110 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to takepersonal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, andthe way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as theydid, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We mustdo more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised andshocked by the consequences of our inventions.

      Bill Joy's mention that insurmountable problems can "take on a life of [their] own" is a spectacular reason for having a solid definition of what "life" is, so that we might have better means of subverting it in specific and potentially catastrophic situations.

  2. Jan 2024
    1. read [[Dan Allosso]] in Actual Books

      Sometimes a physical copy of a book gives one information not contained in digital scans. Allosso provides the example of Charles Knowlton's book The Fruits of Philosophy which touched on abortion and was published as a tiny hand-held book which would have made it easy to pass from person to person more discretely for its time period.

  3. Dec 2023
    1. The departures may result in new maternity care deserts, or areas that lack any maternity care, and they are placing strains on physicians like Dr. Gustafson who are left behind. The effects are particularly pronounced in rural areas, where many hospitals are shuttering obstetrics units for economic reasons. Restrictive abortion laws, experts say, are making that problem much worse.
  4. Oct 2023
    1. Our freedom is on the ballot.

      No one has the freedom to murder.

    2. Reproductive Rights

      Murder is not reproductive. Reproductive rights would be the right for women to decide when and if they reproduce before they take part in spawning a new human being with unique DNA.

      Nobody is arguing against a women's right to choose whether or not to reproduce - only the crime of changing her mind and trying to undo that decision with murder.

    3. take back our families’ freedom to make the decisions that are best for us

      ...to the exclusion of the innocent helpless human beings that are being murdered. What a selfish and sociopathic position to take.

    4. who should have the right to make personal medical decisions about abortion: women and their families

      Murder advocates always exclude the woman's offspring from the definition of "family".

      Women have no special authority to decide how, when, and if they murder their offspring.

      Instead, people should take murder off the table and focus on non-violent ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

    5. lives at risk

      Legalizing murder of innocent helpless unborn humans doesn't merely risk their lives, it ends them.

    6. health and safety of patients

      Murder advocates refuse to accept that the innocent helpless unborn human is also a patient.

      It is not possible to ensure the health and safety of a patient one is murdering.

    7. family decisions

      Murdering unborn humans should not be a private "family decision" with the next generation any more than it is with Grandma and Grandpa or one's ex-spouse.

      Nobody is involving the victim in this "family decision".

    8. birth control

      Murder is not a legitimate form of birth control. There are other highly effective, non-invasive forms of birth control that prevent conception and do not require the murder of a helpless innocent unborn human.

      The safest, cheapest, and most effective form of birth control is abstinence. It has worked every time it has been used.

    9. miscarriage care

      Ohio Issue 1 is a legal discussion, and within a legal context, abortion is a type of murder. Proponents of allowing the murder of helpless innocent unborn humans intentionally introduce the medical definition of abortion, which refers to termination of a pregnancy natural or otherwise (including miscarriages).

      The reality is that Ohio law defers to physicians to decide medical necessity of abortions to save a woman's life - only two need to agree that it is necessary.

      The prohibition on abortion in a legal sense has nothing to do with abortion in the medical sense.

    10. abortion ban has already hurt too many people

      Not nearly as many as have been hurt by being murdered while calling it "abortion".

      They explain it away as all sociopaths do, by denying that their victims are human beings.

      Unlike the helpless victims of abortions, adult women have options to avoid and stop violent criminal attacks, but most abortion murder victims are not murdered in an attempt to erase a crime - they're murdered to cover up simple irresponsibility and lack of self-control.

    11. exceptions for rape or incest

      Why would murder be legalized in cases of rape or incest?

      The unborn human being had no part in the activity, so why execute them?

      Murder is not a magic eraser.

      Punish criminals for their crimes, not helpless innocent victims.

  5. Sep 2023
  6. May 2023
    1. United States biomedical researchers and pharmaceutical companies are conducting and paying African doctors to conduct unethical and illegal testing of human subjects. Nonconsensual research on human subjects is an atrocity that occurred in Tuskegee, Alabama, and in Guatemala for over forty years. Once outlawed in the U.S., medical researchers began experimenting on thousands of human research subjects without their consent in Cameroon, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe and other African countries.

  7. Oct 2022
    1. It will only come by treating the women who are compelled to make the decision as human beings with full agency and deserving of the respect and dignity to which every human is entitled.

      ...and by ignoring the human beings they are murdering, denying them the very "respect and dignity to which every human is entitled" - except the one in her womb.

    2. making desperate women into criminals

      "desperate women planning to murder a helpless human being" that is.

      It's not ME making people who try to murder other human beings murderers, it's the murderer doing that - regardless of how "desperate" they are.

    3. we who call ourselves “pro-life” must always be “pro-everyone’s-life”

      *except the unborn human being whose life doesn't matter by this rationale. Unborn human beings are outside of the scope of "everyone" apparently.

    4. statistics have shown time and again that countries where abortion is legal have lower rates of the procedure than those where it is banned

      I'd like to see those stats, but regardless, murder (which "abortion" is) is already banned everywhere, and it still happens at an alarming rate. This fact is no reason to legalize or tolerate it in any way - ESPECIALLY if one fancies themselves a Libertarian who is sworn to uphold the Non-aggression Principle.

    5. Stigmatizing women in this situation only drives them to even more desperate acts

      You heard it here first folks, stigmatizing murderers drives them to more desperate acts than murder, somehow!

    6. woman choosing to end the pregnancy, and the life living in her womb that ends before it ever really begins

      Look at the word-salad! Ending the life living... before it ever really begins?

      See how they deny reality to maintain their delusion?

      Oh, that unique human being is "alive and living", but not "really" so it's ok to murder it.

    7. It affects all involved

      It disproportionately affects the unborn human being who had no say in the matter before being murdered.

    8. every child is wanted

      ...except the aborted ones who die in a trash can of medical waste and are dismembered and incinerated.

      I wouldn't choose that over adoption.

    9. We know better than to use the force of government here. 

      We know it is appropriate to use Government force to prevent murder, because the Just Powers Clause of The Declaration of Independence explains that individuals can justly delegate powers to the Government that they have.

      You and I may all justly defend ourselves and others against murder, so this is a power we all have. This is how we know that it is one of the rare powers that can justly be granted to Government.

    10. None of us has the right to decide for someone else making this profoundly personal choice.

      This applies to the unborn human in the womb as well - even more so since they have yet to develop the capacity to resist attempted murder. It is the duty of those who can resist to do so for them.

    11. termination of a pregnancy

      Except that intentional "termination of a pregnancy" violates the NAP of the unborn human, which is why people evade this by claiming that unborn humans are not alive (when they objectively are), or that they magically become human when they exit the birth canal or the abdomen via Cesarian section.

      Murder is not a right, so it cannot be a reproductive right.

    12. if you are looking for a political party that has no space for nuance or compassion in the conversation on abortion, there are already two parties for you

      It's not a nuanced issue. The LP is in error when it ignores that abortion is a clear and obvious violation of the Zero-aggression Principle.

      It is the pre-meditated murder of helpless unborn humans, and since the LP objects to murder in other situations, they must reject it in this one as well.

    13. a vote for the other team is a vote for “killing babies.” 

      This is true though, specifically it fits the definition of murder since it involves the premeditated killing of one human being by another.

      One can play word games about whether or not unborn humans are "babies" - but they most likely will be if not murdered. Also, the definition of murder doesn't require one to be born first - only that one be a unique human being. We can detect the presence of a "unique human being" with blood samples from the mother.

    14. the other side wants to take choice and bodily autonomy away from women

      This ignores the bodily autonomy of the helpless unborn human in her womb who had less say than the woman in being there.

  8. Sep 2022
    1. To truly alleviate poverty on a large scale, we must fix a system in which normallife experiences such as childbirth can translate into economic insecurity. Mostof the poor are not unexplainable anomalies in an otherwise well-functioningsociety. Instead, they are the normal consequence of structural arrangementsguaranteed to produce economic insecurity.

      This sort of institutionalized economic insecurity seems bound up in institutionalized racism and may have a relationship with recent abortion bans. Can we tease out the ways these ideas are tied together or compounded?

      How can alleviating the perceptions of these effects help create societal changes and greater flexibility and more resiliency?

      These are potential national security issues were the country to come to war with other major powers.

  9. www.justine-haupt.com www.justine-haupt.com
    1. Hurting animals needs to be a federal crime.

      Are fetuses animals?

      Why would someone care more about protecting animals than defenseless human beings?

    2. Denying women the right to abortion

      Murder, in criminal law is defined the killing of one human being by another.

      Since fetuses are unique human beings (as detectable via genetic pregnancy tests that are able to determine the individual genetic makeup, and even sex of a fetus after conception) then the premeditated killing of them (as in the case of Abortion) is a type of murder.

      No one has a right to murder other human beings, therefore women have no right to murder fetuses.

    3. NOBODY has the right to use your body against your will, even to save their life or the life of another person.

      This is objectively false. Everyone has the right to kill a person who is trying to kill a baby.

      If someone pulls out a knife and says "I'm going to go kill that baby" and I shoot them, thusly "using their body against their will" (where their will, plainly stated, is "killing babies") then this is an ethical and legitimate thing for me to do.

      I can justly kill people to defend myself or the lives of others - and this is a nearly universal position.

      For example, The Dalai Lama, head of Vajrayana Buddhism is quoted as saying, " If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. " (Seattle Times, May 15, 2001)

    1. McConnell said it’s up to the Republican candidates in various Senate battleground races to explain how they view the hot-button issue.   (function () { try { var event = new CustomEvent( "nsDfpSlotRendered", { detail: { id: 'acm-ad-tag-mr2_ab-mr2_ab' } } ); window.dispatchEvent(event); } catch (err) {} })(); “I think every Republican senator running this year in these contested races has an answer as to how they feel about the issue and it may be different in different states. So I leave it up to our candidates who are quite capable of handling this issue to determine for them what their response is,” he said.

      Context: Lindsey Graham had just proposed a bill for a nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

      McConnell's position seems to be one that choice about abolition is an option, but one which is reserved for white men of power over others. This is painful because that choice is being left to people without any of the information and nuance about specific circumstances versus the pregnant women themselves potentially in consultation with their doctors who have broad specific training and experience in the topics and issues at hand. Why are these leaders attempting to make decisions based on possibilities rather than realities, particularly when they've not properly studied or are generally aware of any of the realities?

      If this is McConnell's true position, then why not punt the decision and choices down to the people directly impacted? And isn't this a long running tenet of the Republican Party to allow greater individual freedoms? Isn't their broad philosophy: individual > state government > national government? (At least with respect to internal, domestic matters; in international matters the opposite relationships seem to dominate.)

      tl;dr:<br /> Mitch McConnell believes in choice, just not in your choice.

      Here's the actual audio from a similar NPR story:<br /> https://ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2022/09/20220914_me_gop_sen_lindsey_graham_introduces_15-week_abortion_ban_in_the_senate.mp3#t=206


      McConnell is also practicing the Republican party game of "do as I say and not as I do" on Graham directly. He's practicing this sort of hypocrisy because as leadership, he's desperately worried that this move will decimate the Republican Party in the midterm elections.

      There's also another reading of McConnell's statement. Viewed as a statement from leadership, there's a form of omerta or silent threat being communicated here to the general Republican Party membership: you better fall in line on the party line here because otherwise we run the risk of losing power. He's saying he's leaving it up to them individually, but in reality, as the owner of the purse strings, he's not.


      Thesis:<br /> The broadest distinction between American political parties right now seems to be that the Republican Party wants to practice fascistic forms of "power over" while the Democratic Party wants to practice more democratic forms of "power with".

  10. Aug 2022
    1. Our group opted for Voyant because it is an easy to use visualization tool that presents data in a variety of clear and concise ways.

      I found the research statement of this collaborative effort a compelling one for a multitude of reasons, but especially because of the emerging news on the Supreme Court's latest ruling on the abortion rights of women and because of my stance as a female students. I'm delighted that Voyant is utilized as a part to help with the analysis of the press from studied educational institutions on the reproductive rights throughout the timeline. Totally agree that this tool is one of the easiest ways that provide both insightful and exciting information on the data that it is given. I very much enjoy looking at different visualizations and getting the picture of what the findings are regarding this social aspect. Thank you so much for all the hard work!

  11. Jul 2022
    1. ; until, in 1907, eachclass had come to be dealt with according to principles which wereobviously very different from those of 1834. The report of this investi¬gation was presented to the Poor Law Commission, with the interest¬ing result that we heard no more of the “ principles of 1834 ”! It wassubsequently published as English Poor Law Policy (1910).

      Beatrice Webb studied the effects of the British "principles of 1834" and how they were carried out (differently) from area to area to see the overall effects through 1907. The result of her study apparently showed what a poor policy it had been to the point that no one mentioned the old "principles of 1834" again.

      How might this sort of sociological study be carried out on the effects of laws within the United States now in terms of economics and equality for various movements like redlining, abortion, etc.? Is anyone doing this sort of work?


      There is an example of the Eviction Lab at Princeton has some of this sort of data and analysis. https://evictionlab.org/map

    1. “So keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Be outrageous... rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through celebrating the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was!”— Molly Ivins
  12. Jun 2022
    1. (B) Division (A) of this section does not apply to a physician who performs a medical procedure that, in the physician's reasonable medical judgment, is designed or intended to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.

      This is the part of the law that gives doctors wide latitude to perform abortions out of medical necessary. They need only to believe that there is "risk" of "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function".

      It also allows for the medical community to change what constitutes medical necessity as technology is improved.

      It leaves the decision to physicians, not legislators.

    1. Weber left home and lived in poverty while working as a street-corner evangelist and social activist for two years with the evangelical Church Army Workers, an organization similar to the Salvation Army, preaching and singing hymns on street corners and singing and playing the organ in rescue missions in red-light districts in Pittsburgh and New York,[13][33] until the Church Army Workers disbanded in 1900.

      This is interesting background given her subsequent blockbuster film Where are My Children? (Universal Studios, 1916) which covered abortion and birth control.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Weber

    1. Where are My Children?, Universal's top film of 1916, written and directed by their top director Lois Weber, discussed abortion and birth control. It was added to the National Film Registry in 1993.

      See also - Stamp, Shelley. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood. University of California Press, May 2015. ISBN 9780520284463


      Watched this last night

      https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/episodes/dream-factory

  13. May 2022
    1. What did Franklin himself think about abortions? In 1728 during his early years as a printer, he generated controversy over something he would end up doing himself. According to “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” by Walter Isaacson, he “manufactured” an abortion debate, largely because he wanted to crush a rival, but his own opinions may not have been too strong about it. Franklin wrote a series of anonymous letters for another paper to draw attention away from Samuel Keimer’s paper: The first two pieces were attacks on poor Keimer, who was serializing entries from an encyclopedia. His initial installment included, innocently enough, an entry on abortion. Franklin pounced. Using the pen names “Martha Careful” and “Celia Shortface,” he wrote letters to Bradford’s paper feigning shock and indignation at Keimer’s offense. As Miss Careful threatened, “If he proceeds farther to expose the secrets of our sex in that audacious manner [women would] run the hazard of taking him by the beard in the next place we meet him.” Thus Franklin manufactured the first recorded abortion debate in America, not because he had any strong feelings on the issue, but because he knew it would help sell newspapers.

      Benjamin Franklin manufactured the first recorded abortion debate in America to help sell his newspapers and to crush a rival.

    2. The use of pennyroyal to induce an abortion came up in a contemporary case from the 1990s, when a young woman named Kris Humphrey died as a result of ingesting the herb, not knowing that she had an ectopic pregnancy.
    3. Jesuit’s bark, also known to us as quinine, was an important anti-malarial drug. According to Molly Farrell, an associate professor of English and the history of science who first reported on Franklin’s abortion entry in Slate, it was also “mistakenly thought to be an abortifacient.” 
    4. The ninth edition entry, reprinted in Slate, also recommends the use of “Harts-horn.” Harts-horn, according to Merriam-Webster, is an “American pasqueflower.”  According to “Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West” by herbalist Gregory L. Tilford, pasqueflowers were used by Native Americans to induce abortions, or speed up childbirth.  
    1. https://theconversation.com/abortion-has-been-common-in-the-us-since-the-18th-century-and-debate-over-it-started-soon-after-182496

      by Treva B. Lindsey, Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University

    2. In 1967, Colorado became the first state to legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, or if the pregnancy would cause permanent physical disability to the birth parent.
    3. the death of Gerri Santoro, a woman who died seeking an illegal abortion in Connecticut, ignited a renewed fervor among those seeking to legalize abortion. Santoro’s death, along with many other reported deaths and injuries also sparked the founding of underground networks such as The Jane Collective to offer abortion services to those seeking to end pregnancies.
    4. In 1962, the story of Sherri Finkbine, the local Phoenix, Arizona host of the children’s program, “Romper Room,” became national news. Finkbine had four children, and had taken a drug, thalidomide, before she realized she was pregnant with her fifth child. Worried that the drug could cause severe birth defects, she tried to get an abortion in her home state, Arizona, but could not. She then traveled to Sweden for a legal abortion. Finkbine’s story is credited with helping to shift public opinion on abortion and was central to a growing, national call for abortion reform laws.
    5. A spike in fears about new immigrants and newly emancipated black people reproducing at higher rates than the white population also prompted more opposition to legal abortion.

      Were fears about immigrants and Black people in the late 1800's milieu of evolutionary theory and beginning of eugenics thought influential in the growing debate about abortion?

    6. By 1860, the American Medical Association sought to end legal abortion. The Comstock Law of 1873 criminalized attaining, producing or publishing information about contraception, sexually transmitted infections and diseases, and how to procure an abortion.
    7. enslaved black women in the U.S. developed abortifacients – drugs that induce abortions – and abortion practices as means to stop pregnancies after rapes by, and coerced sexual encounters with, white male slave owners.
    8. On Nov. 14, 1972, a controversial two-part episode of the groundbreaking television show, “Maude” aired. Titled “Maude’s Dilemma,” the episodes chronicled the decision by the main character to have an abortion. Roe v. Wade was issued two months after these episodes. The ruling affirmed the right to have an abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. “Maude’s Dilemma” brought the battle over abortion from the streets and courthouses to primetime television.

      "Maude's Dilemma", the first of a two-part episode about the title character Maude's decision to have an abortion, aired on November 14, 1972 just two months before the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade.

    1. <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>Treva B. Lindsey </span> in Abortion has been common in the US since the 18th century -- and debate over it started soon after (<time class='dt-published'>05/18/2022 12:10:32</time>)</cite></small>

      some interesting looking references at the bottom

    1. Copies of The American Instructor:

    2. Tennent’s handbook prescribes angelica, an herb known to be an effective abortifacient in the early stages of pregnancy for thousands of years, and which was frequently recommended across early modern herbal books.
    3. William Mather’s 1699 Young Man’s Companion

      Is there any familial relation between William Mather and Cotton Mather or his family?

      If there is, this could be even more damning. A quick search indicates that William Mather was a schoolmaster and may have been a Quaker. This means that a highly religious schoolmaster was teaching and spreading ideas about abortion in 1699.

    4. John Tennent’s The Poor Planter’s Physician to the end. Tennent was a Virginia doctor whose medical pamphlet had first appeared in 1734.*

      Virginia physician John Tennet's pamphlet The Poor Planter's Physician first appeared in 1734, and included details for effecting abortions. Benjamin Franklin found it to be so valuable that he copied it into his book The Instructor (1748).


      Surely the pamphlet had appeared previous to 1734 as there's a copy labeled as the third edition which Benjamin Franklin had reprinted in 1734, which lists him as the publisher.

    5. William Mather’s 1699 Young Man’s Companion also has one (the London book would inspire the very first arithmetic book to be printed in the colonies in 1705, by Franklin’s old boss Andrew Bradford). In Mather’s book, though, the recipe was short, misleading, and ineffective. It includes an entry for “Terms provoked,” a heading also found under comparable medical books with abortifacient concoctions (where the “term,” or period, needs “provoking”). Unfortunately for Mather’s readers, however, he prescribes “stinking Arach,” or goosefoot, which is an emmenagogue (an agent to stimulate or regulate menstruation) but not a reliable abortifacient. He also makes the even more dubious suggestion to “take a draught of White wine” under a full moon.
    6. In this week’s leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.” Yet abortion was so “deeply rooted” in colonial America that one of our nation’s most influential architects went out of his way to insert it into the most widely and enduringly read and reprinted math textbook of the colonial Americas—and he received so little pushback or outcry for the inclusion that historians have barely noticed it is there. Abortion was simply a part of life, as much as reading, writing, and arithmetic.

      Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has written in a leaked draft opinion of Dobs v. Jackson Women's Health that "The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation's history and traditions."

      However, historians have shown that in fact it was so deeply rooted in in early America that Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the country actively inserted medical advice about abortion into a widely read and popular primer on math and reading.

    1. SUPP RESSION of the COURSES.NOW I am upon Female Infirmities, it will not be unfeafonable to touch upon a common Complaint among unmarry’d Women, namely, The Suppression of the Courses. This don't only dis¬ parage their Complexions, but fills them, belides, with Sundry Disorders. For this Misfortune, you muft purge with Highland . Flaggy (commonly call'd Belly-ach Root) a Week before you exped to be out of Order ; and repeat the Same 2 Days after : The next Morning, drink a Quarter of a Pint of Pennyroyal Water, or DecoBion , with ia Drops of Spirits of Harts-horn , and as much again at Night, when you go to Bed. Continue this, p Days running; and after Refting 3 Days, go on with it for p more. Ride out every fair Day, ftir nimbly about your Affairs, and breath as

      much as poflible in the open Air. YOU muft feed upon a warm and cordial Diet, enrich’d with a great deal of Muflard, Nutmeg, Horfe-radijh and Garden, l Crejfes ;'at the lame Time avoiding every''"j thing that is aftringent, flegmatick, and 1 windy. And let your Drink be Beer, M brew’d with Sorrel-Leaves , or elfe Ground 1 Ivy-Tea . • 1 T O prevent this Complaint, young Women muft Ihake off Sloth, and make Ufe of their Legs, as well as their Hands* - They Ihou’d be cautious of taking Opiates j too often, or Jefuits-Bark , except in Cafes of great Neceffity; nor muft they long foie pretty Fellows, or any other Trajb whatfoe- ver.

      https://archive.org/details/2574010R.nlm.nih.gov/page/n47/mode/2up?q=misfortune

    1. The justices held their final arguments of the current term on Wednesday. The court has set a series of sessions over the next two months to release rulings in its still-unresolved cases, including the Mississippi abortion case.

      It's very likely that the decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization would have been released late in the typical cycle. The leak of this document prior to the midterm elections may have some profound effects on the election cycle.

    2. Alito’s draft opinion includes, in small type, a list of about two pages’ worth of decisions in which the justices overruled prior precedents – in many instances reaching results praised by liberals.
    3. Alito approvingly quotes a broad range of critics of the Roe decision. He also points to liberal icons such as the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, who at certain points in their careers took issue with the reasoning in Roe or its impact on the political process.

      But didn't they also criticize the original decision because they felt that there were better and stronger arguments in favor of maintaining the right?

    4. No draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending.
  14. Apr 2022
    1. the Institute of Medicine had released a landmark report on patientsafety, To Err Is Human. The report found that as many as 98,000 Americanswere dying each year as a result of preventable medical errors occurring inhospitals—more people than succumbed to car accidents, workplace injuries, orbreast cancer. And some significant portion of these deaths involved mistakes inthe dispensing of drugs.

      Some might see the 98,000 preventable medical error deaths reported by the Institute of Medicine in To Err is Human (1999) now and laugh at the farcical number of deaths due to coronavirus since 2020, a large proportion of which could have been prevented due to better communication and coordination?

      What if a more pragmatic anthropological viewpoint could be given to the current fractured state of American politics? If anthropologists are taught not to make value judgements on the way other cultures have come to live their lives, but simply to appreciate and report on them accurately, then perhaps we should leave those on the far right who believe in top down, patriarchal rule to their devices?

      What if we nudged (forced) them all to actually live by their own rules by enforcing them to the nth degree? Republican politicians can only get away with badmouthing abortion or homophobic viewpoints because their feet are not held to the fire when those issues impinge upon their own families or even themselves. They have the wealth and the power to flout the laws and not face the direct consequences personally. Would their tunes change if forced by their own top down patriarchal perspectives applying to them?

  15. Nov 2021
    1. The cases before the Supreme Court this fall are cause for alarm. Let’s make them a rallying cry for demanding reproductive freedom as a fundamental human right — and not just a privilege dependent on your race, where you live, whom you sleep with or how you define your identity.

      It is not an expression of despair or defeatism to acknowledge that supporters of abortion rights need to begin planning and mobilizing for a post-Roe nation.

  16. Sep 2021
    1. Repubs are the American Taliban.

      Perhaps not so funny, but I said this same thing yesterday in regard to the Texas law relating to abortion.

      They just want physical power and control over everyone.

  17. Apr 2021
  18. Nov 2020
    1. There is still a chance for us to escape such an unreal existence, but it will require us to stop assuaging our pain and hiding our apathy with satirical memes. It will require a determined pursuit of moral wholeness and a holistic respect for humanity and all human life, including the babies.

      Lindo..........

    1. A vigorous opponent of such legislation as unscientific is, ironically, an organization dedicated to helping people have babies through reproductive technologies. The president of the Washington D.C.-based American Society for Reproductive Medicine took a strong public stand, writing in its February bulletin that the idea life begins at conception is in the same league as "fake news" and "disinformation."Though intended to make abortion illegal, such laws would hamper women's efforts to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization by making those who handle lab embryos susceptible to manslaughter charges if an embryo didn't survive, Richard J. Paulson argued.“Life is a continuum,” Paulson wrote. “The egg cell is alive, and it has the potential to become a zygote (a single-celled embryo)” if fertilized by sperm. The resulting cell is also alive, but “from a biological perspective, no new life has been created, because it is nearly identical to the egg cell,” he wrote.

      Vs.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wURL0rVLbY When Does Human Life Begin?

  19. Sep 2020
  20. Sep 2019
    1. shall not be carried out on pregnant women.

      It is interesting to note that a pregnant woman cannot be subject to the death penalty, presumably because the baby would also by necessity be subject to the death penalty, i,e. the unborn baby is a human being.

    2. Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life

      How is "human being" defined and how does this relate to abortion?

  21. Aug 2019
    1. Former prime minister Tony Abbott condemned abortion as “death on demand” as he addressed the crowd at the controversial Conservative Political Action Conference in Sydney today, warning of “morally shocking” developments in Western society.

      Life used to be sacrosanct. Then came #abortion - killing unborn babies (including sex selection and termination of the disabled) Then comes #euthanasia - killing people who are suffering Then comes #assistedsuicide Then comes people being made to feel they are a burden or the state just deciding that on their behalf.

    1. One successful amendment, proposed by Liberal MP Alister Henskens, will require a doctor to assess whether it would be “beneficial” to discuss counselling with the woman, and provide them with options for accessing it if they were interested.

      Successful amendment to NSW abortion bill was to require doctor to discuss whether counselling would be beneficial for the client.

    1. Welcome to Sydney Abortion Clinic

      It is interesting that abortion clinics can operate with importunity despite the fact that they are illegal in NSW.

    1. The bill was passed just before 11.00pm with 59 in favour and 31 against.Premier Gladys Berejiklian voted for the bill, after facing criticism for not being more vocal in her support.

      Abortion bill passes NSW parliament 59-31. The Premier voted for it which will disillusion many conservative voters.

  22. Jul 2019
    1. Unplanned pregnancies are a significant problem in the United States. According to a 2012 Brookings Institution report, more than 90 percent of abortions occur due to unintended pregnancy.

      This is crucial to realize the importance of this statistic. Up to 90 percent of abortions that occur could be prevented, if we could help lower unintended pregnancies. After doing a lot of research I found that the, about 90 percent of abortions are unintended statistic, is quite accurate and average across America.

  23. May 2019
    1. If you're reading my notes and annotations, please consider using Hypothesis to annotate articles and hold journalists accountable for badly reported pieces like this.

    1. If you're reading my notes and annotations, please consider using Hypothesis to annotate articles and hold journalists accountable for badly reported pieces like this.

  24. Mar 2019
  25. Feb 2019
    1. What is the simplest way to differentiate between a conservative and a liberal?

      Ask if a fetus is human.

    1. WHY DO ABORTIONS OCCUR?

      What the public really wants to know is a breakdown of abortion timeline compared to the reason but none of these stats show this breakdown which is very odd because based on the data they have here it seems the original data set should have this information. It's possible it doesn't though, if the "why" survey's are not linked to the "when" data.

  26. Oct 2018
    1. Choice. The Democratic Party stands behind the right of every woman to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of ability to pay. President Clinton took executive action to make sure that the right to make such decisions is protected for all Americans. Over the last four years, we have taken action to end the gag rule and ensure safety at family planning and women's health clinics. We believe it is a fundamental constitutional liberty that individual Americans -- not government -- can best take responsibility for making the most difficult and intensely personal decisions regarding reproduction. The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. We respect the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue, and we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party. Our goal is to make abortion less necessary and more rare, not more difficult and more dangerous. We support contraceptive research, family planning, comprehensive family life education, and policies that support healthy childbearing. For four years in a row, we have increased support for family planning. The abortion rate is dropping. Now we must continue to support efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies, and we call on all Americans to take personal responsibility to meet this important goal.
  27. Oct 2017
    1. ‘I don’t care about me.’

      The girl is expressing a resignation towards herself, responsibility for what may come, and an indifference to her well being. Not for the sake of simply giving up because things are hard, instead, because she realizes that her fight for herself in the face of her over bearing partner is lost.

      She does not hold control over her own body. She is not one for an abortion; she does not want it. Yet her male partner persists and judging from their current travels, she is not in power to do anything of it.

      If she were to throw off her pressuring companion, run away, and embark on some personal rebellion for the sake of herself and the baby, she might be able to find herself. Yet it is not so. And instead, she doesn't care.

    2. ‘Well,’ the man said, ‘if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple.’ ‘And you really want to?’ ‘I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to.’

      Here exists one of the core conflicts between the characters. The American, wishing for an abortion to happen, does not want to impose a will for aborting on to his female companion. He states over and over that:

      "if you don't want to you don't have to."

      This compounds the issue at hand and is placing undue force upon the girl; his lack of tacking responsibility in a sense passes of this pressure towards the girl. In essence, he is removing himself from the problem through such, so-called, sympathetic talk. Yet he remains pressuring through an immediate return to pointing out the simplicity of the operation and such.

      Hemingway presents to us an environment of pressure, experienced by the girl, and show us the confounding hypocrisy existing in the American.

    3. ‘I know you wouldn’t mind it, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in.’

      Through a more historical lens, abortions have almost never been a subject of positive talk. In this story, the American is positioning the girl into accepting the process of abortion; in a sense, to be accepting of the procedure. Although highly invasive and potentially dangerous, the American is attempting at persuading her approval. That it is all in fact a natural undertacking.

      For the authors depiction of the American in this light, he is allying himself with the girl and thus making us readers her ally as well. In doing so, Hemingway is alluding to a pro-life centered argument against abortion.

    4. like absinthe.

      Enter the crisis of our characters, a revelation of the elephant in the room. The American and the girl are traveling in order to receive an abortion.

      Absinthe itself was an extremely popular, alcoholic drink. Historically, one of the core ingredients used in the disillation of the beverage was Wormwood. Curiously enough:

      "In European folk medicine, wormwood is one of the most important gynecological agents for abortion and to induce menstruation and labor."

      This parallel of an alcoholic drink to abortions is a subtle yet abrupt way of introducing the issue of abortion to the story.

      Check out more information on the subject here!

  28. Jun 2015
    1. The data show that in some circumstances in which a woman may choose to end a pregnancy, majorities of Americans — Democrats and Republicans — are on the same side, sometimes supporting the legality of the procedure and sometimes not.