Body Talk

Frozen embryos, cadavers, and sociopaths

Judy Linn 1994

Good morning to all, I am stuck in an airport that is wrapped in a cozy blanket of fog with nowhere to go, and a single Flat White burning its way through my guts. As longtime Plan Bee-ers, Beehivers? will remember, I am afflicted with a very specific travel curse. It truly does not matter how long or short the trip.

Soon I will transition to stage two of ‘Airport Delay Sam Bee’, and chew my way through an entire pack of Dentyne White. Yes I swallow it. Yes I am Sean Spicer. 

Soooo many things on the go this week, including the fact that I am on my way to Toronto to a) visit family and b) be a guest judge on Canada’s Drag Race. As always, my first step upon disembarking in the land of my birth, will be a quick pit stop at Swiss Chalet to properly anoint myself with their tasty gravy. No haters.

Start every day with a steaming mug of Chalet sauce.

But first! May I draw your attention to this week’s Choice Words, featuring the indomitable Kara Swisher, of whom I am a fierce and loyal fan. As I have mentioned in prior Substacks, I love love LOVE her new memoir, and we had a super conversation in which she made me laugh many times, but also feel dread and terror about the future! Stellar combo.

Naturally much attention has fallen on the IVF decision in Alabama that ruled frozen embryos are children, and subsequent shuttering of fertility clinics across the state. 

Here is a great rundown of the entire situation. 

There are so many things to be mad about here, so let me pick just one for today: the vast numbers of political figures with ethics and policies that slide all over the fucking place. Look at this. FOLKS WE HAVE A POLICY PROBLEM HERE.

Listen, does human life begin at conception in your view or does it not? You can’t support a bill that implicitly states this, and then turn around and support IVF. THIS MAKES NO SENSE. 

Oh right because you DON’T believe any of these things, and probably don’t care, and would do anything to get proper healthcare (including abortions, which are healthcare) or IVF for your own family, at any cost, right right, because it’s all fake, and you say these things because it gets you votes and none of it is real. 

Now that it seems politically hairy to shut down IVF clinics and deprive families of their opportunities to grow their families in this way, they are ALL IN on restoring the clinics to full service? Even though “selective reductions” are very much a part of the IVF process for many families, in which certain embryos are prioritized for the health of the strongest candidates. This is an abortion by another name, and it is often part of the process because once more, ABORTION IS HEALTHCARE. Please spare us the agony of watching you all twist yourselves into pretzels for science you don’t understand or ethics you are only pretending to care about. I am looking at you Josh Hawley, you are so phony it fucking HURTS.

This closure of fertility clinics is devastating so many families. This ruling is disgusting, it’s a sham, it is rooted in garbage science, and the patriarchy. We are not brood mares, blastocysts are not babies, FFS we can keep them alive in a freezer. 

Hoo boy. Ya know, when you spend as much time as I have being a Cassandra about the slippery downward spiral of reproductive rights through the years…it sucks to have been so right about the depths to which we can go. Sorry, the depths which are still to come. Because let’s be honest, if you can say ‘you cannot destroy this embryo’, then what is the next stop on this express train to hell? YOU MUST IMPLANT THIS EMBRYO. Wait for it.

We are not incubators, but good God these bastards sure would like to make it so.

On a lighter note, DEATH. 

Ladies, it turns out we can achieve full bodily autonomy...once we're…dead?

JK jk, but actually–the story I couldn’t stop thinking about this week, that I highly recommend–is this episode of The Pulse that has not left my brain. The subject is: body donation, and friends, when I tell you I have never once considered donating my body to science, never ONCE– I mean it. I truly believed that donating my body to science meant that medical students would gather around my body for the sole purpose of making fun of my pubes. Like at first they would be solemn about it, but then, once their professor’s back was turned, absolute mayhem. 

“We can’t do anything with this cadaver, the pubes are simply too distracting. Should we put it in a Hawaiian shirt and take it with us to a bachelorette party?”

Please no.

I truly imagined that my corpse would get shepherded to oblivion by the randy medical students, the baddies, the nepo babies, the ones who don’t deserve the slot. The ones with rich parents who’ll smooth over their antics with a chunky donation and a new research wing. 

I think often about having a good death, what that might mean. How reticent we are to engage with death, esp. over here…in North America, where we love to keep it uptight and deeply repressed wheeee!

 This story right here inspired us to do a piece on the death positivity movement at Full Frontal, and it was very eye opening! 

And honestly the history of medical school cadavers is…upsetting, and racist, and classist, and all of the worst “-ists”. But this story allowed me to see that progress has been made. People’s bodies are cherished, they are handled with grace and care, and oh my goodness are they ever needed. I was especially interested when they referenced the deep nerve damage that a medical student discovered in her cadaver. Nerve damage that never would have been detected by any other means. As science explores the contours of pain, its complexities, what it means when someone says they feel pain but no one can find the root cause, working with real human bodies is critical.  Investigating the underlying causes of pain, or disease is important. I am embarrassed that I never thought to do this? I am embarrassed that I caused everyone reading this Substack to consider, at least for a moment, the condition of my pubes? There. I did it again.

Anyway, whatever happens just don’t let the medical students write my epitaph.

“Here lies Samantha Bee. She had so much stale chewing gum stored inside her, it was actually pretty freaky.”

As I continue my airport people watching, I'm reminded that sociopaths are all around us, and by the way I CANNOT WAIT TO READ THIS BOOK. 

If that was too bone chilling, please consider this story the perfect corrective. Help! Police! Event Not As Advertised!

Plane taking off.

Gum has been consumed.

Have a great day.

Xoxo

Sam