The constant pressure that our society puts on young women to become mothers can feel almost overbearing at times. It's almost as if a woman's worth begins and ends with her womb.
TikTok user Abby Ramsay thinks it's high time we shatter this ignorant preconception about women and women's bodies.
Recently, Abby posted a viral compilation video that details her sterilization process. It now has the internet spinning, reigniting the debate regarding women who choose to be child-free.
Happy couples can't help but share their eager anticipation with the world as they discover whether or not they're about to have a baby boy or girl.
My motto, personally, is that so long as no one is hurting anyone, what's the harm? Parents are excited, and that's okay. But everyone feels differently.
Instead of posting a pregnancy announcement or gender reveal, Abby saw fit to share with the world a compilation of photos celebrating her sterilization.
The stop-motion photo compilation shows Abby approaching a large rock in the park.
Upon opening the box, Abby reveals the paperwork for her sterilization procedure. Not exactly your typical gender reveal!
"I’m excited to take control of my own body," Abby captioned the video. "I’m not a baby maker."
The first of which is known as a bilateral salpingectomy. This requires a doctor to go in and extract a woman's fallopian tubes, thus removing the egg's passageway from the ovaries to the uterus.
Abby said that her sterilization decision was born out of a desire to not have children, and also due to the fact that traditional forms of birth control don't work for her.
"The main reasonings they gave were age and possibility of regret," Abby explained. "One said she didn’t believe in performing 'unnecessary surgery' and said she was against things like plastic surgery, too."
They suggested that instead of going through with a sterilization procedure, Abby would be better off entering into counseling.
It turns out that an unwillingness to perform permanent birth control procedures is incredibly common amongst physicians.
"I strongly discourage it under age 30 because I've seen so many people change their minds."
"I’ll never understand why for them we are old enough to have kids, be married and work a 9to5[sic] job but not to decided to not have children," fellow TikTok user tulipashes said.
We need to stop viewing women as baby conduits; their value doesn't begin and end with their desire to bear children.
At the end of the day, what's important is making sure we respect everyone's personal decisions, especially when it comes to something as major as starting or not starting a family!
