Anti-natalism is ultimately anti-human. One shouldn’t belittle or deman women form whom having children wasn’t in the cards, those who outright declare that pregnancy is a disease are indeed obsessively nuts. Such is the case of the authors of this little scholastic journal article declaring that pregnancy should be seen as a disease, normatively speaking.
“In this paper, we identify some key features of what makes something a disease, and consider whether these apply to pregnancy. We argue that there are some compelling grounds for regarding pregnancy as a disease. Like a disease, pregnancy affects the health of the pregnant person, causing a range of symptoms from discomfort to death. Like a disease, pregnancy can be treated medically. Like a disease, pregnancy is caused by a pathogen, an external organism invading the host’s body. Like a disease, the risk of getting pregnant can be reduced by using prophylactic measures. We address the question of whether the ‘normality’ of pregnancy, its current necessity for human survival, or the value often attached to it are reasons to reject the view that pregnancy is a disease. We point out that applying theories of disease to the case of pregnancy, can in many cases illuminate inconsistencies and problems within these theories. Finally, we show that it is difficult to find one theory of disease that captures all paradigm cases of diseases, while convincingly excluding pregnancy. We conclude that there are both normative and pragmatic reasons to consider pregnancy a disease.”
Right off the bat, the justification for this “normative” idea that pregnancy is a disease is to treat the perpetuation of the species as something abnormal…
“Imagine a patient who visits the doctor having an abdominal mass that is increasing in size, causing pain, vomiting and displacement of other internal organs. Tests are booked, and investigations are planned. But when the patient mentions that she has missed her period, these alarming symptoms suddenly become trivial. She is pregnant! No disease, nothing to worry about. But is this the right way to think about things?”
Yet even while calling pregnancy a “disease”, they note it has “subjective benefits”, such as reduction in lifetime risk of breast cancer, but that won’t let anyone get in their way to declare that pregnancy can be much worse and thus ought to be considered a disease on par with the measles. What’s worse, pregnancy is a sexist disease!
“However, unlike measles, pregnancy is a condition that affects only a certain group of people: those with female reproductive organs. Perhaps this partly explains why the risks involved in pregnancy are higher in places where women’s rights and independence receive less social and legal protection.”
They then go on to claim that disease itself is subjective and it’s only a disease if you don’t like it?
“A person who is happy to be pregnant may welcome even unpleasant symptoms such as stretch marks and nausea. The pain of childbirth may be treated as a badge of honour. Perhaps then, the ‘badness’ component of pregnancy can simply be disregarded in such cases. If so, a wanted pregnancy is not a disease, whatever its impact on a person’s health. However, for consistency, this might imply that in other cases where a person finds value in their experience, they can no longer claim to have a disease.”
If you want these horrible outcomes, then it’s not a disease to you! This is the logic of “bug chasers” and “gift givers” intentionally transmitting AIDS. Pregnancy, in this paper, has become nothing more than a masochistic fetish.
And, of course, we have social constructivism.
“Because of this, we suggest that it is vital to think carefully about the social conditions that inform a patient’s perception of P, before endorsing too eagerly the idea that subjective value is what makes P a disease or not. Finally, it is worth noting that in the old days of medicine, many patients diagnosed with ‘diseases’ such as homosexuality or immorality fully endorsed the idea that they were indeed sick; that these conditions were ‘bad’ for them. Again, this calls into question the relationship between subjective perceptions, and the designation of something as a disease. Vulnerable and disadvantaged social groups are often pressured to categories their experiences in ways that fit in with social norms. Where these categorizations result in further disadvantage or vulnerability, we should regard them with suspicion”
Congratulations men, you are a pathogen vector and you are spreading disease every time you get your rocks off!
“We have shown that pregnancy is harmful (like measles). Like measles, pregnancy is also caused by an externally originating organism that enters the body and causes the harmful results we have described. Accordingly, on this view, sperm could be seen as a pathogen in the same way that the measles virus is. Measles and pregnancy can also be medically treated, prevented, cured or managed. Measles is more likely to be viewed as a misfortune, while (a wanted) pregnancy may be a cause for rejoicing, but as we have suggested, this is not a sufficient basis on which to make a robust distinction between the two in terms of their disease status.”
Heck, humans being a sexually dimorphic species is proof that reproduction and perpetuation of the species is abnormal!
“The concept of ‘normal species function’ has been used by some writers in order to distinguish what should or should not be classified as disease. We tend to think of pregnancy as a normal aspect of human life in a way that measles, for example, is not. But what does ‘normal species function’ really mean here? Most humans are not capable of becoming pregnant. Moreover, in many species, including humans, it is not ‘normal’ for every individual to reproduce. Male pheasants which do not establish territory tend not to mate. Groups of primates often contain only one sexually active male.”
The plain truth of the matter is that capacity to become pregnant is indeed a normal function of biological females from puberty to menopause. It is lack of this capacity that is a medical condition. Abnormality is being presented as proof that the actual normal isn’t.
But diseases are just, like, your opinion, dude.
“Christopher Boorse’s biostatistical theory (BST) is perhaps the most prominent. Boorse eschews the idea that normatively laden understandings, or values are necessary for the identification of disease. What matters is pure statistics. Thus, on Boorse’s approach, phenomena that are statistically typical within certain categories, for example, sex and age, are healthy for the individuals concerned.
“As we have shown, being pregnant is not normal for any reference class, however, narrowly we define it. But for Boorse, considerations of ‘…survival, reproduction, organism, part, process, species, sex, age and causation’ are also to be taken into account. On this basis, it looks as if pregnancy can indeed be considered ‘normal’ even though most people are not pregnant. Interestingly, this aspect of Boorse’s approach means that homosexuality is classified as a disease. Even if more people were homosexual than heterosexual, homosexuality—it is assumed—is not compatible with reproduction.”
The entire scholastic (purported) article is replete with false analogies and faulty logic. The full article can be read here or below.
Is Pregnancy a Disease – A … by ThePoliticalHat
A little mood music:
