Women's Health Issues

[Mickey]

Great point my man, state power is famous for being used only to support the disadvantaged and downtrodden.

You knew what the fuck I meant you fucking amphibian.

[tree_]

Wait, spike is black?

[B]

Great point my man, state power is famous for being used only to support the disadvantaged and downtrodden.

You knew what the fuck I meant you fucking amphibian.

what a strange insult.

[BurtReynolds]

Great point my man, state power is famous for being used only to support the disadvantaged and downtrodden.

You knew what the fuck I meant you fucking amphibian.

what a strange insult.

It's practically a compliment.

[Simple Torture]

Great point my man, state power is famous for being used only to support the disadvantaged and downtrodden.

You knew what the fuck I meant you fucking amphibian.

what a strange insult.

It's practically a compliment.

[BurtReynolds]

Also, it’s Jon Stewart, not John, have some respect for a great man.

What is he, Norwegian or something?

[tree_]

It's short for Jonathan. I do the same thing sometimes. My name is also Jonathan.

[BurtReynolds]

It's short for Jonathan. I do the same thing sometimes. My name is also Jonathan.

ridiculous

[tree_]

f you, you f'n amphibian!

[Mickey]

Great point my man, state power is famous for being used only to support the disadvantaged and downtrodden.

You knew what the fuck I meant you fucking amphibian.

what a strange insult.

Sorry for trying to bring some creativity to this dump

[Bi_3]

I meant bi’s alternative statement

It was substitute text for the original tweet that provides an actionable course in place of feeding hysteria.

"I'm sorry. Your baby has a lethal abnormality and if your uterus doesn't somehow rupture, the baby will die within hours of birth. I'm sure it's hard to hear that your dreams of parenthood are ending in death and suffering, but we've called an Uber for you. They'll let you choose the radio station on the way to an out of state medical facility you've never heard of until just now."

Consider an alternative:

"I'm a high-risk obstetrician in Ohio and medically induced pregnancy termination for lethal fetal anomalies is now illegal here. So that I never have to look someone in the eye and tell them they will be forced to carry to term a pregnancy that will end in in their child dying during birth, please donate to charities like the Brigid Alliance and the Haven Coalition that can provide the needed support and medical services that our state refuses to. I have and will continue to do so."

That hardly makes the post he DID make disingenuous. A charity that will help you obtain an abortion in another state is a shitty substitute for parents who just found out their [most likely] wanted child is not going to survive. At that point, every added bureaucratic hurdle is a painful abuse that the family need not be put through.

Hurdles that the State of Ohio will presumably fight with all the power of a state government because their law says you have to carry the doomed child to term (with all the risks to life, health, and mental well-being inherent in that) and watch it die after birth.

It is a shitty substitute. It really is. And no one should be subjected to the laws like the ones on the books in Ohio and Missouri. Absolutely the case.

But.

We have look at what the reality is for a woman caught in this situation. Roe is gone. That's over dude. We cannot reinstate that ruling. That's leaves us a few choices. Do nothing and let the nightmare scenario of that tweet come true. Protest, which as recent history shows us is the same as do nothing except that it generates plenty of viral videos of protesters fighting cops and trashing their neighborhoods that can be used by pundits to discount the urgency of the cause. Or, and here's the crazy "centrist" part, act to do something to help mitigate the fallout for these women in the near term. That's where support networks, charities, and non-profits can step in and really and truly save lives because the federal government is not going to help.

And as we are looking at our reality, it's important to recognize that public opinion has a momentum to it. It was.. kind of is... on the pro-choice side (though ketchupgate is stealing the headlines pretty quickly). So to raise awareness and funding and support for the organizations that can and will act to help these women in lieu of magical uncle sam, people need to speak up and not do what the tweet did, which was paint a scenario of inescapable human suffering. If you can't be a helper yourself, you can still improve, not 100% fix, but improve the situation for these women by supporting those who can, and the first step of that is putting away the binary of perfect or nothing and recognizing there is another viable option that can help today.

How's your centrist attempt to reason with these herd animals going, bi? Winning any hearts and minds?

Never have, never will. That's not the point. The point is to plant that one tiny seed of a thought that maybe there is another way to be than just pissed off all the time, screaming into the void that nothing changes.

[tree_]

Outrage is completely normal over something like this. It would be weird if people weren't so angry.

[spike]

Oh man a long car ride for the miniscule amount of people this incredibly rare situation applies to is certainly comparable in importance and severity to granting more authority to a continent spanning unaccountable State with a monopoly on violence!

Not sure I understand this argument. We went from “it’s a right that can’t be taken away by the state” to “not a right and can be banned by the state.” Which side are you on?

He wants fewer laws of the land, but is making sure to go out of his way that he doesn’t care about the actual issue.

This ruling will allow for more, stricter laws, no? Less freedom for women… Seems like Burt’s contrarian viewpoint radar malfunctioned this time.

First of all, Spike is a nihilist NPC with no thoughts or beliefs of his own. Don't listen to him. Don't interact with him. He's operating on purely reactive resentment. He's very sick. He's John Stewart snark without the insight or heart. He's Trevor Noah.


Let me explain:

The "states" are weaker and more accountable to the will of their voters. The State (US government) should be dismantled so that no one on either side can use it to force its agenda on other peoples in far away regions. Do you want to live in a place with people that share your values, or are you just another missionary imperialist insisting that the entire world adopt your worldview?

"B-but what about muh slavery!? Don't you know states had slavery once!" I hear someone screech like a buffoon.

If your state decides slavery is legal again, move somewhere else, or just go burn down the governor's mansion. You would almost certainly have the power to do that, unlike now, where you're at the mercy of an unapproachably vast state that hates you and actively works against your interests.

"But what about muh rights?!"

You don't have rights, you have power. The State has power. Weaken state power and seek your own power.

Once we have to reversed the trend toward increasingly large globalist government (which includes corporations), then we can work on dismantling nationalism, then regionalism, then the city-states and so on, until the individual is free at last!

btw none of this will work.

I’m the nihilist?

[Mickey]

It is a shitty substitute. It really is. And no one should be subjected to the laws like the ones on the books in Ohio and Missouri. Absolutely the case.

But.

We have look at what the reality is for a woman caught in this situation. Roe is gone. That's over dude. We cannot reinstate that ruling. That's leaves us a few choices. Do nothing and let the nightmare scenario of that tweet come true. Protest, which as recent history shows us is the same as do nothing except that it generates plenty of viral videos of protesters fighting cops and trashing their neighborhoods that can be used by pundits to discount the urgency of the cause. Or, and here's the crazy "centrist" part, act to do something to help mitigate the fallout for these women in the near term. That's where support networks, charities, and non-profits can step in and really and truly save lives because the federal government is not going to help.

And as we are looking at our reality, it's important to recognize that public opinion has a momentum to it. It was.. kind of is... on the pro-choice side (though ketchupgate is stealing the headlines pretty quickly). So to raise awareness and funding and support for the organizations that can and will act to help these women in lieu of magical uncle sam, people need to speak up and not do what the tweet did, which was paint a scenario of inescapable human suffering. If you can't be a helper yourself, you can still improve, not 100% fix, but improve the situation for these women by supporting those who can, and the first step of that is putting away the binary of perfect or nothing and recognizing there this is another viable option that can help today.

The bolded part is, I think, the fundamental disconnect here. It is not a question of if we, in our rhetorical and affective responses to the fall of Roe, "let this come true." It's already true, it has already happened, and there's basically no amount of directing women to (perennially underfunded) charities that will then shuttle them (perhaps illegally) to the (swiftly disappearing) abortion clinics in border states that will prevent the situation the good doctor describes. Someone, somewhere, is going to be told, "Carry your dead baby to term." Maybe not in so many words, but it will be the only viable option presented to them due to financial and logistical constraints. It's delusional to believe otherwise.

That does not mean that support networks won't save some lives, and it's certainly important to amplify those causes, donate to them, volunteer, and so on. It's almost certainly more important to do that kind of on-the-ground work than it is to volunteer for Democrats this fall. But doing so is not mutually exclusive with expressing outrage--outrage that might even be galvanizing enough to force state-level change. It's defeatism of the highest order to suggest that the only thing to do right now is manage damage. You're right, Roe is dead, and the amount of work necessary to implement national protections--judicial or legislative--takes you so far down the fucking road that it's basically impossible. State-level protections don't present the same challenges. And I think you would be astonished to learn the number of people who do not understand the variety of medical conditions that might necessitate termination. Some of those people don't care, but some might. So I think it's very strange, and politically suspect, to--for lack of a better word--tone police what was a pretty straightforward and level-headed tweet, or to read it as "drama and self-righteousness."

Fyi, the doctor himself doesn't really seem like a "just scream into the void" kind of guy:

[E.H. Ruddock]

lol did Burt call someone else a nihilist?

[spike]

lol did Burt call someone else a nihilist?

Projection is part of the edgelord handbook. Verb does it as well.

[BurtReynolds]

lol did Burt call someone else a nihilist?

I'm the only person that has a passionate lust for life on this whole damn board. I am literally drenched in meaning.

[tree_]

i dunno, rangi might have you beat, lust-wise

[Mickey]

lol did Burt call someone else a nihilist?

I'm the only person that has a passionate lust for life on this whole damn board. I am literally drenched in meaning.

Lol. Lmao.

[tree_]

Ha. Haha.