If I got pregnant, and skipped off to my first antenatal appointment, and was asked if I smoked, I’d say no. I’d then expect to be left alone to take folic acid and play Mozart to my stomach. I would not expect some doctor to whip out a breathalyser to check I’m not lying.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence has suggested exactly that. They want pregnant women to be given breath tests to check they’re not smoking, because apparently a woman’s own testimony is not enough.
The assumption that mothers-to-be lie is slightly sinister and deeply patronising. There’s stuff in feminist literature that explains why and how women’s evidence is given lower authority than it should be (even, apparently, in relation to statements concerning their own bodies and lives) but I won’t go into that. Instead I’d suggest the NHS doesn’t stop at smoking. Weekly alcohol breath tests and blood tests for class A drugs are other options for those authority-loving doctors. You just can’t trust women not to lie. They’re natural fibbers.
I do a bit of exercise and I try to avoid crack cocaine most of the time, but as soon as a test confirms I’m cooking a sprog I’m going to immediately pump my veins full of heroin and stick cigarettes up my nose, in my ears, anywhere. And then I’m going to swim around in a massive vat of brandy, before going to the doctor and lying my face off.
If this ludicrous rule comes into operation by the time I decide to start blessing the world with my screaming progeny, I really hope it’s a great big pompous old wanker who asks me to take a breath test to prove I’m not a smoker. I can’t wait to stare at him, and request he provides a note from his medical school – on headed paper – confirming he is a qualified doctor. Then I’ll ask to see some ID, and corroborated evidence from the Criminal Records Bureau to prove he’s not on the sex offenders register or a raving nutfuck.
Of course, it will actually be some poor midwife who has to put up with me, not the fools who are suggesting this. It’s the second policy based on the assumption that women lie that I’ve heard of since the new government came in. The first was a proposal to give anonymity to men held on charges of rape. Because women lie about being raped, the same as they lie about smoking. None of this is doing anything for my frustration levels. I think I might be turning into Feminist Hulk.
Image via Worth1000.com