Roe v Wade is on deck

[Emily Lake]

Because I do not know the specifics of why someone needs to terminate a pregnancy. Elective abortions after 'viability' were NEVER legal under RvW. Any decision to terminate a pregnancy must be made between the patient and doctor, not the government. Any later term abortions performed are for specific medical reasons and are WANTED pregnancies. It's CRUEL to allow government intervention when it's already a devastating time for the parents. And the laws saying the fetus must be WISKED away to perform "life saving measure" on a non-viable fetus is beyond cruel. The parents are unable to say hold their child and say goodbye. This is NOT something the government should have ANY SAY IN.

If elective abortions after viability were never legal under RvW... why are so many of you opposed to me supporting the exact same limitation?

Why are you ADDING things I haven't asked for and don't support, as if that's somehow an argument against my very sensible position of completely unfettered access to abortions prior to viability, but limited to medical necessity after viability?

 

[laughing dog]

I think that neither you nor I nor any legislator is qualified in any way to decide what level of risk or harm a woman or girl must suffer in order to be thought capable of making a decision about her own body?

Let's cut to the chase, and skip the back and forth semantic battles.

Do you believe that a woman who is 7 months pregnant, with a health fetus, and with no risks to her health from the pregnancy, should be allowed by law to terminate that life inside of her with absolutely no medical need at all?

Is there any scenario during a pregnancy that you - personally - would view as murder?

For me, none.

Sometimes, abortion is necessary or extremely desirable after the first two trimesters. A fatal fetal abnormality may not be discovered until late into the pregnancy. Death for the fetus is inevitable and likely painful. Continuing the pregnancy is dangerous for the mother’s health.

Thus the ever present and common allowance for risk to the mother and severe abnormality. Which I've covered repeatedly. And which was part of the standard under RvW.

Yes, this is rare but not so rare as we might wish it to be. Third trimester abortions are also rare, but not so rare as we might wish.

It is absolutely not the job of you or me or any legislator or judge to decide the amount of danger or deleterious health effects are sufficient t to allow a girl or woman to choose abortion.

But it's reasonable to expect that some danger our deleterious health effect should be present, don't you agree? Do you think it's unreasonable to think that there should be some actual medical reason that late in the game?

I think that neither you nor I nor any legislator is qualified in any way to decide what level of risk or harm a woman or girl must suffer in order to be thought capable of making a decision about her own body?

I'm just curious about if we (men) are allowed to intervene in just this single medical case, why aren't men allowed to intervene in other things, like breast augmentation. Why are we only allowed to intervene and prevent access to health care for one woman's procedure? Seems kind of strict if you ask me. If we can intervene in one, then let us intervene in more! We have ideas you see.

Doctor: Emily, now that we've discussed this fully.... before we go anything further, I wanted to bring this random guy to provide us his opinion on your treatment options.
Random Guy: *whateva*
Emily Lake: Wow! I'm so glad we brought in some random person with his agenda to better inform my doctor and myself about what I should be allowed to do.
Doctor: So leeches it is!

We, as a society, make laws against killing people. Is there ANY situation in which you - personally - think that abortion is tantamount to murder?

Set aside all of your "oh that never happens" and "nobody would ever do that" hypotheticals, and give my your principles.

Do you - personally - think that a woman three days away from delivery of a health infant, and with no known or identifiable risk to her life, should be legally allowed to kill the baby inside her womb?

Yes.

 

[Toni]

I think that neither you nor I nor any legislator is qualified in any way to decide what level of risk or harm a woman or girl must suffer in order to be thought capable of making a decision about her own body?

Let's cut to the chase, and skip the back and forth semantic battles.

Do you believe that a woman who is 7 months pregnant, with a health fetus, and with no risks to her health from the pregnancy, should be allowed by law to terminate that life inside of her with absolutely no medical need at all?

Is there any scenario during a pregnancy that you - personally - would view as murder?

I would consider it murder if someone decided, against the wishes of the woman, to terminate the pregnancy without some very extreme and extremely unlikely circumstances.

I learned a long time ago, not to judge why people make the decisions that they make. I know two women who refused to get abortions and lost marriages because of those decisions. In both cases, the woman was strong enough, independent enough, and financially stable enough to get along without the man's help. IMO, both were much, much, much better without the SOB and so were the resulting kids but at least one of them is still a bit nostalgic for the days when they were new and in love (he was an SOB then, too, and everybody saw it except her, because of love goggles) even though she thinks he's an SOB for all of the ways he's failed to do the very barest minimum for his child, and threatened to sue for custody if the mother tried to enforce child support, etc. BTW, he was bringing in very good money so it wasn't a question of being able to 'afford' child support. Or to take his child for visitation, which he only did when his second wife (and affair partner, who, btw, called up the woman I'm writing about to ask if he was with her--so he was cheating on #2 just like he did on #1 and I suspect he's cheating on #3 again, although for the life of me I cannot understand how any woman could be so desperate. He's an asshole). --Anyway, he only saw his daughter when his second wife insisted upon it--and they live in the same small town and he works like a quarter of a mile away from the house where his daughter grew up. The other guy I never met but yeah, he tried to give up parental rights but she refused to allow it because he's in the military and if he had died when his kid was a minor, the kid would have been entitled to some benefits.

I honestly do not think it is up to me to judge. Or to make the decision, I mean. I'm sure I'd have some feelings and judgement about such a situation. I have an idea about what think I might do under certain circumstances. But it's not my decision.

I had an early miscarriage which, in medical terminology is an abortion. I very much wanted that pregnancy, that child. But if I had carried that child, the next child I carried successfully would not have existed and I cannot imagine a world without them in it. I'm sad for what might have been when I remember how I felt at the time, but also grateful that I had a healthy baby almost 2 years later.

There definitely was an instance when, if I had been pregnant, nothing would have forced me to carry that child. If it had meant ending my own life, I would have done it rather than borne that sob's offspring. But I was lucky. I did not have to make that decision, seek out someone to perform it, get on that bus with money I borrowed from a friend. But I was young and healthy and chances are good that if he had known I was pregnant, he would have wanted to marry me and if my father had known, he would have insisted. Or tried to insist. Nothing could have forced me to do that. Nothing.

I've helped people get abortions when I think under those circumstances, I might have carried the pregnancy. Or did at the time. Shortly after one termination, I learned exactly how abusive and dangerous the father was and I knew I was wrong. She might have lived through the pregnancy and delivered a healthy child but he would have ended up killing her. Probably after the baby was born but maybe not. He was not a good guy.

Terminating a pregnancy that late is difficult because it is difficult to find anyone who will do it. Too many legal complications and potentially some ethical complications.

I might disagree vehemently with the decision to terminate, but it would not be my decision to make--assuming that we are talking about an actual adult and not an 11 year old who was pregnant. And so I should not make it on behalf of someone who is mentally competent to make decisions for herself.

I am pretty certain you are thinking: what about that perfectly healthy baby??? And I'm thinking: what about that other baby, the one who was old enough, whose body was mature enough to ovulate and conceive. She deserves a life, too.

No one should have to bare her soul to anyone in order or to put on some kind of performance to justify her decision to end a pregnancy she feels she cannot continue to carry.

 

[Elixir]

So, do you think the patients' rights activist has a solid knock-down argument for allowing capybara-punching?

The capybara lobby says no, and counter-sues for the right to eat the plaintiff.

 

[Arctish]

Sometimes, abortion is necessary or extremely desirable after the first two trimesters. A fatal fetal abnormality may not be discovered until late into the pregnancy. Death for the fetus is inevitable and likely painful. Continuing the pregnancy is dangerous for the mother’s health.

Thus the ever present and common allowance for risk to the mother and severe abnormality. Which I've covered repeatedly. And which was part of the standard under RvW.

Yes, this is rare but not so rare as we might wish it to be. Third trimester abortions are also rare, but not so rare as we might wish.

It is absolutely not the job of you or me or any legislator or judge to decide the amount of danger or deleterious health effects are sufficient t to allow a girl or woman to choose abortion.

But it's reasonable to expect that some danger our deleterious health effect should be present, don't you agree? Do you think it's unreasonable to think that there should be some actual medical reason that late in the game?

I think that neither you nor I nor any legislator is qualified in any way to decide what level of risk or harm a woman or girl must suffer in order to be thought capable of making a decision about her own body?

I'm just curious about if we (men) are allowed to intervene in just this single medical case, why aren't men allowed to intervene in other things, like breast augmentation. Why are we only allowed to intervene and prevent access to health care for one woman's procedure? Seems kind of strict if you ask me. If we can intervene in one, then let us intervene in more! We have ideas you see.

Doctor: Emily, now that we've discussed this fully.... before we go anything further, I wanted to bring this random guy to provide us his opinion on your treatment options.
Random Guy: *whateva*
Emily Lake: Wow! I'm so glad we brought in some random person with his agenda to better inform my doctor and myself about what I should be allowed to do.
Doctor: So leeches it is!

We, as a society, make laws against killing people. Is there ANY situation in which you - personally - think that abortion is tantamount to murder?

Set aside all of your "oh that never happens" and "nobody would ever do that" hypotheticals, and give my your principles.

Do you - personally - think that a woman three days away from delivery of a health infant, and with no known or identifiable risk to her life, should be legally allowed to kill the baby inside her womb?

At what point of development does a fertilized egg become a baby? At what point do the rights of a fetus outweigh the rights of a woman pregnant with one?

You keep saying you support the framework set out in Roe v. Wade in which abortions rights were unfettered before the point of fetal viability but could be restricted after it. Okay. But then you present a thought experiment so extreme the situation it did not, and could not, exist when Roe v. Wade was in effect, one in which women in the last week before their due date can say, "I don't want to be a mother so kill my baby" and doctors immediately perform the most destructive form of abortion that exists and don't even try to deliver the fetus alive. That argument is based entirely on the notion that women can't be trusted to make good choices so choice must be preemptively taken from them.

Is that what you believe?

 

[Arctish]

Because I do not know the specifics of why someone needs to terminate a pregnancy. Elective abortions after 'viability' were NEVER legal under RvW. Any decision to terminate a pregnancy must be made between the patient and doctor, not the government. Any later term abortions performed are for specific medical reasons and are WANTED pregnancies. It's CRUEL to allow government intervention when it's already a devastating time for the parents. And the laws saying the fetus must be WISKED away to perform "life saving measure" on a non-viable fetus is beyond cruel. The parents are unable to say hold their child and say goodbye. This is NOT something the government should have ANY SAY IN.

If elective abortions after viability were never legal under RvW... why are so many of you opposed to me supporting the exact same limitation?

Why are you ADDING things I haven't asked for and don't support, as if that's somehow an argument against my very sensible position of completely unfettered access to abortions prior to viability, but limited to medical necessity after viability?

I think it's because you keep presenting an argument against trusting women and their doctors to make good choices about when an abortion is medically necessary and excluding situations where an abortion is advisable for other reasons, such as the futility of carrying a fetus that can't survive outside the uterus.

 

[Toni]

I think that neither you nor I nor any legislator is qualified in any way to decide what level of risk or harm a woman or girl must suffer in order to be thought capable of making a decision about her own body?

Let's cut to the chase, and skip the back and forth semantic battles.

Do you believe that a woman who is 7 months pregnant, with a health fetus, and with no risks to her health from the pregnancy, should be allowed by law to terminate that life inside of her with absolutely no medical need at all?

Is there any scenario during a pregnancy that you - personally - would view as murder?

I would consider it murder if someone decided, against the wishes of the woman, to terminate the pregnancy without some very extreme and extremely unlikely circumstances.

I learned a long time ago, not to judge why people make the decisions that they make. I know two women who refused to get abortions and lost marriages because of those decisions. In both cases, the woman was strong enough, independent enough, and financially stable enough to get along without the man's help. IMO, both were much, much, much better without the SOB and so were the resulting kids but at least one of them is still a bit nostalgic for the days when they were new and in love (he was an SOB then, too, and everybody saw it except her, because of love goggles) even though she thinks he's an SOB for all of the ways he's failed to do the very barest minimum for his child, and threatened to sue for custody if the mother tried to enforce child support, etc. BTW, he was bringing in very good money so it wasn't a question of being able to 'afford' child support. Or to take his child for visitation, which he only did when his second wife (and affair partner, who, btw, called up the woman I'm writing about to ask if he was with her--so he was cheating on #2 just like he did on #1 and I suspect he's cheating on #3 again, although for the life of me I cannot understand how any woman could be so desperate. He's an asshole). --Anyway, he only saw his daughter when his second wife insisted upon it--and they live in the same small town and he works like a quarter of a mile away from the house where his daughter grew up. The other guy I never met but yeah, he tried to give up parental rights but she refused to allow it because he's in the military and if he had died when his kid was a minor, the kid would have been entitled to some benefits.

I honestly do not think it is up to me to judge. Or to make the decision, I mean. I'm sure I'd have some feelings and judgement about such a situation. I have an idea about what think I might do under certain circumstances. But it's not my decision.

I had an early miscarriage which, in medical terminology is an abortion. I very much wanted that pregnancy, that child. But if I had carried that child, the next child I carried successfully would not have existed and I cannot imagine a world without them in it. I'm sad for what might have been when I remember how I felt at the time, but also grateful that I had a healthy baby almost 2 years later.

There definitely was an instance when, if I had been pregnant, nothing would have forced me to carry that child. If it had meant ending my own life, I would have done it rather than borne that sob's offspring. But I was lucky. I did not have to make that decision, seek out someone to perform it, get on that bus with money I borrowed from a friend. But I was young and healthy and chances are good that if he had known I was pregnant, he would have wanted to marry me and if my father had known, he would have insisted. Or tried to insist. Nothing could have forced me to do that. Nothing.

I've helped people get abortions when I think under those circumstances, I might have carried the pregnancy. Or did at the time. Shortly after one termination, I learned exactly how abusive and dangerous the father was and I knew I was wrong. She might have lived through the pregnancy and delivered a healthy child but he would have ended up killing her. Probably after the baby was born but maybe not. He was not a good guy.

Terminating a pregnancy that late is difficult because it is difficult to find anyone who will do it. Too many legal complications and potentially some ethical complications.

I might disagree vehemently with the decision to terminate, but it would not be my decision to make--assuming that we are talking about an actual adult and not an 11 year old who was pregnant. And so I should not make it on behalf of someone who is mentally competent to make decisions for herself.

I am pretty certain you are thinking: what about that perfectly healthy baby??? And I'm thinking: what about that other baby, the one who was old enough, whose body was mature enough to ovulate and conceive. She deserves a life, too.

No one should have to bare her soul to anyone in order or to put on some kind of performance to justify her decision to end a pregnancy she feels she cannot continue to carry.

I missed something up thread: Emily’s scenario of a woman who wanted to abort a few days before the due date.

I would consider that, should that happen. It would be murder unless there were some extenuating circumstance that I cannot come up with atm.

OTOH, no licensed medical provider would agree to such a scenario. No medical facility would allow such a thing.

Of course there are girls and women who give birth in toilets and do not attempt to rescue the infant. Or don’t attempt to get a newborn who is not breathing to breathe. Babies sometimes have the umbilical cord wrapped around their neck. They may present feet first or shoulder first. If the mother is very young and/ir very small, or if the baby is large, it is not unlikely that the baby cannot pass through the birth canal. Both mother and child are e dangers without immediate expert medical intervention.

Sometimes they do not realize that the baby lived. There is a great deal of physical trauma associated with an unattended birth. The mother may herself lose consciousness from blood loss, loss of fluids, pain, exhaustion, Abd more serious medical causes. Sometimes babies are abandoned or left for dead with the intention of the baby not surviving. Sometimes, shock causes the girl or woman not to make a rational choice and even to shut down memory of giving birth or having a live child. Sometimes the baby is left intentionally where the mother hopes it will be found and saved. Lots of scenarios, some of which are, under the most liberal interpretations of the law, still considered homicide and are prosecuted as such.

Actually there are some women and girls who do not know they are pregnant when they go into labor and give birth. As you can imagine, that would be traumatic not just for the physical pain and blood and fluid loss and physical shock but also emotional shock and even severe post partum distress that can be classified as post partum psychosis. Bye, some degree of post partum depression is present in most who give birth and occasionally it can be post partum psychosis.

This may not seem possible unless you’ve actually birthed a baby. It is very possible. Add in that at least some of these infants were conceived during rape and the emotional trauma is just intensified.

IMO, these are not scenarios which are best regulated by legislators but are best handled by licensed medical professionals with experience in obstetrics, prenatal and post partum care and sometimes, pediatrics and geneticists with expertise in genetic abnormalities. Legislators need to stay out of it just like they stay out of brain surgery or prostatectomies.

 

[Elixir]

Why are you ADDING things I haven't asked for and don't support, as if that's somehow an argument against my very sensible position of completely unfettered access to abortions prior to viability, but limited to medical necessity after viability?

Very sensible, as long as you have, in hand,
a ready mechanism for instantly determining both the viability of a fetus that threatens a pregnant woman’s life and the level of threat to the woman’s life posed by that fetus, so an informed judgment of medical necessity can be handed down and the doc(s) can get a signoff or denial of permission to perform an abortion, maybe before it becomes a moot issue due to mom and/or fetus already being dead of complications.

Sounds good Emily, as long as the docs doing the abortions are unconditionally indemnified regardless of outcome, e.g. they decide it’s taking too long for all facts to be confirmed and the woman is crashing so they proceed and both the woman and the fetus die.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Sometimes, abortion is necessary or extremely desirable after the first two trimesters. A fatal fetal abnormality may not be discovered until late into the pregnancy. Death for the fetus is inevitable and likely painful. Continuing the pregnancy is dangerous for the mother’s health.

Thus the ever present and common allowance for risk to the mother and severe abnormality. Which I've covered repeatedly. And which was part of the standard under RvW.

Yes, this is rare but not so rare as we might wish it to be. Third trimester abortions are also rare, but not so rare as we might wish.

It is absolutely not the job of you or me or any legislator or judge to decide the amount of danger or deleterious health effects are sufficient t to allow a girl or woman to choose abortion.

But it's reasonable to expect that some danger our deleterious health effect should be present, don't you agree? Do you think it's unreasonable to think that there should be some actual medical reason that late in the game?

I think that neither you nor I nor any legislator is qualified in any way to decide what level of risk or harm a woman or girl must suffer in order to be thought capable of making a decision about her own body?

I'm just curious about if we (men) are allowed to intervene in just this single medical case, why aren't men allowed to intervene in other things, like breast augmentation. Why are we only allowed to intervene and prevent access to health care for one woman's procedure? Seems kind of strict if you ask me. If we can intervene in one, then let us intervene in more! We have ideas you see.

Doctor: Emily, now that we've discussed this fully.... before we go anything further, I wanted to bring this random guy to provide us his opinion on your treatment options.
Random Guy: *whateva*
Emily Lake: Wow! I'm so glad we brought in some random person with his agenda to better inform my doctor and myself about what I should be allowed to do.
Doctor: So leeches it is!

We, as a society, make laws against killing people. Is there ANY situation in which you - personally - think that abortion is tantamount to murder?

Set aside all of your "oh that never happens" and "nobody would ever do that" hypotheticals, and give my your principles.

Do you - personally - think that a woman three days away from delivery of a health infant, and with no known or identifiable risk to her life, should be legally allowed to kill the baby inside her womb?

Are you answering a question with a question? I can do that too.

What is the difference between 3 days and 6 weeks? 6 weeks or 8 weeks? 8 weeks or 10 weeks? What is the time threshold you think you have the right to tell a pregnant woman to "fuck off and have the child"?

Seriously, your "support of abortion rights" is betrayed by your insistence on calling abortion murder.

 

[Elixir]

That argument is based entirely on the notion that women can't be trusted to make good choices so choice must be preemptively taken from them.

Authoritarians use arguments like Emily’s to justify imposing their own preferences on others. Not by ensuring that the person or people most qualified and/or most invested in the decisions to be made, are empowered to make decisions about maternal or fetal healthcare, but by ensuring that individuals are NOT vested with the power to control their own bodies. They prefer to appoint third parties to wield decision making powers, ensuring that the decisions made are consistent with the “values” of that authority rather than those of the individual who is effected.
That’s what makes them authoritarians. Inferring and conferring “personhood” upon fetuses is not an empathic urge, it’s the indulgence of a dominance impulse.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sometimes, abortion is necessary or extremely desirable after the first two trimesters. A fatal fetal abnormality may not be discovered until late into the pregnancy. Death for the fetus is inevitable and likely painful. Continuing the pregnancy is dangerous for the mother’s health.

Thus the ever present and common allowance for risk to the mother and severe abnormality. Which I've covered repeatedly. And which was part of the standard under RvW.

Yes, this is rare but not so rare as we might wish it to be. Third trimester abortions are also rare, but not so rare as we might wish.

It is absolutely not the job of you or me or any legislator or judge to decide the amount of danger or deleterious health effects are sufficient t to allow a girl or woman to choose abortion.

But it's reasonable to expect that some danger our deleterious health effect should be present, don't you agree? Do you think it's unreasonable to think that there should be some actual medical reason that late in the game?

Of course there should be. The problem is the world isn't perfect. Reality shows that legislating medical necessity is a camel's nose that in reality ends up killing women. On the flip side, you have something that purports to be scientific research but does not read like a scientific paper and is missing data that should exist. And, even if "true", could have been due to a single survey being tampered with.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Great. So what's your objection to... restricting abortion to the first two trimesters?

Because I do not know the specifics of why someone needs to terminate a pregnancy. Elective abortions after 'viability' were NEVER legal under RvW. Any decision to terminate a pregnancy must be made between the patient and doctor, not the government. Any later term abortions performed are for specific medical reasons and are WANTED pregnancies. It's CRUEL to allow government intervention when it's already a devastating time for the parents. And the laws saying the fetus must be WISKED away to perform "life saving measure" on a non-viable fetus is beyond cruel. The parents are unable to say hold their child and say goodbye. This is NOT something the government should have ANY SAY IN.

Objection: "elective". Doesn't mean what you think it means.

Medically, anything you schedule is elective. Doesn't matter if you have no chance of survival without it. This means that fetal defect abortions get listed as "elective". And those who would cram religion down our throats exploit this to pretend things are happening that aren't.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

@Loren Pechtel , @Jimmy Higgins , @Playball40 , @Politesse , @Jarhyn , and anyone else I may have missed...

Which of the following locations do you believe that male human beings who have said they identify as women should be given the legal right to access, and in which female human beings are denied the right to object to their presence?

• Bathrooms
• Gym and Pool Showers
• Changing Rooms
• Prisons & Jails
• Long Term Care Facilities & Nursing Homes

The last two warrant stricter scrutiny in general.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sometimes they do not realize that the baby lived. There is a great deal of physical trauma associated with an unattended birth. The mother may herself lose consciousness from blood loss, loss of fluids, pain, exhaustion, Abd more serious medical causes. Sometimes babies are abandoned or left for dead with the intention of the baby not surviving. Sometimes, shock causes the girl or woman not to make a rational choice and even to shut down memory of giving birth or having a live child. Sometimes the baby is left intentionally where the mother hopes it will be found and saved. Lots of scenarios, some of which are, under the most liberal interpretations of the law, still considered homicide and are prosecuted as such.

Related scenario: when it's over she thinks she's dealing with a stillbirth when in reality it was born alive and promptly died. Could be the umbilical cord, could simply be something incompatible with life outside the womb.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You certainly are NOT addressing the core issue, which is not bigotry but the FACT that men tend to be much more violent than women and that MEN tend to victimize women, children, LGBTQIA persons, other straight cis men, and the occasional farm animal. MEN tend to be violent, to physically and sexually assault others, to verbally assault others, to commit all sorts of homicide at rates far greater than do women.

MEN need to start addressing their own issues and leave women alone.

Yeah, there are plenty of problems in society.

The issue here is that this is part of the Republican effort to force us back to 1950 or so.

This isn't about bathrooms, it's about making it impossible to exist as a trans person. Bathrooms are simply a battleground, not the war.

 

[Toni]

Sometimes they do not realize that the baby lived. There is a great deal of physical trauma associated with an unattended birth. The mother may herself lose consciousness from blood loss, loss of fluids, pain, exhaustion, Abd more serious medical causes. Sometimes babies are abandoned or left for dead with the intention of the baby not surviving. Sometimes, shock causes the girl or woman not to make a rational choice and even to shut down memory of giving birth or having a live child. Sometimes the baby is left intentionally where the mother hopes it will be found and saved. Lots of scenarios, some of which are, under the most liberal interpretations of the law, still considered homicide and are prosecuted as such.

Related scenario: when it's over she thinks she's dealing with a stillbirth when in reality it was born alive and promptly died. Could be the umbilical cord, could simply be something incompatible with life outside the womb.

Your understanding of childbirth never fails to amaze me.

 

[Elixir]

I’ll bet some of you feel the same.

Lots of government guns around here, but they cause almost zero shootings. We get lots of out of State hunters with rifles, and often they also carry sidearms - they make me nervous. If you’re going into a grocery store, leave it in the fucking car!

 

[Toni]

But both are /were making some grooming choices that might attract negative reactions, primarily from males

I am not talking about attention from "males".

I am talking about her being challenged or made to feel uncomfortable in the bathroom where she normally does her business by people who do not accept she belongs there.

This is why I want to force the issue on being gender neutral and purpose/etiquette-based.

This, and the fact that we MUST NOT ban genital exposure in/around certain forms of restroom.

I don't go e a shit what you "want" to accept or what you "believe". I am laying out the simple mathematical logic of it: if my niece would be attacked or harassed for entering the bathroom (by TERFs or "Karens", most likely, or conscripted men to some act of harassment escalating to indirect violence) based on some policy of judgement, something is wrong.

This might be indistinguishable from someone entering with a (covered, in-their-pants) penis, balls, gynecomastia, and the intent to use a toilet while avoiding even possibly seeing penises because they have been raped, possibly in a bathroom.

They deserve as much either way.

Assuming they obey the standards and the facility has been updated to prevent any unwanted seeing-of-penises by all parties, there needs to be a space for both people who visually cannot be easily distinguished.

This place needs to have privacy to the extent of full walls and doors.

There need to be well understood and enforced rules of etiquette under the sign with which this is offered.

There as much serves to be an expedient offering for those who are nominally insensitive to the rare flash of genitals.

This can be done and promised without respect for gender.

These aren't "beliefs" in the sense that I just pulled them out of my ass. These are based on a set of requirements and concessions on behalf of those requirements, namely that TERFs and Karens are strictly not allowed to harass my niece for having a beard when she goes into the bathroom and threaten them with indirect violence for having the gall to grow out her beard (edit: and that people be allowed to shower behind plexiglass for the entertainment of a bunch of horny folks).

That holds for gender neutral spaces.

It is the norm for women only spaces to accommodate women only. I’m not suggesting that your niece is not a woman but I am stating that many women would not immediately recognize your niece as female because she has a beard, which is typical of make persons but not typical of female persons.

I have no idea what your niece looks like or how she dresses. Assuming that other than the beard, she presents as female, then you have a point—she should be accepted on her say so. But if she presents as male in physical bearing, dress, facial hair and other grooming choices and in wardrobe , it is not reasonable for her to expect to never be challenged. It’s gonna happen.

I understand you love and are concerned for your niece. I certainly do not wish her harmed or even to for her feelings hurt. But women cannot read minds.

Whether men like it or not, women must screen for danger, primarily from male persons. It’s dangerous not to.

 

[Jarhyn]

The problem is the additional space. People will not want to incur a substantial cost for the benefit of a few. We already have issues with things not being done because ADA compliance is too expensive

There is no additional space requirement.

Most stalls just need their hardware extended and opaque gaskets/gasket covers installed. You lose a quarter inch in a few places that the standard joining hardware already was eating anyway.

Compliance here is cheap and is a good target for subsidy.

And if it's not, I have all the pity in the world for the poor property owners (not really, fuck them.)

Which is my point. It works both ways--if it's wrong to kick your niece out, then it's likewise wrong to kick out the MTF.

Read my most recent post.

The best compromise is to accept that the cost is going to be the cost and SUCK MY TAINT, and to divide both restrooms not on gender but on etiquette, specifically about the nominal acceptability of genital nudity in the space, and leveling deep consequences around that etiquette.

In this regard, all the flashers would be relegated to the bathrooms where nominal nudity is accepted, or immediately charged with sex crimes.

No ID would need to be checked because the situation wouldn't be about sex but about the expectation of seeing genitals and etiquette violations.

Then the other room can be left up to whatever nominal tolerance of genital nudity is provided.

We end up with the same two spaces, one a little bit retrofit, and occasionally just the one space, in 18+ establishments.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I’ll bet some of you feel the same.

Lots of government guns around here, but they cause almost zero shootings. We get lots of out of State hunters with rifles, and often they also carry sidearms - they make me nervous. If you’re going into a grocery store, leave it in the fucking car!

Unless they can lock it up out of sight and give no indication there's likely to be a gun in the car, better to carry it. Reality is the cars of gun people are targets because of the chance of finding a gun--valuable and easy to sell on the street.