#... ABORTION

[mspiggy]

here's a link to an archived version of the article (no paywall)

This was an interesting read. Surprisingly nonpreachy given the subject; and well worth the time.

[thingstrumperssay]

HMMM...

HMMMMMMMM......

[sassysagas4554]

[sharklovingaquarist]

Rich white women are still not on the same level as rich white men. How is that hard to comprehend? All of these surface level thinkers don't know how they downplay the massive effect of misogyny with this way of thinking. Are rich white women privileged? Absolutely. Are they as privileged as rich white men? No! Downplaying the tremendous mental damage from the patriarchy is disgusting. Being a woman should be considered enough to talk about oppression. Sorry!

And yall aren't ready to hear that you need to be calling out men of color like how you call out white women. I hear all about how white feminists have failed woc (and they have), but I never hear anything about how men of color have failed women. It is treated as an untouchable subject. You never intersect issues for women either. Let's start talking about the violence inflicted on women in prison, specifically women of color. Lets talk about mens violence towards lesbians. With leftists, it definitely feels as if there is a hierarchy with issues, and misogyny is not a concern to them. It honestly has to be the most normalized form of human suffering. And that is because men and women are biologically tied to each other but differ. And from that difference, men brainwash you to believe your oppression is innate. It is easier to use pseudoscience based on deeper differences compared to superficial ones, especially when those differences make two people a team. One team member twists the truth to make the other a servant. It goes down to your very identity and nature.

[proudtobememed]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Carter Sherman at The Guardian:

In the months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, permanent contraception in the form of tubal sterilizations and vasectomies surged among young adults living in states likely to ban abortion, new research released on Monday found. Compared to May 2022, when the opinion overturning Roe leaked, August 2022 saw 95% more vasectomies and 70% more tubal sterilizations performed on people between the ages of 19 and 26, according to the study, which was conducted by researchers at the George Washington University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Michigan.

In addition to analyzing data about medical visits for permanent contraception before and after the opinion’s leak, the researchers also examined survey responses from more than 600 people between the ages of 14 and 24 who were asked about the fall of Roe. “It has made me want to be sterilized more,” said one 24-year-old female survey respondent from the US south. “The pill isn’t 100% effective and I’m afraid of losing access to it, and I do not want children in the future and would much rather be sterilized. I’m afraid of getting pregnant and not being able to make decisions for myself.”

Published in the journal Health Affairs, the study also found that, overall, tubal sterilizations – which surgically alter women’s fallopian tubes and are colloquially known as “getting tubes tied” – were more popular than vasectomies. There were about seven more tubal sterilizations performed per state a month in the second half of 2022, compared to roughly three more vasectomies a month per state. That popularity probably reflects the longstanding expectation that women shoulder the burden of contraception. But Julia Strasser, the study’s lead author, suspects that there may be other reasons, too.

A recent study published in Health Affairs reveals that the permanent contraception rate rose in the US in the aftermath of the Dobbs ruling.

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[luciferstorturedungeon]

DO NOT PANIC, EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT. JUST DON’T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN, RESIST IN ANY WAY YOU CAN AGAINST PROJECT 2025 AND THE OTHER TRUMPISM AGENDAS!

Please stay safe my moots and anyone else reading this stuff.

Trumpism’s healthcare fracture-lines

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/20/clinical-trial-by-ordeal/#spoiled-his-brand-new-rattle

There was never any question as to whether Trump would implement Project 2025, the 900-page brick of terrifying and unhinged policy prescriptions edited by the Heritage Foundation. He would not implement it, because he could not implement it. No one could. It's impossible.

This isn't a statement about constitutional limits on executive authority or the realpolitik of getting bizarre and stupid policies past judges or through a hair-thin Congressional majority. This is a statement about the incoherence of Project 2025 itself. You probably haven't read it. Few have. Realistically, few people are going to read a 900-page group work of neofeudalist fanfic shit out by the most esoteric Fedsoc weirdos the world has ever seen.

But one person who did read Project 2025 was the leftist historian Rick Perlstein, who was the first person to really dig into what a fucking mess that thing is:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual

Perlstein's excellent analysis doesn't claim that Project 2025's authors aren't sincere in their intentions to wreak great harm upon the nation and its people; rather, his point is that Project 2025 is filled with contradictory, mutually exclusive proposals written by people who fundamentally disagree with one another, and who each have enough power within the Trump coalition that all of thier proposals have to be included in a document like this:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-10-project-2025-republican-presidencies-tradition/

Project 2025 isn't just a guide to the masturbatory fantasies of the worst people in American politics – far more importantly, it is a detailed map of the fracture lines in the GOP coalition, the places where it is liable to split and shatter. This is an important point if you want to do more about Trumpism than run around feeling miserable and scared. If you want to fight, Project 2025 is a guide to the weak spots where an attack will do the most damage.

Perlstein's insight continues to be borne out as the Trump regime makes ready to take power. In a new story for KFF News, Stephanie Armour and Julie Rovner describe the irreconcilable differences among Trump's picks for the country's top public health authorities:

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/trump-rfk-kennedy-health-hhs-fda-cdc-vaccines-covid-weldon/

The brain-worm-infected-elephant in the room is, of course, RFK Jr, who has been announced as Trump's head of Health and Human Services. RFK Jr is a notorious antivaxer, chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a notorious anti-vaccine group. Kennedy's view is shared by Trump's chosen CDC boss, Dave Weldon, a physician who has repeated the dangerous lie that vaccinations cause autism. Mehmet "Dr Oz" Oz, the TV "physician" Trump wants to put in charge of Medicare/Medicaid, calls vaccines "oversold" and advocates for treating covid with hydroxychloroquine, another thoroughly debunked hoax:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/12/17/hydroxychloroquine-study-covid-19-retracted-trump/77051671007/

However, other top Trump public health picks emphatically support vaccines. Marty Makary is Trump's choice for FDA commissioner; he's a Johns Hopkins trained surgeon who says vaccines "save lives" (but he peddles the lethal, unscientific hoax that childhood vaccines should be "spread out"). Jay Bhattacharya, the economist/MD whom Trump wants to put in charge of the NIH, supports vaccines (he is also one of the country's leading proponents of the eugenicist idea of accepting the mass death of elderly, sick and disabled people rather than imposing quarantines during epidemics). Then there's Janette Nesheiwat, whom Trump has asked to serve as the nation's surgeon general; she calls vaccines "a gift from God."

Like "Bidenism," Trumpism is a fragile coalition of people who thoroughly and irreconcilably disagree with one another. During the Biden administration, this resulted in self-inflicted injuries like appointing the brilliant trustbuster Lina Khan to run the FTC, but also appointing the pro-monopoly corporate lawyer Jacqueline Scott Corley to a lifetime seat as a federal judge, from which perch she ruled against Khan's no-brainer suit to block the Microsoft-Activision merger:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-for-microsoft-mergers

The Trump coalition is even broader than the Biden coalition. That's how he won the 2024 election. But that also means that Trumpism is more fractious and off-balance, and hence will be easier to disrupt, because it is riven by people in senior positions who hate one another and are actively working for each others' political demise.

The Trump coalition is a coalition of *cranks*. I'm using "crank" here in a technical, non-pejorative sense. I am a crank, after all. A crank is someone who is overwhelmingly passionate about a single issue, whose uncrossable bright lines are not broadly shared. Cranks can be right or they can be wrong, but we're hard to be in coalition with, because we are uncompromisingly passionate about things that other people largely don't even notice, let alone care about. You can be a crank whose single issue is eliminating water fluoridation, even though this is very, very stupid and dangerous:

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/the-fluoride-debate

Or you can be a crank about digital rights, a subject that, for decades, was viewed as by turns either unserious or as a sneaky way of shilling for Big Tech (thankfully, that's changing):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

Cranks make hard coalition partners. Trump's cranks are cranked up about different things - vaccines, culture war trans panics, eugenics - and are total normies about other things. The eugenicist MD/economist who wants to "let 'er rip" rather than engage in nonpharmaceutical pandemic interventions is gonna be horrified by total abortion bans and antivax. These cranks are on a collision course with one another.

This is on prominent display in these public health appointments, and we're very likely about to get a test of the cohesiveness and capability of the second Trump administration, thanks to bird flu. Now that bird flu has infected humans in multiple US states, there is every chance that we will have to confront a public health emergency in the coming weeks. If that happens, the Trump public health divisions over masking, quarantine and (especially) vaccines (Kennedy called the covid vaccine the "deadliest" ever made, without any evidence) will become the most important issue in the country, under constant and pitiless scrutiny, and criticism.

Trump's public health shambles is by no means unique. The lesson of Project 2025 is that the entire Trump project is one factional squabble away from collapse at all times.

[animentality]

[largishcat]

this Thanksgiving consider donating to Indigenous Women Rising a native run org that helps native/indigenous women in the US access abortion and reproductive care

[sharklovingaquarist]

"Impregnate" please as radical feminists lets leave that word in the dust. "Concieve with" is the proper saying. Sperm doesn't enter a female and become a baby on its own. Also how about we focus on other things men should do... like providing. Castration is unnatural, force them to do what nature intented. Women aren't the only ones concerned during a pregnancy. Make the man sevre her. Make him pay for everything. Make him get tested for issues he could cause to her during the pregnancy (because btw a man DOES impact a womans health with his health during a pregnancy). Women have to be willing to be physically pregnant, but its the man who is at our mercy when it comes to helping with the process. Thats the whole reason males stay with females in humans. However, men have convinced us its our thing, and they only stay by choice if its to be credited with owning the woman and child. Hold men to their provider role that they scream about so much. You wanna be a provider? Then fucking provide. I need yall to think of mens actions more than womens actions. Men aren't by nature separate from women. Men have manufactured society to own, but not do their part. They observe, they dont take action. Everything strokes their ego while they lay back on their ass

New law idea just dropped: chemically castrate any man who impregnated a woman that had/would have had an abortion (if the law allowed). That way, we will prevent more future abortions by teaching men to only have sex with women who are willing to carry out pregnancy!

[yeahiwasintheshit]

[politijohn]

Source

Phenomenal choice

As a former teacher, MN Governor Walz has:

Signed legislation protecting abortion rights

Signed an executive order protecting gender-affirming care

Banned conversion therapy

Restored voting rights to Minnesotans who are on parole, probation or community release due to a felony

Signed voting rights legislation

Signed legislation legalizing recreational cannabis

Signed legislation guaranteeing free school lunches to students

Expanded workers rights and is supported by unions

[sassysagas4554]

[imnotstandingstill]

This is an interesting statistical breakdown. The math is fine, but the way it is applied is interesting. The initial argument is regarding “late term abortions,” abortions performed after 21 weeks. And then a set of statistics are given for the reported reason (I’m assuming the reason given by the mother at the time of the abortion) behind their decision. Again, that’s fine.

However, it appears the percentages are a breakdown of termination decisions throughout all stages of pregnancy, not just late term. Also, I can’t find these specific numbers, and the ones I can find are quite a bit different.

These numbers are based on abortions done in Florida, as it is the only state that records a reason for every abortion done in the state. Also of note, “no reason” could mean any number of things, anywhere from the woman felt none of the options accurately portrayed their situation to they did not want to disclose a reason.

There are some other numbers as well just above these that reflect reasons from a study done in 2004 by the Guttmacher Institute where they surveyed 1,209 “post-abortive” women. Of note, these numbers reflect only the reason the mother deemed most significant, however: “89% gave at least two and 72% gave at least three; the median number of reasons given was four, and some women gave as many as eight reasons out of a possible 13,” per the results section of the Guttmacher Institute’s research paper on the survey.

My point being the numbers can vary greatly just based on population size alone, not to mention the method of how the numbers are collected. However my bigger point is that these numbers are not broken down by reason and gestational age, just the reason. So these numbers cannot directly be applied to late term abortions in the same way as it can be applied to abortions overall. Not to say that it doesn’t, but there’s no evidence that it does. However, I do find it interesting that, in the data I found at least, fetal anomalies account for 0.95% in the first data set and 3% in the second data set, and that is because of anatomy scans. Let me explain.

Anatomy scans are done at the 20 week mark (generally anywhere from 18 to 22 weeks gestation, depending on scheduling/availability). The reason the 20 week mark is used is because that is the point that all major structures are formed. This diagram from mothertobaby.org is a pretty good condensed illustration of the general development of major structures.

One major structure not mentioned here is the lungs; the outer structure of the lungs are formed by roughly 16 weeks, with the inner structures responsible for the gas exchange between oxygen and carbon dioxide considered mature around 36-38 weeks (though these structures continue to grow and mature well into the toddler years as the lungs grow with baby), which is why preterm and especially extremely preterm infants can require significant respiratory support to survive.

Because week 20 is generally when all major structures are formed, is it the earliest point that structural defects can be noticed. Any structural defects are markers for potential major fetal anomalies. These anomalies may be immediately identified as very concerning (examples being omphalocele, myelomeningocele aka spinal bifida, or even missing organs) or simply an area of concern that should be monitored just in case. The CDC has info here about how often different defects happen. I have extensive experience with a lot of these defects and would be happy to discuss any in detail if anyone is interested, but long story short, converting to percentages and adding them up comes to roughly 1.3% of pregnancies leading to some kind of congenital defect of varying severities and treatability (although defects in twin pregnancies are not included here, but I’m not sure how selective reductions are figured into abortion statistics so we won’t worry about that today). With some of these defects it is most common to see it in conjunction with another if not multiple other defects, making treatment much more difficult.

All this to say, if a mother (or parents together) decide to abort a pregnancy due to a health problem in the fetus, that health problem is usually not discovered until the 20 week ultrasound/anatomy scan. If you then take into account medical discussions, deliberation time, and scheduling barriers, this would put those abortions after the 21 week mark. If 0.95% of abortions are done as a result of major fetal anomalies, most if not all of these decisions would have been the result of findings on the 20 week fetal anomaly scan. And if roughly 1% (or 0.9% per the data collected in 2021 as presented by the CDC) of abortions are “late term,” meaning occurring after week 21, than it makes sense if most if not nearly all are done as a result of major fetal anomalies. So more than likely, nearly all if not all are done for major fetal anomalies and/or life of the mother.

I am not saying there are never exceptions. No one knows everything that happens in the world. But this is why if you say you are fact-checking, it is importantly to make sure the facts are used appropriately and accurately. Otherwise, that’s how disinformation spreads. This is why we say late term abortions are loved and wanted children that are lost because of an impossible and difficult decision. They do not deserve to have salt rubbed in their wounds as they mourn a child they lost or couldn’t care for the way they would have needed to be cared for.

“Late term abortions are so rare we do not even need to worry about them and they ONLY happen for life of the mother situations.”

Ok let’s fact-check that.

Firstly:

.065% of abortions are because a woman’s life is endangered, and .666 are because of a fetal abnormality

So 0.731% of abortions would even possibly be argued as justified in that sense, and the likely good that all of those were caught AFTER 21 weeks is low. Right?

So let’s address late terms being uncommon. Abortions at later gestational durations are comparatively uncommon: only 1.0% of abortions take place at or after 21 weeks after the first day of the pregnant person's last menstrual period

Yet, researchers estimate there were 1,026,700 abortions in 2023. "That's the highest number in over a decade, [and] the first time there have been over a million abortions provided in the U.S. formal health care system since 2012,"

1% of 1,026,700 is 10,276.

0.731% (which is what could be feasibly argued be be “necessary” remember? And even that I would disagree in many of those cases,) is 7505.177.

Roughly 10,276 abortions a year are late term. Let’s put this into some context.

In the United States, there are approximately 4,000 unintentional drowning deaths each year, which is about 11 deaths per day.

In 2022, there were 3,790 civilian fire deaths in the United States.

In 2022, the FBI reported that there were 4,251 victims of murder who identified as female in the United States. A further 93 murder victims were of an unknown gender in that year.

Sooooo… your idea of “so rare it isn’t worth discussing” is more than twice the annual American deaths by drowning. More than twice the annual American deaths by fire, more than twice the number of American women murdered a year.

And even IF we decide that the 7,505 were 100% necessary and unavoidable (which I highly doubt) that still leaves 2,762 late term abortions that weren’t. 8 viable babies a day.

That’s significantly higher than the body counts of any serial killer in history. 8 a day. Minimum.