Earlier this year, I blogged about why the dehumanizing way women are treated during childbirth and particularly Cesarean sections should be a Catholic issue:
My Domestic Church: Why is Birth a Catholic issue?:
“I mention these examples, because while the practices surrounding birth in this country are sadly not the best, there are Catholic women who overcome them to continue to have children, even if it means multiple surgeries. But what of women like my La Leche League friend who are so traumatized by what they experienced in childbirth that they cannot or will not bring themselves to ever go through childbirth again? Is part of what today’s moms face in a standard hospital birth partly to blame for why Catholic women practice strict NFP or even artificial birth control?”
Well now it seems that the choice to “get over it ” and try for another baby even after a traumatic birth and/or Cesarean might not even be an option – insurance companies are STARTING TO DENY COVERAGE TO WOMEN WHO HAVE HAD PREVIOUS CESAREAN SECTIONS!
The New York Times Reports
When the Golden Rule Insurance Company rejected her application for health coverage last year, Peggy Robertson was mystified.
“It made no sense,” said Ms. Robertson, 39, who lives in Centennial, Colo. “I’m in perfect health.”She was turned down because she had given birth by Caesarean section. Having the operation once increases the odds that it will be performed again, and if she became pregnant and needed another Caesarean, Golden Rule did not want to pay for it. A letter from the company explained that if she had been sterilized after the Caesarean, or if she were over 40 and had given birth two or more years before applying, she might have qualified.“Obstetricians are rendering large numbers of women uninsurable by overusing this surgery,” said Pamela Udy, president of the International Caesarean Awareness Network, a group whose mission is to prevent unnecessary Caesareans.Although many women who have had a Caesarean can safely have a normal birth later, something that Ms. Udy’s group advocates, in recent years many doctors and hospitals have refused to allow such births, because they carry a small risk of a potentially fatal complication, uterine rupture. Now, Ms. Udy says, insurers are adding insult to injury. Not only are women feeling pressure to have Caesareans that they do not want and may not need, but they may also be denied coverage for the surgery.
Here’s how I see it. American Catholic women, even if they are totally on board with being open to new life and only using NFP for (just, grave, serious – pick your adjective) reasons are going to feel railroaded into having only one or two children if they are “good little girls” and go along with the hospital/OB model that has become “the norm” in modern culture. After being processed, tested, drugged, strapped, taped, poked, prodded, induced, timed, manipulated and perhaps eventually even sliced and then chastized for not being joyful that despite the beating they just took, they’re not “grateful” enough for having a “healthy” (albeit drugged and slightly groggy) baby, these moms may discover that even if they can muster the courage and the mental wherewithall to give it another go, they won’t be able to afford it! Pre-existing condition doncha know!
Now I’m not expecting the bishops to start rallying on birth related issues per se. But I do think that Catholic women, particularly Catholic women who have gone this route have to start writing and speaking about these things now! Or we are going to be holding our heartbroken daughters, nieces, and little sisters as they sadly submit to sterilizations or otherwise limit their family size for societal/medicolegal/fiscal reasons that aren’t even rooted in the reality of normal childbirthing physiology but rather bent over at the altar that is the big business of birth in this country.
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