Seymour and her husband, Adam Sylvester, met in college, fell in love, and got married. They both want to be police officers, but Sylvester, currently a security guard, is planning to stay home with their kids until they reach day-care age while Seymour works. Having their children early was always the plan — "I want to be young with them," explains Sylvester. "I want to run in the park with them, stuff like that." But so was stopping at two.

Currently five months pregnant, Seymour asked her OB/GYN, Dr. Kayode Ayodele, to perform a tubal ligation concurrently with her planned Caesarean section. Dr. Ayodele replied, "No."

And Seymour is understandably irate. "I thought we could make our own decision, with some guidance, not have the decision made for us," said Seymour. "We know what we want in life: we want two kids and then we want to start our careers. We had logical reasons behind it. He should have listened and respected that." Through her primary care physician, Seymour is still looking for an OB/GYN willing to sterilize her — but because of her age, she's been told it's a tough ask.

Young women are often discriminated against when seeking sterilization. Many doctors ask offensive questions ("What if you met a billionaire who wanted to have kids with you?"), state categorically that their patients are too young to consider the surgery, and generally act as though, as one woman who tried unsuccessfully to be sterilized at the age of 21 in the U.K. put it, "just because I was a woman, I'd reach a point where an urge to breed would overcome all rational thought." (Perhaps unsurprisingly, that woman's 25-year-old husband faced no such presumptions when he asked his doctor for a vasectomy. The procedure was quickly approved.)

Why is the choice to take any lingering contraceptive ambiguity out of one's life met with such scorn by so many in the medical establishment? Why does society at large indulge in the sexist, ageist assumption that young women aren't capable of making this particular decision? (Representative line from the two women journalists who wrote for the Daily Fail about women under 30 who've been sterilized: "While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal.")

"I find it incredibly patronizing," says Sue McGarvie, an Ottawa sex therapist.

Tarrah Seymour, who is educated, in a stable relationship, and obviously not one of those child-free freaks of nature the Fail is harping on, makes a very sympathetic case for being allowed the surgery she desires. But the point is everyone should have their basic right to make decisions regarding their bodies and their health without unnecessary interference from the government or the medical establishment — regardless of sex, marital status, or age. The right to make our own medical decisions is something women have fought long and hard for; it need hardly be pointed out that this is a right men have long enjoyed without any questioning.

Unfortunately, with people like Montreal OB/GYN Cleve Ziegler running around saying numb-skulled things like, "Any wise, experienced gynecologist will turn down a young woman seeking a tubal ligation," these attitudes don't seem likely to change. Continued Ziegler, "We've all seen that woman who had two kids, had her tubes tied at 28, and at 29 [has] a new boyfriend and wants it reversed." How nice to know that Dr. Ziegler, like Dr. Ayodele, treats his every female patient as though she were that hormone-addled lizard-brained lady creature of medical myth, instead of an individual in need.

Doctors Deny Mom's Tubal Ligation [CNews]
Meet The Women Who Won't Have Babies — Because They're Not Eco-Friendly [Daily Mail]
Tying The Knot [Macleans]
Female Hysteria [Wikipedia]

Earlier: Having Kids: Sometimes The Answer Is Just "No"
Dudes Frightened Of Duplicitous, Kid-Coveting Women Are Opting For Vasectomies

Dr. Laura is responding to a question about her double standards for men that engage in casual sex and women that do. The writer is apparently trying to say that both people should be held accountable for treating sex without respect, saying that it "encourages men to attempt to use women sexually as their birthright." Laura disagrees, because she's a slut-shaming idiot.

First of all, God and nature are responsible for the reality of a double standard. Women have breasts from which to suckle the baby born from their uterus after a nine month gestation. Women's high-pitched voices and hearing are geared for the infant-mother bonding that miraculously takes place right after birth. Women's temperaments to nurture, cuddle, coo, and protect are hardwired into their psychological programming.

Uhhh, also, "God" gave women the ability (some of us) to have multiple orgasms, nipples by which we can get aroused, clitori and, some of us at least, temperaments other than ones that "nuture, cuddle, coo and protect." Dr. Laura, notably, does not strike me as much of a coo-er.

There is no question that men more easily dissociate love and sex. Young males in particular are open to sexual experiences for the challenge, orgasmic satisfaction, and status among other males. These qualities are not synonymous with femininity.

And:

Women give themselves sexually to men out of love, a desperate desire to be wanted and loved, or for money.

But women never take men for the sake of their orgasms. Women "give" themselves to men for love or money. That's it.

It is not typical, as it is with men, for a woman to feel proud of the number of men who have penetrated her

And not because society slut-shames, it's because God does.

the only women who look for the sexual challenge are those so twisted with anti-male rage that domination of a male is a form of psychological rape which satisfies that neurotic anger.

Oh, god.

Males are generally out of control every which way until they fall in love and take on the obligations and responsibilities of a man committed to a woman and family.

She doesn't sound like she much likes men either. Oh, wait.

In fact, the deranged males who perpetrate horrendous acts of violence are generally such loner males with no families to make them feel important, give them purpose and direction…and love.

Except for that BTK killer guy, he was a total outlier.

Women are the taming and socializing force in society. Men will only do what women allow. Remember the ancient Greek classical play "Lysistrata"? The women in the town refused to have sex if their men continued to participate in war and violence. Poof, all the violence stopped. Women have always had the power over men; but feminism got women off the track of realizing that, and on the track to only hating or disdaining men...Now, women have largely become "pigs." Instead of embracing modesty, pride, values, and self-value, they parade around showing their bodies like Playboy bunnies, have sex before "hello," shack up with men without marital commitment

Well, Doctor Laura knows a little about shacking up, casual sex, and posing for nude pictures!

Am I Anti-Female? [Dr. Laura]

Related: Dr. Laura, How Could You? [Salon]

Earlier: Yeah, We Know: Dr. Laura Schlessinger Is Full Of Shit
Dr. Laura Blames Whiny Women, "Defends" Her Soldier Son

"Unnatural" standards of beauty have always existed and I'm not so sure that what passes now (Botox'd foreheads, laser "Brazilian" hair removals, breast implants, etc...) are more radical things that have been done since time immemorial (infant head molding, feet binding, corsets ("wasp waists"), neck stretching, tattooing, ritual scarring/piercing). In fact, there's kind of been some pushback towards less radical surgical and non-surgical treatments towards less obvious and more natural results.

Uh, yeah, but didn't foot binding, neck stretching and corsets make women miserable? Do we really need to perpetuate that? Some cultural, ritualistic body modifications — scarification, tattoos, circumcision — have roots in religion and spirituality. Where is the divine, holy inspiration in Janice Dickinson's face?

While it's true that foot binding and severe corsets are about beauty and attracting the opposite sex, don't we consider them to be part of our less-enlightened past? And these days, neck-stretching women do so for tourist dollars more than anything else.

Dr. O In American Sexuality Magazine... Mom Will Be So Proud! [Plastic Surgery 101]