to my husband for ten years—it seemed like my age and family status made the two male doctors and one male tech who interviewed me comfortable with allowing me to make this decision. But what about people who don’t meet the apparent benchmarks?

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) notes in a Committee Opinion that “until reproduction is equitable, or ‘unstratified’ (a long-term vision that requires the undoing of many social inequalities), some protections of women with publicly funded health insurance may be warranted. How to craft protections that do not also create barriers is unclear; the tension between liberal access and protective safeguards is difficult to ethically navigate and operationalize."

ACOG spokesperson and OB/GYN Alison Edelman says that, in her practice, they listen to women, provide all the options, and make a decision together with the patient. That decision, however, is sometimes hindered by federal and state insurances, including Medicaid, TriCare, The Indian Health Service, and the grant program Title X, which mandate a waiting period.

“Even though people believe in their rational mind that women should be allowed to determine their own families, this subconscious, two-parent, two-child family is pervasive,” Tazkargy says. “Doctors don’t want to permanently alter someone, but they do it all the time for other procedures, so what is it about women and birth?”

Edelman agrees that the well-intentioned rules now act more as barriers to bodily autonomy than protectors of it.

“In my experience, most women have thought about it for a long period. They give themselves their own waiting period [before bringing it up to their doctor],” says Edelman, who’s also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University. “There’s also a double standard because women on private insurance don’t have the [Medicaid] waiting period, and this creates a class barrier.”

“The hard part about contraception is that it’s preventing health outcomes like pregnancy, but it’s also a choice,” Edelman says. “Here is a shared decision between the doctor and patient. You are not treating a medical issue now, but preventing one.” Some doctors, she says, don’t feel comfortable aiding a preventative measure in such a permanent way.

So, what can people do if they want their tubes tied? “The people who can advocate for themselves better often do get the better care,” Edelman says, “and [doctors] need to be aware of helping women who don’t have that ability or capacity to advocate for themselves. We need to be able to say, ‘Here are your choices, here are your pros and cons. It sounds like you’ve been thinking about this forever.’”

Edelman also advises patients get a second opinion if they’re turned down, emphasizing that the goal is for people to feel secure in their choices and comfortable with their doctor. To that end, she stresses that people should have a relationship with their doctors, if they can. “It’s more likely you’ll get a procedure from someone you have a long-standing relationship with than someone you are seeing for the first time,” Tazkargy agrees, also noting that being able to regularly see a doctor is a privilege many don’t have.

“Unfortunately, it’s also a matter of being really articulate and convincing to a physician, which means only certain women have the ability to make that case—which women shouldn’t even have to make for themselves, but it is what it is right now.”

Consider this interaction.


It is not a good thing if doctors can no longer have honest discussions about the risks and benefits of medical procedures with their patients.

I understand Neptune is posting outrage porn. But this particular outrage can actually do damage to what we understand as the role of medical professionals in our society. If a woman or man doesn't have a respectful working relationship with their doctor, it is their responsibility to find a doctor they can work with.

If you really think your doctor is sexist, there is something you can do about it. If you think everything is sexist, maybe you have a problem.

Maybe there is a war on doctors.

Male patient: I'd like a vasectomy.
Doctor: Ok, is next week good?

Female patient: I'd like to get a tubal ligation.
Doctor: You’re sure you understand that if we do this, you can never have children again? You definitely don’t want any more babies? You’re not going to change your mind? Have you talked to your husband about this?

1. The medical facts are that vasectomies are easier to reverse, and that tubal ligation come with more surgical risks. That is no fault of anyone (not even the Romans)... that is just biology. If you think biology is sexist, I can't help you.

2. There also maybe your selection bias, I don't actually know how many doctors discuss the pros and cons of one type of surgery over the other.

3. Talking to a patient about risks and benefits of a surgical procedure is a doctor's job. If doctors were taking more time to talk to men about risks of an elective surgery then they were to women... then you would be right in declaring sexism. It seems like the opposite is the case you are trying to make.

If you are looking for sexism everywhere, you will find it everywhere. In this case you are arguing arguing that doctors should be less involved in medical decisions, it seems like you are arguing against the interests of women.

I am pointing out that a political ideology doesn't make logical sense... hmmmm.

Republican Dirty Tricks Shut Down Abortion Clinic.

Published on Feb 11, 2018

Capital Care was the last abortion provider in Toledo. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, the hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.

“COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court delivered a pair of blows to abortion clinics in Toledo and Cleveland on Tuesday.

In a 5-2 ruling, the high court upheld a state order shuttering Capital Care of Toledo, the northwest Ohio city’s last abortion clinic, in a decision the facility is expected to appeal.

Justices found that the Ohio Department of Health acted within its rights in 2014 when it decided to shut down Capital Care of Toledo. Justices say the clinic violated a requirement because it no longer had a valid patient-transfer agreement.

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor dissented in an opinion joined by former Justice William M. O’Neill, who submitted his opinion before resigning Jan. 26.

O’Connor wrote that Capital Care had complied with the state Health Department’s rule on transfer agreements and that it was only abortion-related restrictions tucked into the state budget in 2013 that required the partnering hospital to be “local.” She concluded those new laws were unconstitutional.

The restrictions mandated that clinics’ long-required transfer agreements be with local hospitals, and also barred public hospitals from providing them. The University of Toledo Hospital ended its transfer arrangement with Capital Care about two months before the law was enacted.

Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office asked the high court during oral arguments in September to override lower court rulings and uphold the state’s order. A lawyer for the clinic told the court that the state is trying to prevent women in northwestern Ohio from seeking legal abortions and is putting them at greater risk.”

The GOP's war on women is very much real. Don't believe us?
Watch this compilation of prominent Republicans
trashing everything from reproductive rights to equal pay.

Published on Oct 29, 2012

Oh no, the woman is not even asked "you're not going to change your mind?"
I, and I know many others that are told "you WILL change your mind"

I was told that when I was 24, and I had already known I didn't want children for 23 years

I knew it was futile, and fortunately my sexual partners had no problem with doing their part, and I eventually married a man that had already had a vasectomy 13 years prior (he didn't have a problem getting one at all)

Not at the time when I first expressed I wanted one, but over the years my thoughts were "You TELL me I'm going to regret it. But, whose regret will it be?" I really don't need anyone, let alone someone I see 2 or 3 times a year, if that, to save me from myself and any regrets I encounter in life.

One of the bad things about feminism is it teaches women not to be responsible for their own happiness. It is easier to complain about sexism rather than to take the steps to make things better for themselves. Men have traditionally been taught not to complain... and that seems to have remained the same in feminism.

I have had doctors do things I didn't like (understanding that doctors are human beings). If I don't like my doctor, I get a new. I don't think I have ever whined about a doctor (although I did have one who should have caught my appendicitis before it became a real problem).

You have a reading comprehension problem.



So, after fighting multiple doctors and insurance agents and taking nearly 10 years I think feminism teaches all women to be responsible for their own happiness. Obstacle after obstacle has to be overcome and eventually, the RIGHT of a woman to choose her body autonomy is recognized.

How is that "complaining about sexism" when in reality, women ARE "tak[ing]the steps to make things better for themselves"?

Even after showing you, time and time again, how women's rights are subjugated, you still use erroneous arguments that prove why feminist viewpoints are still needed.

Explain to me why most women (who aren't feminists) are very happy with their doctors? It seems like women who want to have no trouble finding doctors who aren't "sexist".

You are fixating on one story in an article trying to prove that doctors are sexist. You don't really know the story here nor do I. Clearly this woman is upset.

This is outrage porn. You look at single stories to fuel your anger, and you ignore the fact that most women are happy with their medical care, and that you are free to change doctors if you aren't.

You are outraged. Life goes on. If you scream about sexism in everything, you lose credibility in the areas of society that could be improved.

Sometimes it seems that outrage is more important than progress.

It is also ridiculous that feminists are comparing a vasectomy with tubal ligation.

A vasectomy can be done with local anesthesia, and inost cases it is reversible. A tubal ligation is a surgery with several days of recovery time.

Outrage is more important that scientific reality. Maybe you can say that biology is sexist... but what's the point?

I've posted many articles, blogs, videos, medical dissertations, clinical studies, polls, legal statutes & laws. You're right though, I am fixated on one story, it's the woman's story.

You seem fixated in proving there is no basis for doing so. As if it's not a story of importance, of concern, of hope for one day women will not have to fight for the same rights and enjoyments, responsibilities and obligations that men have.

I do what I do to ensure the next generation of women have choices, ones of great importance and small. And you'll still be fighting tooth and nail, to ensure that doesn't happen. That isn't progress, Max. That's being left in the dust.

Well stated.

Nonsense! what you are writing isn't about choices, it is about bitterness. You are complaining that doctors are sexist rather than simply finding a doctor who you respect.

Women have the same choices as men to choose their own doctor. Doctors have the same responsibility for men and women to act as a medical professional weighing the risks and benefits of surgical procedures.

I understand the pro-choice argument, but this new argument is absurd.

In the abortion argument, the rationale is that medical decisions should be left to a woman and her doctor. This is a reasonable argument.

But now you are saying that the doctors should be shut out of medical decisions. It is absurd.

If you don't like your doctor, get a new one. If multiple doctors are telling you the same thing, maybe it is something about you.

Saying that all doctors are sexist (this includes doctors who are women) is ridiculous.

Wow, look at you, acting all big & bad and indignant!

How DARE a woman make an active CHOICE to control her reproductive system! What, challenge a DOCTOR AND make a decision ALL BY THEMSELVES?

LUDICROUS! The sheer gall of those women!

Sheesh, don't women know a doctor knows EVERYTHING!