Pithiness

The fact that someone says “I believe that pregnancy is not a disease” means that they are also saying “other people believe that pregnancy is a disease.”  Maybe I am completely naïve, but I don’t know any of my colleagues in maternal health who would say that pregnancy is a disease in the same way cancer is a disease.  What my public health colleagues would claim is that becoming pregnant carries a change in health status; and it is a change in health status that carries significant health risks.  Saying that pregnancy carries health risks is not disparaging; it is descriptive.  Outside of the pithiness of a bumper sticker, that pregnancy is both a great gift to be cherished and that it carries health risks can stand alongside each other perfectly well.

Link (here) to the opinion piece at the Jesuit Post by  Michael Rozier, SJ