I sure don’t know what a “TOUCH novel” is, but it sounds like this one might put Edward and Bella to shame.
And fresh from finishing this one:
Education policy, sociology, political science, conservative manifestos, and scintillating teenage love/murder dramas with buffed out teenage boys make for a well-rounded citizen. I should write my own homeschool curriculum.
No one forced me to read it, but it took a few weeks to, um, labor through this expose on the trend of meticulously managed modern childbirth. I would describe Pushed as a medley of interviews, studies/statistics, and narrative, all contracting, heh heh, to the thesis that medical intervention for normal-risk pregnancy is unnecessary, and even unhealthful for the mother. It argues that women should have the right to have a natural childbirth, whether or not they have had a previous C-section. It takes an honest yet sympathetic look at midwives and their struggles to assist women in giving birth without excessive intervention.
At times it reads like an argumentative work of scholarship, replete with studies, expert opinions, and statistics that call into question the conventional wisdom that often resides within the antiseptic hospital halls. At other times, Pushed clips along with the pacing and intensity of suspense novel–characters are alive, and the fragility of human life is ever-evident in Block’s gritty stories: natural births turn tragically awry; a hotshot midwife subsists on 4 hours of sleep, mini mart food and diet coke; an obese woman gives birth in a kiddy pool in the living room, and the mother’s defecation is whisked from the pool with kitchenware moments before a healthy baby arrives. Even the dirty details are part of the natural experience.
Pushed also, unfortunately conflates the question of a woman’s right to give birth with a woman’s right to terminate the human life residing within them. In arguing that birth is part of the gamut of reproductive rights, she summons advocates and supporters of abortion rights, concluding that women should be able to conclude pregnancy as they see fit. Forced C-section, for example, is a manifestation of continued subjugation of women, and the right to give birth is the final frontier in the fight for reproductive rights. Block makes sense in questioning why many reproductive advocacy groups focus only on the abortion issue, while neglecting to join the melee regarding birthing rights. However, to use the arguments of abortion rights advocacy groups to undergird an argument for the right to give life seems misguided, if not patently absurd. The right to terminate and the right to reproduce may fall within the domain of a “woman’s body.” However, the question the right to give birth naturally in risky situations is just that: a question of risk. The question of pregnancy termination is in fact not a question at all. It’s a certainty of extermination. To compare a woman weighing risks and doing what she believes is best for her and her baby to a woman who purposefully terminates a human life to do what is best for herself does not appear analogous. I will admit, however, that if a woman is allowed to kill her baby, she should be allowed to give birth any way she damn well pleases. This inconsistency does more to point out the absurdity and arbitrary art of declaring babies “legal persons” worthy of protection only when they hit a particular gestational age or the light of day.
The low point for me was when Block highlighted a stridently pro-life family (who even believed “abortion was murder”) who marched at a abortion rights rally because they believed that a woman’s right to give birth was intrinsically tied to her right to an abortion. Forget for a moment that, if the family really believed this, it amounts to countenancing wholesale slaughter in order to preserve a particular way of giving birth. The assumption is rife with inconsistency, none of which was examined in the final pages of the text.
I think the last chapter bled into a topic perhaps better suited for an entirely different book. I closed Pushed with a pisspoor taste in my mouth, but I must admit the the first 180 pages or so were shocking, enlightening, engaging, educational, and thought provoking. I know more about birth than I ever wanted to know (admittedly I had never set my sights too high). I used to think birth was birth, and if you threw a little medical technology into the mix, the woman was all the better for it. Pushed highlights the variables that come into play, and if nothing else, I’m now in a position to ask some critical questions.
Next up: The Vaccine Book. My doctor’s are going to hate me, I think.
P.S.–Scratch that–I need a little dragon action. Eldest is up next. No dragon or map jokes please.
After 6 years of teaching English, this English teacher has finally read Pride and Prejudice. It took me about four attempts (I never managed to make it past page 4o or so. I’d always get distracted by some other book). A few weeks ago, I watched my 14 year old sister reading it for her honors English project (two other younger siblings had read it for summer projects as well) and realized the full extent of my pathetic self. So I took it on my anniversary trip, set a few other books aside, and slogged through what turned out to be a slightly enjoyable experience.
Perhaps I’m simply not literarily astute enough to appreciate the magnificence of this masterpiece, but I did get a kick out of the humor.
And I still hold to my former opinion that there is far too high an emphasis on balls.
