Another way the lunatic right is destroying everything:

Through a wave of pandemic-related litigation, a trio of small but mighty conservative legal blocs has rolled back public health authority at the local, state and federal levels, recasting America’s future battles against infectious diseases.

Because that’s what we want, right? To be helpless in the face of pandemics?

Galvanized by what they’ve characterized as an overreach of COVID-related health orders issued amid the pandemic, lawyers from the three overlapping spheres — conservative and libertarian think tanks, Republican state attorneys general, and religious liberty groups — are aggressively taking on public health mandates and the government agencies charged with protecting community health.

Because it’s bad to protect community health. What we … Read the rest

Battlefront France:

Western France is facing a “heat apocalypse”, experts have warned, as extreme temperatures continue to hit much of Europe.

Temperatures could reach record levels in 15 regions of the southwest, with firefighters battling wildfires and thousands forced to evacuate. Blazes in Spain, Portugal and Greece have forced thousands more to flee.

Record temperatures are also expected in parts of the UK, which has its first ever red extreme heat warning in place. Wildfires in France in recent days have forced over 24,000 people to flee, with emergency shelters set up for evacuees.

It was like that in this part of the world a year ago. The town of Litton in British Columbia burned to the ground. … Read the rest

More on religious interference with medical treatment in Washington state:

For years, religiously affiliated hospitals have merged with secular health care systems, often with disruptions to services like reproductive health care. About half of health care systems in Washington are affiliated with religious organizations, which means that even with state-level and national protections for abortion, hospitals in Washington can deny or restrict reproductive health care based on religious protocols. The result is a patchwork of reproductive health policies that vary by hospital, and can leave patients confused or without care altogether.

It’s bizarre. It’s also evil and infuriating, but the bizarreness is puzzling. I don’t understand why they’re allowed to do this. I don’t think engineers get to design … Read the rest

It’s not just the Supreme Court ruling though.

Washington is just one of a handful of states in which more than 40% of hospital beds are controlled by Catholic doctrine. This shift became more acute with the 2021 merger of Virginia Mason and CHI Franciscan, creating Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, which operates 11 hospitals and 300 sites of care. With that merger, Virginia Mason said it would “not become Catholic,” according to reporting by The News Tribune, but it also would no longer provide “elective” abortions or participate in the state’s Death with Dignity process.

A distinction without a difference. Nobody gives a shit whether Virginia Mason is playing with rosary beads or not, the point is that it … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Who stole the dino emoji?

As far as “ownership” of dinosaurs goes, the “genderqueer community” are at the end of a very, very long line of other people and institutions that got there first. Waterhouse Hawkins’ Crystal Palace dinosaurs (which outlasted the Crystal Palace itself) were unveiled in 1854, just a little more than a dozen years after Richard Owen’s coinage of the word “dinosaur” itself.

They’ve been up for grabs ever since, used by everyone from museums, gas companies (Sinclair), toy manufacturers, to movie studios, to make money. If the trans/queer paleoart community wants to make some sort of IP claim, they’ll have their work work cut out for them. … Read the rest

The BBC Radio 4 program The Moral Maze discussed abortion yesterday. Unfortunately the head of Abortion Rights UK, Kerry Abel, had to weaken and muddle her own argument by doing the usual. Starting at about 11 minutes:

Anne McElvoy: “You believe very strongly in bodily autonomy, because it’s a woman’s body, am I correct?”

Kerry Abel: “Women n pregnant people, yup.”

AM: “That there is bodily autonomy and – so far it is women who have babies isn’t it?”

KA: “It depends if they refer to themselves as a woman [inaudible]”

AM: “That is a different show, but let’s” – she asks about fetal viability and the moral issue, whether there is one.

KA… Read the rest

There literally are Savita Halappanavar cases happening in the US now. Lindsey Tanner at the Associated Press reports:

Even in medical emergencies, doctors are sometimes declining immediate treatment. In the past week, an Ohio abortion clinic received calls from two women with ectopic pregnancies — when an embryo grows outside the uterus and can’t be saved — who said their doctors wouldn’t treat them. Ectopic pregnancies often become life-threatening emergencies and abortion clinics aren’t set up to treat them.

In an ectopic pregnancy the fetus is doomed no matter what, so deciding to wait until the woman is hemorrhaging is futile as well as murderous.

Dr. Jessian Munoz, an OBGYN in San Antonio, Texas, who treats high-risk pregnancies, said medical

The Boston public radio station WBUR did a conversational show several months ago about dinosaur emojis.

Emoji might not be 66 million years old, but they are pretty much everywhere. Join Ben and Amory as they explore the history of dinosaur emoji in LGBTQ+ communities and their more recent use as an online dog-whistle for anti-trans activists. What happens when one symbol is used for conflicting reasons? And can the dinosaur emoji avoid redefinition — or extinction?

…

Ben: So I want us to explore this. This specific thing that is happening with this specific set of emoji that’s really become this heated debate involving who gets to own the meaning of symbols, specifically the symbols that we all

When satire is all too much like reality. The Babylon Bee:

Cigarette maker Marlboro has announced that they have added puberty blockers to cigarettes to make them legal for kids.

“Now that our smooth Marlboro cigarettes can block puberty, 13 and 14-year-old kids should be able to use them legally, without parental consent,” said a spokesperson for the company. 

Cited as “lung-affirming care,” the cigarette manufacturer’s decision to supplement their products with puberty blockers has caused progressives to praise Marlboro as a true advocate for children’s health.

…

Critics have pointed out the cigarette manufacturer’s sordid history of using deceptive marketing tactics to make young, susceptible populations think cigarettes were cool. But these critics were quickly and violently silenced

The utter patronizing stupidity of these people.

Of course by “inclusive” they don’t mean what sane people mean by “inclusive.” Of course they mean exclude women by talking about people instead of women.

1. Use gender inclusive language!

It is exclusionary to only center cisgender women in pro-abortion messaging. Not all people who can get pregnant identify as women.

It's an easy fix! Just put "people" instead of "women" when making your next sign pic.twitter.com/Pik0IVT9nk

— REPRO Rising Virginia (@REPRORising_VA) July 14, 2022

No it is not “exclusionary” to “center” i.e. talk about women and women only in pro-abortion “messaging.” Why? Because men don’t need abortions, that’s why. Why don’t men need abortions? Because they can’t get pregnant. Most … Read the rest

For your reading enjoyment, a comment by philospher Daniel Kaufman in reply to a comment on a guest post at his blog Electric Agora:

Let me just be very clear, since I keep getting pulled into this imbecile conversation with the Manne Fan.

1. If you think that the abortion catastrophe we just experienced calls for referring to women as ‘impregnables’, you are either batshit crazy or too stupid to count your toes.

2. If you think this is a good idea politically; that it will strengthen the pro choice coalition, you are a fool and should be kept far away from politics if the Democrats are to have a chance of winning.

3. Telling your elders and betters

This is even more terrifying – by a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University:

Earlier this week I was preparing to write a guest essay with my colleague Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an OB-GYN here in Indiana. We wanted to write about the chilling effect that the overturning of Roe v. Wade has had on medicine in our state and around the country in just a few short weeks. But then Dr. Bernard became a target of a national smear campaign for speaking out about her 10-year-old patient, a rape victim from Ohio who needed an abortion and had to travel to Indiana to receive one, given the restrictions in her home state.

On Wednesday night, our state’s attorney general

The New England Journal of Medicine tells us that Texas is hell-bent on letting women die if their pregnancies go wrong. Two, three, many Savita Halappanavars.

Health systems and clinicians planning their responses³ can look to Texas, where we have already witnessed the impact of strict abortion bans on the provision of evidence-based, essential health care for pregnant people. Since September 1, 2021, Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB8) has prohibited abortions after the detection of embryonic cardiac activity, which occurs around 6 weeks after a person’s last menstrual period. After that point, SB8 allows abortions only in physician-documented medical emergencies. Anyone suspected of violating the law or aiding and abetting a prohibited abortion can face a civil

Take a deep breath.

Swimming World reports:

Lia Thomas, Brooke Forde Among 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year Nominees

Man who cheated women out of swimming medals nominated for woman of the year. The insults just never end, do they.

NCAA champion Lia Thomas and American Olympian Brooke Forde were among the nominees for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year, released Thursday.

The duo is among 577 graduating student-athletes in Division I, II and III nominated for the award. Schools nominate their athletes for the award, and conferences select up to two from each school. The preliminary list will be narrowed down to 10 athletes from each division, 30 in total. The Woman of the Year award was

Jamal who?

President Joe Biden bumped fists with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman when the two men met for the first time in Jeddah on Friday, effectively putting an end to his efforts to shun the Saudi leader.

“Yo, buddy. That whole cutting up Jamal Khashoggi with a bone saw thing is water under the bridge.”

The low-key greeting underscored the tense circumstances of the trip, with Biden seeking Saudi promises to help lower oil prices, but wanting to avoid any appearance of being too friendly with Prince Mohammed, 36, whom he’d vowed to ostracize for the 2018 killing of columnist Jamal Khashoggi. 

Look, we need the oil, ok? What are we supposed to do, figure out how … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Split the girl.

Local Ohio news outlets: Pregnant 10-year-old is forced to go to Indiana for an abortion because it can’t be done in Ohio

Conservatives: This can’t be true! This story is false!

Glenn Kessler, WaPo “fact checker”: Hmm, yes, this story seems very dubious, where is the criminal charge against the rapist? (Because we all know that all rapes result in criminal prosecutions) And this doctor is an activist, because she performs abortions, unlike GOP state officials, who are objective and trustworthy.

Local Ohio news outlets: Uh, yes, it’s true, we attended the rapist’s arraignment today, where were you guys?

Kessler: Hm. Well. Nevertheless. It’s all about ethical practices in … Read the rest

Always be sure to fact-check the rapes. Bitches lie, you know, especially when they’re ten years old. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler was on the case:

This is the account of a one-source story that quickly went viral around the world — and into the talking points of the president.

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a right to abortion, has led a number of states to quickly impose new laws to restrict or limit abortions. Ohio was one of the first, imposing a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape and incest.

On July 1, the Indianapolis Star, also known as the IndyStar, published an article

This may be the stupidest ever.

Happy Nonbinary Awareness Week! Here's your daily reminder that everyone gets abortions. When you use gendered language when talking about abortion all you're doing is ignoring and erasing the experiences of Trans and nonbinary people.

— Abortion Care Network (@AbortionCare) July 14, 2022

Here’s your daily reminder that the universe is made of custard.

Here’s your daily reminder that sheep have 47 legs.

Here’s your daily reminder that Thomas Jefferson got a PhD in astrophysics at Stanford.

Here’s your daily reminder that it takes 5 hours to walk from Boston to San Diego.

In short, no, not everyone gets abortions. Let’s break this down to make it easy to grasp: there’s a whole large … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on The genderist version of the German-Russian Non-Aggression Pact.

Getting clear definitions of these concepts is like nailing jello to the wall; that’s intentional. That nobody on the genderist side seems to care is interesting.

Indeed it is. It’s particularly interesting when the insouciance is coming from skeptic or atheist communities which up till now have been laser-focused on the weakness of poorly-defined concepts shoring up elaborate edifices of practice.

“Homeopathy works because (garble garble) … okay, whatever, the point is that it works.”

“God exists as (garble garble) … okay, whatever, the point is that He exists.”

“The ‘gender’ in ‘gender identity’ means (garble garble) … okay, whatever, the point is that trans … Read the rest

Global hotting is real.

Residents and holidaymakers have fled towns and villages in France as fires are whipped up by high winds and tinder-dry conditions in several countries in Europe. More than 10,000 people have been forced to leave the south-western Gironde region in the past few days.

Dozens of fires are burning in Portugal and Spain where temperatures have surged above 40C. At least 281 deaths in the two countries were linked to the heatwave.

Meanwhile the cruise ships arrive and depart, the planes take off and land, the cars zoom, the container ships circle the globe.

Temperatures were set to top 40C in large areas of western Spain as well as Portugal on Friday. At Pinhão in