Oh, those early feminists! They thought they did us a favor, demanding pain-free birth. What masochist wouldn’t want one?

If only they knew what path those good intentions paved.

Young women are passionate about their reproductive rights, but their blind spot is crippling. As much as we protect our right not to have children, we must protect our right to have them — however we choose. It’s hard to imagine today’s women — furious at pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions — as tomorrow’s compliant mothers-to-be, accepting what obstetricians will or won’t “let them” do with their bodies.

Think choice in birth isn’t an issue? Try going natural while nurses push those pain medications — apparently the world’s only side-effect-free drugs! Wait until they play the stillborn card. Refuse procedures and see if insurance will pay. Hey, where’d my reproductive rights go? I could swear they were right here!

No woman wants to endure the “agonizing” pain of childbirth, right? But what if she knew that much of what makes it painful — inducing labor, being forced to lie down and getting vaginal incisions — are modern medical interventions?

Would she still get the pain medications if she knew they often led to further interventions and C-sections? What if she had safer alternatives?

Home-birth midwives, trained in normal, natural birth, provide better outcomes than obstetricians for the 85 percent of women with low-risk pregnancies. Too bad using home-birth midwives is often illegal or not covered by insurance.

But we don’t need them! The CIA ranks the United States 42nd in infant mortality, far behind countries using midwives. For all our technology, we’re on par with Croatia. Cuba has better outcomes. Where are the marchers, the protest songs?

Today, about 35 percent of American women give birth by major abdominal surgery. While some C-sections are undoubtedly necessary, most are performed on already-laboring women, for dubious reasons such as “failure to progress” or “baby won’t fit.” No, the real cause is lawsuit-averse doctors who would rather cut preemptively than “gamble” on birth.

So why default to surgeons instead of professionals trained in natural birth? Relying on obstetrics for natural birth is like going to the oral surgeon for cavities. Fillings are a pain, but would you rather get the teeth pulled?

More “necessary” surgeries aren’t generating better outcomes, yet it’s becoming harder for midwives — many with two-year degrees and equipment for most emergencies — to practice. The fact is, low-risk women and babies are more likely to die, contract resistant illnesses or be injured by hospital-caused complications than from planned home births.

We are losing our choices.

Let us right the wrongs of the last century by respecting and protecting women’s rights. All of them.

Michelle Bowen-Ziecheck is a Weinberg junior. She can be reached at [email protected]