As a new mom and New York Mets' fan (hold your boos, please), my ear's perked up when I heard Boomer Esiason's suggestion that Daniel Murphy's wife should have scheduled a C-section to better accommodate the team's schedule. I don't want to repeat what's been said in the numerous insightful, well-reasoned articles covering this topic, especially now that the former NFL quarterback has apologized, but I do have a few thoughts to share.
We're fortunate to live in a time and place where numerous life-saving medical procedures are available and performed every day. The important aspect of this issue is that all health-related decisions are a matter to be adjudicated between an individual, his/her family members, and his/her doctor. Some women give birth at home in their bathtubs under the supervision of a midwife with no pharmaceutical assistance; others go in fully expecting to be hooked up to an epidural catheter. Personal preferences and ideals aside, no one way is "better" than another. And I'm willing to bet that there are people (wives of professional athletes included) who have scheduled C-sections or labor inductions for the sake of convenience. Other women not in the public eye may elect to push or delay a C-section or induction so as not to interfere with their partners' work obligations or other commitments. A friend of mine was due to give birth at the end of August. When she remained pregnant on September 8th her doctor scheduled her for an induction the next day... then bumped it to the following day because the labor and delivery ward was full - too many women scheduling their C-section/induced births for the 9th, to avoid delivering on September 11th.
The point, which both Murphy and Esiason espoused in their comments subsequent to the initial discussion, is that the approach to childbirth and decisions about subsequent care are matters of individual choice. As long as someone with medical training approves of and can provide or arrange for any subsequent care, the patient's decision is what governs.
By the way, the same argument can be made for the availability of abortion and the use of stem cells. If these medical interventions violate someone's religious beliefs or personally-held moral ideals, he or she needn't utilize them. But calling for the elimination of the procedures altogether, depriving other people of autonomy in deciding whether or not to pursue those treatments, misapplies the First Amendment's clause protecting the free exercise of religion. In this arena, as in many others, "freedom" means that we get to believe in and practice the principles we choose, but it does not extend so far as to allow the imposition of one group's beliefs on outsiders.
Another angle to the paternity leave issue involves gender itself. Lots of people on Twitter shared the sentiment that, as a man, Esiason was somehow not equipped to make an informed assessment of the situation nor entitled to have an opinion at all because he himself cannot give birth. Nonetheless, I believe that despite being a man, he had every right to formulate an opinion and voice it accordingly... with the understanding that the world would view his opinion with the appropriate grain of salt and react critically. The notion that Esiason's sex makes him ill-equipped to form a reasoned opinion on the subject of birth is insulting to all men, and thereby undermines any attempt at "feminist" argument by being unnecessarily antagonistic toward an entire gender.
What do you all think? Where do we draw the line about who can say what about others' medical procedures? Is this whole ordeal being overblown? Will the Mets ever win a game?! I eagerly await your comments.
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