Nerd is my Gender
What's yours?
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Help Indiana Planned Parenthood!
Read about the funding crisis here, then make a donation in Mitch Daniels’ name.
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Join me in donating to Planned Parenthood IN in Gov. Mitch Daniel's name.
One way or another, he’s going to be funding public health. :)
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Republicans Think of the Children
Cross-posted from No Lords, No Masters.
Last night, my Bencakes and I decided to turn the CNN Republican Presidential Debates into a drinking game. He suggested “Big Government”, but as I didn’t want to die of alcohol poisoning halfway through, I suggested we drink to thinking of the children.
And what a game it was! They all opened up citing their RepubliCred, and all of them made note of how many children and grandchildren they have. Now, I’ve got nothing against being proud of family, I have a son I’m proud of, but there was something strange about how they were presenting their children. It’s almost as if they were using them for personal gain… naw, must have just been my imagination.I found the official transcript of the debates online, and did a word search for “children” and “kids”.
Let’s start with Michelle Bachmann:
I also believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I carried that legislation when I was a senator in Minnesota, and I believe that for children, the best possible way to raise children is to have a mother and father in their life.
Now, I didn’t come from a perfect background. My parents were divorced. And I was raised by a single mother. There’s a lot of single families and families with troubled situations. That’s why my husband and I have broken hearts for at-risk kids and it’s why we took 23 foster children into our home.Loving couples want to share equal protections afforded all man/woman couples? The children! Think of the children! It’s better to parade 23 of them through one house than to ever let them settle into a stable home life lacking both a mother and a father united in holy matrimony.
Not to be outdone, Mitt Romney stepped up with his own appeal to the innocent youth of our nation in response to a question about the auto industry bail-out:
There is a perception in this country that government knows better than the private sector, that Washington and President Obama have a better view for how an industry ought to be run. Well, they’re wrong. The right way for America to create jobs is to — is to keep government in its place and to allow the private sector and the — and the energy and passion of the American people create a brighter future for our kids and for ourselves.
Not only do Washington and Pres Obama think they know better than the Invisible Hand* how to run this nation, they’re ruining the future for our kids!
Then later on, when moderator John King asked him about federal disaster relief, he again expounded on this theme:
We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.
If only we loved children the way Romney does, then we’d stop this senseless disaster relief. After all, only adults are ever affected by natural disasters. Government intervention is clearly an attack on childhood as we know it.
I think Herman Cain takes the cake, er pie (he’s the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza), with his thoughts about his grandchildren:
The reason we’re in the situation we are today with Medicare and Social Security is because the problem hasn’t been solved… You know that commercial where they have demagogued the whole thing with medi-scare and having grandma tossed off the bridge? If we don’t fix this problem, it’s going to be our grandkids in that wheelchair that they were going to be throwing off the bridge. We have got to fix the problem.
I clutch my pearls at the very thought.
His final words about what he learned from this debate touched me, however, because I think I learned this lesson too:
What I’ve learned is that all of these candidates up here share one thing in common. And that is, it’s not about us. It’s about the children and the grandchildren. We’re not that far apart on all of the big issues.
You’re right, Mr. Cain, you’re not that far apart on all of the big issues. A vote for either of you would be as worrisome to me as a vote for the next. But hey, at least you’re thinking of those children, because if you won’t, who will?
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*Republicans: always looking to invisible beings for guidance.
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Planned Parenthood and “Women’s” Health
If I see Planned Parenthood called a “women’s clinic”, or the recent victory concerning getting contraceptives, etc. covered under insurance a victory for WOMEN, I WILL FUCKING SCREAM.
Cause those victories aren’t just for fucking cis women. Not everyone who has a uterus is a woman. Not every woman has a uterus. Now, can we start calling it a people’s victory instead? Because I get really tired of everything being cis women’s victories or a war against cis women when it actually affects a number of people, some of whom are women, some of whom are not, with plenty of gray area.
Plenty of non-women don’t want to have children and are willing to be responsible about it. Plenty of people of all identities are being responsible about avoiding disease and infection and cancer as well.
When the Religious Right claims that only depraved women need Planned Parenthood and contraceptives, it doesn’t help to reframe the issue in another false ideology. Affordable access to public health services isn’t a “women’s issue” or a “poor issue” exclusively, it’s a human issue.
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Decent News
Wisconsin decides is forced to be a little less bigoted! Check it out:
“Prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment’s pro-scription against cruel and unusual punishment when they display ‘deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners.’” Greeno v. Daley , 414 F.3d 645, 652-53(7th Cir. 2005) (quoting Estelle v. Gamble , 429 U.S. 97, 104(1976)).
Refusing to provide effective treatment for a serious medical condition serves no valid penological purpose and amounts to torture.
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Man With Breast Cancer Can't Get Medicaid Coverage Because He's A Man
Takes a cis man getting breast cancer for people to take action, eh? Such is life in these united states.
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$300 for being 300 pounds?
It’s true that fat doesn’t necessarily equal unhealthy. But even if it did, what sense does it make to charge unhealthy people more for being unhealthy? They’re already suffering, and already having to spend more money because of it too! And since we’re all just one bad illness or injury away from being in the same position, it’s in all of our interests to fight for health care equality.
The other week, I started work like any normal day. I actually was having a cheerful morning. Woke up on time and got there early so I headed to the kitchen to get coffee, like I do every single morning. Unfortunately, I was about to see something that would ruin my day and week….
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The Medical Model of Menstruation
“Well, nothing dangerous. Your homones arent balanced and youre not ovulating right, so here’s a birthcontrol with estrogen in it and I’ll see you in 3 months.”
That is the jist of what was said to me by my Gyno.
Apparently he doesnt seem to care what is CAUSING my imbalance or the way my ovaries, he’s just going to keep throwing birth control at me until one works.
He JUST gave a year refil on my estrogen free birthcontrol.
Oh, yeah…
“Do you remember if you had any complications from the birth control with estrogen?”
“Yeah, pregnancy.”
I got pregnant TWICE in one winter while on birth control with estrogen in it.
So the new plan is, keep taking estrogen free BC, call PP, get a second opinion, try to find someone who will find out WHY things are messed up and fix the cause instead of masking the symptoms, and with any luck I will be able to find someone who will give me a hystorectomy next year and with more luck insurance will pay for it. Im gonna find out how much it is, and see if Marcus will help me pay half.
But this, birth control change…
To me its like giving someone cough syrup for undiagnosed COPD. Yeah, you made the cough ease up, but you still dont know why the person is coughing so much.
Gonna go play WoW and try to calm down. This is so frustrating.
Oh yeah, if you play on Khadgar, I’ll be on Dumbledwarf, lvl 15 mage in the Eastern Kingdoms, but I forget exactly where. Itd be cool to play with someone I know from here for some reason.
I get that when I go to a gyno. My periods are all over the place and the doctor just offers birth control pills. I mention that PCOS is common in my family and they pretty much ignore me “all I can do for you is put you on birth control.” My ass that’s all you can do. Last time I went in my periods had been regular for 3 months and I mentioned that before that I was only bleeding once evey three months. “Having you gained weight? That’s probably why your periods aren’t regular.” Even though my periods were regular *after* I gained weight.
Of course that was the same doctor who was pushing dairy but told me I shouldn’t drink almond milk because it has “too much” fat in it. :-|
It sucks when doctors don’t take these things seriously, and I’d be pissed off too. But I have another thought about it all: Where did we get the idea that periods are supposed to come once every 4 weeks for everyone who gets them? Or is that just another medically-imposed social construct of “properly” functioning uteruses? I hear this same story [above] over and over and over again, and after a while, I have to wonder if maybe we’re mostly normal in all our biological diversity, and it’s the medically-imposed model that’s abnormal. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think people should have to put up with pain and anxiety, and we should be free to change our own bodies to do what we want them to do. But perhaps bleeding once every 3 months is as valid as once every 3 weeks (as I do when not on the pill). Something to ponder.
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Due To Health Cuts, Miscarriage No Longer Considered An ‘Emergency’ For Medicaid Patients In Washington State
Pregnant women are apparently expected to make appointments in advance if they plan on miscarrying.
I guess the moral of the story is that to some people, saving the life of the host person doesn’t matter if the fetus is just going to die anyway.
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My dad is unemployed due to disabilities obtained on the job. He’s in need of health insurance but is NOT ELIGIBLE for Medicare because he could be covered on my mom’s health insurance.
The problem is, if she adds him, she would OWE her job $$ each month and have no take home income. The sole income upon which they rely.
After 25+ years of happy marriage, my parents are considering DIVORCE just so he can be eligible for Medicare.
WE are the 99%.
As far as I know, divorce wouldn’t be enough. He’d actually have to move to a different address as well. Fuck the system.
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House GOP Proposes So-Called ‘Let Women Die’ Bill That Lets Hospitals Deny Life-Saving Care
Do they really think their god will reward them for letting people die? Really?
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The Proto-TERF
“Of course I don’t have anything against trans people, but abortion/sex work/breast cancer/ovarian cancer/whatever is and has always been a women’s issue! Why do you want to take it away from women?”
Because asking you to share equals stealing. Right…
Don’t you get it? The more rights we all share, the safer those rights are. If even a man has abortion rights, then especially women have them too. If even a man has health coverage for breast cancer, than especially women are covered. The thing about equality is that it makes the world better for everyone.
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“Only 37 percent of Americans would prefer a smaller government that provided fewer health services, while a majority, 52 percent, said they would prefer a larger government that provided more health services.”
(via Americans Want Bigger Role for Government in Health Care)
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Can "Opt-Out" Organ Donation Law be the Solution?
It’s a “soft opt-out,” meaning that families would not be forced to give up their dead relatives’ organs.
I think this is an overall good idea. People helping other people live healthier, longer lives. After all, I don’t need this body after I’m dead.
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I’ve never had private health insurance.
I’m ideologically opposed to paying someone to prevent me from obtaining treatment.
Genderqueer with a touch of happy humanism.
