thinking, thinking

Well, working in the Office for Women and reading Germaine Greer has my mind going whir, whir, whir. Here’s what I think today:

Feminism has really fucking changed the world. There’s so much we still have to do, but damnit, we’ve come a long way. All these arguments about abortion, contraception, IVF – its all really the same argument: will we accept that technology coupled with advocated social change means that women can have any life they want – or won’t we.

I feel like screaming to conservatives, “The world’s changed, man, get over it!”

All this medical technology allows women to make good choices and to make bad choices and to try to change the consequences of their bad choices or to make a good choice that has unintended consequences. I hope that as time goes on and feminists keep writing their books and articles, we will learn from each other what kinds of choices tend to work and make us happy and what kinds don’t.

I was wavering over my position on the whole IVF and government funding it thing, but I think I’ve decided I’m for it – though I think more needs to be researched/said about how its probably really not good for a woman’s health and is pretty horrific and maybe should be limited. My arguments against were:

I don’t think you are supposed to get everything you want in life. It doesn’t seem right to be able to buy yourself everything your heart desires, baby included. Especially as that has implications for only rich people getting what they want

It isn’t a life-threatening procedure, so if you are that desperate to have a baby, fund it yourself.

Having a baby is not a human right.

For fuck’s sake, adopt – there’re enough babies in the world. Let’s make that easier and cheaper.

We need to divorce parenthood from the biological thing. It doesn’t have to be your biological baby. It is your baby if you raise it.

But since I can’t understand the desperation to have a baby AT ALL I don’t think I can take that opportunity/choice away from the women who are that desperate to go through such a horrific procedure for such a long time with such a little chance of success. And having the government fund it makes it more accessible to poorer mothers, though maybe not as it is still quite expensive.

If contraception and abortion services are government funded then IVF probably should be too.

I’ve been thinking today that though on the one hand technology raises so many ethical issues, the reality is that we’ve created it to use and we’ve already so much changed the “natural” way of living that we should go forward and see where our human brains take us.

I agree with Greer that in an ideal world we wouldn’t need technology to help us have the lives we want because we wouldn’t do things like get pregnant when we weren’t meant to, we could easily raise babies and work or not work without conflict, etc. But since this isn’t likely to ever happen – as long as the world is so unequal and male-dominated – we’ll need the technology to enable us to make the choices we want.

And one last thought: Hand up if you feel mature enough/old enough to have a baby. I’m 30 and I don’t feel nearly mature enough. I find the whole having babies too late thing an interesting concept. Our culture has created “young womanhood”; our culture has allowed us to remain immature, or acknowledge our immaturity, or acknowledge our desires to remain young and free as long as possible. I love that, but how does that reconcile with the fact that at 35, when you might actually decide you’re ready, your too old. How else do you deal with that other than IVF? See, we’re changing the world so fast, nature can’t keep up!!