Doctors, haters or churches: Who chooses for you?

I have always been “pro-choice” if I had to check a box. Not because I like abortion. I hate abortion. I had a “spontaneous abortion,” otherwise known as a miscarriage, that ended my hopes of having biological children and it is still painful fifteen years later. Desperate to have a family, I adopted two children, unwanted infants who might have been aborted but weren’t.

So, when asked, I’ve always said “I’m anti-back-alley-abortion.” I am for women having the choice, not because I think it is always justified and “for the best,” but because the alternative isn’t life. It’s more death. I always figured that's just the realistic, non-ideological way to go at the issue.

Photo of a bicycle at a high desert V fork in a dirt road - Creative Commons image by Gutifoll via Flickr.com

But a recent experience has given me a little different perspective.

It started six months ago, when I received a surprise diagnosis of diabetes, despite being considered a “health nut” by most of my friends. I ate meat about once a week, carefully rationed sweets, halved the sugar in recipes, never drank alcohol, exercised as a matter of course, spurned packaged foods and fast food, and ate lots of veggies and beans.

Because I am already visually impaired and diabetes threatens eyesight in the best of them, I was immediately terrified. I spent about four days wallowing in depression. Then I took the bull by the horns. It’s just how I do things.

First, I cut out all sweets and white flour. The diagnosis did explain a few things. I had been chronically tired for a couple of years and my immune system was tanking. My previous doctor had ignored the problems and treated only immediate illness. I got a blood sugar monitor and swore to “be good.”

But when I ate a bowl of beans or drank a swallow of carrot juice I was overwhelmed with dizziness and ended up needing a nap. Even complex carbohydrates were causing havoc and high blood sugars. I hadn’t been put on heavy medications yet, but the writing was on the wall. So, I dove into a couple of weeks of intensive research.

And as it turns out, I’m not the only one. Yes, there are a lot of people who become diabetic because of poor diet and little exercise. But there are also plenty of physically active vegetarians and vegans who become diabetic. And yet, “low fat, plant based diet” is still the unwavering advice given to all of them.

Studies comparing plant-based, low-fat diets versus low-carbohydrate, moderate-fat diets show that the latter is demonstratively better at lowering blood sugar and averting the problems of diabetes. Some doctors, especially in larger cities and those connected with research institutions, are catching on, and in many places recommendations for diabetics have changed dramatically.

I joined a tough-love online support group that schooled me on a low-carb, whole foods diet for reversing diabetes. Yes, it is technically ketogenic but modified in several respects to better suit diabetics.

And then the magic happened. After a week of rough transitional symptoms, I suddenly felt better than I had in fifteen years. I had energy! I could hike and exercise with ease. Various inflammatory conditions that I had though were just part of me—my severe menstrual cramps, the weird bumps on my arms, etc.—went away for the first time ever. And I lost the unhealthy weight I’d been carrying around.

It seemed like a miracle. Sure, the diet is a bit of a pain in our society, which isn’t set up for it. I have to carry my own food around and pretty much can’t eat out or use most packaged foods. But it isn’t miserable, by any means.

“Focus on flavor!” my support group advised. And I did. I found flavorful, pleasant things to eat that fit the diet. I no longer eat bland, unpleasant things or finish my kids’ leftovers just because I don’t believe in wasting. I eat only what I need and want.

I get a bit hungry before meals and never feel totally stuffed, when staying within the limits of this modified diabetic diet. But I also never have to eat a bowl of beans that doesn’t taste good to me just because I think it’s “healthy.”

I eat no sugar and only moderate amounts of sugar-free sweeteners. As a result, things like raw unsweetened peanut butter taste like a sweet treat to my adapted tastebuds.

But given that diabetes is a serious illness and the diet can cause electrolyte imbalance and even rapid weight loss for some, it is recommended that one proceed under a doctor’s supervision. So, I tried talking to my doctor about it. And hit a brick wall.

She insisted that I was “doing diabetes wrong” and that the proper course for me was to accept somewhat high blood-sugar levels and the slow health decline of “controlled diabetes.” I would never get better or feel good again, but medication would help to prolong my sight and my life somewhat. She prescribed medications with horrible side effects even though my health was dramatically improving. I refused to take them. She became hostile and refused to order the necessary lab tests to keep my protocol safe.

So, I switched to a different doctor, a process that took months. In the meantime, I saw a dietician who told me she couldn't “officially condone” my diet, given the regulations she worked under, “but it’s hard to argue with results.” Now, my long-term blood glucose tests claim I am no longer diabetic. But if I deviate from my diabetic-adapted diet my blood sugar skyrockets again, showing that the testresults only measured my good self-discipline, rather than the actual underlying condition.

The new doctor, however, had clearly talked to the old doctor and came on hostile and rude. The nurse was polite initially and then after going out of the room with the doctor, she was also hostile and thorny when she returned. This doctor also refused to do the needed monitoring tests and declared that I would come to regret not following their advice to return to my mostly vegetarian, low-fat diet, which had led me to diabetes in the first place.

Pizza-baked zucchini that turns out to be a very healthy choice - Creative Commons image by LuckyNessa via Flickr.com

Many rural or general practice doctors are still using the same diabetes treatments advised fifty years ago, and I couldn’t find a doctor in my local area who would even consider the efficacy of the low-carb diet that had given me my health back. Finally, I found a doctor who is open to the more recent research and who will take my insurance… in another state, over some high mountain passes, more than 120 miles away.

That was about when the Supreme Court leak happened, and a light-bulb went on in my brain. So, this is what “making decisions about your own body” means. This must be a bit what it feels like to be told that, “No, even though you might die, you can’t have this particular medical care because we don’t think it’s right.” Maybe it’s also how trans folks feel when trying to get transition care.

I’m this person facing a life-threatening health problem. I find a solution that works. I feel better. With the proper health care, I can conquer this condition. I can live again and there is no particular, studied, documented reason why my choice is bad. And yet, I’m told “no,” again and again, treated with hostility and discourtesy. I am forced to travel across state lines to get health care.

So, I’ve got to give some respect to those who have campaigned on reproductive rights and even on trans rights. Because there’s a part of it I get now that I didn’t get before this moment when something like that came and bit me too.

I have more reason to check that “pro-choice” box now. And I see that it is actually aptly named. It isn’t just about being against back alley abortion. It’s about the whole concept of people having the final say over their bodies and their health. Doctors should advise, yes. But they should also stay up-to-date as their field changes. When an individual is different from others, they must treat the individual, not the statistics.

And in the end, when a person makes a choice for their health and body, after listening to all the advice and considering all the factors, they must be treated with respect and given the care appropriate to that choice, even if the doctor doesn’t entirely understand. We can’t choose for someone else and there is much more under the sun than any of us can know with certainty.

From the other side of a health choice that went against the grain, I’m here to tell you to listen to your body. Follow what works for your body—not what is fashionable or intriguing or trendy or “natural” or feels good in the moment—but what gives your body sustained strength and health. Pay attention to that and find health care providers who do as well.

I just hiked up a mountain and back and felt great while doing it, after years of foot and leg problems, unexplained weight gain, difficulty exercising, chronic fatigue and other symptoms made me think I would never be able to hike again. Anything that makes a body get that much better is a wise choice.

Slogging through to gratitude

What does the abortion debate have to do with gratitude? They both strike at the core of what type of spirituality you practice, for one thing.

You are probably as sick of the argument as I am. It rages on with passion, hate, violence and self-righteousness on both sides, though the facts surrounding the issue haven't changed in thirty years.

It isn't just about being "pro-life" or "pro-choice" depending on one's religion. There's the disability rights angle. There's adoption. There's overpopulation and environmental crisis. It is an issue with tendrils reaching deep and wide.

I'm a person with a significant physical disability. I can easily imagine the sheer rage experienced by those who live with disabilities that are widely considered "abortable," in that many people think a child would be better off dead than living "that way." 

I'm also an adoptive parent of two children who never went home from the maternity ward. Their birth mothers did have reasonable access to abortion as a possibility in a country with universal health care, but they did not make that choice. 

I might well have some strong opinions on this issue, but I find that I am not firmly on one side or the other.

I am a woman. Yes, I think women and all people should be allowed to make their own choices. I become irritated when men dictate what women should do with their lives. I know women who were raped and then shamed for it--assumptions made about them. I have a capacity for feminist fury.

But I am not pro-choice at all cost, even so. I don't think there is a clear line between unborn and alive. 

I'm not pro-life or pro-abortion in this. It is more that I am anti-back-alley-abortion. On the surface, it's as simple as that. I don't think abortion is any great thing. Overpopulation is a serious issue, but still if we respect any life we should respect all life. 

Yet I know the results of anti-abortion laws. Throughout history and geography they do not generally result in fewer abortions but rather in more risky abortions and more deaths from infection and accident. That's my primary stand on the issue in terms of society, laws and politics.

In terms of ethics... well, it does come down to religion for me as it does for many people, except my ethics are different from those preached by that brand of Christianity that is so sure of its single, universal "truth.".

In the most recent debate I witnessed on this issue, a woman was lecturing on scripture and the "fact" that God is the only one who can choose to give life or to take life away. She said that makes abortion wrong, no matter what, and makes the pro-choice stance immoral.

This was at least a calm and rational argument. The comments were kindly but firmly put--an assumption that everyone must agree with the scriptures running through the text. The only question open to debate was the interpretation of those scriptures.

But what if you don't accept the most basic premise. How so God is the only one who can take life away? What did you eat for breakfast this morning? If it contained meat or even eggs then you clearly participated in taking life away.

And what about wheat or vegetables? I'm looking at you, vegetarians on moral grounds. How can you prove that those lives--the lives of plants--are different and that you can take away those lives so that you might live but not another kind of life? I know there are lines in those scriptures taken to mean that humans are above the rest of nature, but again I do not accept those scriptures as proof. You must find something beyond human constructs to insist that humans are above all others.

I do understand that if one's religion takes the stand that God is something outside of you, not within each living being, then the issue of abortion becomes highly divisive. However, we have to accept that not everyone shares our religion and if they don't, then it makes no sense for them to be bound by the same scriptures.

My religion mandates that I have to work every day to ensure that I take no more life than I truly need, that I am not a force for needless death and destruction. I have to be conscious about the fact that other beings have to die in order for me to eat, have shelter, stay warm, read, use the internet and so forth. I have to try to give back in kind. 

And I have to give thanks, consciously and openly.

That's the law of my religion. Very few people follow this law and if I respected only people who do or insisted that all people must abide by it, I would be made ridiculous. I accept that it isn't the law of someone else's religion.

For me God or the Gods are not entirely separate from us. They also don't force anything upon us. In the end, every decision of ethical value is fully in our hands. If we had no choice we would also have no ethical responsibility. We are not forced to have a child by some external will of God and so we are truly responsible.

By being alive we make choices, including the choice to continue living. We choose and we must accept in every moment of our lives that we have come to the situation we are in through a combination of circumstances and our choices to accept or reject those circumstances.

All possibilities may not have been open to us. The poor have fewer choices than the rich. Money equals the ability to choose what to do with that wealth after all. But in the end, even the poorest has made choices. And morality is most basically about our acceptance of that.

We choose to take life in order to eat and thus to continue to live. This choice is made easy for us because we psychologically feel that the lives of those beings we eat are not the same as our own life. It is harder when the life is an unborn child and the need is not just to slake momentary hunger but rather the need to choose one's path in life. It is harder but both take away life.

Choose well and know that there is a cost.

You do not eat without the deaths of others. Only arrogance can claim that those lives--even the lives of radishes--are less important than your own. You accept this. You eat anyway and you try to live without needlessly taking life. That is all. You have no need to judge the choices of others in this question, which is ultimately between each private person and their gods.