when the status quo frustrates.

Apparently they give PhDs to just about anybody with the cash to buy the college courses

Friday, February 19th, 2010

So I saw this article today while surfing the ‘net:

Dreaded diseases dwindle with gene testing
Wider screening curbs inherited disorders such as cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs

Some of mankind’s most devastating inherited diseases appear to be declining, and a few have nearly disappeared, because more people are using genetic testing to decide whether to have children.

Births of babies with cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs and other less familiar disorders have dropped since testing came into wider use, The Associated Press found from a review of studies and interviews with numerous geneticists and other experts.

Uh-oh, I thought to myself. Because, you know, the screening itself doesn’t have any directly curative or preventative effect at all on inherited genetic disorders…what it does is allow people carrying genetic disorders to either decide not to reproduce or, more commonly, decide to abort any pregnancy with an embryo or fetus that carries the defective genes. Now, I personally have no problem with this; I am pro-choice through and through. However, I figured that there’d be a sizable contingent of folks out there who would have a b-i-g problem with the idea that giving out access to information that might influence someone to abort could ever, under any circumstances, be regarded as a good thing.

Yep, all I had to do was nip over to the “Comments” section after the article, and what was the very first comment..?

Very ironic and sad that a method touted as a “life-saving effort” is what gives an excuse to kill a baby.

Because of course, you know we are all on the lookout for excuses to kill babies. It’s a lot like being on the lookout for excuses to eat chocolate or go shopping!…sigh.

I can always console myself with the possibility that the hordes of people who are making remarks like that are just ignorant. Or stupid. Or both. But then, linked to the article, is another article written by some dude who presumably is not ignorant or stupid, given that he describes himself as Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.:

Disability-free world may not be a better place
Screening means fewer Down babies, but are we missing out?

A fascinating probe by the Associated Press suggests the reason. Genetic testing is leading to birth of fewer and fewer children with Down syndrome and other genetic disease in the United States.

The “fascinating probe” he refers to is, indeed, the article that originally caught my eye. And you can tell by the way he goes on in the article that he did actually read some of it, because he spends a little time talking about Tay-Sachs disease and Cystic Fibrosis. But his main point, the one he keeps returning to over and over again (after a few sops thrown out acknowledging that children born with Tay-Sachs, for instance, die by age 4) is

As some families with a Down syndrome child have noted, fewer kids with Down may mean fewer public programs, fewer resources in schools and for housing and less political clout.

On a trip to Ireland a few years ago, I was struck by a number of faces among the crowds. They were children with the tell-tale look of Down syndrome. What struck me was the realization that I hardly ever see these young faces out on the street in the United States.

…Down Syndrome, which can’t be detected at all through parental screening, which is what the original article is all about, because it’s caused by a mutation in the reproductive cells themselves, not in the parents’ cells. Rinse, repeat: Down Syndrome is not an inherited genetic disorder.

But since the heartstrings clearly get tugged the wrong way by discussing babies born with Tay-Sachs disease–it’s a hell of a lot harder to paint the prevention of that occurence as parents on the lookout for excuses to kill their babies–I suppose Concern Troll PhD couldn’t really use that as his handle, huh?

19.02.2010 "Science", Health, Reproductive Rights 2 Comments

Sarah Palin Smokes Some Weed, Hallucinates Plot By Dems To Euthanize Trig

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Here she goes!

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

I agree, Thomas Sowell has sort of said that, along with a lot of other crap that clearly lodged itself in Sarah’s one brain cell and is responsible for the above stoned-sounding babble. To quote his crap more precisely:

The government does not have some magic wand that can “bring down the cost of health care.” It can buy a smaller quantity or lower quality of medical care, as other countries with government-run medical care do.

It can decide not to spend as much money on the elderly as is being spent now. That can save a lot of money — if you think having a parent die earlier is a bargain.

The idea of a “duty to die” has been making some headway in recent years around the fringes of the left. It is perfectly consistent with the fundamental notion of the left, that decisions should be transferred from ordinary citizens to government elites.

To briefly address his rather astonishing claim that all other countries with government-run medical care offer either less medical care or lower quality medical care–and what metrics are we using to make this sweeping statement, one can’t help but wonder? According to the WHO, in 2000, although the U.S. spent a higher portion of its gross domestic product on its health care system than any other member country, it ranked 37 out of the 191 countries in terms of actual performance. The WHO used not just one but five performance metrics to determine its rankings:

1. overall level of population health;
2. health inequalities (or disparities) within the population;
3. overall level of health system responsiveness (a combination of patient satisfaction and how well the system acts);
4. distribution of responsiveness within the population (how well people of varying economic status find that they are served by the health system);
5. and the distribution of the health system’s financial burden within the population (who pays the costs).

One could hardly accuse the WHO of underanalyzing the situation–frankly, I suspect Sowell and Palin and the other loud objectors would consider this list far too comprehensive–after all, what do they care about no. 4? And the selfish hysteria they display in regards to no. 5 is pretty pathetic–

But aside from that, it’s the euthanasia contention that really interests me here. Specifically, what really interests me is the lovely portrait both the Palinator and Thomas Sowell appear to be painting of our current private health insurance system, where apparently everyone who has private health insurance finds that all their health care decisions, including end-of-life care, are made by the individual in concert with his loving doctor, with no other outside cost-based interference at all.

For a quick anecdotal reminder that, erm, this isn’t QUITE EXACTLY the case–I can’t be the only woman who gave birth in the early to mid-1990′s, right? And I know I’m not the only woman who got kicked out of the hospital less than 24 hours after giving birth, because the majority (if not all) of health insurance plans instituted a policy of flatly refusing to pay for longer than that, regardless of the fact that the standard postpartum stay recommended by physicians was 48-72 hours. In 1996, the federal government ended up passing legislation requiring health insurance companies to pay for a minimum of 48 hours, after the postpartum complication rate for both women and newborns abruptly began to soar. Oops!

For a less anecdotal statement of fact as to why that contention is total bullshit, save me some time. For those of you who have health insurance from a non-government source, please go look at your policy. I mean really look at it, not just skim over the co-pay and how much you have to fork out a month for you, you + 1 or you + 2 or more–read the whole damn policy. And tell me what care your health insurance company–not you or your doctor–what medical decisions about your care that your health insurance company does not now control already that the government suddenly would.

I think you’ll find that there aren’t any. All you’re doing by switching from private to public, folks, is changing masters–and it’s worth a think or two that you’re changing to a master that you do at least have some elective control over, eh?

(Note to Sarah: To the best of my knowledge, dear, nobody in either the private or the public sector is recommending the euthanization of babies with Down Syndrome. So really, you can relax!)

(via)

UPDATED: More from Salon: “The ‘death panels’ are already here”

UPDATED: Even her fellow Republicans are scrambling to distance themselves from this one.

12.08.2009 Economy Blues, Health, Medicine, Politics, The Palinator 7 Comments

When the problem is not having enough money, throwing money at it is actually pretty effective.

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Here’s a curious thing I’ve experienced a few times:

  1. People start talking about healthcare reform.
  2. Someone points out that a single payer could negotiate better rates for services and medications, and thus would probably be rather cheaper than the market.
  3. Someone replies: But you can’t do that! The high prices paid in the U.S. subsidize R&D! That’ll mean no more new drugs, or vastly fewer of them, at any rate.
  4. The topic shifts to who is or is not a Cylon.
  5. (Starbuck definitely is or is not a Cylon, probably.)

You don’t get to hear this argument much on the news. The current talking point seems to be that national universal healthcare through a single-payer model—or for that matter something that bears no resemblance to such a thing unless you drop lemon juice in your eyes, squint, and chant socialismsocialismsocialism—will mean the government will be interfering in the relationship between you and your doctor!!!oneone! This is worse than when insurance companies get between you and your doctor because insurance companies are part of the capitalist market and that means they’re regulated by the invisible hand of the market and the thing about the invisible hand is that it is, after all, invisible, and so you can’t possibly notice when it tells you that you can only have Abraxane shots on the sixth Tuesday of every month, and you should be glad you get that much.

But let’s go back to (3) for a moment.

Let’s assume that we want new drugs. Let’s also assume—though there’s reason to be a bit skeptical of this—that drug companies absolutely cannot absorb any drop in income, and that all such drops will invariably and negatively affect R&D.

Well, how much money are we talking, exactly?

PhRMA says that the private pharmaceutical industry spent $60 billion on research and development in 2007. Taking them at their word, that’s a lot of money! I mean, that’s nearly 6% of the Fabulous Cash Giveaway urgently necessary federal bailout of upstanding (if currently slightly tilted) financial institutions. That’s a bit more than the government gave to AIG, or a bit less than what we gave to Bank of America, Citigroup, Freddie Mac, and General Motors. Each. That’s about the cost of the F-22 Raptor, which is as we know vitally necessary for ensuring air superiority over Afghan farmers as we bomb the fuck out of them.

So I guess I can see why increasing NIH grant appropriations and overall public funding of medical research is out of the question. It’s not like there’s an existing structure for this sort of thing—drug research at universities and public clinics is practically unheard of in this or any other country. And it’s certainly not like strengthening open, publically-funded research would reduce the incidence of, say, morally-deficient fuckers patenting genes for cancer.

Thank goodness single-payer healthcare will never become a reality in the U.S.

06.08.2009 Punkass!, Health, Human Rights 7 Comments

How I Grew Up Without Health Insurance, or Emergency Rooms Don’t Do Chemotherapy

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

“Wow,” said the doctor.

That’s not what I expect a doctor to say while peering into my ear, of all places. “What?” I asked.

“You have really heavy scarring in there,” she said cheerily. “You must have had a ton of untreated ear infections as a child!”

Had I? I remembered being sick a lot, and there had been times of excruciating ear pain—“Oh?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I’m surprised you don’t have any hearing loss, or balance or vertigo issues. The scarring’s so bad, the cilia in your inner ear, you know—probably not too many of those left.”

Goodness, that explained a lot…I left the doctor’s office feeling kind of dazed. All my life I’ve suffered awful, debilitating motion sickness—even as an adult, after most other people I knew outgrew getting carsick in the back seat on the way to Grandma’s house, I never did. Over the years I’d become the master of what little I could do to mitigate it and also of hiding it from others (to a point—my face turning greenish-white wasn’t something I could ever manage to hide, but luckily that degree of nausea takes hours of continuous motion to achieve and I avoid hours of it whenever possible). My first husband was remarkably unkind about it, insisting it was all in my head and cutting me no slack whatsoever over it in the apparent belief that if it wasn’t coddled, I’d snap out of it.

(Needless to say, that never did work…all it did was make me feel unloved and violently nauseated, as opposed to just violently nauseated. Oh, well.)

When I started junior high, we had a gymnastics section in PE class. How it worked out for the boys I don’t know, but it was a real class divider for the girls. See, girls from nice families got gymnastics classes and gymnastics camps as a matter of course, usually for several years in earlier childhood—us poor girls? Not so much. And there it was, laid out for all to see. And for me, it’d always been even worse—your average poor girl had usually figured out on her own how to do a simple cartwheel as part of the normal childhood process. Sadly, not I—I could never manage one; not because I lacked athleticism, I was always a fast runner and a good catcher, for instance—but because I lacked balance. The very worst, most humiliating part of the gymnastics section, of course, was the balance beam. I couldn’t even get up on the goddamn thing. I mean it—as part of even the simplest routine, we had to do a running mount of some description. I could jump up to it, but I couldn’t catch my balance once up there. I fell off. Immediately and inevitably, every single time. I wasn’t normally a laughingstock—at that time I was generally considered a nice, quiet, smart girl in the semi-official peer rankings—but even the kindest of the other girls couldn’t help letting a few giggles escape whenever it was my turn to give it a try.

Years later, during my first Army physical, the medic informed me that I had significant high-frequency hearing loss. I remember staring at him in surprise and saying, Huh? I hadn’t noticed—“Well, you’re probably used to it,” he said. “You’ve probably had it for years. But it does prevent you from being qualified for some military jobs, so I gotta make a note of it in your records—sorry!”

Well, at least I finally knew why…

…and, about four years ago, one of my best friend’s sisters died from a brain tumor. She died because, among other things, she couldn’t afford chemotherapy to the tune of $5000 a month, and neither could the rest of her extended family, though everyone chipped in for as long as they could. She died because the tumor made it impossible for her to work (it first made itself known by giving her a seizure in her boss’s office), so she lost her job and the health insurance that came with it, and was unable to get any other health insurance because her tumor was a “pre-existing condition.” She wasn’t able to get Medicaid because her husband was employed. But if he quit his job so she could get it, then he and she and their three children wouldn’t have been able to live at all—no money, no home, no food, no clothing—

So she died, literally in my friend’s arms, weighing about 70 pounds, suffering from senile dementia at the age of 39, incontinent and in agony. She left two daughters and a son, ages 18, 16 and 13, behind, and a husband who became a widower at 45.

So these reasons, among others, are why I think it’s really hysterical when people start shrieking about how the government is trying to take away your health care choices! and shouldn’t it be between your doctor and you..!? This is not to pooh-pooh all their concerns; some of them are legitimate—it’s impossible not to be continually horrified at the ever-increasing monster that is the federal budget deficit, for instance. But there seems to be an amazing ignorance of the fact that many of their fellow Americans currently have only the choice of permanent physical disability or death, and the only decision their doctor is willing to make is to refuse them treatment of any description. Or perhaps it’s only indifference—which doesn’t incline me towards extending any sympathy in return, eh? I do wonder which one it is, at times. I hope it’s not the latter.

23.07.2009 Punkass!, A million ways to mortgage the future, Culture, Health, Human Rights, If I have to suffer you have to suffer, Lick My Jackboots of Love, Obamarama, Politics, Shame on you for not being rich white and privileged, Soapbox, for reals 11 Comments

What would it take

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

Lately, I have been thinking about health insurance (probably because I have no job, and even though I’m on Hubby’s health care plan, it still makes me feel wary). I’ve been wondering why we don’t go to a government-run model: I’m convinced of it. But, I’m an easy sell on health care- access to everyone and flexibility? Give me some of that.

So I started to think: what about people who don’t have liberal values? What would it take for them to be convinced that it’s a good idea? I went and asked my conservative and libertarian friends and relatives, and this is what they said (the ones that answered; lazy people):
(more…)

13.06.2009 Punkass!, Health, Human Rights 23 Comments

My Opinion

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Which I have been resisting giving for a while now, but really, at this point, I figure I may as well express myself to the limits of my interest, which I admit are pretty narrow. I’m sure you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for this.

Equivalent in interest generation, inducement of feelings of eeuuugh, and a strenuous and powerful wish that any minors involved in the situation do not end up messed up in the head as a result for life, but conscious that unless actual minor neglect or abuse occurs, it’s really none of my fucking business in either a moral or a legal sense:


Nadya Suleman, eight days before giving birth to the last eight of her fourteen kids. (hat tip)

Photobucket
Michelle Duggar, just after giving birth to her eighteenth child.


The Enigma, born Paul Lawrence, a sideshow performer who has undergone extensive body modification including horn implants, ear reshaping, multiple body piercings, and a full-body jigsaw-puzzle tattoo.

I doubt the mental health status and pecuniary and attention-seeking motives of the principals are much different, either. There. Now I never have to think about it again.

16.02.2009 Celebrity, Circle Jerking, Culture, Family, Health 4 Comments

Protest Pregnancy Day ’08: Pregnancy Kills Women!

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

What I care about is human life, and the ending of it that could be prevented, no matter how great or small that chance of the life ending might be. Lives, lives that would otherwise be in no danger at all, are being lost to pregnancy!

Like these folks, I am totally unconcerned about other people’s ideas that they have some right to “privacy” that trumps my right to stop them from entering into a situation where a human death might occur. I mean, really, what kind of moral leg do you have to stand on acting like “privacy” means you’re free to do things that might result in a living human being kicking the bucket?

You know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I am so in awe of the brilliance of this good organization that I am going to borrow their elegant and succinct “Talking Points” and make them my own, to promote my own worthy cause. With just the simple substitution of “pregnancy” for “the pill” and “women” for “unborn babies,” it seems to scan in almost seamlessly for this great endeavor! I’m sure they’re overjoyed to share with me here because, given their level of concern about deaths that might occur without you even knowing, their concern for deaths that are really obvious that you could not fail to notice occurring must be at least as great! (Any other attitude would be quite, quite illogical and even borderline psychotic, wouldn’t it?)

Let’s get started saving some lives!

(more…)

03.06.2008 "Science", A million ways to mortgage the future, Bodily Autonomy, Brilliant Ideas, Contraception, FUCKING IDIOTS, Health, Human Rights, Reproductive Rights, Rights? What rights?, What would we do without such great advice? 20 Comments

On Foreskins, From A Person Who Does Not Now And Indeed Never Has Had One

Monday, May 26th, 2008

It makes me wary of espousing any opinion on the subject that appears to be laying down the law! in any way, shape or form. I imagine that some men feel the same way about espousing an opinion about the morality and/or legality of abortion, especially basing any such opinion on the way an abortion would personally impact the life of someone who was having one–

“It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound, when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form.”

–Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion on the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart, upholding the federal partial-birth abortion ban

Hey, I did say SOME men!

But anyway…

(more…)

26.05.2008 Bodily Autonomy, Cock!, Culture, Health, Sex 26 Comments

All These Posts about the Abstinence Clearinghouse Have Inspired Me

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

Photobucket

Abstinence.

This is not something I have ever practiced on purpose except during limited periods and for a specific reason (example: my husband would be sent on a training tour of duty for several weeks) since I made the decision to become sexually active at the age of 17. Obviously I was not sexually active before then, but I wouldn’t have considered myself to have been practicing abstinence either; for about a year beforehand, I had been purposefully searching for someone with whom I really wanted to have sex. Why was I doing this? Well, I was sure I wanted to have sex because my body was telling me so, quite emphatically. However, I’d seen way too many other girls’ deep regret about how their “first time” had come about, and if I could possibly help it, that wasn’t going to happen to me–I already knew that I had a lot of potential to be really, totally crazy about the act of sex! and darn me if that was gonna get ruined right out of the gates.

(more…)

11.05.2008 Culture, Health, Sex, Soapbox, another fucking sex post 7 Comments

The Medicalization of Childbirth

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

Last week, I finished watching “The Business of Being Born“. Ricki Lake did this documentary to highlight the differences in treatment she had with her two children. One was done at the hospital, and ended up as a Cesarean. One was at home, with a midwife, and it was videotaped.

Interspaced between this was some history of childbirth, particularly in the United States. Starting at around the turn of the century, births shifted from something that was at home, to something that was done at a hospital. This shift was not because medical science was particularly good at childbearing (or really, because it was even as midwifery) but because an interesting intersection that we all know and love: capitalism, sexism, and racism. Doctors at the time went on a massive advertising campaign, aimed at telling women that other women were not as good at delivering babies as they were. That these Russian, German, and other immigrant women just wanted your money, and you were a bad mother if you didn’t go to the hospital to get a delivery done there. Interestingly enough; it was not actually safer to go to the hospital, if you were in labor. Midwifery had been around for awhile, women knew how to deliver babies. They, at the very least, knew that you washed your hands before you went to the next birth, something that doctors at the time considered immaterial. Midwifes also knew to listen to a pregnant women when she was in labor, as opposed to putting up a sheet and ignoring her. They also knew that squatting, or in water, was an easier and safer way to give birth then lying on one’s back, where you have to not only have to work against your body, but gravity (but hey, with your legs like that, it was easier for the doctor).

It then went on to talk about “twilight sleep” or “zombie sleep”. For those of you who are unfamiliar (and I certainly was before I saw this) twilight sleep was when a women came to the hospital, and then was injected with morphine and scopolamine. Now, supposedly this was to kill pain; but what it really did was put pregnant women into an alternate state of mind, so that they forgot the labor pains. They also forgot the labor. And how to control their own body. Women had to be tied down to the bed, (with sheepskin, so that they wouldn’t leave big bruises or scratches). Watching the videos were again horrific: a women, tied to a bed, thrashing about, with a curtain at her midsection, and four white guys staring intently at her uterus. For something that is normally held as one of the most feminine of experiences, it was eerily impersonal.*

The movie then continued to show the difference between medical birth and midwifery. For one thing, the births done with a midwife seemed a whole lot less painful. The midwife was there the whole time, as opposed to a doctor who showed up at the last second. The position seemed more comfortable as well; if the woman wanted to get up and walk around, she was allowed to. If she wanted to squat, she squatted. With a midwife, they listened to what the women said she wanted. With the doctors, it seemed as if the doctor told her what she wanted.

Not to say that the movie was Luddite, at all. Every midwife there said that she was grateful that there was the knowledge of obstetricians out there, for the complicated births. But they all made mention that, 9 times out of 10, women did not need to go to the doctor. That first and foremost, those doctors are surgeons, and sometimes do unnecessary cesareans out of misplaced concern, or because of time constraints, that is not actually healthy for the mother or the new baby. They compared infant mortality in the United States with other countries in Europe where it was far more common to have a midwife, and lo and behold, the US has more infant deaths then Europe. However, they never proved a causal relationship; there are a variety of reasons why that might be.

Among the problems of medicalization they talked about, one was talking about how the introduction of medicine was playing weird problems with women’s hormones. First, a women is given an epidural, for the pain. But an epidural numbs more than just pain, it also makes it more difficult to have contractions. So then, a women is given pitocin, which is a synthetic form of oxytocin (the birthing hormone). Pitocin has some major problems though: first, the contractions it causes are longer, and stronger (and therefore more painful). Also, it can constrict bloodflow to the uterus, so that the fetus has less oxygen flowing to it. So, to numb the pain, they give the women another epidural. And this starts the cycle again, until the fetus goes into distress (and the mother is also pretty distressed at this point as well). At this point, they rush the women to get a Cesarean, leaving a scar in the women, an increased risk of infection, and a now-distressed baby.

A few things struck me watching this film, in no particular order:

1) Why does any women ever (well, with Tom Beatty make that any person) ever get and stay pregnant long enough to give birth? Seriously, even with the midwife, water births, were it just seemed like a grunt and slip, and “ooo, baby” it still seemed painful, long, and full of viscera. This movie made me hug my orthotricyclin like no one’s business.

2) This movie was far too crunchy for my tastes. I can see why childbirth is a unique experience for women, because it is generally just women that can do it. But seriously, I prefer the ideas they mention at the end a lot better: where hospitals have birthing centers, where midwifes work. You can have your birth in a water way, or at the very least squatting, but you are still at the hospital if you are that 1 in 10 case that needs emergency help.

3) What is it with some guys and their seemingly uncontrollable urges to take women’s experiences and define them/ control them? First you have medical doctors saying that women don’t actually know what’s going on for pregnancy, and then you have guys making laws about when it’s okay for us to have an abortion, and guys who think that birth control is emasculating, and guys who seem to think they know what happens during PMS better than women. It’s really annoying; I don’t assume to know what it’s like to have blue balls, why should they assume they have any IDEA what it’s like to go around in a feminine fleshy meatbag?

This movie is one that I think people should definitely watch** (if you have a netflix account, it’s instantly downloadable, by the way). It shows a very interesting perception of childbirth, from women’s point of view.

*Interestingly enough, the feminists at the time held up scopolamine as a liberation. The movie made mention that at the time, childbirth was still thought as something that should be as painful as possible, for the “curse of eve”. The feminist at the time, saw this as an opportunity to not have to suffer through childbirth, and jumped on the opportunity to show that no, childbirth was painful because there wasn’t the medicine to fix it, not because of any Biblical curse. Next time an anti-choicer shows up saying that early feminists were against abortion (which they should have been, because at the time an abortion had more of a chance of killing you than childbirth), point out that they also supported drugging women during childbirth. We are all a part of the time we grew up in, bound by some of those mindsets and technologies.

**If you’re like me, you’ll watch most of this movie through slits in your fingers. Seriously, think horror movie viscera, and then imagine in that in your most sensitive parts.

27.04.2008 Punkass!, "Science", Bodily Autonomy, Fetii, Health, Historical Wankery, Reproductive Rights 13 Comments

Drop that cigarette, mister!

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

From now on, I want to see men being given the same intrusive, ridiculous health advice that pre-menopausal women get, because it turns out they need to take care of themselves for the hypothetical baybies.

Scientists say fathers who smoke and drink should be aware they are potentially not just damaging themselves, but also their heirs.

Tests on rats showed sperm damage caused by exposure to garden chemicals remained up to four generations later…

She said men who drank a lot of alcohol had been shown to have increased rates of sperm defects; and nicotine from tobacco found its way into seminal fluid as well as blood.

Professor Daniels said: “We need to open up our eyes and look at the evidence.

“My advice to young couples would be moderation. Substances that have an impact on reproduction are often also carcinogenic.

“If I was a young man I would not drink very heavily and not smoke two packets of cigarettes a day while I was trying to conceive a child.”

Ya hear that, boys? If you think it’s even possible that you might get a woman pregnant in the near future, you owe it to your heirs to practice moderation in all vices. Sure, right now they’re just saying you might want to keep it somewhere under 2 packs or a whole case per day, but that’s just the start of the slippery slope. In a few years, we can have it so that you get dirty looks for even being in the beer cooler while your pregnant wife loiters out in the store aisle.

Welcome to hell, guys, population: fertile.

19.02.2008 Punkass!, Health 2 Comments

Truly, the lesser of two evils

Monday, November 26th, 2007

Ezra’s post slamming Obama’s wimpy stand on health care (largely because his plan isn’t universal and still would require us to pay premiums) hits the nail on the head. He correctly lambasts Obama for failing to capitalize on his chance to become — using Ezra’s analogy — the Reagan of the left.

The Democrats’ central failing as a party in the 21st century has been their dedication to furthering unfounded conservative frames. In this case, Obama buys into their BS on health care, but we’ve seen similar parroting on “security” and wartime tough-talk, environmental issues, economic policy, foreign affairs, taxes, and more. Conservatives paint a narrow, bigoted view of reality grounded in privilege. After so many years of watching them cave, I am left to assume the Democrats see the canvas the same way.

Truthfully, though, we all understand why Obama has hedged here specifically and why Democrats continue to wuss out at every opportunity. It’s all about the money.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why little RonPaulites think the country would be so much better if it were run by corporations instead of our present style of government. That has to be one of the dumbest, most obvious false dichotomies I’ve ever heard.

Even Obama, funding his campaign (*almost* entirely) without the help of PACs and lobbyists, hasn’t exactly crossed them, either. In fact, his health care plan would explicitly mimic the current health benefits a federal employee enjoys, providing coverage through private corporate partners like Aetna. In other words, his plan would send our premiums and government subsidies to the same corporations greedily inhibiting true health care reform.

Welcome to the new Democratic Party.

26.11.2007 Health, Rights? What rights? 3 Comments

Previous Entries