I first began wondering if natural childbirth and lactivism are ableist when I saw the image below on The Alpha Parent’s Facebook page, labeled #Truth.
Presumably the quote is from Allison Dixley’s recently published book:
Functioning breasts are no more ‘lucky’ than a functioning pair of legs, yet we don’t incessantly dwell on the luck enjoyed by those of us who can walk.
The commentors quickly schooled Dixley that people who can walk ARE lucky, and when we stop to think about it, we acknowledge this.
That’s what led me to consider whether natural childbirth, with its relentless focus on and praise of functioning uteri, ample pelves, and transit of babies through vaginas, and lactivism, with its relentless focus on and praise of lactating breasts, are part of a subset of discrimination known as ableism.
What is ableism?
According to Stop Ableism.org:
Ableism – a set of practices and beliefs that assign inferior value (worth) to people who have developmental, emotional, physical or psychiatric disabilities…
An ableist society is said to be one that treats non-disabled individuals as the standard of ‘normal living’…
Natural childbirth is a set of practices and beliefs that assigns inferior value to women who do not have unmedicated, vaginal births.
Lactivism is a set of practices and beliefs that assigns inferior value to women who do not use their breasts to feed their babies.
Dixley’s original claim that “we don’t incessantly dwell on the luck enjoyed by those of us who can walk” is also ableist. To paraphrase Stop Ableism.org, the failure to appreciate that not everyone can walk results in public and private places and services, education, and social work that are built to serve those who can walk, thereby inherently excluding those who cannot. That is discrimination. It is wrong and fortunately we are working to overcome that by making venues accessible to all.
Although it is discrimination, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would go so far as to write blog posts and books accusing those who cannot walk of not trying hard enough. That would be cruel as well as discriminatory. Yet natural childbirth advocates and lactivists write incessant blog posts and books accusing women who have had C-sections of not trying hard enough, and accusing women who can’t exclusively breastfeed of not trying hard enough.
Indeed both natural childbirth advocacy and lactivism have created ideals of childbirth and infant feeding that don’t merely exalt perfect body function, they insist that all but a vanishingly small few are capable of perfect body function. It is but a short hop then, if other women’s uteri, pelves, or breasts didn’t work perfectly, to blame them for their “failures.”
Natural childbirth advocates and lactivists view body function almost in terms of Calvinist predestination. Those who have unmedicated vaginal births and breastfeed exclusively are the Mothering Elect. Everyone else is destined for everlasting Mothering Hell. That explains in part why women are willing to risk their babies’ lives by attempting vaginal birth in high risk situations, ignoring medical complications, and laboring for days in an effort to demonstrate to themselves and others that they are part of the Mothering Elect. It explains why they are “traumatized” by not having a vaginal birth. Natural childbirth advocates have convinced them that their worth is located in their vaginas.
It explains why some women are willing to starve their newborns nearly to death with their insistence on exclusive breastfeeding even though they are not producing enough milk in an effort to demonstrate to themselves and others that they are part of the Mothering Elect. It explains why they are willing to feed their babies almost anything (goat’s milk, self-made formula) rather than commercially prepared formula, which is the lactivist equivalent of the mark of Satan.
Simply put, natural childbirth advocates are prejudiced against women who don’t have unmedicated vaginal births. Lactivists are prejudiced against women who don’t breastfeed. Their ableism is all the more remarkable when we consider the very high natural failure rate of human (and animal) reproduction. The natural miscarriage rate for established pregnancies is 20%; the natural rate of neonatal mortality is in the range of 7%; the natural rate of maternal mortality is 1%. It is estimated that 5% of women don’t make enough breastmilk to fully nourish a child. When you consider that most women would (in the absence of birth control) experience 8 or 10 or more pregnancies across a reproductive lifespan that’s a lot of miscarriages, dead babies and dead mothers.
Despite the stark reality of death as a prominent part of human reproduction, natural childbirth advocates aggressively pretend otherwise. Despite the stark reality of lactation failure as a natural part of human reproduction, lactivists aggressively pretend that it is so rare as to be unworthy of consideration.
Veneration of perfect body function, and discrimination against those who don’t have perfect body function (not to mention blaming them for their imperfect body function!) is pure ableism. By that definition, natural childbirth advocacates and lactivists are ableist. They assign inferior worth to women who don’t have unmedicated vaginal births and who don’t exclusively breastfeed.
That is prejudice, it’s wrong, and women should speak out in one voice against it.
