The Maternal Instinct
This is a post about immigration from an obstetric point of view.
I’ve seen (and delivered) a number of 1st generation immigrants over the past several weeks, and come to understand the immigration debate from a totally new point of view: governments, laws, and artificial borders versus the human spirit.
I have no idea if these women I saw were here legally or not–I know that any woman in active labor must be cared for by EMTALA law, but most of the women I saw had some degree of previous prenatal care, even if it was late. I probably used to know the policy and laws of insurance and everything, but my brain had to delete those to make room for the plethora of OB-Gyn facts I’ve been cramming in there recently.
I was most amazed by a woman at 39 weeks who arrived in this country 7 weeks ago from El Salvador. That means at 32 weeks of pregnancy, less than 2 months from delivering, she somehow got here, speaking little to no English. I wanted to ask her how she arrived–plane? boat? bus? pickup truck? walking?–but she was a little too ready to push, we were a little too busy, my Spanish is a little too poor, and it’s really none of my business.
I wondered what would drive these women to take such risks, even if they were here legally–move here while they were gigantically pregnant, picking up and leaving their families, support systems, jobs, houses, clothing, speaking almost no English–and it’s the human spirit and the maternal instinct. It’s the same thing that all of us want for our children and loved ones: a safe, solid place to grow up with access to education, health care, and jobs. It’s done out of love.
So many of our fairy tales, movies, and stories focus on this theme that I find it interesting there’s often such vitriol and hatred in the immigration debate. We love stories where the individual wins, love triumphs, often against all odds, but somehow, these immigrants, who seem to want the same things we all want–are different.
I guess the point of this post is that we can spend waste as much money as we want on borders and laws and regulations and security cameras, but the human spirit is so dedicated–exponentially so when you throw in the maternal instinct–that it seems like we’re almost trying to stop the inevitable.
If we want to prevent people from other countries from coming to ours to make a better life (and most of us “Americans” ended up here because our immigrant ancestors felt the same way), maybe money would be better spent trying to help other countries to better their own citizens’ lives.
(I’m well aware that the immigration debate is a hot topic and incredibly complex; I do not claim to be a scholar on the subject, just one man with a perspective I don’t often hear in the debate.)
I can’t fathom why they would leave the paradise that is socialized medicine for the evil (semi-) free markets of the US.
wealthandtaste,
presumably they come here for job opportunities. yes, the u.s. has excellent health care. but that doesn’t mean the system is good. it’s frustrating for many people, not least of all, doctors.
Thanks for the last paragraph; I never would have guessed that you weren’t an expert on these matters.
Perhaps in a future post you’ll discuss the hopes and dreams of the *five billion people* who are worse off than Mexicans (CAms probably aren’t far behind).
Perhaps you can also discuss just how horrific a public policy it is to encourage even more mixed-status families.
And, perhaps you can look into who profits from the current situation, including crooked businesses, crooked politicians, and crooked governments.
I heard an interesting anecdote about this issue recently. A freelance writer I know was recently travelling in the Middle East and he interviewed an American-Palestinian hip-hop artist living in Syria or Jordan (I forget which). Anyway, this rapper was the son of displaced Palestinians, who even after two or three generations have no citizenship in the countries they were displaced to. They’re stateless people, which means they have no passport and no citizenship rights anywhere. This guy’s mother somehow managed to travel to the U.S. to give birth to him. She didn’t stay there, and in fact he’s only spent a few weeks of his life in the U.S., but because of his mother’s actions, he now has a passport and a country and the ability to travel a lot more freely in the world.
This isn’t right, of course, but where does the fault lie? Any mother with the means would do the same for her child.
I come from the crazy school of thought that you must understand *why* certain things happen before you can change them. Damn that medical school and its “diagnose correctly before treating” philosophy!
TLB:
Being in Mexico as we speak, It’d take great pleasure to feed your nutjob conspiracy theories, like that I personally can say without a doubt that government sources within the Mexican PAN party (now in power since Fox) have leaked plans to seed Mexican embassies in the US with counter-intelligence officials to assist with the forging of undetectable falsified US passports and drivers’ licenses from almost every state.
But that’d be about as sporting as kicking a crutch out from someone or feeding a schizophrenic’s paranoia, so don’t worry. You keep on with la lucha against la raza that are your sworn enemigos.