Thursday, January 30, 2020

Blogaround

A photo of a mouse. Happy Year of the Mouse, everyone~ Image source.
1. When Worship Is Resistance: Hymn for the 81% (posted January 22) "They started putting kids in cages / Ripping mothers from their babies / And I looked to you to speak on their behalf/ But all I heard was silence / Or worse you justify it / Singing glory hallelujah raise the flag"

2. Pages from my memoirs (as written by other people) (posted December 16) "But for a child raised in the evangelical community from birth, the formative experiences of modern evangelicalism are absent. Evangelical children have no artificial tradition to reject, because they are already growing up in the unmediated, correct form of Christianity. With the important exception of sex and sexuality, they have no occasion to struggle with sin, as they have been imbued with righteousness from a young age. Yet they can’t simply go with the flow, because the core conviction of evangelicalism is that faith and salvation are things they must choose to surrender to on their own. Still, evangelical parents are confident that they know what the end result of a genuine salvation experience looks like (i.e., themselves). Every evangelical child must somehow be induced to undergo—authentically, spontaneously, individually—the exact same fundamental experience that their parents underwent."

3. Christianity Today Gets Off the Sidelines (posted December 19) "Will this have any effect on Trump’s support among white evangelicals? Goodness no."

4. How To Juggle It All and Still Make Time to Go Back for Madame Zeroni (posted December 10) "We get it, when you wake up tired, you don’t feel like going all the way to Madame Zeroni’s and then taking her all the way up the mountain, and then gently singing to her while she drinks from the stream but don’t you think you’ll regret it if you don’t? When your son is mistakenly arrested for theft and sent to dig holes in the desert we’re willing to bet you’ll be wishing you’d just got it done!"

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

About Compassion and Reading the News

Reading the news on a tablet. Image source.
Edit: WOWWWWW this did not age well

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I scroll through WeChat (a Chinese social media app), and everyone is talking about the coronavirus. Then I scroll through Twitter, and everyone's just going about their normal life, talking about whatever they usually talk about. Maybe there's an occasional tweet from CNN about the coronavirus. (Both WeChat and Twitter have a lot of posts about the death of Kobe Bryant though. He had a lot of fans in China.)

I feel ... I feel like my people don't care. I'm living through a national health crisis which is affecting 1 billion people, and barely anyone on American-centered social media is talking about it. (By "affecting 1 billion people", I mean it's disrupting our lives. We have to stay at home, and a lot of people are worried. I don't mean 1 billion people are actually at high risk of being infected- that's just not true.)

I have heard this same sort of sentiment from other immigrants- "we are basically all on lockdown, and none of my friends back home have reached out to ask how I'm doing." Yes, I'm safe, I'm okay, but this is psychologically very hard. Just waiting at home, restless, checking the stats about how many confirmed cases and how many deaths, checking WeChat messages from people right on the edge of panicking... And it must be even harder for people who live alone.

So... all of this has me thinking about compassion and what our reaction should be when we read news stories about problems on the other side of the world. I feel bad that I've seen so few people on Twitter talking about the situation in China, but, well, why would they? If they don't know anyone who lives in China, then why would they talk about it?

I can't bring myself to believe the lack of Twitter posts from people who have no connection to China is a bad thing. If that were true- if it were true that Americans all "should" talk about this, just because it's affecting everyone in China- well then that would mean we'd have to get all emotionally invested in every tragedy we hear about in the news. And we just can't do that. We don't have the emotional bandwidth for that.

This all goes back to what I wrote about last November: Culture, Objectivity, God, and the Real Reason I Moved to China. In that post, I said I used to believe I had an obligation to "love everyone equally", like God does. I no longer believe that. Instead, I accept that as human beings, we are limited in our emotional capacity, and it's unhealthy to try for that "ideal" of "loving everyone equally."

It means that when something bad happens to people you know, or people from your own culture, you care a lot. You feel sad for a while. But when the same bad thing happens to people from a different culture, you don't really care. And that sounds awful- but I don't think it would be healthy to try to "make" yourself care. Or, let me rephrase that: It would be unhealthy to try to make yourself have an equal emotional response to every faraway foreign tragedy and relatable "close to home" tragedy. We just can't. There's always something bad happening somewhere. We can't live that way, constantly mourning all the things that deserve to be mourned.

God is like that. God has an "equal emotional response" to people of all cultures. The bible says "rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn," and I truly believe God does that. God has the emotional capacity to empathize with 7 billion people at the same time. But humans can't. Let's do our best to "rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn" on a small scale, just with the people we interact with in our daily lives. But we can't take it farther than that. We can't. We're only human.

I often see people on Twitter talking about "all of you are tweeting about this tragedy that happened in Europe or the US, but nobody said anything about this other equally-bad tragedy that happened last week in this other country" ... and the purpose of their tweet is to tell us we are doing something wrong. They're saying it's wrong that we care so much more about members of our own culture than members of a different culture. And we should feel guilty.

I can't agree with that anymore. Yes, I 100% believe that people who are affected by a tragedy in a faraway culture on the other side of the world deserve to have people care about them and treat them with empathy and compassion. Yes, 100%. But that doesn't mean it has to be me. I'm not an objective outside observer of the world; I'm localized to this one specific place, a member of a few specific demographic groups. God cares about everyone equally, but I can't.

Intellectually, I care. I certainly believe that everyone in the world has equal worth. We are made in the image of God. We are valuable. We have plans, dreams, desires, interests, and all of that matters. And everyone matters equally. And so many things happen every day which shouldn't happen. All these tragedies you hear about in the news- the world shouldn't be that way. As a society, we should work to prevent those things, as much as we can.

But emotionally, of course it would have a much bigger effect on me if something bad happened to a family member than if the same bad thing happened to somebody I don't even know. Of course it would. And I would be much more saddened by something happening in a place I've been, than in a place I've never even heard of. And even though maybe this sounds terrible, I don't think that's something I should necessarily want to change.

Well, let me rephrase that: I very much believe it's important to get to know people from other cultures. It's important to learn about what life is like for people from different backgrounds. I really appreciate how online (with blogs, social media, etc) we're able to learn from a huge, diverse group of people. Coming to China and experiencing life here has made me a better person. And yes, it does mean that I'm emotionally affected by news (specifically, news related to immigrants and Chinese people) in a way I wasn't, before.

Just today I was asking my husband (who is Chinese) about what life was like during the SARS outbreak in 2003. I remember hearing about it in the news back then, but I didn't really care. Well, of course I cared in an intellectual sense, but it didn't affect me emotionally. But my husband lived through that.

But maybe that's the answer, maybe it's about getting to know other cultures, in a gradual and natural way, rather than reading a news story and trying to guilt yourself into having an emotional reaction to it. We shouldn't be like "here's a story about someone who died, how awful, I should be as sad about this as I would be if it was someone in my family who died." As I said, God loves everyone equally, but we can't. Yes, the victims you read about in the news were just as valuable as your own loved ones, and an objective person would indeed mourn them equally. But we're not objective, and it's not healthy to try to become objective.

So instead, we should interact with people from different backgrounds in our day-to-day life, and learn from them. A reasonable amount, that is. Not trying to "love everyone equally", just trying to gradually widen our awareness of what the world is like. And then we will feel a bit more compassion when we read the news- but that shouldn't be our goal. What an awful goal that would be- "I would like to be emotionally messed-up every day when I read the news." No, we can't live that way.

And it doesn't help anyone, if I feel "equally sad" about everything. What helps is me being kind to people, donating money to people in need, helping other people from my own culture get educated about issues affecting other cultures, supporting society-wide policies that take into account the unique needs of diverse demographic groups.

Also, as I write this post about "I feel bad because no one on Twitter cares about our plight being stuck in our homes in Shanghai" I realize that I'm much more focused on people in my situation (the waiting, the fear, the boredom, the uncertainty) than on the actual sick people who have been infected by the coronavirus. So... well that means I certainly can't complain about strangers not caring about me.

So... well I feel like this post is kind of a big jumble of ideas. Wish I could organize it better or have some kind of conclusion, but I just don't know, and also I'm tired of staying at home and I don't have the energy to think about this anymore. Anyway, it's fine not to "love everyone equally"; don't try to make yourself feel guilty about that. Care about the world, but also about your own mental health.

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Related:
Culture, Objectivity, God, and the Real Reason I Moved to China 
Francis Chan and Objectivity 

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All my posts about COVID-19:
I'm in Shanghai, and I'm concerned about the coronavirus (January 23)
An update on the situation in Shanghai (January 28)
About Compassion and Reading the News (January 29)
Welcome Baby Square Root! (February 3)
Remember the old days when we used to go outside? (February 4)
So we're (sort of) back to work here in Shanghai (February 12)
Blogaround (February 13)
Blogaround (February 20)
Shanghai is a good place for immigrants. (And I have feelings about it.) (February 24)
Blogaround (February 27)
Well *now* I'm glad I stayed in China (March 8)
The Weirdest Deja Vu (March 15)
Blogaround (March 19)
I'm an American in China. I CANNOT BELIEVE Some of You Are Still Going Out. (March 22)
Blogaround (March 25)
China Bans Foreigners (Like Me) From Entering the Country (March 29)
List of People Who Are Not Allowed to Call Themselves "Pro-Life" (April 2)
Blogaround (April 3)
... all right now I have way too many posts to keep updating this list. You can find them all on the COVID-19 tag.

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

An update on the situation in Shanghai

Lights which form a giant "I love SH" logo on the side of a building in Shanghai. Image source.
Last Thursday (January 23) I posted I'm in Shanghai, and I'm concerned about the coronavirus. Here's an update on what's been going on the past few days:

On January 24, it was announced that several big tourist sites in Shanghai (including Disneyland and the Oriental Pearl Tower) would be closed. Please note that this is a huge big deal- the Chinese New Year holiday is supposed to be one of the busiest times of the year for touristy places like that.

Yesterday (January 27), the Chinese government announced that the holiday week is being extended. We were originally supposed to go back to work on January 30, but they changed it to February 3. Later that same day, Shanghai announced that we will not be going back to work until after February 9, and schools will not start until February 17. There are exceptions to this- companies that make medical supplies, food delivery, etc will still be working.

It's mind-boggling to think how bad this is all going to be for China's economy. During the biggest holiday of the year, China is asking 1 billion people to cancel their plans and stay at home. Travel in and out of Wuhan and surrounding areas is restricted, and people are getting refunds for their tickets. And we're all not going back to work, but I'm pretty sure companies are legally required to keep paying everyone their full salary anyway.

But in my opinion, it's the right thing to do, and it's reassuring to see the government taking this disease seriously and taking such drastic steps to stop the spread. I've heard people comparing it to the 2003 SARS outbreak in China- did China learn lessons from that, and is going to handle this crisis better?

On the other hand, with all the closings and travel restrictions, will society still be able to function well enough, or will there be shortages of food and medicine? I can't speak for other places in China, but Shanghai is doing fine. Over the past few days I've been to several grocery stores, and they're open and well-stocked. So that's good.

Also I was on the subway in Shanghai yesterday, and it was weird how empty it was. Huge swaths of empty seats everywhere. I've never seen that, on the Shanghai subway.

And basically everyone is wearing masks to cover their nose and mouth when they go out. (Though I have seen the occasional person out in public not wearing a mask.)

Some people are panicking. They have nothing to do but sit at home, read social media, and panic. There is a lot of misinformation going around on social media (specifically, in China we use the app WeChat). Let's not panic, everybody. Just do what you can to protect yourself- wash your hands, wear a mask, don't go out in public much.

Personally, I consider myself lucky because I didn't travel for the new year holiday, and I didn't really have any plans for the foreseeable future anyway. It's no problem for me to just stay home. But I know there are a lot of people who traveled for the holiday and are now making difficult decisions about when and how to get back home. I've even heard from immigrants who traveled to their home country and are now not even sure if they should come back to China. Yeah, if you're not in China right now, don't come back just yet. But as for me, since I'm already here, the safest option is just staying at home and occasionally going out to the grocery store.

So. That's the situation right now. There is still so much that's unknown about the virus and what's going to happen. I'm nervous but for now we're okay.

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Also: The US CDC has issued an advisory to "avoid all nonessential travel to China."

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All my posts about COVID-19:
I'm in Shanghai, and I'm concerned about the coronavirus (January 23)
An update on the situation in Shanghai (January 28)
About Compassion and Reading the News (January 29)
Welcome Baby Square Root! (February 3)
Remember the old days when we used to go outside? (February 4)
So we're (sort of) back to work here in Shanghai (February 12)
Blogaround (February 13)
Blogaround (February 20)
Shanghai is a good place for immigrants. (And I have feelings about it.) (February 24)
Blogaround (February 27)
Well *now* I'm glad I stayed in China (March 8)
The Weirdest Deja Vu (March 15)
Blogaround (March 19)
I'm an American in China. I CANNOT BELIEVE Some of You Are Still Going Out. (March 22)
Blogaround (March 25)
China Bans Foreigners (Like Me) From Entering the Country (March 29)
List of People Who Are Not Allowed to Call Themselves "Pro-Life" (April 2)
Blogaround (April 3)
... all right now I have way too many posts to keep updating this list. You can find them all on the COVID-19 tag.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

I'm in Shanghai, and I'm concerned about the coronavirus

Photo from CNN: "People wear face masks as they wait at Hankou Railway Station on Wednesday in Wuhan, China. Xiaolu Chu/Getty Images" Image source.
So if you've been following the news, you've probably heard about the outbreak of coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China. At this point, 17 people have died and 600 are infected. This morning (Thursday, January 23), the city of Wuhan went on lockdown- which means all public transportation has stopped, and the train stations and airports are closed. They don't want anyone leaving the city.

Here is a link to CNN's coverage of the Wuhan coronavirus.

I live in Shanghai, so I'm writing this post to sort of give a perspective of what it's like here, and give some context about how much of a HUGE PROBLEM it is that this is happening during Chinese New Year.

About Chinese New Year:

Chinese New Year (also called Lunar New Year or Spring Festival) is the biggest holiday in China, and you go back to your hometown to celebrate with your family. It's like how, in the US, lots of people travel for Christmas- except even more.

China has 1 billion people. And a significant percentage live in a different city than their relatives- imagine what it's like trying to transport that many people all around the country so they can be with their family for new year's eve dinner. This has been called "the largest annual human migration", and even has a name in Chinese: 春运 [chūn yùn]. (Lol google translate failed so hard at this- it translated that as "Spring Festival" but the actual meaning is "the massive amounts of travel that take place around Spring Festival.")

Weeks in advance, people are trying to buy their train tickets online the moment they become available. It's often the case that all the train tickets are sold out for the day you want to travel, so you have to fly (which is more expensive) or take a train on an earlier day (which means you have to request time off from work).

And the trains will be so crowded that people are standing in the aisles. And you may be traveling so far that you have to be on the train the whole night, or even longer.

For some people, it's their one chance out of the whole year to go home and see their relatives. Some people use all their vacation days, in addition to the 7 days we already have off as a public holiday (January 24-30 this year). Seriously, I ride the Shanghai subway to work every day, and it's SIGNIFICANTLY less crowded in the last few days before the new year holiday, because a huge number of people have already left.

There are migrant workers who, for economic reasons, leave their children in their hometown and go to a big city to work. Spring Festival may be their only chance to see their children.

Basically, I want you to know how extremely important it is to Chinese people to travel for the new year, and how crowded and chaotic all the transportation routes are. It worries me, because it seems like that's the ideal environment for spreading disease.

And they just closed the transportation in and out of Wuhan this morning, but chunyun 春运 has been underway for about 2-3 weeks already.

About masks:

So tons of people are wearing masks now when they go out in public. In Shanghai, I would say that about 50% of the people I see in public are wearing masks. By "masks" I mean the kind that just covers your nose and mouth, like doctors wear.

In China, it's not weird to wear a mask like this. I remember when I first moved here, I thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever. You look like a dentist! How absurd, to walk around like that in public.

But no, in China it's not weird. It's common to see people wearing masks on high-pollution days. And some people wear a mask when they have a cold, so they don't get other people sick. Yes, the situation right now is extreme- before this, I have NEVER seen ANYWHERE NEAR 50% of people wearing masks. But in general, the idea of "wear a mask when you walk around in public to avoid spreading disease" is seen as normal here.

There are a few different kinds of masks people wear. There are disposable ones, like a doctor would wear. There are masks made of cloth, some of which have cute animal faces or whatever. There are masks with a little filter on them, specifically designed to filter out air pollution.

My situation:

I'm lucky because Hendrix and I had no plans to travel for the new year. So we're just going to sit around at home for the next week, and that should be fine.

But I worry that the disease could spread to Shanghai. There have already been a few cases reported in Shanghai. Hopefully it's under control and there won't be more new infections in Shanghai?

People are constantly talking about this on social media (WeChat). There are all kinds of rumors- about how many people are infected, about what the situation is really like in Wuhan. We shouldn't spread rumors. We should get our information from official sources. But at the same time, there is concern that the Chinese media isn't really telling us how bad it is.

Also on social media, lots of links being shared with advice on how to avoid getting sick. Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Don't go anywhere crowded (hahaha, as if that's possible with the whole chunyun 春运 going on...)

And there's some humor too, some memes and jokes being shared. Here's my personal favorite:
This map brought to you by people who don't know where Shanghai and Beijing are. Alas, I can't find an actual source for this image so maybe it's not real.
Right now, for me the worst part is the uncertainty. We don't really know how bad this is. We don't know what's going to happen and how much it's going to spread. We don't know when things will be "back to normal."

I don't want to panic, but I also don't know what's a realistic amount to be concerned about this. I wear a mask in public, I wash my hands a lot, I'm not going to go anywhere crowded ... so ... is that good enough? Am I safe? What if things get worse? What if there's an outbreak in Shanghai?

So... yeah. Basically that's what's going on here. Just gotta keep following the news, and hope this doesn't spread more.

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All my posts about COVID-19:
I'm in Shanghai, and I'm concerned about the coronavirus (January 23)
An update on the situation in Shanghai (January 28)
About Compassion and Reading the News (January 29)
Welcome Baby Square Root! (February 3)
Remember the old days when we used to go outside? (February 4)
So we're (sort of) back to work here in Shanghai (February 12)
Blogaround (February 13)
Blogaround (February 20)
Shanghai is a good place for immigrants. (And I have feelings about it.) (February 24)
Blogaround (February 27)
Well *now* I'm glad I stayed in China (March 8)
The Weirdest Deja Vu (March 15)
Blogaround (March 19)
I'm an American in China. I CANNOT BELIEVE Some of You Are Still Going Out. (March 22)
Blogaround (March 25)
China Bans Foreigners (Like Me) From Entering the Country (March 29)
List of People Who Are Not Allowed to Call Themselves "Pro-Life" (April 2)
Blogaround (April 3) 
... all right now I have way too many posts to keep updating this list. You can find them all on the COVID-19 tag.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

LOLLLLL yep should have known right then I was asexual

A bunch of people in a swimming pool. Image source.
Sometimes I look back on things I did/said/thought before I knew about asexuality, and I'm like "wow that was clearly an asexual thing to do."

Here's one example:

Back when I was in college, I was in a Christian group, and we used to go spend a week at a camp together once a year. We had a tradition where we'd all go swimming one night at the camp.

One year, my friends Diana and Derek, who were dating, told me they weren't going swimming. "Why?" I asked.

"For sexual purity," they said. They felt it would be bad for their "purity" if they saw each other wearing swimsuits.

And I thought, "well, that's ridiculous. Just because people think there's a possibility of lusting when you see your boyfriend or girlfriend in a swimsuit, you're going to miss out on this fun activity. They are being way too careful about things. What a bunch of nonsense."

Geez, just because swimsuits seem like the kind of thing that someone might think is a sexual thing, they're going to avoid them. COME ON. We should base our decisions on REALITY, not some far-off hypothetical that someone told you might be a problem.

She thinks she might have sexual thoughts about her boyfriend if she sees him wearing a swimsuit. COME ON. LIKE THAT WOULD EVER HAPPEN.

People act like it's more likely that you'd have sexual thoughts about someone wearing a swimsuit than someone in regular clothes. And that it's more likely you'd have sexual thoughts about your boyfriend or girlfriend than just any random person. Are we seriously going to let these silly baseless superstitions control our lives? That's just ridiculous.

(I did not say any of those things to Diana or Derek.)

Thinking about it now, years later, I have suddenly realized, they ACTUALLY WERE sexually attracted to each other. That was an actual real thing for them, not a useless rule they made up because other people told them to.

And yes, it's nice that I now know I'm asexual, and I can look back on things that I said or did and realize wow, I totally missed the point because I legitimately did not know that most of my friends actually really truly do experience sexual attraction.

Also, if you've read my blog before, you know I no longer believe "sexual purity" is a thing that matters. Diana and Derek were trying so hard to avoid any situation where they would feel sexual desire. Back then, we all thought that was super-important. I'm happy to say I no longer live that way. Instead of repressing ourselves, it's good to be honest with ourselves about our feelings and desires, and enjoy them in a healthy way.

Anyway, LOLOLOLOLOL little Perfect Number heard her friends say they had to avoid swimming "for sexual purity", and had no way to conceptualize it other than "how silly to base your actual real-life decisions on these widely-held myths about what is and isn't sexual." LOL. I had absolutely no idea that they ACTUALLY WERE sexually attracted to each other.

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Related:
For This Asexual, Purity Culture Was All About Fear 

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Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2019 Reader Survey last May, where one of the highest-voted topics was asexuality. :) I'm very happy to write ace-related posts like this.

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This post is part of the January 2020 Carnival of Aces. The theme for this month is "Conscious and Unconscious Difference."

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Blogaround

1. There Is No Line (from the January 2020 issue) "To qualify for this visa, you will usually need a bachelor's degree (or training that's equivalent to a bachelor's degree) considered necessary to perform the 'specialized and complex' job you're being hired to do. No bachelor's degree? No problem—assuming you're a fashion model 'of prominence.'"

2. So, somebody called you a Unicorn Hunter? An informative article about the problems with "unicorn hunting" (when a couple decides to try opening up their relationship by looking for a magical person who wants to be equally involved with both of them).

3. The Names of 1.8 Million Emancipated Slaves Are Now Searchable in the World’s Largest Genealogical Database, Helping African Americans Find Lost Ancestors (posted January 3)

Monday, January 13, 2020

Don't You Think If It Was Possible To Re-Implant Ectopic Pregnancies, We Would Already Be Doing That?

A diagram showing a fertilized egg implanted in the uterus in a healthy pregnancy (not an ectopic pregnancy). Image source.
Recently there was a "pro-life" bill in Ohio that wants doctors to "re-implant" ectopic pregnancies. This is ridiculous because it's just not medically possible. An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the uterus. It is not possible for the fertilized egg to then develop into a baby. This is actually life-threatening for the pregnant person, so it requires immediate treatment. From an actual doctor. Not a politician who's making things up.

A few links about this:
From Mama Doctor Jones (a gynecologist and youtuber): ObGyn: Re-Implanting Ectopic Pregnancies | Extreme Polarization as a Legislative Distraction
And this news article: Lawmaker Says He Didn't Research Ectopic Pregnancy Procedure Before Adding To Bill (wow no kidding)

And I would like to point this out: If we had the medical technology to treat an ectopic pregnancy by taking that fertilized egg and re-implanting it in the uterus, and then the pregnancy continued as normal and developed into a baby, THAT WOULD BE GREAT NEWS. It's BIZARRE that this is being written into a "pro-life" bill as if it's something that doctors and pregnant people would need to be forced to do.

In the United States, about half of all pregnancies are planned and half are unplanned. So we can assume that in half of all ectopic pregnancies, the pregnant person really wanted to have a baby. It sucks that instead they end up with a life-threatening medical emergency and no way to save the "unborn baby's" life.

What if we could just re-implant it and you could go on to have a baby? Of course many patients would want that.

It's as if these "pro-life" politicians live in a bizarro world where "pro-choice" means "looking for any excuse to end a pregnancy." As if "pro-choice" means you LOVE ectopic pregnancies because then you get to have an abortion. As if obgyn doctors are anti-pregnancy and the law needs to step in and foil their attempts to get rid of a fertilized egg that totally could have been saved.

Over here in reality, an ectopic pregnancy is a life-threatening medical emergency, not some kind of "gotcha" in the abortion debate. Over here in reality, many women WANT to be pregnant, and it's tragic when they lose their unborn child because of things like this. If ectopic pregnancies could be re-implanted, that would be good news for everyone. And "pro-choice" doesn't mean anti-pregnancy.

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Related:
Why I Am Pro-Choice
Evangelical Ideology is Anti-Choice on Abortion Because it's Anti-Choice on Everything for Everyone

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Blogaround

1. There's a Dangerous Racial Bias in the Body Mass Index (posted 2017) So basically the correlation between BMI and certain diseases is different for different ethnic groups. And doctors aren't screening for stuff like diabetes because your BMI is "healthy." This is a problem.

2. The Tulsa Massacre Warns Us Not to Trust History to Judge Trump on Impeachment (posted December 23) [content note: anti-black violence] "Incidents like the Greenwood massacre are omitted from our textbooks, and students become adults without learning about moments incongruous with an idea of the Exceptional America."

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