The Ableist Affections of a Neoliberal Politics1

As I lay on the operating table immediately following my C-section, having just kissed my newborn daughter (but

unable to touch her) as she was whisked off to be monitored and measured, the doctors standing over my open

abdomen paused before they began the tubal ligation that I had—due to a difficult history with pregnancy—voluntarily requested. Through the surgical mask, my obstetrician asked, “You want me to do just the one ovary, right?” In my haze, I panicked. I had almost hemorrhaged and died in a prior pregnancy, I had also miscarried, bled through at least half of both of my other “successful” pregnancies; so the idea of chancing pregnancy after making it to this delivery, at that moment, had me beside myself. Before I could respond, he and his partner began to laugh. It was just a joke.