Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made a very controversial statement about how we as women should live our lives. They stated that women who are not on birth control should stop drinking if they want to have sex. As we know all too well, if we have unprotected sex, we could get pregnant. And if we get pregnant while we had been drinking, there is an increased risk of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, which could cause a whole pantheon of disabilities ranging from “physical, behavioral and intellectual,” according to the CDC’s latest report.
“An estimated 3.3 million women between the ages of 15 and 44 years are at risk of exposing their developing baby to alcohol because they are drinking, sexually active, and not using birth control to prevent pregnancy, according to the latest CDC Vital Signs report,” the CDC states.
Coleen Boyle, Ph.D., director of the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities said in the CDC’s press release, “It is critical for healthcare providers to assess a woman’s drinking habits during routine medical visits: advise her not to drink at all if she is pregnant, trying to get pregnant or sexually active and not using birth control.”
While the CDC probably didn’t mean to shame women, they inadvertently did. By saying women shouldn’t drink and have sex, women are given all the blame for FASDs. Shouldn’t we be reminding men to wear condoms, too? Having safe sex, which will help lower the risk of pregnancy, and therefore FASDs, is a two-way street. Funny enough, pregnancy is not solely dependent upon the woman, so why does society, and in this case the medical community, still treat it as though it is? It takes two to tango.
Many women were also horrified by the CDC’s condescension and the way they seemed to see women only as babymakers, not as individuals. The CDC clarified that that wasn’t their intention—But they still wanted women to know that drinking even during early pregnancy could be very dangerous for a developing baby.
“We weren’t as clear as we hoped to be,” Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, told The New York Times in an interview. “We’re really all about empowering women to make good choices and to give them the best information we can so they can decide what they want to do themselves.”
Tara Haelle writes in Forbes that there are definitely very real risks associated with drinking while pregant, but that the CDC’s patronizing tone will make it harder for them to get that message across to women.
“Women are not children who need admonishment about not touching the stove,” she wrote. “They need information—clearly communicated information without euphemisms or tsk-tsks, delivered in a reasonable tone that respects them as adults capable of making their own decisions.”
As a college woman, you’re probably not trying to get pregnant right now, and the CDC’s statements seem like something to worry about later—a lot later. But the controversy around these statements just shows that with anything—from alcohol to sex to skydiving—you don’t have to make decisions based on platitudes, conventional wisdom, or fear-mongering. Go out there, get all the knowledge you can, and then make an informed decision based on what you’ve learned, whether it’s about picking the right birth control, having safe sex, or eating the right stuff for your body. Be empowered to make the best decisions for you!