In India, a woman’s body is pretty much considered public domain. She is told how it should look like, what it should be clothed in, what she should and shouldn’t do with it. Most importantly, she must never forget her body’s chief duty of reproduction.
A woman’s refusal to bear children sends society into an overdrive. Abortion is still a word whispered in hushed tones, lest it give women the idea that they’re free to do what they want with their bodies. Birth control, clearly, is not a concept easily grasped by our country.
In the end, the oppressive patriarchal notions dictate what a woman should or should not do with her body. And her choice is left unconsidered, unspoken even.
While we speak of India, the debate on body autonomy rages on in other parts of the world too, including the United States of America. And Twitter user @salstrange emphasised on just how important an issue it is with a powerful thread about her mother.
Let’s talk about what having body autonomy can mean to a woman’s life. I want to share something my mom didn’t tell me until I was almost 40.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
Back in her mother’s time, women weren’t always as assertive about their bodies and their rights. They mostly followed what their doctors and elders advised them to do.
My mom was 20 when she had me. She wasn’t an assertive young woman. Unlike me, she mostly deferred to authority, especially her own doctors.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
In the case of Salome’s mother, her birth control wasn’t working effectively because of another medication that she was taking. Therefore, all her pregnancies were unplanned.
She hadn’t planned to get pregnant with me. She didn’t plan any of her pregnancies, in fact, but she was unaware that her birth control was frequently being rendered ineffective by medication she was prescribed for a chronic problem at that phase of her life.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
Being pregnant at 20 is not unheard of. And one might argue that she was married too, so there really was nothing to worry about. Alas, it wasn’t about her social standing, but her physical health.
Salome’s mother’s pregnancy was a complicated one and she suffered a lot.
Her pregnancy with me was utterly miserable. She actually lost weight while pregnant. The delivery was problematic and she had to stay in the hospital for a long time after I was born. I was actually ready to go home before she was, but they kept me there until she was released.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
A lot of times, having a difficult first pregnancy might deter women from wanting a second child. And it seems only fair. Would you want to willingly do something that might have put your life at risk once, again?
And so, Salome’s mother approached her doctor with the proposition to tie her fallopian tubes so she could prevent further pregnancies.
Afterward, my mother was convinced she didn’t ever want to go through that again. She was exhausted, depressed, and terrified. She asked her (Catholic, old, white male) doctor if she could get her tubes tied.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
What followed, instead of understanding and support, was rebuke and shaming.
Her doctor yelled at her for her selfishness at wanting to deny my father future children — especially a son — and shamed her for even thinking about not wanting more children when she should be “embracing her new role in life as a mother.”
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
Wanting a son isn’t just an Indian obsession. A son to carry forward the legacy was still quite the universal notion even now. And the doctor played onto those emotions to influence the woman’s decision.
What’s more, he blamed her work for the stressful pregnancy!
He also added that her pregnancy might not have been so stressful if she’d stopped working entirely.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
The shaming worked. Salome’s mother was too embarrassed to broach the topic again. Meanwhile, she sunk further into depression.
My mother was so ashamed by how her doctor made her feel that she didn’t tell my father or my grandmother or her best friend about any of it. This complicated her depression.
I’m not going to get into how this affected her support relationships or parental bonding. But it did.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
Her ineffective birth control and lack of medical assistance led to Salome’s mother getting pregnant multiple times in the next five years.
Two miscarriages and one successful pregnancy it took a massive toll on her.
Over the next five years my mother was pregnant three more times. Two were horrific miscarriages that caused her a great deal of pain and emotional and physical trauma. The third resulted in my brother.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
This time, however, her doctor was a different one, who sympathised with her situation. He understood what the woman had been through since her first pregnancy, recognised her need for help, not just for her physical but also mental health.
For my brother’s delivery, her regular doctor was on vacation. A younger doctor filled in for her (again, stressful and difficult) delivery. The younger doctor was much more sympathetic and supportive.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
Following my brother’s birth, she mustered the courage to ask him about having a tubal ligation again. She did so in absolute fear for her life convinced her next pregnancy might actually kill her.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
Can you imagine, having been spurned once before, the amount of courage it must have taken her to ask for it again? But she did.
And this time, her doctor did not fail her.
Thankfully, the new doctor was not just appalled at how her concerns had been regarded, but also recognized she needed help with her depression and other issues.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
After all these years, all the threats to her life, and being denied the choice to do what she wanted with her body, Salome’s mother could finally exercise her choice.
It was only at this point — after two children, two miscarriages, and five years of life-threatening trauma, terror, and shame, that she was able to have her choice over her own body respected.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
In the tweets that follow, Salome fairly condemns how her mother’s first doctor’s actions, supposed to be ‘in her best interest’, actually ended up destroying her personal relationships, and physical and mental well-being.
Her first doctor used his authority to put her life in danger, to weaken the bonds she formed with me, to make her fear being intimate with my father, and to shame her into not confiding in her support system.
He did this out of what he considered her best interest.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
The doctor’s shaming of a woman who wanted to make a choice for her own body left a forever impact on her family’s dynamic.
How this one man’s arrogance and indifference to my mother’s body autonomy influenced my entire primary family unit cannot be overstated.
We have no idea how many other women he exercised such influence over.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
A new mother in her 20s was left unsupported, riddled with shame, and fighting alone with her depression. All this as her relationship with her newborn daughter suffered under strain.
So when old white men disguise their pathetic misogyny as concern for unborn children, I think of my mother at 20, sobbing alone in shame and depression and helplessness and terror while dealing with the stress of being a new mother.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
And when I hear smug right wing women spew their toxic bile about how it “infantilizes women” to recognize not every young woman can say no to male authority, all I hear is that they’d be okay with my mother facing a death sentence for acquiescing to the authority of her doctor.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
But here’s the saddest part. Right before her tubal ligation procedure, Salome’s mother got pregnant again, despite taking birth control.
Because even now, no medical professional had informed her that her birth control pills were rendered ineffective by the other medication she was taking!
But here’s the most horrific footnote. Before my mother was deemed healthy enough to have her tubal litigation surgery she got pregnant again (that’s number five and she’s been on birth control the whole time because no one’s bothered to tell her that her meds negate the pill).
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
But thanks to a supporting family, she was able to opt for an abortion and save herself from further distress.
Mercifully, my father and grandmother, aware of what was happening with her at this point, fully supported her terminating. She and my father just stopped sex entirely until she was well enough for the final surgery because who the hell knew anymore.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
In her concluding tweets, Salome, while thankful for her life and her brother’s, wishes her mother could’ve had the choice to not have her children if she didn’t want to. Nobody should’ve made her choice for her.
I like being alive. Love my family and friends. Love my brother. And I believe my mother had every right to never have me and should never have had that choice made for her.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
She even addresses how so many women who end up with unwanted pregnancies due to all the terrible things that happen to them are denied the choice of what to do with their bodies.
It could be for their physical health or their mental health, but the choice must be accorded to them, minus the stigma and shame, to do what they want with their bodies.
Too many women live through her kind of shame and terror. Too many more have it worse. Still others have to deal with additional horrors like spousal or date rape when facing the biggest health altering choices of their (often too young) lives.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
For a closing argument, Salome pretty much nails the message, loud and clear.
In closing, fuck every arrogant forced birth pontificator that walks the earth and thinks they get to rule over someone else’s body autonomy.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
— Salome Strangelove (@salstrange) September 6, 2018
No, Salome. Thank you.
The Twitter thread evoked a lot of support from women and men who were strongly pro-choice and believed that no one should make a decision about what a person gets to do with their body, but themselves.
I'm miffed that we even have to talk about this. SERIOUSLY??? What decade is this?????
— Anna Banana (@IllegitimateDJT) September 6, 2018
Here is a frightening story and example of where rolling back women’s right instead of advancing them has terrifying affects because of one male doctor domineering his patient. https://t.co/B08d26lxE4
— Speaking my truth… (@DianaGartside) September 7, 2018
Many remarked how this story shuts down all the people who shame/judge women who do not want kids.
https://twitter.com/MoniPri_/status/1038124286307917824
It is not selfish. It is a choice.
https://twitter.com/blue18bonnetame/status/1038122028933492738
Giving women the choice…
https://twitter.com/phillylauren/status/1038047517215211520
Many women shared their own stories of difficult pregnancies and how having a choice changed or could have changed their story.
My grandma wanted to go on birth control after her 5th child was born. She almost died and her baby wasn’t well either. Her priest said no. They changed their religion and she lived until her 80’s. No one should have to be pregnant if they don’t want to.
— teresa k timmons (@t1stev) September 7, 2018
I have a friend in her early 20s with 4 kids who can't find a doctor who'll tie her tubes because they all say "she might change her mind." She already has 4 fucking kids! The last 2 were seriously difficult pregnancies. How dare they act like they know her better than she does?
— Myoclonic Jerk (@adrean_shirra) September 7, 2018
Reproductive autonomy isn’t just for single women.
We usually think of reproductive autonomy for single women. But as this thread shows, it’s vital for married women too. And it’s absence 3choes through the family, the generations. https://t.co/c37SENLvdF
— Dr Amussen: end patriarchy & racism (@susandamussen) September 8, 2018
The message is loud, clear and impactfully delivered.
Let’s respect every women who decide to have or not to have children! Please read this thread and understand. https://t.co/LEhD6ONouN
— AJ (@ajengdee) September 7, 2018
Her body, her choice. Okay?