In Defense of Tessa Savicki, Forcibly-Sterilized Mother of Nine

I need to stop reading comments on the Internet. I need to finish reading articles and then immediately close the tab. Otherwise, I sometimes read user-contributed content that makes me go a little mad.

I heard about Tessa Savicki the other day through Fark.com and immediately knew I was opening a can of worms. To sum it up, after giving birth to her ninth child in December, she requested that the hospital install a temporary contraceptive device. Instead, they performed an operation that sterilized her. She's now suing the hospital.

At first glance, this story looks ridiculous, but as a habitual devil's advocate, I noticed many foggy areas (which I'll detail below) as I read the two-page article. But it wasn't until I reached the comments section that my misanthropy reared up and screamed.

This bothered me for two days until, again through Fark.com, I learned that the mother had begun receiving death threats because of the story. I had to sit down and type something.

Let's start with the ad hominem side of the issue. I don't like being called names. I don't like to see other people called names. In the comments of the original article, I saw Tessa Savicki referred to as an 'obese', 'disgusting' 'waste of space', 'low life [piece] of garbage', 'dead beat parent', '[worse than] Octomom', 'white trash welfare horror story', 'baby machine', 'fat slob', and 'poor excuse for a human being' who 'probably didn't cry foul when her legs were in the air'. That's from the first four pages of comments. At this writing, there are 107 pages of comments.

One comment called for the whole family to be sterilized; I guess he assumes 'whoredom' is genetic.

Here's something I found interesting: Five or so comments called for a social policy in which anyone on any kind of assistance had to gain independence and get off the assistance within one year or be forcibly sterilized. I have a MediCare card for free/assisted family planning (that I don't use). Therefore, I've technically been on assistance for about a year now. Oh, hell, I guess I'd better put on my shoes and go down to the sterilization office.

See, I make that one sound silly, but five out of about fifty comments, or ten percent of those I 'polled', would support this social policy if it hit the referendums this year. I suddenly sympathize with those who cried 'death panels' a few weeks back; their misanthropy was stronger than mine.

I see the same few complaints repeated by most of the commenters: she's on disability; she got pregnant as a teenager; her children have multiple fathers, and she is unmarried; she sued someone previously regarding malfunctioning spermacide; she switched lawyers; she probably isn't a good mother to her children; two of her children are on public assistance; her mother has custody of three of her children; she's fat.

First of all, I had to look up non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on Wikipedia. The words that jump out at me are 'cancer', 'white blood cells', and 'chemotherapy'. In my uneducated opinion, that sounds like something worthy of disability. There's also the immediate temptation to call her a welfare mother, but the article that I read doesn't mention welfare, only disability.

The circumstances of her teenage pregnancy aren't delved into where I've seen, so I don't think it's fair to assume she was some kind of 'slut'. Wikipedia reports that up to 20% of teen pregnancies are the result of rape. And whatever the circumstances, I also applaud her for not aborting her innocent child despite the terror and ridicule she must have experienced. The teen pregnancy issue, then, is an entire can of worms in itself and shouldn't be dismissed with "Wow, I guess she was a slut".

The fact that her children have multiple fathers is unfortunate, but not all of us are lucky enough to meet our true love on the first try. I had it easy; tonight was my third anniversary with my first boyfriend, now fiancé. I reserve the right to only criticize others when I can offer a better alternative; to someone who spends years searching for their special person, I have nothing to offer. As for her current love, I hope everything works out and that she's finally able to settle down.

That people juxtapose the lawsuit nine years ago regarding malfunctioning birth control with this new, opposite controversy stuns me. I compare it to suing someone for stealing your car, and then nine years later suing someone who stole your bicycle. 'Make up your mind!' these simpletons would probably snarl. But if a person can change their mode of transportation in nine years, why not their reproductive attitude?

Many are quick to forget that this all happened because she was trying to have a form of birth control implemented. She wanted to stop having children for a while but still leave that option open (more on that in a minute). She isn't a 'baby machine'.

Someone in a comment noted that she had switched lawyers and voiced suspicion. Speaking as someone who works at a law firm, I see people switch attorneys all the time. There are many, many possible reasons; the new attorney might have more experience in the field (in this case, medical malpractice), be a nicer guy, charge less, work closer to where the client lives, or have more time for the case, to name a few possible reasons. This is a very nitpicky thing to point out.

I don't think anyone can read this two-page article and judge doubtlessly that the woman is a bad mother. There simply isn't enough data. As for two of the children being on public assistance, my first thought was that if only two of the four qualified, they might either be disabled or ill, qualifying them for disability. Again, there isn't enough data here.

That her mother has custody of three of her children could mean any number of things. Just to take a stab at it, note that in the photos of her family, the three children are young (the fourth in her care, not pictured, probably being the baby she just delivered). My money is that the three older children (and possibly one or both of her adult children) who are with her mother needed more space and resources; the mother might even live in the country or otherwise have resources attractive to teens. I find it annoying that most assume the children are a 'burden' on the grandmother; many of the older women I know absolutely adore being around their grandchildren 24/7.

And finally, we come to that ironically American bigotry against the overweight. As someone who has never weighed more than eighty-six pounds in her life, I can speak for the bigotry thrown against the underweight (the words 'bulimic' and 'midget' come to mind) but can't really help with this one. I'd like to point out that she recently gave birth to a child, is ill with lymphoma, and probably doesn't have time for much body-building while caring for four children.

But you know, there's a reason why I referred to this section of the issue as 'ad hominem', a debate term referring to an attack on the debater instead of their arguments. The fact that Tessa Savicki has nine children doesn't relate to the real crime committed in this story. As Kate Harding points out:

"It would be easy to rally around a woman who was forcibly sterilized before she got a chance to have children, or even after only one or two; a woman who hasn't had kids with multiple partners and has never lost or surrendered custody of a child; a woman with an able body, a good job and financial stability; a woman who's never thought of suing anyone before. A "good" woman, the kind we like, the kind whose decisions we approve of. It's much harder to set aside classism, ableism, disdain for women who have sex . . . to declare unequivocally that what they did to Tessa Savicki - assuming it's proven - was wrong. But we must. If anything's a black-and-white issue, this is it: You don't sterilize people against their will. You don't use your personal judgment of someone else's choices as license to invade her body and rob her of her fertility."

Whether the surgery was merely a screw-up or (less likely) an amateur attempt at eugenics, Kate's right: Sterilization without consent isn't done. The World Health Organization, an agency of the UN, defined the human right of reproduction as "the basic right . . . to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children".

If, instead of sterilization, a sponge had been left in her uterus or some improper stitches had come open inside her, this would look so much more straightforward. No one would harangue Savicki for complaining about that. It would be a cut-and-dried malpractice case.

In the end, what I took away from this was that many are quick to judge people they don't know and to decry societies of which they are only one member. Here I've written fifteen hundred words of my reasoning on the subject; I sincerely doubt that nine tenths of those who read this story donated more thought than their nasty, hateful, ten-word comment. I don't allow those around me to be so intellectually lazy, and I want to see that sentiment spread.

There's a lot of the story left to unfold. I think that half of what I've said will be proven right and the other half will be proven wrong. But whatever the case, I'm proud to have gone further than the headline was willing to take me.