Have you ever thought about all the hidden things in the world? All the things that happen behind closed doors? Whether it is with the government, families, parents, or even doctors. There is so much stuff that happens in our world that you and I do not even know about. It raises so many questions for me and makes me really dive deep into my thoughts. Are there things that people hide from me? Are there things hidden from all of the public? I hope these things are making you feel the same way I am feeling. Thinking about this makes me question everything. Why are there things that are hidden from me? Can I not handle the truth?
In all the books we have been reading and especially in Medical Apartheid there are so many cases of people being treated and tested on without them knowing of what is actually going on. There are so many secrets in the medical world which is very morally wrong in my opinion and I think most people would also have this same opinion. Imagine being pregnant and going into the doctors to deliver your baby. You are going in trusting these doctors with your life and the life of your baby as well. You are expecting them to deliver your baby and do whatever they can do to keep both you and the baby safe. That is what you are expecting, you are not expecting them to do things to your body without your consent or knowledge. However, you go and deliver your baby and the doctors secretly tie your tubes. Can you imagine being sterilized without even knowing? I’m sure you are now thinking something along the lines of “oh that doesn’t happen now that kind of stuff only happened years ago.” But you are wrong. There have been cases of this kind of stuff still happening in recent years. In 2013, there were dozens of female inmates in California that had been illegally sterilized. Forced sterilization is still a problem in the world today. Today women are told that their immigration, housing, and other benefits for their status in our country will be taken away unless they get this procedure done. However, they are told that this procedure can be reversed. Sterilization abuse in our world today is horrifying. While reading these articles I feel absolutely horrible for these women and cannot imagine how these doctors do this to women without feeling anything? Do they not feel terrible for these choices?
Just so you completely understand this with me, in 2007 the United States gave the government the right to sterilize “unwilling and unwitting people” which they classified as poor, unwed, and mentally disabled women, children and men. North Carolina sterilized over 7,600 people in a 40-year period. Our own government decided and made rules on who should and should not be able to have babies. They decided poor people should not be allowed to have babies and they forced that on people. Where I grew up the people were not exactly upper class, and I can’t imagine the government and the doctors sterilizing people I know just because they were classified as “poor”. What gives our government the right to decide such things? And even worse what gives doctors the right to do whatever they want without people knowing?
Thinking about this sort of makes me feel like I am having an existential crisis. If you do not know what an existential crisis is, Wikipedia defines it as “a moment at which an individual questions if their life has meaning, purpose, or value.” Are we as individuals more than just a number? Or more than just a test subject? Reading more about how doctors have treated people makes me feel like we are exactly that, just a number. What is the meaning of each of our lives if we do not even make our own decisions for our bodies? Throughout years of history, doctors secretly made decisions for people and treat these people like they are not even human. How can humans treat other humans like this? If secret things like this are still going on even today, then we have not fixed anything. People are still just test subjects. If there are secret things happening in our government that we do not know about then yet again we are just a number, and someone else is making the decisions for us. Just like our own government deciding who would be sterilized. We, as the people did not have a choice. The higher up people decided for everyone as if we were just their test subjects.
Before something was mentioned in class about having a fear of doctors, I had never really thought about it. I knew people were scared to go to the doctor because of things like shots and sickness. I never thought about someone being so scared of doctors that they cannot even bring themselves to go to the doctor. Fear of doctors is called iatrophobia. Sure, some people are scared of blood and needles but maybe some people have this fear because they have read about all the corruption in the medical world. Maybe they are scared to go to the hospital to have a baby because they don’t trust the doctor to do what they are supposed to.
For me, reading and learning about all these secretive things that have happened in the medical world make me not trust doctors. How am I supposed to trust doctors when they have such a bad reputation? How can anyone trust these people? How can I trust anyone? It is really hard to figure out how to live your life in peace and trusting people when there is such a horrible reputation of people not respecting our bodies. No one should have to walk through life being scared of people. I shouldn’t have to go to the doctor and worry or think about someone taking advantage of my body. I shouldn’t have to worry about my doctor not asking for my consent. But we do, we have to worry about these things because of the doctors who apparently had no moral standards and did not care even a little about their patients. I find it so unbelievably scary that I cannot go to a doctor and just be able to fully trust them. The world is extremely corrupt and like I said it scares me and I do not know how to deal with it. If in the back of my mind I always have these thoughts of not trusting people, is this really a healthy way to live? How do I balance these things so that I don’t live my whole life in fear? I do not know how to answer my own question which is also horrifying. I want to live my life without fearing everything. So, how do I do this?