This week's issue of Newsweek, page 18. "How to Make Sarah Laugh," says the headline. In the inset, in bold type: "Does being religious actually help you get pregnant? It's possible, says a fertility specialist."
Sigh.
The article started out pretty well. "One in eight couples has trouble conceiving," it says. "It stands to reason that, for some percentage of these couples, intense religious belief informs the way they approach the problem."
Well, yes. For me, intense religious belief informs the way I scream at God about the shape of my husband's sperm. (Didn't see that one coming, did you Newsweek?)
There follows a brief summation of how various religious traditions feel about in-vitro fertilization, donor sperm or egg, 'spilling seed,' and other fertility treatments. I appreciated the woman who did not want to pursue IVF because her Catholicism "gave her a sense of the sacredness of her marriage and of her own body." I would make a different decision, but I appreciate her thoughtfulness.
Until her last comment. This woman sought treatment at an alternative clinic (The Pope Paul VI Institute - can you then go around saying, "The Pope got me pregnant!") and had one child. She tried for a second, but was unsuccessful. Her last comment? "I feel a real sense of contentment. It's God's will if you have a baby."
My intense religious belief now informs the way I approach her comment in the following: AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Oh, but it gets better. "Here, then, is the million-dollar question: does being religious actually help infertile women get pregnant? [Psychologist who did some study that pisses me off] Domar says it's possible. If religious women have less depression and anxiety, and lower rates of anxiety and depression correlate to higher pregnancy rates, 'it stands to reason that religious and spiritual women should have higher pregnancy rates.'"
There are a lot of things that stand to reason. That particular assumption is not one of them. In fact, it not only does not stand to Reason, it actually sits in the lap of Rush to Judgment and begs Reason's pardon for soiling Reason's good name with such an insult.
Dear Newsweek,
My intense religious belief informs my need to tell you to sod off.
Sincerely,
Infertile Pastor
Not as Digital as I Thought
1 day ago
2 comments:
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
flashing back to asshole fertility doc implying my problem was a lack of faith and a bad attitude.
and they'd have to invoke my namesake, eh?
didn't she have a lot of faith? LONG BEFORE she conceived.
i'm kind of touchy tonight. it is approaching 1 a.m. and i am wide awake, after being tired all day.
woman, WE HAVE TO WRITE A BOOK.
tearing up.
Ah, the letters we need to write...I could have yours xeroxed on a postcard and just fill in names and addresses. Good on you. I don't know whether to laugh or cry or both.
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