Letters to the Editor
melthough
Published Letters: 1264 Editor's Choice: 102
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Arizona already issues stillbirth certificates
[Read the article: What else we're reading]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I went looking for the article since the link didn't work and found the AZ Dept. of Vital Records already gives these out: http://www.azdhs.gov/vitalrcd/stillbirth.htm.
Is this woman asking for something different?
A stillbirth is distinct from a spontaneous abortion in that the pregnancy has been carried to term. I don't have a problem with a special birth/death certificate for parents, although I don't actually see the point, either. It seems to serve an emotional purpose, and that's not what the office of vital records is for.
That said, I know that a lot of these procedural-looking things are meant to chip away at abortion rights. However, I don't think they really do. Rather, they are carefully designed to make us pro-choicers look stupid and mean for opposing what look to most people like humane laws.
I don't think we need to be afraid of this sort of thing. All NARAL and Planned Parenthood etc. need to do is come out with clear statements about why they do not fear or oppose stillbirth certificates for stillbirths. I think if we look these things in the eye, we will still find that MOST people support women's right to choose first-trimester and early second-trimester abortions, even if Arizona gives out stillbirth certificates. The thing we really need to worry about is the Supreme Court. THAT keeps me up at night.
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You make green buildings?
[Read the article: I hate buzzwords! It's not "carbon," it's "carbon dioxide"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Shall I practice willful ignorance of the metaphor here and ask why you only make buildings in one color?
You are seeing/hearing language change right in front of you. Like watching "collectable" replace "collectible." That one used to really bother me, but conventions change, and that is life. We all know what green means now. We are getting used to what carbon means.
Two more important points:
1. No one can "make you" feel guilty. Is there something you feel bad about?
2. Regardless of how right you may be, you are not in control of the way other people use the word carbon. You can only control your own use of the word. If you start adding the 'dioxide' back in, maybe other people will too. Or maybe they will just give you weird looks, like the looks I give people who insist on pronouncing 'Feng Shui' as though they were native speakers of Mandarin. (Do you do that too???)
Choose your battles carefully, or you're going to be a very unhappy person.
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Australia tidbits
[Read the article: Party time!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This doesn't actually change your point, Andrew, but we get lots of Australia tidbits on Broadsheet. The most recent, I think, was about a woman who was not allowed to adopt children because she was too fat. One could speculate at length about why we even hear about these things (presumably through the wires) instead of something of more substance, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to speculate. The overall impression after years of such treatment is that Australia is like the U.S. on speed. I'm guessing the reality is a little more ... real.
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On the continuum
[Read the article: "Her face was nothing but red"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The book is a fine idea, but the mention of Hollywood sexism is a foolish distraction from the stoning. Anti-woman revenge fantasies are a different problem, even if they come from the same psychosocial motive as the actual stoning of an actual person. Not a non-problem, but a qualitatively different one. I am saying this as a person who argued last week against making every damn conversation about female genital mutliation into a conversation about male circumcision just because they are on the same "continuum." So what if they are? That fact is not salient. The continuum fallacy is an ever-more-prevalent corollary to the slippery slope fallacy.
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I really like John Edwards
[Read the article: Dem hopefuls pull few punches on choice]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but I wish his wife were running for president.
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"Abortion is legal."
[Read the article: Dem hopefuls pull few punches on choice]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, for now. Have you noticed who's on the SCOTUS lately? This is an important issue.
That said, which Democrat gets the nomination is not going to change SCOTUS votes. The damage is done. Like you, I am looking forward to a day when all those one-issue abortion voters start to see that the other social justice Christians are supposed to care about are all being pushed forward exclusively by the other side, and all uphill against the hoardes of killers these alleged 'pro-lifers' have given their money to. Things like Glenn Greenwald's post today about the GOP agenda being completely against the teachings of the Catholic church give me hope. But only a little, truly.
I would love for it to be the case that we could stop being vigilant about abortion rights. It totally sucks that we are constantly having to come back to it as though it's the only women's issue. But we didn't choose that; it was chosen for us. I hope this is one election we can have on our terms instead of theirs.
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Hormones in the water
[Read the article: Why are teens putting off sex?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Since wastewater is not used for drinking (yet), I think you'll find more hormones coming into drinking water from feed lot runoff than from' birth control pills.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020105/bob13.asp
I seriously doubt, however, that anything much has happened to the sex drive of teenagers. I was wondering if there might be more parental supervision and control these days than there used to be.
Of course, let's not rule out the possibility that abstinence sounds more like a viable option to the Kids These Days (TM). I seriously doubt that, but it's always possible! Also, I'm not against including abstinence as a viable choice in sex ed; it's the "only" part that bugs me, and I don't care if abstinence-only "education" convinces a few teenagers to abstain or doesn't. Unles it convinces 100% of teenagers to abstain, it is worthless, because those who don't buy it will have too much to figure out for themselves. Remember all those girls who had babies because they thought you couldn't get pregnant through your underwear/standing up/after douching/during your period?
Anybody wanna go back there?