Children in the dark
Date: 01-07-2025
If I come to you and tell you that you need to take a pill.
The reasons are multi-layered.
Yes, you will feel very sick for some months but it is also so pertinant that you do this.
It is very important for the familial and social fabric that you do this. It is for the greater good.
In the long scheme of things, you will be thankful you went through it.
It will give your life meaning.
It is only a few months of inconvenience.
It will be very rewarding in the end. For everyone, especially for you.
Will you take it?
How would you feel 20 years down the line when you realize that the pill actually had life-long effects that you were never made aware of? That there is no going back.
Do you think you are more likely to take the pill if you are kept in the dark about the long-term effects on your body and health?
Do you think you might still take the pill even if I were to educate you on the side-effects honestly and sincerely? Maybe you can prepare yourself better and take on the needed precautions if you know more? Maybe you want to check your family health history once again?
Would you still like to know about the potential side-effects even if you are confident that they wont effect you; that you are not going to be part of the “bad” statistics? but maybe it will effect half of your friends if they took the pill I am offering? you will be okay so you dont have to care…
Do you think it is at least good to have the choice?
Rather than feeling used, would it be better if I care about your humanity and your bodily autonomy?
Do you think it is fraud if I am not honest to you?
The moral of this story: making an educated choice motivated by your own experiences and needs is better than the one you are forced to make in the dark.
This is the story of every woman who has or wants to have children…
We are not new to exclusion and marginalisation as women….we have centuries to catch up on.
In a time where AI robot girlfriends are already available for men, we still dont know much about women’s health. I suppose it is easier for men to do this than to let go of the convenience dehumanisation of women brings them.
While talking to my mother about recent changes in her health, I realised that one of the problems she is dealing with comes directly from giving birth to a large number of children. She (or her doctor) never connected it to that. Her doctor resorted to the usual insulting behavior of invalidation and shunning. Told her to “avoid stress” and to seek psychological help instead…which in Pakistani cultural context (where therapy and mental health are tabooed topics) translates to a doctor giving her professional analysis as “you are crazy”. What does a woman who was not even allowed to finish high school and has no socioeconomic power to do with this ruling about her “very very personal” problem that already took so much courage to talk about…? All she can do is to go home and suffer in silence and pain…with ever-increasing fear and self-doubt…
Most of us women are very accustomed to these treatments when interacting with the medical field…or the wider society…
Recent research on pregnancy and childbirth has shown that their effects are not only limited to the few months after giving birth in the form of postpartum complications. A large number of health effects are life-long and can appear in various ways decades afterwards.
I dont see this being discussed anywhere; neither the popular media nor the doctor offices most women go to get counselling. Evolution might have prefered fetus survivial at the expense of maternal health but the choices human “civilisation” continues to make deserve to be analyzed.
I dont even know where to begin for the women in Pakistan…I will do another post on some of the horrors and practices around just childbirth that I know of.
The power of knowledge and choice is seemingly kept out of reach for half the population on this planet…
Seems like external elements have decided that it is better to make you have children in the dark…