Totally Tubular

There are many instances where people hold views on things without personal experience about what those views actually mean. I know this is nothing new and that it isn’t possible to personally experience everything but it is something that has really been on my mind lately. For example, as the mom to a child who is happy with his gender identity, I can’t even pretend to understand what trans kids and their families are going through right now. The anti-trans legislation, the discourse, the general unfounded vilification of a group of individuals who make up 1.4% of the youth population and .05% of the adult population is sickening. I can’t really understand the frustration and rage felt by same-sex couples whose marriage is being called into question. I can’t understand the anger and disappointment felt by groups of people whose history is being erased from textbooks. But what I really can’t understand is the desire to legislate the choices of individuals that have no bearing on the lives of others. 

These decisions are often justified with religious beliefs. The problem here is that these views are not ethical (i.e. societal) standards. Not everyone is religious and the United States is becoming considerably less religious than it was in the past so using religion as a justification for anything is appealing to fewer and fewer people as time goes on. The idea that one person (or group’s) beliefs should have the ability to determine how everyone else lives doesn't sit well with me as an ethics professor or as a human in general. By all means, believe what makes sense to you. But don’t use those beliefs to tell others what to do. No, ma’am! I realize these points simply do not matter to people who think this way but it truly breaks my ethics professor brain.

Fun fact: In the Establishment Clause (the first clause in the Bill of Rights) it says that the United States can’t “establish” a religion. This is where the idea of the separation of church and state comes from. The funny thing is that the The founders were afraid that government involvement would corrupt the church. Ha! How pissed do you think the Founding Fathers are right now in their powdered wigs and fancy stockings? 

Though the list of things I don’t understand is very, very long when it comes to choices being made in America, there is one thing I understand in a way I wish I didn’t. I understand how problematic it is that pregnant people are being denied medical care for ectopic pregnancies. In September of 2014 I felt like shit. Something was just off and I didn’t know what. I made an appointment at urgent care on a Saturday because I was getting worried. I saw a female physician who checked me out, said I was fine, and wanted to get me out of the room. I asked for a pregnancy test and after more back and forth than seemed necessary she begrudgingly agreed. I took the test, left it for the lab, and headed home. Later that evening I got an email saying that my test results were ready online. I logged into the system and saw the test for hCG (pregnancy hormone) levels listed as a number in the hundreds. I had no idea what this meant and had to google it. Turns out that I was a few weeks pregnant. This was not expected but my then partner/now husband and I knew we wanted kids so now was as good a time as any. This is also not how you imagine finding out you are pregnant. The next week I went to an OBGYN to get checked out. When they did another test there my hCG levels were lower than before. I had no idea what that meant but the look on the doctor’s face indicated that it wasn’t good. Her explanation was that, considering my levels, I was definitely pregnant but that she couldn’t find the embryo on the ultrasound. Say what? That meant that it had implanted somewhere outside of my uterus and we had no idea where. Since the embryo wasn’t where it was supposed to be this was not a viable pregnancy. If allowed to continue it was dangerous to my health because an ectopic pregnancy in any location is LIFE THREATENING. To deal with this very unexpected situation, I was given a shot of methotrexate; a chemotherapy and immunosuppressant drug that stops the growth of cells. I went home and continued to feel like shit for several days. After receiving the shot you have to continually take pregnancy tests to ensure that your hCG levels are dropping (i.e. that the medicine is working). Every few days my levels dropped but I still didn’t feel good. I asked to have an ultrasound done to make sure everything was ok but I was assured that wasn’t necessary because my levels were consistently decreasing. Life went on with me feeling like hot garbage until about the second week of October. I was on campus and had taught my first two classes feeling terrible but had a break before my next and figured if I ate something and rested I would be fine. While sitting at my desk I was hit with crazy stomach pains. I felt like I was being stabbed, was dizzy, and couldn’t sit up straight. I canceled my next class and drove myself to urgent care. While there they gave me that ultrasound I had requested a few weeks earlier and guess what they found? In medical terms, my fallopian tube had ruptured. In real world terms, my tube had exploded because that is where the embryo they couldn’t find was implanted. Even though my hCG levels had been decreasing, the shot hadn’t actually worked. The embryo continued to grow in a place it did not belong and would not survive and I was now bleeding internally and needed emergency surgery. That night I underwent surgery that involved removing the majority of one of my tubes; something that is fairly devastating to a woman already over 35 considering the future fertility impacts. That surgery could have been completely avoided had the doctors acquiesced to my ultrasound request because they would have been able to see that the medicine had not worked. I spent the next several weeks bloated, miserable, and sad. To get better I worked with an amazing acupuncture fertility specialist. I spent a lot of time getting needles stuck into me and taking herbs and tinctures in an attempt to recover from this completely preventable situation. I was exceptionally fortunate to get pregnant the next year. I was exceptionally fortunate to have health insurance and the means to pay out of pocket for holistic treatments. I was exceptionally fortunate to have a healthy (but premature) baby at 38. Not everyone is that lucky.

There is no scenario in which an ectopic pregnancy will produce a healthy baby. This is basic science.* The decision to not allow women access to methotrexate for ectopic pregnancies knowingly endangers their health. It puts them on this path to unnecessary surgery and impacts future fertility. It also kills them. Ectopic pregnancies are responsible for 10% of first-trimester maternal deaths and that number is going to increase with these new laws. Interestingly these laws also complicate the ability for cancer patients and people with arthritis, ulcers, and lupus to access the same drug. Weird. It’s like these decisions have unintended consequences lawmakers didn’t consider while they made uninformed and scientifically unsound choices.  

It can be very hard to have a conversation about topics like these with someone who has extremely different views about the world. This is not new news to anyone. Hearing people talk about important issues from a very different point of view ranges from being annoying to downright rage-inducing. It seems pretty evident that this has led to the complete breakdown of respectful political discourse, but it’s more than that. I feel like a societal shift has taken place. General pleasantries have disappeared and common courtesy at work is no longer the norm. Classrooms everywhere have more students than ever before who disrupt, disengage, and are disrespectful to other students and faculty; thus causing additional stress on teachers and impacting the learning of other students. Things are bleak, everyone is burned out, and Covid seems to have broken us all in different ways. So what the hell do we do because we can’t keep going like this? 

It looks like we have to actually talk to people and try to be empathetic. Gross, I know. I don’t like it either but it seems like not having these conversations are some of the biggest roadblocks to making things less terrible. In order for this to work, it has to be about listening** and that listening has to be a two-way street. The people with the lived experiences as well as those with opposing views all have to be heard. I freely admit that this sounds icky and difficult and that there are some people who are completely unwilling to listen and only want to make decisions for you because they think they know best. Don’t waste your time talking or listening to them because you will not get anything in return. Focus instead on the people willing to engage. When you find those people you’re going to  have to do a good job listening if you want to get anywhere. Now, you may be thinking that listening is just a thing we do but it turns out that there are good and bad ways to listen. To understand someone you need to actively listen to what they are saying. You need to stop talking (even in your head) and concentrate on what the other person is saying. You need to ask questions and you need to show that you are listening. Like many things, better listening takes practice and even if you think you are good at listening you can probably do better.

Turns out listening skills are pretty useful beyond these sorts of tough politically-motivated conversations too. Relationships are better when we are better listeners. Leaders who focus on listening create a (psychologically) safer work environment and their listening also results in increased employee loyalty and trust. These are all great things but if, no matter how hard you try, you just can't find common ground then I leave you with two things: Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement and this fantastic video from Kid President. 

I really think we should all work together to bring “ass hat” back as a slight. It is both ridiculous and insulting while not being too offensive.

If you’re brave enough to have some tough conversions this week you should probably treat yourself. 😉 Good luck out there friends! 

*Basic science that people refuse to listen to because their elected officials tell them to distrust the government. 
** Turns out that’s a thing the Bible even talks about!!