Organizing My Thoughts

I did warn you that I was feeling quieter lately. And while I'm seeing more clearly, I'm still not finding a ton of things I want to write about here. Or, at least, I wasn't.

One of my cousins is pregnant (I have lots of cousins, mostly female, so this seems to happen a lot). She's been reading up on various things related to pregnancy, as a woman tends to do while she is pregnant. And she's been sharing some of those things with others, myself included.

One of the things she's shared has been about the NIH's conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (or VBAC). One of the big things that happened there was a discussion on the legal aspects of pregnant women's right of refusal of surgery (specifically in a VBAC situation). There was no definitive say about which way the law does or should go, just a minor mention that a pregnant woman may not have the right to refuse surgery based on the baby's right to life.

While I don't currently have this potential problem, the issue does grab my attention. Mostly because I see this as a potential slippery slope that could potentially lead to other medical decisions being taken out of any patient's hands and put firmly into the hands of a doctor.

This is not to say that I don't respect doctors or their training. I do. I know that they've had long years of training, at great expense. 4 years of college plus another 4 of medical school to start. Once they've finished medical school, they have another couple of years practicing under someone else before they become a full fledged doctor. I know all this because at one point, I wanted to be a doctor (or a nurse).

I know that there are plenty of great doctors out there. Most doctors have a passion for healing people. I know that doctors aren't trying to harm their patients. And I've always had doctors that I felt I could trust. Be that as it may, I still don't want a doctor to decide that he (or she) knows better than me what is right for me and my child.

I don't want the potential for a lawsuit be what sways a doctor, hospital, insurance company, or a lawmaker to decide that my rights, as a person and a parent, are not important enough for me to make an informed decision. I'd rather not hear that pregnancy equals mental instability (or whatever legal term that would take a person's right to make a decision be taken away from them). I just hope and pray that this issue will find a way to be peacefully resolved.

Until it is, maybe I should be glad that I'm not pregnant right now, so this whole issue is just academic for me.