Ann Davenport Analysis and Imitation

ANALYSIS OF WILLIAMS – “The Case Against Babies”

Joy Williams uses research, citations and scientific fact within parentheses (in vitro

fertilization, the UN Population Fund, surrogate motherhood, sperm counts and testicle size)

in a unique and profound way that I really enjoyed. She uses metaphor (“babies are always

welcome at life’s banquet”) as well as repetition, italics, and UPPERCASE in a humor/satirical

style to get her very serious point across. “The Case Against Babies” questions the medical

technology industry and the doctors who are making millions of dollars (the new “techno-

shamans”) with irony, satire and good investigative research. I really liked this narrative voice,

not only because I’m a midwife, but because I believe it raises questions about the industry of

babies, the cost to society, and of course focuses on the product of that industry – the babies

(known in medical textbooks as “the product of conception”). What follows is my imitation of

Williams’ style of writing, using my own research and content.

1
Ann Davenport Analysis and Imitation

Delivery is for Pizza

Doctors, doctors, doctors. There is a plague of doctors in the news lately: doctors

going on strike in West Virginia (they have surgeons in West Virginia?) and now in New

Jersey, protesting what they see as outrageous and unfair malpractice insurance rates.

Doctors at news conferences whining about how the HMO’s, the lawyers, and the insurance

“industry” all connive to control the ability to manipulate their own patient’s health care, for

God’s sake. And doctors are Gods after all, let’s face it. Nobody accuses lawyers or judges or

insurance company executives of having a “God complex”, even though they make life-and-

death decisions all the time….where are we going to draw the line? In fact, since it’s their

policies about co-payments and who gets to stay in the hospital for two days or two hours

after major surgery, and who will die or suffer for the cost of an antibiotic, perhaps the HMO

insurance adjuster should shoulder the heavy responsibility of playing God along with doctors.

They make those God-like decisions, don’t they? It is a difficult decision, Mrs. Smith, but you

need to trust the doctors and your insurance adjuster, because they know best.

Obstetricians shoulder an especially heavy burden - the highest malpractice insurance

fees. Plus, they are not only in the life-and-death business, but also the heavy, God-like

business of bringing a new life in to the world! Since they can’t give birth themselves, male

doctors have figured out ways to make themselves indispensable to women who quite

naturally have brought new life onto this earth for, oh, say a million years or so… playing like

they were life’s creators, for God’s sake, “and let there be light”! (The Spanish term for

childbirth is “dar a luz” – literally “to give to the light”.) In his book “The Birth Machine”, Dr.

Marsden Wagner – a neonatologist and perinatologist with impeccable credentials at the

World Health Organization – argues about the cost benefits of promoting a humanistic

approach to childbirth by pointing out that “if a doctor puts himself in the position of being God,

2
 Ann Davenport Analysis and Imitation

then he shouldn’t be surprised when his patients expect him to prevent death or disability, and

when they don’t, they expect huge monetary compensation.” (Lazarus complex, anyone?).

Even though obstetricians say they use scientific-based evidence for their

“practice”, there is a tendency to not evaluate obstetric interventions according to their subtle

risks over the long term. For example, scientific evidence demonstrates that certain

neurological problems – such as Attention Deficit Disorder, autism, dyslexia or cerebral palsy –

are on the rise because of medical intervention at the time of birth. Doctors look for solutions,

as well as the insurance, pharmaceutical and malpractice insurance industries, who are all

VERY INTERESTED in solutions… more money in high-tech intervention than in dull, old-

fashioned prevention, isn’t there? Where would we be without all those nice, expensive

machines? Yet there seems to be a disconnect between the huge increase over the past

decade of neurological diseases with the corresponding increase in use of prenatal ultrasound,

IV injections of artificial hormones to augment labor, anesthesia drugs in the spine for pain

control, or elective cesareans “so your baby won’t suffer brain damage – you LOVE YOUR

BABY, don’t you? And, nurse, check to see if my club has me in for that 10 am tee-off, will

you?”

Medical media convince all women that not only can they have a baby without

that tedious pain: they can have a perfect, healthy baby! With the perfect doctor to deliver the

baby! In the perfect hospital! Perfect, perfect, perfect. There is no childbirth involved here, no

allowing for your own pace in the birthing process, no discovering your own strengths, or going

within yourself to come through this transformative process that only women can go through, to

bring a new life onto this planet, to be as one with every other woman since Eve, to know what

it’s like to be God. No, honey. You will go in to a hospital (at HOME?? How barbaric!), lie on

your back (passive is best), get yourself hooked up (machines never lie), the nurses get you all

3
 Ann Davenport Analysis and Imitation

comfortable with drugs (trust us), and doctor arrives (just in time!) to deliver the baby. You may

as well get a pizza delivered, while you’re at it.