Hope from Outrage

This is another post about topics I have been learning about that have stuck out to me.

Sometimes it shocks me how horrific and brutal humans can be to one another. I hate to dwell on topics like this, but awareness is key and the reality is that it is ignorant and impossible to just ignore these things. One of the most upsetting themes my lectures touched upon was that of attacks on humanitarian health care. I had heard of incidents before arriving at my program in Switzerland, but I did not realize the scope of the problem before attending lectures here. Almost 200 health care facilities were attacked in the first three quarters of 2016, resulting in 366 recorded deaths and 468 recorded injuries (WHO). (Many more statistics and reports can be found at that linked source as well as here and here and here.) I was horrified to discover that people performing pure good deeds were being punished for saving lives. Medical personnel should not have to risk their lives in order to help maintain the health of those in conflict zones; these attacks show an utter disregard for human life. It is an indisputable fact that each human has the right to live a dignified life; the medical staff who work for humanitarian organizations in conflict zones are simply trying to help locals achieve this simple goal that has been threatened by the surrounding political instability, yet armed groups cannot even respect this simple ideal. Some have called it the weaponization of humanitarian workers: their purpose is to be a neutral organization working outside of the political and violent context to provide care to anyone regardless of their beliefs or stance in the conflict. However when groups attack these workers and their facilities, they are immediately roped into the conflict and most often have to leave, which means that the region is left without adequate medical facilities. There is really not much insight I can provide here, but I wanted to include this segment in my post because of how appalling and important this issue is.

I have learned about and discussed medicalization in my personal and academic life but it is something that has really troubled me. For those readers who have not had much exposure to this topic, medicalization is the phenomenon in which certain parts of the human experience are approached from a scientific lens in which they can be fixed or “cured” through medical procedures and medicine. Sometimes medicalization also includes simply classifying a natural process as medical in the first place, such as birth. I have been interested in maternal health and reproductive health from a very young age and I have learned a bit about how the natural process of birth – arguably one of the most incredible natural human feats ever – has been monopolized by hospitals and doctors over recent history. In fact, a few of my classmates did their final research projects on midwifery and natural births (as opposed to hospital births). Women have been having babies for centuries without the help or disruption of medicine; in fact I think this is a part of what make women so inspiring, that they can literally grow another human being and then endure the often excruciating process of giving birth. While of course not every woman is fortunate enough to have a low risk pregnancy and a birth without complications, most medical interventions in the birthing process are often a detriment to the mother’s and baby’s health. In many instances, women are given a medicine to numb the pain, but this can slow contractions, so they are given another medicine that makes contractions more frequent and stronger, but this the required more pain medication. This vicious cycle often results in a cesarean section because it puts the baby in distress. Cesarean sections are in fact major surgeries that often make it impossible for women to have any further vaginal births. As seen by this lengthy paragraph already, I could talk for ages on this, and while birth is a very personal experience, the beautiful process of birth really should not need to be as medicalized of a process.

The first context in which we discussed medicalization in one of our lectures was in the context of medicalization of obesity and weight loss. Often the rhetoric surrounding weight loss focuses on the biological processes, which carries the danger of unnecessary labeling, stigmatization, and other problematic rhetoric and “treatment.” Obesity is a much more complex issue because it can involve things like genetics, mental health, institutionalized discrimination, city planning, and other factors. Additionally, I think it is important to mention the importance of body positivity here too, since the medicalized rhetoric of obesity as a condition that needs to be cured or fixed often ends up shaming. This ties into another important theme that we discussed throughout the semester: You’ve got the power! With everything from obesity to climate change, not a difference will be made until we each individually make the effort to modify our habits. It is one thing to educate yourself on the issues at hand, but this ultimately is not useful unless one takes initiative and takes action towards any of these issues. Smaller or more personal problems may seem more “do-able,” but we must not be intimidated by the grand scale of problems like global warming or political issues, for example, because if everyone sits around, angry, thinking “we can’t possible make a difference,” or “my actions won’t matter because I’m just one person,” nothing will get done. Look around; you may be surrounded by likeminded people. If you work together, collectively you have even greater power…but it all starts with you.

(I recognize this is super cliché, but I really do believe it! Sometimes it is important to hear these messages because they often go overlooked.)