The CDC is very popular site for Internet searches to self-diagnose ailments. Photo courtesy of america.aljazeera.com

This past week, the CDC made an interesting suggestion: If you aren’t using birth control, then you shouldn’t drink alcohol. Now calm down everyone, they only made this suggestion directed at women.

You may think I’m talking about pregnant women, as that would be the common sense reaction. Pregnant women probably shouldn’t drink, or at the very least they shouldn’t drink very much because that has the potential to cause fetal alcohol syndrome.

That’s true. Good job for paying attention in high school biology. The problem is that they didn’t make this announcement for pregnant women, they made it for all women. That’s right, ladies — if you’re not on birth control you shouldn’t drink.

Does this piss you off? I don’t even drink unless I’m alone watching Netflix with my dog and it pisses me off. The CDC’s reasoning here seems to be that women don’t know how to make decisions concerning their own lives and reproduction and it’s assuming that if they drink, they’re most certainly going to have sex and get pregnant. Never mind the fact that alcohol wouldn’t affect a zygote or an embryo or even a newly fertilized egg.

The message they’re conveying is if you’re a woman you’re really just a carrier or soon-to-be carrier of a fetus. You should live your life as if you’re pregnant already because that’s what it’s all leading up to.

Do you have a life of your own? Do you have goals and relationships and hobbies? Well if those things interfere with being pregnant, you should just get rid of them right now. So drop that Smirnov.

You probably think I’m blowing this whole thing out of proportion but this CDC situation is just a new example of the same problem.

A few years ago a group of doctors published a recommendation that all women should take prenatal vitamins. Let me clarify: All women, whether they’re pregnant or not.

The CDC wants women to take pre-natal vitamins just in case they became pregnant. That’s like telling everyone to inject insulin in case they become diabetic. Another group tried to justify keeping women out of certain jobs or paying them less for certain jobs because “those jobs involved things like lifting heavy objects, being around chemicals, or other things that could damage a fetus during pregnancy”.

Does the woman want to be pregnant? Is the woman even capable of becoming pregnant or carrying a pregnancy? Does the woman even identify as a woman? Does the woman not even have sex with men?

None of these people care because women aren’t their concern. What concerns them is being able to control women; and controlling a person’s reproduction is an easy way to control that person.

Do you ever hear doctors giving men recommendations on how to live their lives based on their fertility and reproduction?

Did you know that drinking too much can cause a man to have deformed sperm, which can lead to a disabled child? That sounds like a bigger danger to potential fetuses than a non-pregnant woman drinking. It’s not like drinking alcohol is going to hurt a non-existent baby, but some funky sperm? That could actually hurt a potential baby. Why aren’t you asking the men to save the imaginary babies, doctors?

I understand what the CDC’s intentions were and I understand how serious FAS is, but their suggestion and the way they worded it is sexist and stupid. If we really want to deal with the fetal alcohol problem here in the United States we should take notes from European countries that have much lower rates of the illness. And do you know what I noticed about Europe?

They let women have their reproductive rights and they let their kids have wine with dinner. Bottoms up.

Alisabeth Otto is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]