Micaela Elizabeth
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Favorite writer: Impossible to choose! Some of my all-time favorites include Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Carly Thomsen, Stephanie Elízondo Griest, Pablo Neruda, and Julia Alvarez
Favorite sex scene from a movie/TV/book: When Jack and Rose sneak into the backseat of the car on the Titanic and then Jack lays in Rose’s arms while trembling –it gets me EVERY TIME! It has everything my perfect sex scene requires: urgency, trespassing, and forbidden love.
Hidden Talent: Consuming 4+ liters of Diet Dr. Pepper in a 12-hour period
Posts By: Micaela Elizabeth Canales
Fetal tissue burial: whatever happened with the proposed Texas rules?
Texas abortion rights activists had much to celebrate this year –namely the U.S. Supreme Court’s HB2 decision. But that joy was diminished when Texas Governor Greg Abbot suggested new fetal tissue burial codes would be enforced by the Texas Department of Health and Human Services on July 1, 2016 in the Texas Register. These proposed codes are not “laws” per se, but rather would make up the administrative guidelines issued by the Texas Department of Health Services –guidelines that medical facilities and practitioners would be forced to abide. The newly proposed codes specifically target abortion providers (the overwhelmed but powerful handful that remain) and require that fetal tissue, whether miscarried or aborted, regardless of gestational age, be interred or cremated. During a particularly painful period, I passed a thick, clotty glob of… Read more »
5 Responses to Rape that Feed, not Fight, Rape Culture
*Trigger warning: This article contains discussion of sexual assault. In 2016, we’ve seen unprecedented progress when it comes to recognizing the prevalence of rape culture, and coming up with legal and social ways to fight it. From bipartisan support for the Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill of Rights and the success of the #ItsOnUs campaign, we’re closer than ever to protecting survivors of sexual violence and making sure victims feel safe and heard at every level. However, we’ve also seen some pretty shitty attempts to explain away rape culture, make excuses for convicted rapists, and blow off incendiary comments made by a certain Presidential candidate… There have been (too many) opportunities for our nation’s elected to not only speak out against rape and sexual violence, but to also take a stand against the pervasiveness of… Read more »
Abortion Doulas Provide Much-needed Support
Abortion doulas! What are they, why do I love them, and where can you find one? To understand the role of an abortion doula, we should start with what a doula is generally. According to ATX Doulas, a doula service based in Austin Texas, a doula “is someone who provides continuous emotional and physical support … before, during, and after birth.” Doulas can be trained in relaxation techniques, prenatal activities to ease birth, initial breastfeeding, and can act as an advocate for their client at their birth location (be it home, hospital, or birth center). There are several organizations that offer doula training and certification, such as DONA International and Ancient Song Doula Services. While birth doulas may be the most popular type of doula (as evidenced by google search),… Read more »
In Favor of a Full Bush: Why I Want Healthcare Education to include Pubes
This past week, as a part of my first official semester in nursing school, I learned how to insert a urinary catheter. A urinary catheter is a tube that is inserted into the bladder via the urethra when the bladder does not empty pee as normal. My nursing class learned how to insert catheters into urethras that were located above adult vaginas. The whole process of learning how to insert a catheter began with reading about it, then watching a video on how to do it, and finally practicing on a mannequin that is supposed to simulate a real life adult human person. While I watched the catheter-insertion video and then later in lab while I readied my mannequin’s vagina for practice, I was perplexed. Why? Because both the mannequin… Read more »
WTF Texas?! Anti-choice group tasked with providing healthcare
At the beginning of August, I was alarmed to read that the State of Texas had awarded a little over $1.6 million to an anti-choice extremist group (surprise!). Anti-choice proponent, Carol Everett, heads the Heidi Group, a group that does not provide healthcare services, but does support anti-choice clinics and agendas. This award came from a large pool of money that the state has allocated to fund the Healthy Texas Women Program, Texas’ version of Medicaid. The program is intended to provide Texans aged 15-44 with comprehensive whole health check-ups, contraceptives, and diabetes and cholesterol treatment and monitoring. Cool beans, got it, everything makes some type of sense now; Texas is working with healthcare providers across the state to ensure Texans have quality health care. Great! …Except for the small… Read more »
