Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Published Letters: 72 Editor's Choice: 6
I've written on this subject many times in other venues. I will agree that it's problematic that pregnant women "hold all of the cards" when it comes to a pregnancy that one parent would rather not continue. And I know that there are many women (both married and single) who dupe men into impregnating them for various reasons, as well as many women who have honest contraceptive failures who do not believe in having abortions and who don't believe in giving up their children for adoption.
But I do not believe that the solution to this problem is to allow a man (or any other individual--or the government, for that matter) to legally "hijack" a woman's womb and force her to bear a child that she does not want.
I feel that a much better--and more equitable--solution would involve notifying a father-to-be VERY early on in the pregnancy and giving him the ability to legally "opt out" of all of his parental rights and responsibilities. If he is not infomred during this legal window, then he is not on the hook for paying child support. (If he chooses to do so, then he would have to go through legal adoption proceedings if he were to change his mind in the future after having opted out of his parental rights and responsibilities.) And a mother-to-be would know--well in advance, and in time to secure an early abortion, should she choose to do so--that she has no father to count on for child support.
The usual reaction that I get from people who hear this proposal is that they--as taxpayers--are unwilling to see their tax dollars go toward supporting fatherless children. (These folks also feel the same way about seeing their tax dollars go toward any and all welfare programs.) But I feel that this is a separate issue. My proposal is intended only to make things more fair for unwilling single fathers-to-be, while preserving what I feel is the overriding principle of a woman's right to control her own body.
I subscribe to many "alternative health"-type newsletters. Admittedly, many of them give slanted information, and many of them have commercial tie-ins with some potentially-dubious products. So I take everything that I read with a huge grain of salt.
What I've been reading about avian flu and Tamiflu in these newsletters is rather alarming, at least on its surface. The gist of the claim is that Tamiflu has been proven to be ineffective against the avian flu, and that our government is buying up millions of doses of Tamiflu from Roche on the (possibly false) assumption that Tamiflu is an effective remedy for the avian flu. (Another possibility is that our government knows that Tamiflu has no proven track record against avian flu, but that they are making this huge investment just so that it will SEEM as if they're doing SOMETHING to be prepared for the pandemic, if and when it arrives on our shores.)
Some reasons that I don't necessarily believe the alternative health newsletter claims follow:
1-There have been no large human studies of the effectiveness of Tamiflu against avian flu, mostly because there have been relatively few human cases of avian flu to study.
2-My understanding of avian flu is that human victims start to show symptoms within two days of exposure, and that pneumonia develops very quickly, often on the same day that symptoms of infection start to show. It may be that the Tamiflu was not given to the patients soon-enough to keep the deadly symptoms from developing. In "normal" usage, Tamiflu is supposed to be given within two days of exposure to the flu. Is it possible that it's already too late for Tamiflu dosing to be effective in that two-day window, when a patient starts to show symptoms of exposure to the avian flu virus?
3-To my knowledge, Tamiflu has been used as an influenza remedy, not as a preventative. Maybe Tamiflu needs to be given prophylactically--and continually, for the entire "threat period"--in order to be effective against avian flu? If that is the case, then how many billions of doses would be required to keep the U.S. population protected? It boggles the mind to contemplate this possibility!
The point of this post is that we should not, perhaps, place our faith in Tamiflu as a partial solution to the avian flu threat. What we do know with certainty is that Tamiflu is very expensive. --And it is in somewhat-short supply. And, for all of that, it may not even be effective.
Really: The gathering of statistics for advertising that is to be directed to a target audience is the ONLY end-use for this study that has any legitimacy.
To take the conclusions in this report and to then try to extrapolate some meaningful "social commentary" about gender differences is insulting--to both genders. And, as one letter-writer pointed out, the conclusions themselves seem to be based on preconceived gender biases (e.g., why is perusing a medical site considered to be "relationship-oriented", rather than "fact seeking," when women do it?).
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
