Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Q&A: Pangram CEO (June 23, via) "There is a social contract between the writer and the reader. If I believe there is an idea worth sharing, I pay a cost by writing a piece of text, and the reader pays a cost by taking the time to read it. In a future where AI content lets you bypass the cost of writing your idea and formulating it, we get into a situation with perverse incentives, where people are posting total slop, and the reader is taking more time to read than the writer put into the text in the first place."

2. The Mystery in the Medicine Cabinet (April) "So, for many years, if I needed a painkiller, I’d try to take ibuprofen rather than acetaminophen. My logic was that if eight grams of acetaminophen could kill my liver, then one gram was probably still hard on it. I’m fond of my liver and didn't want to cause it any unnecessary inconvenience. But guess what? My logic was wrong and what I was doing was stupid."

3. This video of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani speaking Mandarin Chinese. (August 16) Wow, this is really good! I can understand all of it- it's not like a lot of other videos of actors/beginners trying to say things in Chinese, where they don't even come close to nailing the pronunciation, and I'm like "... I can't even figure out what they were trying to say." He's got the pronunciation totally right- even difficult ones like "ri" and "yu." The way he talks is slow and careful, like he memorized a script and he's trying to get it perfect, rather than just naturally being able to speak the language. So my guess is he has spent time studying Chinese before, especially the pronunciation, but maybe not good enough to just have a conversation whenever. (See also, the blooper reel.) Anyway I'm very impressed, and as a politician you *should* do stuff like this, to connect with the people you represent.

4.  Total Eclipse of the Heart in the Original Klingon - Strange New Worlds (August 8)

5. She Faced a Life-Threatening Miscarriage. Under Arkansas’ Abortion Ban, Even Calls to the Governor’s Office Didn’t Help. (May 26, via) "'This is basic obstetrics,' said Dr. Alison Goulding, a maternal-fetal-medicine specialist in Texas. 'Everyone should know that you have to provide an abortion in these settings or women can die.'"

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. DHS's abuse of power in Minnesota was even worse than we knew (August 18) "What we didn’t know at the time, though, was that the administration had engaged in utterly unprecedented surveillance in service of its theory that somehow everyone in Minnesota was engaged in a vast criminal conspiracy to make ICE thugs feel sad."

2. They grew up with disability rights. Now, they're fighting to keep them (August 20) "'I can't really overstate how significant this change in position is,' said Alison Barkoff, a health law and policy professor at George Washington University who worked on Olmstead enforcement in the Justice Department during the Obama administration. 'It is now the position of the United States government that people with disabilities don't have a right to be part of their communities.'"

3. The system meant to protect ICE detainees has collapsed (August 20) "'I even told them in English: I have a Stage 4 brain tumor. I have to take 1,000 mg of Keppra at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. I'm supposed to start chemotherapy this week,' he said."

4. “The ICE Agent Behind Me Grabbed the Back of My Shirt and Just Threw Me Like a Sack of Trash” (August 1, via) "Bowe was in shock. “I thought of Alex Pretti, because he was also a nurse, and he was also helping someone who’d been knocked down.” Bowe was treated for a concussion, and for a kneecap fracture. She’s now suing ICE for $500,000."

5. Kings are creepy and weird (August 19) "I’ve been thinking about poor Abishag lately due to the recent attention being given to our own very old, doddering would-be king’s constant companion and non-sexual female attendant."

Being Right vs Doing Good

Sign that says "Right" with an arrow pointing in one direction, and "wrong" with an arrow pointing the other direction. Image source.

Which is more important, being right or doing good? Having the correct opinions on every issue, or taking actions which make a positive difference in the world?

In the ideology of conservative Christianity and conservative politics, being right is more important than being good. You can see this in so many different issues. I have examples.

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"Saved by faith, not by works"

I was taught that this is the main message of Christianity: We are not saved by something we did; we are saved by what Jesus did. We can never do enough good deeds to earn our way into heaven- we just need to believe in Jesus, that's how we get to heaven. We are saved by faith, not by works. 

Evangelical Christians say it's totally legit if someone does all kinds of immoral things, and then on their deathbed they repent and convert to Christianity- on that basis, they get into heaven. It doesn't matter what they did. It doesn't matter if they did good things or if they murdered a lot of people. What matters is that, in the end, they had the correct beliefs.

I've seen conservatives speak out against "the social gospel"- ie, the idea that Christianity is about helping people here and now, that Christianity can be good news for the poor (as Jesus said in Luke 4:18), that Christians should fight for justice. Speaking out against "the social gospel" because it would be bad if people were too focused on this idea of doing good and helping people, and that caused them to place less emphasis on making sure everyone believes the right things. Yeah, conservative Christians are very suspicious of anyone preaching that Christians should do good deeds. Doing good deeds should be a secondary concern- we can't ever lose sight of the fact that being right is the most important.

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Focus on the Family

Focus on the Family is a conservative Christian organization which teaches that there is only 1 correct way to have a family. You have to follow all these rules- that's the "correct" way to live. That's God's way. This image of a hetero couple, with children, the husband as the head of the family, and divorce is not allowed.

If anyone is not living according to this model, well, they deserve whatever happens to them. They should be living the right way. See, we need to teach everyone that if you don't live the right way, then the natural result is that bad things will happen to you. That's just the way it is. It's a kindness, to let everyone know about the risks of living the "wrong" way.

One might point out, hey, wouldn't it be better if we do some research on people's actual family situations, and what kind of ideas/policies would actually help them? Ha! Of course not. In conservative ideology, we already know that people will only get the best outcome if they follow our rules. If they're not following our rules, we shouldn't support them in that. 

(See these posts from the Slacktivist: "Pro-Family" means anti-families and To truly be ‘pro-family,’ you have to be pro-worker)

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Is homosexuality worse than other sins?

15ish years ago, when everyone was arguing about marriage equality, sometimes people would point out that it seems like conservative Christians are treating homosexuality like it's worse than any other sin. What's up with that?

Back then, I was evangelical, and my position was that it's *not* worse than other sins, and we should try to have consistent beliefs about sin, treating all sin as significant but also able to be forgiven by Jesus. (And also, I believed it wasn't a sin to have same-sex attraction, but it was a sin to "act on it.")

But also, at the same time, it sort of made sense to me why we always talked about it in a way that gave people the impression that we thought it was the worst sin. Because there was something about it that intersected with this "being right vs doing good" dichotomy, in a way that other sins didn't. The issue wasn't just that "it's a sin to be in a same-sex relationship"- it was "it's a sin to be in a same-sex relationship, but some people are claiming it's not a sin, and they are wrong, and we need to make it very clear that they are wrong on this factual matter." If a Christian leader does something really bad, like abuse kids, or embezzle money, or whatever, they can stand up and make a big speech about "oh I did this sinful thing, but now I have repented and God has forgiven me." Regardless of their actions, they can proclaim that they now have the "correct" beliefs. But if a Christian leader gets outed as gay, well... they're going to continue to be gay. 

In an ideology where your actions don't really matter, as long as you say the right thing, a refusal to accept the required beliefs about homosexuality is basically worse than any actual bad thing you can do.

People might ask "Why are Christians making such a big deal about this? Aren't they supposed to be, like, helping the poor or something?" But see, nobody is debating whether it's good and important to help poor people or not. See, we all already know the "correct" answer on that, so no need to really make a big deal out of it. But this LGBT issue, well, people have the wrong opinions on it- so we need to argue with them all the time.

(Anyway, I'm queer now, and glad to not be in evangelical world any more.)

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Policies that actually lower the abortion rate 

In the "pro-life" movement, the belief that abortion is bad, and that those women who want abortions are evil and must be stopped, is treated as more important than actually creating policies that lower the abortion rate.

Statistically, we know that banning abortion doesn't really lower the abortion rate. You know what does? Giving people good sex education, and access to contraception. Oh, but the "pro-life" movement can't be supporting those things- because, we know the correct lifestyle is to not have sex outside of marriage. If you're following the correct lifestyle, obviously you will never need an abortion. (Fact-check: this is not true.) It's very important to make sure everyone knows the correct way to live, and if they stray from that path, well, no we shouldn't give them any help or support. Just keep telling them what the correct thing to do would have been.

And another thing that lowers the abortion rate: Policies which help women have more control over their lives, enabling them to set up their lives in such a way that they're able to have the number of children they want to have. Policies which protect pregnant people's rights. Paid maternity leave. Ah, but the "pro-life" movement doesn't advocate for these things. Because it's about having the "right" opinion on abortion- not about actually doing things that will decrease the abortion rate.

(See this post from Libby Anne: How I Lost Faith in the “Pro-Life” Movement)

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And every issue is like this

Seriously, most conservative political positions I can think of, they're about how we already know the right way to live and/or structure society, and therefore the most effective thing we can do is to tell people that's what they're supposed to do, and reward people who are already doing it. We can't give any help to people who aren't living the right way, ugh, that would be terrible, that would send the message that it's *okay* to live like that.

Political policies related to economics, for example. People who are college-educated, people who don't have credit card debt or student loans, people who are rich, people who own businesses- they are the ones doing things the "right" way. If someone proposes a new government policy that would financially help people who are not doing things the "right" way, well, obviously it's a bad idea- we should be teaching people what the right way is, and encouraging them toward it. Not rewarding their bad behavior.

Or another example- universal health care. Wow, wouldn't it be great if the US had universal health care? But conservatives oppose it, because the government isn't *supposed* to be doing that. We already know the "right" way to have a society, and it's that people should be responsible for themselves, rather than being dependent on the government.

(Very interesting that this belief about the "right" way to run one's government doesn't seem to take into account all the other countries in the world, and their different government structures and policies and the results they produce. Very interesting.)

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Conservatives would argue that doing things the "right" way *is* what's most beneficial

Now, I'm kind of framing this like conservatives believe they must follow what is "right" at the expense of doing what actually helps people- but this isn't exactly accurate. They would argue that getting everyone to do things the "right" way *is* what's most helpful, in the long run.

They would argue that, if you really had perfect information about the results of polices that promote doing things the "right" way, vs policies which naively help people who appear to need help- if you analyze these results and calculate which way does the most good, you would find that doing things the "right" way *is* what's best, in terms of real-world results. Sure, they believe this on an abstract, theoretical level, but if you point to a specific study that found that sticking to the "right" way was harmful, this is not going to change their minds. Just speaking for myself back then, when I was growing up republican, I would have said the study wasn't measuring the full scope of the results. (Maybe something seems like a good idea now, but in the long run leads to the downfall of society, ever think of that? ... It's very hard to come up with actual evidence to prove or disprove this...)

It's not really about the evidence. We already know the right answers, so there's not really much of a need to actually go out and collect evidence about the real-world effects of these ideas. We already know what the right way is.

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Which is more important, being right or doing good? Conservative Christianity and conservative politics say it's more important to be right. And this explains so much.

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See also, this post from the Slacktivist: Rights for me but not for thee, which discusses the idea "Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." 

I personally feel it fits better to say conservatism is about being right (and I said in this post). But you could make the case that this "in-groups and out-groups" thing is kind of saying the same thing. The in-groups are the people who are doing things the right way- of course the government should support them, not put restrictions on them! And the out-groups are people who are not living according to the "correct" rules- well obviously the law should try to push them to live the "right" way- and definitely should not give them any support in their wrongness.

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Follow-up post: Jesus Weighs in on "Being Right vs Doing Good"

Related:

On Washing Machines and Republicans 

How long will you wait for your experience to match up with the bible?

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. New Texas law aims to save lives by clarifying the state abortion ban. Will it work? (July 19) This law is probably a good thing, but it's still based on the premise that we have to separate those evil murderous women who want abortions because they're so evil, from those good innocent mothers who want abortions for the right reasons.

2. Replication Crisis (July 18) From xkcd.

3. One Minute Park (via) This is a cool little site which shows you 60-second videos of random parks.

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Court Orders 19-Year-Old Asylum Seeker Released After ICE Unlawfully Arrested Him at Immigration Hearing (July 17) "This happened despite Oliver’s legal entry into the United States, lack of a criminal history, and compliance with all government orders when applying for U.S. citizenship."

2. 10 Americans are freed by Venezuela in a prisoner swap for migrants in El Salvador (July 18) I'm confused about this- so apparently now all the Venezuelans that the US sent to CECOT have been sent to Venezuela? Is that good? Why were they originally deported to El Salvador if Venezuela wanted them back? And what about getting justice for those who were falsely accused of being "gang members" and mistreated by the US and El Salvador?

More on that: Andry Is Free. Trump’s Barbarous Immigration Regime Is Just Getting Started. (July 21) "For 125 days Andry and hundreds of other men were held in a torture prison where they got a “beating for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner.” They had been kidnapped by our government and left in that hellhole to rot with no due process, no access to legal counsel, no phone call home. They were completely stripped of their humanity. In many cases their only crime was existing in Stephen Miller’s America while being Venezuelan. For some, their sin was having the wrong tattoo."

“We Were Kidnapped” (July 18) "On Friday, more than 200 Venezuelans disappeared to a megaprison in El Salvador returned home. The horror stories are already emerging."

3. Stephen Colbert Announces The Cancellation Of “The Late Show” (July 18) He says the show will end in May 2026.

4. Evidence challenging the Trump admin's immigration moves is now out in the open (July 11) "The evidence is damning on all fronts, but especially as to the Trump administration’s actions on March 15, 2025, when it attempted to begin carrying out President Donald Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act without a war and without — as was later detailed — as much process as was given to suspected Nazis during World War II."

5. Congress rolls back $9 billion in public media funding and foreign aid (July 18) "The House has approved a Trump administration plan to rescind $9 billion in previously allocated funds, including $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — a move that cuts all federal support for NPR, PBS and their member stations — and about $7 billion in foreign aid."

6. “Even God Cannot Hear Us Here”: What I Witnessed Inside an ICE Women’s Prison (July 17) "No one deserves to live in cramped, unsanitary, inhumane conditions and have their medical needs ignored. No one deserves to have their religious needs ignored. And no one deserves to lack access to nutritious food. I am free, but my true freedom is interlinked with the freedom of many women I lived alongside in ICE prison." Written by Rümeysa Öztürk.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. The Court fails transgender youth (June 23) "If the law treats you differently than it treats someone else, there has to be a reason for it. And the reason can’t just be that the people who make the laws don’t like you."

2. Repentance Theater and the Evangelical Closet (June 24) [content note: sexual assault mention] "Let’s be honest. If Tait had come out years ago as a gay man, even one striving to live in harmony with his faith, he would’ve been excommunicated by CCM and booted off Christian radio so fast, his dreadlocks would’ve flown off." Very true.

3. GOP Lawmaker Nearly Dies Due to Abortion Ban—Then Blames the Left (June 24) "But Florida’s six-week abortion ban, which had just been enacted, made those medical professionals hesitant to save Cammack’s life because they feared they’d lose their licenses, or even be prosecuted and sent to jail."

4. Microbial evolution…in spaaaace! (June 21) "Anyway, they swabbed the crew quarters and discovered a novel bacterial species, Niallia tiangongensis."

5. Farads (June 23) From xkcd.

6. Zohran Mamdani Beats Andrew Cuomo for NY Mayoral Bid—Without Abandoning Trans People (June 25) "Mamdani is also the only mayoral candidate out of the crowded Democratic pool who appears to have participated in the protests against NYC hospitals complying in advance to Trump’s anti-trans health care legal threats."

7. Journal Club: Asexuality and Birth Order Effects (June 26) "We thought it might be too early read into the particulars of the results."

8. How many kids go to work instead of school? (June 26) "Asia has embraced that philosophy with positive results. The percentage of children who work has dropped from 13% in 2008 to just 3% in 2024 — from 114 million to 28 million."

9. “No War Here”: The Iranian Couple Who Escaped Conflict to Sell Out at China Expo (June 25) "'Everyone simply wanted to help a couple who had gone through so much to come here from a war-torn country,' Sun said. 'They just wanted to make a little money, and we were all willing to help fulfill that wish.'"

Also from Sixth Tone: Second Life: China’s Top Resale App Now Fuels Its Wildest Gig Market (June 27) "For 40 yuan ($6) an hour, Huang Mingyu hired a 25-year-old to roam the streets of a small city in eastern China, asking strangers if they’d seen her missing bird."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. What Should You Do if ICE Comes to Your Restaurant? (June 23, via) "While you’re recording, say all the things like You don’t have a warrant. We don’t authorize you to be here."

2. Stop asking the wrong question. Be a neighbor. (June 25) "Here, as ever and as always, the most important question is the one asked 2,000 years ago by an unnamed Bible scholar talking to Jesus of Nazareth: 'Who is my neighbor?'"

3. ICE is Helping Predators Scam Immigrants (June 18) "In the case of undocumented immigrants who sought out the con artists specifically because they do not – can not – trust American law enforcement officers to abide by the law and protect their rights, how can we expect them to go to the police, or the FBI, or even their local city council meetings? We as a society have abandoned them, and an abandoned person is just fresh meat for the next predator to come along."

4. ICE arrested a 6-year-old boy with leukemia at immigration court. His family is suing. (June 25) "'Hundreds, if not thousands, of law-abiding noncitizens have been arrested in immigration courts in recent weeks, despite a federal court ruling that the new ICE courthouse arrest policy is unlawful and unconstitutional,' she said. 'Targeting children under this policy is simply unconscionable.'"

5. Kilmar Abrego Garcia to stay in jail as lawyers spar over potential deportation if he is released pending trial (June 25) "At bottom, the government asks the court to save it from itself because it may suffer irreparable harm completely of its own making."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. SCOTUS Allows For Trans Discrimination In Medical Care: A Full Analysis Of Today's Ruling (June 18) "The ruling effectively greenlights medical care bans across the country and may pave the way for broader restrictions, including for adults, while leaving lower court rulings on bathrooms, schools, sports, and employment remain intact—for now."

Really not good for trans kids. We have to keep doing what we can to support them.

And from Law Dork: Where is the outrage over Skrmetti? (June 20) "In its U.S. v. Skrmetti ruling, the Supreme Court’s Republican appointees shaved off the edges — if not more central parts — of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in order to uphold laws that bar an exceptionally small number of teens from receiving a type of medical care that only one group of teens need."

The reasoning in this Supreme Court decision is about how the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applies (or doesn't apply) to trans people. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor draws comparisons with the Loving vs Virginia case, where the Supreme Court ruled that states could not ban interracial marriage. I guess in the Skrmetti case, the majority opinion said that both trans and cis children cannot get treatment for gender dysphoria, so it's not discrimination. And this is like how the argument to ban interracial marriage was that people of every race are equally not allowed to marry outside of their race, so it's not discrimination. And the Skrmetti decision is really opening the door to a skewed interpretation of the equal protection clause, which could lead to rights being eroded in so many other areas.

I'm literally in an interracial marriage, but I never thought about "hey my marriage is about the 14th amendment" or anything along those lines. Learning about Loving vs Virginia in high school, it felt like ancient history, like of course people can marry a partner of a different race, why would that be an issue, aren't we glad we don't have those racist laws like they did back then. When I got married, I didn't think about "some of my ancestors thought this shouldn't be legal" or anything like that- it never occurred to me that anyone would think there would be a legal issue. 

BUT ALSO I grew up evangelical and so back then I totally bought into all the anti-queer stuff, like we can't let gay people get married, we can't let trans people have rights, etc. We usually didn't talk about the details about how you turn that into an actual legal argument, but apparently one argument that was being used in court was "both straight and gay people aren't allowed to marry a same-sex partner, so it's not discrimination."

ANYWAY my point is, I should read more about the equal protection clause. It turns out to be related to a lot of things.

Also related to Skrmetti: After Getting The Ruling It Wanted, New York Times Publishes 6 Anti-Trans Articles (June 20) "In all, at least half a dozen articles have been published by the Times in the 24 hours following the ruling—ink still drying—spreading misinformation, shaming transgender people, and giving prominent space to voices that seek to strip us of our rights."

2. Baby of brain-dead Georgia woman on life support delivered via C-section (June 17) Not sure what to say about this- if I died and was pregnant, I would want them to continue the life support to save the baby. But the key thing is, it should be the family's choice. This case is horrific because it was forced on this family by faraway politicians and heartless laws.

3. The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it (2016, via) "The result of a media — and education system — that fails to present quantitative information on long-run developments is that most people are very ignorant about global development and have little hope that progress against serious problems is even possible."

4. HIV prevention drug hailed as a 'breakthrough' gets FDA approval (June 18) 

5. The Meta AI App Lets You ‘Discover’ People’s Bizarrely Personal Chats (June 12, via) "It’s unclear whether the users of the app are aware that their conversations with Meta’s AI are public or which users are trolling the platform after news outlets began reporting on it. The conversations are not public by default; users have to choose to share them."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Federal Judge Grants Class Status To Trans People In Passport Case In Massive Win (June 18) "According to preliminary conversations with expert attorneys, whether transgender people should submit a passport update request immediately depends on their risk tolerance and individual circumstances. A motion to stay the ruling could come within days. Those most likely to benefit from applying immediately are individuals with incorrect gender markers, those seeking their first passport, or those with expired documents who need to travel soon. Expedited processing may increase the likelihood of receiving a passport before any potential appellate or Supreme Court intervention."

2. FULL SPEECH: Sen. Padilla speaks on Senate floor after removal from DHS press conference (June 18) 14-minute video. "If that is what the administration is willing to do to a United States senator for having the authority to simply ask a question, imagine what they'll do to any American who dares to speak up."

3. Trump administration cuts specialized suicide prevention service for LGBTQ+ youth (June 18) "'This is devastating, to say the least,' Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, said in a statement. The Trevor Project is one of several nonprofits administering the services. 'The administration's decision to remove a bipartisan, evidence-based service that has effectively supported a high-risk group of young people through their darkest moments is incomprehensible.'"

So, now would be a good time to donate to The Trevor Project.

4. Trump administration actions contradict MAHA rhetoric on toxic chemicals (June 18) Oh, so it turns out, when RFK said we have to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals in the environment that are harmful to children, he didn't mean it like 'let's actually fund the scientists who are doing good work studying which chemicals are harmful.' He meant it like 'here are some words that we will use as an excuse to be mean to autistic children.'

5. The ABA Declares War (June 18, via) "The American Bar Association (ABA) just dropped a massive federal lawsuit against the White House. And it’s not messing around. The lead counsel filing suit on behalf of the ABA is Susman Godfrey, one of the firms Trump targeted. The complaint names the Office of the President, but for good measure, it also names each and every high level government department along with every cabinet official."

6. Federal immigration agents asked to leave Dodger Stadium parking lot, team says (June 20) "Dozens of federal agents with their faces covered arrived in SUVs and cargo vans to a lot near the stadium’s Gate E entrance. A group of protesters carrying signs against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement started amassing shortly after, local media reported."

7. ‘Code Adam’ (June 19) "That video shows Villareal, wearing his blue Walmart vest, approaching the agents and asking them questions. That video shows the agents mobbing him, throwing him to the ground, and hauling him away."

Why do we only talk about transvaginal ultrasounds when we talk about abortion?

Transvaginal ultrasound wand. Image source.

One strategy that "pro-life" lawmakers use, to make it more difficult to get an abortion, is to require that patients get a transvaginal ultrasound before they can get an abortion. For example: Wyoming governor vetoes 'invasive' transvaginal ultrasound mandate for medical abortions (the veto was then overridden).

People who speak out against these laws say that transvaginal ultrasounds can be invasive and traumatizing, especially for victims of rape. There's this paper from 2013 which includes quotes that say requiring patients to have a transvaginal ultrasound is rape.

Here's what I want to know, as a woman who used to have vaginismus and has had bad experiences with transvaginal ultrasounds because of it: Why is this the only time I'm seeing people concerned about the potential trauma of transvaginal ultrasounds? Why have I been subjected to transvaginal ultrasounds, without anybody making sure I understood what it was and that I consented to it, and I was just expected to be fine with it- but then suddenly when there's a "pro-life" law about it, people come out of the woodwork exclaiming that we can't do this because transvaginal ultrasounds are potentially such a terrible thing?

Why is it only here, in the context of talking about abortion, that people understand that it's valid to have trauma about this?

I mean, I know why. It's because these "pro-life" laws are about making transvaginal ultrasounds actually legally required, whereas in my case, I wasn't required by law to do anything. My situation was more about lack of sex ed, and about medical staff not prioritizing the idea of informed consent. I didn't need anybody to go ask congress members to change a law- I needed to know how to speak up for myself. So, I think the pro-choice people who speak out the loudest against these "requiring abortion patients to have a transvaginal ultrasound" laws would also strongly advocate for all patients to be fully informed about what's going on, and have the option to say no, when they're told they need a transvaginal ultrasound (in all situations, not just when it's related to abortion). But the average pro-choice person, who is repeating this talking point "oh no, we can't require transvaginal ultrasounds because that's traumatizing for rape victims"- well, it feels kinda fake to me. If the average pro-choice person really felt that way, I think people would have cared more about my problems with vaginismus.

Let me give you some background info about transvaginal ultrasounds: 

There are 2 different kinds of ultrasounds performed during pregnancy: transvaginal and transabdominal. Most people have seen images of pregnant women getting transabdominal ultrasounds- this is the kind where you have a huge baby bump, and the doctor moves the ultrasound tool around on your belly to see what the baby looks like in there. But, in early pregnancy, the unborn baby is so small that you won't be able to find it with a transabdominal ultrasound. In early pregnancy (maybe around 6-8 weeks), you need to have a transvaginal ultrasound instead. 

In a transvaginal ultrasound, the doctor uses a long ultrasound wand, puts a condom and lube on it, and it is inserted in the vagina. In this way, they are able to see if the embryo has implanted in the uterus correctly, and they can measure the size. They also look at the ovaries and they tell you which ovary the egg came out of, though I remember being a bit confused about what I was meant to do with that information, when I was pregnant.

Yeah, if we're not talking about abortion, if we're talking about people who want to continue their pregnancy, a transvaginal ultrasound is basically required. It's not required in the sense of being required by law, like those "pro-life" laws, but doctors will tell you it's medically necessary. And, yeah, there are important medical reasons why they need to do it:

• Check if the embryo is implanted in the uterus- this is important, because in some rare cases it implants somewhere else- this is an ectopic pregnancy and is life-threatening for the pregnant person.
• Measure the size of the embryo- this is important for dating the pregnancy and calculating the due date.
• You can see the baby's heartbeat. I know, I know, the fact that there's a "heartbeat" at 6 weeks has been massively politicized by the "pro-life" movement, and then the pro-choice side pushes back and says it's not really a heartbeat because the heart hasn't developed yet at that point, etc... so I don't really know how to talk about this... But my experience was, in the early stages of pregnancy I was so worried about everything. I really wanted a baby, and I had gotten a positive pregnancy test, but I knew there is a pretty high rate of miscarriage in those early stages- and seeing the ultrasound, seeing that little white blob with a little heartbeat, it made it feel real. (And I'm sure this is the reason why "pro-life" people want to require ultrasounds.) It made me feel less worried.

I've heard that sometimes it's medically necessary for abortion patients to have a transvaginal ultrasound, and sometimes it's not. I bet for people who want to continue their pregnancy, it's even more medically necessary, and therefore we should be even more thoughtful about how to balance the concerns of people who have trauma related to vaginal penetration, vs the benefits to the pregnant person's health and the baby's health.

(To be clear: For most people, a transvaginal ultrasound is NOT painful or traumatic. But if vaginal penetration *in general* is painful or traumatic for you, then yes, a transvaginal ultrasound will be like that too.)

If you really really can't tolerate a transvaginal ultrasound, and you have a doctor who says it's required and isn't willing to be reasonable and work with you on it, then I think you just have to completely refuse, then come back a month later when the unborn baby is big enough that they can do a transabdominal ultrasound instead. (If you're keeping the pregnancy, you have this option, whereas if you need an abortion and you're in a state that passed one of these invasive laws, well, this won't help.) But, if you do go without the transvaginal ultrasound and wait a month, you're running the risk that it might be an ectopic pregnancy and you wouldn't know it. It's a pretty small risk- and before ultrasounds were invented, every pregnant person had that risk- but yeah, it's not ideal to skip the early-pregnancy transvaginal ultrasound.

Best-case scenario is, you can talk to your doctor about your concerns with vaginal penetration, and work together to figure out a way to do the transvaginal ultrasound. One important thing I would recommend is self-insertion- ie, the patient inserts the ultrasound tool into their own vagina, rather than letting the doctor insert it. And then once it's in, and the patient consents, then the doctor can move it around to get the ultrasound images they need.

Seriously, self-insertion is incredibly important. I would advise anyone who has vaginismus to absolutely refuse, if a doctor says you can't insert it yourself and they have to do it. There is no reason why you, the actual person whose vagina it is, can't be the one to stick things in there. I can't believe I used to let doctors do that to me. Sure, you don't know how to move it around to get the right images, but if you have vaginismus, the doctor likely doesn't know how to insert it without hurting you.

Maybe it's easier to take a stand against these "pro-life" laws because there's an easy fix there. Just don't make a law requiring medically-unnecessary ultrasounds. But what if someone *does* need a transvaginal ultrasound- like a pregnant person who is *not* getting an abortion- and they have problems with vaginal penetration, maybe because of vaginismus or maybe because they are a victim of rape or abuse. What then? See, then it's more complicated. Then it's about sex ed and consent within a medical context, training doctors to be understanding about those kinds of issues, training patients that it's right to stand up for themselves.

I mean, forgive me if I find this sudden concern for people who can't tolerate transvaginal ultrasounds a bit fake. When I was pregnant, and I read all about pregnancy, I never came across anything giving advice on what to do at the early pregnancy ultrasound if vaginal penetration is difficult. Never. (I bet if you used the keyword "vaginismus" when searching, you could probably find useful information- but if you don't know that word, LOL GOOD LUCK.) And now it's a political talking point that, oh no, transvaginal ultrasounds are BAD and TRAUMATIC for rape victims who want an abortion. Okay, where was all this outrage when I was having my own problems with transvaginal ultrasounds?

Well... I know it's because what I'm asking for is more complicated. Everybody can understand that it's a bad idea to make a law requiring unnecessary medical procedures, just to inconvenience people who want to get abortions. Everyone can see the obvious solution: just don't make laws like that. But in a situation where a transvaginal ultrasound is medically necessary, and the patient finds it difficult or painful, well, what then? That's a harder problem. The people who oppose these "pro-life" laws probably also want everyone to have good sex ed, and doctors to care about informed consent- but how do you actually go about pushing for those cultural changes?

Maybe I'm being a little too harsh here, and instead I should say that opposing these "pro-life" laws is a good first step. We should take a stand against laws which require medically-unnecessary ultrasounds, and at the same time, we should take a stand for better sex ed and better training about consent for doctors.

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Related:

Sea Monsters on Land, and My Life With Vaginismus 

A Comprehensive Pro-Choice Ethic

On Gynecologists and Angry Turtles 

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

That happened to me too

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Texas Banned Abortion. Then Sepsis Rates Soared. (February 20, via) "The surge in this life-threatening condition, caused by infection, was most pronounced for patients whose fetus may still have had a heartbeat when they arrived at the hospital."

2. How China’s ‘Ne Zha 2’ Beat ‘Inside Out 2’ to Become the Highest-Grossing Animated Film in History (February 25) There's a new cartoon movie in theatres, "Ne Zha 2" (pronounced "neh ja 2") and it's HUGE. It's breaking records. Not sure if y'all outside of China have heard about this?

3. Rain, Ruin, Repeat: The Chinese Villages Caught in Climate Chaos (February 25) "At 1 a.m. on July 27, villages across the region awoke to a relentless barrage of phone alerts, broadcast warnings, and the deafening clang of gongs — a rural alarm meant to signal immediate danger."

4. A child has died in the Texas measles outbreak (February 26) This is really sad. Everyone, make sure your kids are vaccinated.

5. Over 7,000 from scam centers in Myanmar are awaiting repatriation after crackdown (February 27) "Amy Miller, who is Southeast Asia director of aid group Acts of Mercy International and is based in Thailand's Mae Sot on the Myanmar border, told the AP she has never seen such a large-scale release of potential victims of human trafficking."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Btw, I don't actually believe in "the" antichrist. I just call that felon "the antichrist" or "the orange antichrist" because it's BONKERS how the people who were always on the lookout for the antichrist (signaling the end of the world is coming), who speculated endlessly about every major world leader possibly being the antichrist (is the pope the antichrist? is Obama the antichrist???), on the lookout for a leader who is greedy and dishonest and immoral and yet the crowds love him and he's even deceived Christians - THOSE PEOPLE are the ones who are now bowing down and selling their souls to him. It's just so unbelievable to me.

Here's what I want to say to them: When Christians say, "Jesus is Lord," what we mean is "Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not." Get it right.

2. "See You In Court": Maine Gov Responds to Trump's Face Over Anti-Trans EO At Governor's Address (February 23) "In a statement, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey vowed to 'defend Maine’s laws and block efforts by the president to bully and threaten us.'"

Also from Erin in the Morning: Nazis Burned Trans Books To Usher In Fascism: Now Trump Does The Same (February 25) "Trump’s digital erasure of transgender people is more than policy—it is a declaration that the very existence of certain human beings is unwelcome in the official record. This is not a hallmark of a democratic leader respecting courts and laws; it is the move of someone intent on atrocity."

The evangelical position on this has always been that being trans is not a real thing. I'm not surprised that now that they have power, they want everyone to act like being trans is not a real thing. 

We have to resist. 

3. Data Rescue Project (via) A site summarizing the efforts to archive government data because it's being removed from government sites.

4. “We’ve Been Essentially Muzzled”: Department of Education Halts Thousands of Civil Rights Investigations Under Trump (February 13, via) "Since 1979, the department’s civil rights arm has worked to enforce the nation’s antidiscrimination laws in schools. It operates under a congressional mandate to uphold the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the federal laws that prohibit discriminating against students because of gender or disability."

5. Federal computers are hacked to show fake AI video of Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet (February 25) "'Building staff couldn’t figure out how to turn it off so sent people to every floor to unplug TVs,' Kabas said, quoting an anonymous agency source."

6. Bad Bosses are not beloved (February 25) "This, again, is part of the definition of a Bad Boss — sneering contempt for whatever it is that you do resulting in interference with your ability to do it."

7. People Are Mass-Emailing Elon Musk In Response To His "What Did You Do Last Week?" Message To Federal Workers (February 25, via) Oh it turns out we can all email Elon at hr@opm.gov and tell him 5 things we did.

8. Jeff Bezos' revamp of 'Washington Post' opinions leads editor to quit (February 26) "'We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,' Bezos wrote in a memo to staffers announcing the changes." What on earth.

A Comprehensive Pro-Choice Ethic

A protester holding a sign that says, "Health care is a human right." Image source.

Occasionally I see "pro-life" people advocating for the idea of a comprehensive pro-life ethic. Typically when people use the term "pro-life", it means "abortion should be illegal" and that's it. But, those who have a comprehensive pro-life ethic say that's not good enough. Pro-life can't just mean you care about protecting an unborn baby's life, but the moment they're born, you don't care any more. People who are truly pro-life are anti-war. They oppose the death penalty. They want gun control. They support universal health care.

I like that. If you're gonna be pro-life, be that kind of pro-life person. Provided, of course, that you recognize that abortion may be necessary to save a pregnant person's life. The most obvious cases are where the pregnancy is causing a life-threatening medical problem- but abortion may save someone's life in a less direct way than that. Domestic violence victims are more at risk of being murdered by their abuser if they are pregnant. 

Usually I put "pro-life" in scare quotes because it's not about life at all, it's just about banning abortion. But hey, if you really do have a comprehensive pro-life ethic, I won't even put it in scare quotes. You really are pro-life. 

I'm thinking about how to conceptualize something similar for pro-choice ideology.

I always felt like the pro-choice movement wasn't really *for* me, because I have kids and I'm happy being a mom. Sure, I can help out the movement by talking about how my experience of pregnancy was so bad, and no one should have to go through that if they don't want to- but it's not *for* me. It's for women who want to have sex but not have babies. Right?

(Note, though, that a high percentage of people who have abortions already have kids. [This data from 2019 says it's 60%.] The stereotype of the slut who just wants to have sex with whoever, and hates children, is not at all representative of who is actually getting abortions.)

Anyway, when I watched the video from the Democratic National Convention this year, and saw Kate Cox there representing Texas, along with Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, that really affected me. 

(If you haven't heard about Kate Cox, here's her story: She was pregnant, and then found out her unborn baby had a health problem and would not survive, and that for the sake of her own health and her ability to have another pregnancy in the future, it would be best for her to have an abortion. But she lived in Texas, and it was a whole ordeal which was in the news, about whether of not the state of Texas would let her have an abortion. Eventually she went to a different state and had an abortion. This situation was very shocking because of how clear-cut it seemed to be- Cox was basically a "perfect victim"- she's white, married, she's already a mom, and it was a wanted pregnancy. And there was no way her unborn baby would be able to survive. And still, Republican politicians in Texas did not allow it.)

The video from the Democratic National Convention serves as an update on what happened to Kate Cox after that. She got pregnant again, and fortunately, this pregnancy has not had any massive problems like that, and she's looking forward to a healthy baby who will be born in January. And everyone cheered. Everyone is happy for her. The former president of Planned Parenthood is happy for her. (Here's a link to the video- but I'll warn you it's sad to watch because everyone is talking about Kamala Harris being president, but that is not gonna happen.)

Seeing that video, I was struck with this thought, "what if the pro-choice movement really is about choice?" Here's someone who wants to be pregnant, wants to have a baby, and she gets pregnant and decides NOT to have an abortion, and as pro-choice people we celebrate that. In Cox's case, actually, she wanted to have another child, and an abortion was a necessary step on the way to reach that goal- because the complications in her pregnancy meant that there was a risk she would be infertile. She wanted to have another baby, and having an abortion was a means to get there. 

Maybe that's what it's about. 

In the "pro-life" movement, they talk about pro-choice people as if pro-choice people just really love killing babies, and twirling our mustaches evilly or something. But what if the pro-choice movement is actually like this: It's not about celebrating abortion as a good thing in and of itself. (Actually, in an ideal world, nobody would be in a situation where they need an abortion.) It's about being able to choose the life you want for yourself, and sometimes abortion is needed in order to get there. 

So we want to protect people's right to have an abortion, if they want to. And in the same way, we want people to be able to have babies, if they want to.

If we want to be comprehensively pro-choice, that requires a whole lot more than just "abortion is legal."

What if someone wants to have a baby, but for various practical reasons they feel like it's not really possible, and their only real option is to have an abortion? This is not okay. To be truly pro-choice, we need to address the problems that restrict people's choices in this area. It is very expensive to pay for prenatal care and hospital bills for childbirth- being truly pro-choice means supporting universal health care. It means society needs to implement policies that will help people get out of poverty- everything about kids is expensive, and that's one of the big reasons people have abortions.

And remember earlier I mentioned that victims of domestic violence are more likely to be murdered if they are pregnant? If we say "okay, then they can get an abortion, for their own safety", that is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. No one should be in a situation where they have to choose between their pregnancy and their safety; that's terrible. What changes does society need to make to keep people safe from abuse? We need to advocate for all those things, in order to be truly pro-choice.

But let's take it farther than that.

I always hear politicians saying "women can make their own choices about their bodies." This is nothing more than a euphemism for "abortion is legal" (or, possibly, "abortion is legal and accessible"). I don't like that. I want to live in a world where "women can make their own choices about their bodies" means exactly that.

Certainly that includes abortion access, but it includes so much more than that.

Let's start with giving birth. Giving birth is scary, and some people have traumatic experiences, or problems come up- and I sometimes hear moms reassuring each other by saying "the only thing that matters is that the baby is born healthy." 

I disagree with this.

If you have a traumatic birth experience because the medical staff don't respect your right to make informed decisions about your own body, that is not okay. That matters. If people tell you that your trauma doesn't matter because your baby turned out fine, they're wrong.

For example: if people are pressuring you to get an epidural during childbirth, or to not get an epidural, that's NOT COOL. It should be your decision.

I've heard about hospitals which recommend C-sections to birthing women at a higher rate than is necessary, because that's what's more convenient for the hospital. (This is an issue in China- I don't know about in the US.) For a C-section, the hospital can control the timing and the entire process. When there are lots of women giving birth there, it's hard to allocate rooms for all of them, and you don't know how long it will take to have a natural labor and vaginal birth- it's easier to just do C-sections. 

But a C-section is a major surgery; you shouldn't do that unless there's a good reason. 

Another example about giving birth: VBAC. (Vaginal birth after C-section.) This means that in a previous pregnancy, the person gave birth via C-section, and now in their current pregnancy they would like to try to give birth vaginally. Vaginal birth is better in terms of the recovery process for the birthing person- but VBAC is riskier than a vaginal birth in someone who doesn't have a C-section scar. The scar might rupture during labor. You need to be aware of the risks of trying this. You need a doctor with experience. 

All of this should be included in what people mean when they talk about "women can make decisions about their own bodies."

And so many other aspects of pregnancy. When you're pregnant, you always get random people trying to police what you eat, or telling you you're gaining too much weight... Emily Oster's book "Expecting Better" (which I reviewed here) was all about giving pregnant people the data they need to make choices during pregnancy, because typically that data isn't really available. It's about making choices during pregnancy, but I'm not talking about abortion. Even though this is for people who are NOT having abortions, it's an important pro-choice area.

And let's talk about breastfeeding and "making choices about your own body." Many people are pressured to breastfeed, or pressured to not breastfeed, or shamed and treated like they're a "bad mom" because of whether or not they breastfeed. Not cool. First of all, don't judge people for this. But, more important than that is people need to have the resources and support they need if they want to breastfeed. You need information about what to do- it's not straightforward. Maybe you need a lactation consultant who can give you hands-on instruction. If you have a full-time job and you want to pump milk, you have to buy a pump, and you need your boss to give you break time during the day, and a private room where you can pump.

Breastfeeding isn't something you can just do all in your own power- you need to be in an environment that has the necessary resources and support.

Okay, let's expand this pro-choice ethic to other areas of women's health care.

I've heard some women talk about being prescribed birth control when they were teenagers, because of acne or some other problem like that- not because they were having sex. And, looking back on it, they are unhappy about how they had to deal with a lot of bad side effects from the birth control hormones, and they feel like they didn't really have a choice. It was just "well we tried various things and they didn't solve your acne problem, so the next step is to take birth control" and that's that, and as a teenager they didn't have a real choice.

I've also heard that it's very painful to get an IUD inserted, and it's common that doctors don't inform patients about the pain, or offer any anesthesia or pain medication. Not cool. Are the people who talk about "women have the right to make choices about their own bodies" going to do something about this?

Or the many other scenarios where women's medical issues are not taken seriously by doctors. Being comprehensively pro-choice means having a society where women really are given the support and resources and information they need to make medical decisions for themselves.

But actually, this shouldn't just be about women, and/or people who can get pregnant. Everyone, of any gender, should have the freedom, information, and resources to make medical decisions for themselves.

This is something I've blogged about before, in the context of the question "what should consent look like for children in a medical setting?" I'm very interested in the concept of consent as it relates to health care.

You may have noticed that this "comprehensive pro-choice ethic" is in no way the opposite of a "comprehensive pro-life ethic." There's a huge amount of overlap. Many policies, such as universal health care, very obviously belong in both. People who are truly pro-life and people who are truly pro-choice should all advocate for universal health care. I mean, I don't want to spin this as "we have so much in common so let's just forget about abortion and focus on those other things instead"- I do think abortion access is very important. But being pro-choice shouldn't only be about abortion. It should be about "the right to make choices about your own body" in all health care areas.

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This post is part of the October/November 2024 Carnival of Aces. The topic is "sexual healthcare."

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Related:

What Pregnancy Taught Me About Being Pro-Choice 

"Expecting Better": Asking the Right Questions About Pregnancy 

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

"Life's Work" (read this book and become even more pro-choice) 

Why I Am Pro-Choice 

On Gynecologists and Angry Turtles 

Boundaries With Dentists

Doctors (part 3 of Autism & Teaching Kids to Protect Themselves)

"Afraid of the Doctor" (I read this book because I have medical trauma) 

I Don't Want My Baby To Be "Brave"

Blogaround

1. A Special Monologue for the Republican in Your Life (October 30) Video from Jimmy Kimmel, making the argument that Trump is unfit to be president. This is meant to speak to the average Republican, and mainly shows clips of Trump, so you can see for yourself what he is really like.

2. A few xkcd comics that made me laugh: Wells (October 28) and Demons (November 1)

3. Say their names: Savita. Josseli. (October 30) [content note: it's about women who died because they were unable to get abortion care] "It took six years, but there was a direct line from Savita Halappanavar’s agonizing, preventable death to the amendment of Ireland’s Constitution in 2018."

4. UNICEF warns of 'deadly' effect on Palestinian children after Israel ban on UNRWA (October 31, via)

5. Fairness in Sports (October 13) "If all the ad money spent screaming about trans people in sports were instead spent on providing scholarships, you would have far more new scholarships than there are trans scholarship athletes in the entire country." An article from a trans person, which goes through different levels of sports competition and talks about what policies actually make sense.

Also from Crip Dyke: Pro Publica has it half right. (October 19) "What was remarkable about all this was that in each case [since the 1600s] the people seeking to block some marriages argued that such marriages were anti-god, anti-family, sexually perverted or debauched, prone to illness and encouraging of drug or alcohol abuse."

6. Star Trek Retro Review: "Yesterday's Enterprise" (TNG) | Alternate Timelines (November 1) "Picard's like, 'whattttt?' Tasha says, 'I talked to Guinan.' Picard's like, 'Oh Jesus, what did she say?'" (27-minute video)

7. Workers Say They Were Tricked and Threatened as Part of Elon Musk’s Get-Out-the-Vote Effort (October 30) "But by Sunday, the door knockers were loaded into a rented U-Haul moving van with no rear seating or seatbelts, in a photo and videos viewed by WIRED. 'We were all told our transportation would be handled and we’d be in rental cars. It turned out to be U-Haul vans, and I felt embarrassed and played,' the door knocker tells WIRED."

8. PBS KIDS shows that you totally forgot existed 📺📚🦁 (August 21, 52-minute video) Oh look, it's a video about my childhood. This makes me want to find episodes of "Liberty's Kids" for my son to watch.

Blogaround

VOTE!

If you are a US citizen, then make a plan and vote!

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1. Trump's Recreating Actual Racist History Not Just Remaking 'The Purge' (October 1) "Aaron Rupar compared Trump’s call for extrajudicial police violence to the German Kristallnacht or the 'Night of Broken Glass' when Nazis led a violent riot against Jews as German authorities stood and watched. Nazi paramilitary forces ransacked Jewish homes, hospitals and schools. They destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. More than 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps."

2. Canceling subscriptions has to be as easy as signing up, the FTC says in a new rule (October 16) Wow this is great. This is revolutionary.

3. We Need To Get Junk Science Out of Courtrooms (2023) "Isn’t it outrageous that we have lay jurors that are relied upon to distinguish nonsense from sense in criminal courts where life and liberty is at stake? There’s no federal oversight. There’s isn’t something like the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] where consumer products like toothpaste and aspirin are tested for their safety before they’re used by the general public, because we care about the reliability of those products. We care more about the reliability of mouthwash in this country than we do about forensic sciences that are used to sentence people to death and to life in prison."

4. The Weaver Bird Dilemma: Creationism’s Struggle with Diversity (October 7) "This striking bird, with its enormous tail, builds a very different type of nest compared to the Southern Masked Weaver. Yet according to most YEC classifications, these birds would be considered part of the same 'created kind.'"

5. Musk offers voters $1 million a day to sign PAC petition backing the Constitution. Is that legal? (October 21) 

6. Missouri AG in abortion pill lawsuit argues fewer teen pregnancies hurt state financially (October 22) Yes, really, they are really arguing this in a court case. I don't even know what to make of this, because it goes against the typical "pro-life" talking points about "if you didn't want a baby, you shouldn't have had sex"- presumably abstinence would also "hurt" the states of Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho by reducing the teen pregnancy rate. It's like... instead of a "pregnancy is the punishment for having sex" "pro-life" argument, it's more along the lines of "women [and teenage girls] should be required to have sex and then required to have babies." ??? I haven't seen "pro-life" people making this argument before. (Though I suppose it's kind of implicitly there in all the "pro-life" hand-wringing over low birth rates.)

7. On Univision, ordinary citizens step in for cowardly journalists (October 18) "Why didn't Trump have a ready answer to this question? Why hasn't he been asked this before? Why haven't journalists asked him this every time he makes his terrifying calls for mass deportation? How can we be less than 20 days from the election, and Trump doesn't even have a pretense of an answer to the most fundamental effect of his most frequently stated policy?"

8. Targeted Advertising: Good or evil? (October 22) "So if failed advertisements are the worst kind, then you must prefer targeted advertising, right?"

My Republican Role Models

Sticker that says "VOTE". Image source.

I grew up in a conservative Christian environment, so I implicitly understood that it was "right" to vote Republican. But I was always skeptical of political parties in general, and when I was old enough to vote, I believed that I needed to research every candidate for myself, and make an informed decision on each one, rather than just voting Republican or just voting Democrat. I figured that in general, doing this research would result in me voting for Republican candidates, because my views fit with the Republican party- but I should do the research anyway and not follow a political party.

At one point, I was listening to what different candidates said about climate change. And it seemed that the evidence very clearly supported one side. Scientists were all saying that climate change is real and is caused by big industries putting carbon into the atmosphere, and we need to take action to limit this, or else the earth will become warmer, sea levels will rise, and it will be a disaster. The Democratic party agrees with the scientists on this. The Republican party, on the other hand... seemed to think everything was fine? All the scientists were pointing to the evidence, and Republican politicians just kind of ... said it wasn't true, but didn't go into any detail beyond that. They didn't seem to be making much of an effort to actually respond to what the scientists were saying.

I felt like... I wanted to be on the Republican side of this issue, but I saw the evidence and I didn't have an answer for it. But, I thought, Republican leaders think climate change isn't real, and they're responsible adults who surely must be well-informed about this, because their actual job is to know about the issues and make good decisions about them. Right? So even though *I* don't have an answer to argue against all the scientists who are warning us about climate change, I can be reassured by the fact that Republican politicians think it's not real, and surely they have good reasons for that.

So my Republican role models let me go along with what I wanted to believe, without me doing the work of thinking through what the reality was and what kind of policies would be best to address it. It was just... I don't want to believe this, and the existence of supposedly "responsible adults" who don't believe it means that it's reasonable for me to do so too.

(I think my mistake was believing that it was their job to be well-informed and make decisions that benefit society as a whole.)

Similar thing with minimum wage laws. What I had heard from Republican role models was, Democrats are saying "oh we feel so bad for these people who work minimum wage jobs and are trying to raise a family on that, oh it's so saddddd, we want to help them, we should raise the minimum wage" and they want to be nice and help people, but it's so short-sighted and will be bad in the long run. If you raise the minimum wage, it's going to mess up the whole economy. Republicans were the ones being realistic and making sure the economy would continue to work correctly. Democrats were just making decisions based on feeling sad for those people who made bad decisions. You can't run a country that way! Besides, you're not supposed to be able to earn a living wage at a minimum-wage job. Minimum wage jobs are just for students working part-time before they start their real career.

That's what I had always heard. Then, one day when I was in college, I happened upon an article about a city which had increased its minimum wage and their economy was basically fine. All those doom-and-gloom predictions about how it would mess up the whole economy didn't happen at all. And I thought, wow, this is great news! This is awesome! So we totally should raise the minimum wage, because it helps people and it doesn't ruin the economy! 

Surely when my Republican role models hear about that, they'll want to raise the minimum wage too. Right?

Eventually I started to realize... these sophisticated-sounding talking points about how climate change isn't real, and raising the minimum wage would be horrible for the economy, and so on- are these just flimsy justifications for doing what we selfishly want to do? Voters and politicians who personally benefit from certain policies, even though those policies are not fair to everyone, and don't help society. Is it really just "business owners want to make more money, and don't want to pay their employees a living wage, and so they're going to go ahead and do that because they have enough power to make policies that say they can"? Is that what's really going on, this preschool-level morality of just doing things that benefit yourself, and not caring about how it's unfair to other people? 

I really thought that responsible adults don't do that. Or, sure, some adults do, but it's very obvious to everyone that that's "corruption" and it's wrong.

And I don't necessarily think that believing "we can't raise the minimum wage because it would ruin the whole economy" makes someone a bad person. Maybe they heard that Republican talking point, and didn't think much about it, didn't think to challenge it because emotionally they just didn't like the idea of raising the minimum wage. They're scared of change, and so they feel relieved when they hear some analyst saying "well this is just the way the math works, it would mess up the whole economy." I can relate to that. 

You should still be held accountable for your lack of awareness of how your fear is driving you to support a policy that harms people- but you're not a bad person.

Or maybe they really wish that society could raise the minimum wage, maybe they hear about families who are struggling because their income is low, and they really have compassion for them and wish something could be done- but they believe that a government policy to raise the minimum wage wouldn't actually help, because Republicans said so. Yeah, I mean, I understand that- I understand being in an environment where all you hear is one viewpoint, and you have no idea that other arguments even exist.

The real test is this: If someone thinks "we can't raise the minimum wage because it would mess up the whole economy" and then you show them an article about a city which raised the minimum wage and nothing disastrous happened (like this one for example), how do they respond? Do they leap on to it- "What?! Oh my goodness, tell me more! This is great news! Was there anything unique about this situation, which prevented those predicted economic disasters from happening? Let's think about how to replicate this in other places! HUGE IF TRUE!" Or do they ignore it, or even act like they don't *want* it to be true?

Another example: I received my absentee ballot for an election one year, and it included a proposal that I could vote "yes" or "no" on. The proposal was something like this: "Equal Rights Amendment: This proposal will make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender or pregnancy status."

So, that sounds good, the way it's written there, but you should always do your research to see what it's actually about. Maybe the way they wrote it on the ballot doesn't give the whole picture. So I looked it up online, and found a Democrat statement on it, which went something like this: "We support this proposal because we think it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of gender or pregnancy status." Very straightforward, very "duh"- equal rights are obviously a good thing, so that's why we should support this.

And the Republican statement on it: "We don't support this proposal because the way it is written is too vague, and we think it could maybe be used to allow late-term abortion." I read that and I was like "???" What do they mean, it's too vague? What do they mean, it "could" allow late-term abortion? Is there any substance to this, or do they just feel uncomfortable with the term "equal rights" and are casting about for an excuse to vote against it?

Imagine a young person coming from a conservative background, who has internalized the idea that it's suspect when Democrats put forward a policy about "equal rights", though they can't necessarily explain why they feel that way. This young person can't put together a coherent argument for why something called "equal rights amendment" would be bad, but it just kind of... feels like the kind of thing they shouldn't support. It feels liberal. And so they look to their Republican role models, to offer an argument about why it's reasonable to not support an "equal rights amendment." And the Republican role models give this statement, about how "oh it's kinda vague and something something abortion"- is that supposed to convince anybody? Or is it just, like... "oh good, I didn't want to support this, but I didn't have a good reason, but at least I know there is a good reason out there (even though the Republican side hasn't articulated it in a way that makes sense to me), so I can be assured that it's okay for me to vote against this."

Another example: One day, years ago, as I was walking around on my college campus, I happened across a protest about the Darfur genocide. The protesters were trying to get people to sign a petition about it. I recognized one of them; she was in one of my classes, and so she started talking to me about the Darfur genocide, and asking me to sign the petition.

I felt like... if it's true that this is happening, then of course I oppose it. Of course genocide is bad. But taking a stand on this feels like the kind of thing that my Republican role models wouldn't do. I can't explain why, but it feels liberal, and so I don't want to get involved. Maybe if I talked to some well-informed Republicans, they would be able to explain why the situation was much more complicated than "it's a genocide, obviously that's terrible, let's protest against it."

I didn't want to sign her petition, but I didn't have a good answer when she asked why not, so eventually I just scribbled something and kinda pretended I was signing my name. Honestly, my worry was that I was going to find out later that the protesters had completely misrepresented the situation, and that I had actually signed my name to something bad. Like, of course if there really is a genocide, I want to oppose it- but I felt that my Republican role models might know what the real truth was, and that it wasn't actually what the protesters were saying.

I mean, thinking about it now, it would have been reasonable for me to say "this is the first I'm hearing about this, I want to take some time to read more about it before I have an opinion." Always a good idea to fact-check! At the same time, I understand why a protester wouldn't like that answer, and would see it as an excuse made by people who don't care about others.

It depends on whether you're actually going to go off and read about it on your own, and then take action, or if you just feel like "this protest makes me uncomfortable, I want to get away from it" and then you don't think about it again after that.

Outsourcing your thinking to "Republican role models." Feeling like you can't really explain the reasons you support certain political ideas, but there are serious adults who hold these positions, and surely they have good reasons because that's their job.

To some extent, though, don't I do the same thing now? Now I follow a lot of progressive/liberal/feminist/queer people online, and sometimes there are situations where it seems like everyone dislikes something, but I don't understand why, but I just kind of go along with them and vaguely dislike it too.

I guess the key is, don't go along with other people's opinions on an issue if they don't give you a reason that actually makes sense to you. If it's about something that's not that important, then it's fine if you don't really have an opinion. No one has time to form an opinion on everything. But definitely avoid situations where you're like "I support this position, even though I don't understand why, but I have to in order to be a good feminist." Instead, ask more questions. 

But, at the same time, yeah there will definitely be people on the internet reacting badly to someone "asking questions" rather than just holding the "correct" opinion they're supposed to hold. (I remember seeing an internet thread one time, where someone was asking "does 'trans woman' means they were a woman and changed to a man, or they were a man and changed to a woman?" just genuinely trying to understand the terminology, and someone else kept angrily replying "Trans women are women!" Not helpful! Btw the answer is, a trans woman is "a man who changed to a woman" but you shouldn't phrase it that way because it's oversimplified to the point of being offensive.) But they react this way because there really are people "asking questions" in bad faith, trying to argue rather than really understand. So, uh, that's a problem.

This phenomenon of not looking into issues yourself (either because it's impossible to have time to have an opinion on everything, or because emotionally you just want to believe something) and just going along with what other people say because they seem like "reasonable adults"- this is related to the Overton window. The Overton window is the range of ideas that are seen as okay for a reasonable person to hold. People talk about "shifting the Overton window"- this means taking an idea that is seen by society as so "out there" that it's not even considered as a real possibility, and talking about it a lot, so that eventually people will think of it as an idea that is normal for people to hold (even though most people may not agree with it), and then from there it can progress to convincing more people and being an actual policy.

Whatever's in the Democrat and Republican party platforms, regardless of whether you agree with them or not, you recognize that those policy positions are held by many "normal people." And this was not a good thing for me when I was younger and trying to figure out my own views, because I believed that if there were "Republican role models" who held some opinion, then there must be good reasons behind it. For example, denying the reality of climate change. Yes, there are *reasons*- politicians getting donations from the oil industry, for example- but not *good reasons*, not reasons along the lines of "here's why this position benefits society."

News shows would bring in 2 "experts" to discuss climate change. 1 of them would be a scientist who said climate change was real. The other would be a climate change denier. And it communicates the idea that- how should I put this- that it's okay to be a climate change denier. Regardless of how their "debate" goes, it sends the message that there are normal and reasonable people who don't believe climate change is real. 

The thing is, though... there are "normal and reasonable people who don't believe climate change is real." There are people who are normal people, good people, who generally vote Republican and so they tend to believe the typical Republican talking points, about climate change and other issues. Or at least, back when I was in college and voting for the first time, that was the status of the Republican party. Now it's a personality cult around Trump, and I just cannot fathom why anyone would vote for him... I can't bring myself to believe "there are normal and reasonable people" voting for him.

Is it bad that I'm viewing 60-ish million Americans as so "out there" that it's impossible for me to relate to them?

Is it bad that I'm viewing 81% of the white American evangelical church- which is literally the subculture I come from- as so "out there" it's impossible for me to relate to them?

Is it better to use a strategy of "these ideas are so ridiculous, we shouldn't even legitimize them by talking about them" or "the only way we can reach these people is if we really understand the reasons why they believe this"? Well, it depends who you're talking to, and what your goal is.

I remember there were people I followed on the internet in 2016, who made it a point to continually note that what Trump was doing was "not normal." This wasn't just typical politician behavior- he is something different, and we should be appalled over and over at how wrong and how offensive his behavior is. Over and over, every time he did something that just a few years before would have been seen as so over-the-top, offensive, career-ending... and his supporters and the media just kinda went along with it, as if it was just normal politician behavior. Some people I followed on the internet would remind us all, "this is not normal."

The thing is now, 8 years later, it basically is normal now.

I did something similar back then- I refused to use his name; I called him the orange antichrist, because it was so shocking how evangelicals were getting in line behind a man who broke all the moral principles they supposedly cared about. And I didn't want to say his name because I viewed him as so beyond-the-pale that we shouldn't even be talking about him.

I still think it's beyond-the-pale to support him. But I've stopped doing the thing where I don't say his name. Kinda wish I could go back to doing that, actually... but now he feels like a normal part of politics, rather than something that will soon go away if we all just stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it.

Anyway, what was I saying? The Overton window. So you don't want to legitimize bad ideas by setting up a discussion about them. But at the same time, if those bad ideas are never addressed, their followers will literally not know that there exist good arguments against them. I used to be a young-earth creationist, and I always saw people treating young-earth creationism like it was so ridiculous they shouldn't even bother responding to it- and that gave me the impression that creationist arguments were so good that those evolutionists couldn't respond to us at all, and the only way for evolutionists to fight back against us was to cover up our evidence and say nothing about it.

I'm not a creationist any more. And it was a while after I stopped being a creationist that I found this site- An Index to Creationist Claims - and I was astounded. Whoever put this site together really knows what they're doing. They truly understand creationism, and they wrote good responses to all the common creationist talking points. Wow. I had no idea anybody had answers like this. This would have been life-changing if I had had access to something like this back then.

My point is, you avoid talking about some "extreme" ideas because you don't want to give legitimacy to them in the eyes of the public, but for people who already hold those ideas, that strategy just makes them even more certain that they're right and you have no counterarguments at all.

Same thing with being "pro-life." In the environment where I grew up, everybody was "pro-life." I never heard any pro-choice arguments that meaningfully addressed my "pro-life" ideology. Sure, I knew pro-choice people were saying "my body my choice"- but that didn't do anything for me because hey it's not about your body, it's about your unborn baby's body. And pro-choice people were saying this was about women's rights, but that didn't mean anything to me either, because I felt abortion was only relevant to those "bad" women who had unmarried sex, not women in general. I totally could not imagine how anyone could be pro-choice.

And then I went to college, and it seemed that everyone was pro-choice. And some of them had very strong opinions about it. And I was so confused, I could not understand how anyone could be pro-choice, but I didn't feel like I could ask anyone about it, because they viewed "pro-life" people as so incredibly wrong- they would probably get angry rather than put together an argument that actually connected with ideas I could understand.

(I have written some blog posts which explain my own pro-choice beliefs: What Pregnancy Taught Me About Being Pro-Choice and Why I Am Pro-Choice.)

So I would say, on the question of whether to treat other people's opinions like they're so ridiculous they're not even worth discussing: It depends what your goal is. If your goal is to convince people, then you do need to learn the actual reasons for their beliefs. You need to understand how someone could believe those things. But, you're not required to do that. Maybe you have a different goal- like supporting people who are hurt by those bad beliefs.

And one more thing I want to say about voting: Voting is kind of a unique thing in that you can just vote for whoever you want, without needing to explain yourself or give a good reason for it. You have the right, and your vote counts, regardless of whether you articulate a "good reason." And in the past I sort of saw it as... "here are the candidates, I'm confused about how to choose one, but I thought about it a long time and really thought about what's important to me, and I picked one, and maybe I don't even know exactly why I feel one candidate is better than the other, and I'd be too embarrassed to stand up and try to explain my vote to other people, but there it is, it's my right." A personal thing, a confidential thing... a thing where your voice still counts even if you don't know what you'd say to people who would hate your voting choices.

Maybe that's how it is for people who aren't well-informed about politics? I don't feel that way now at all; I'm very confident about voting for Kamala Harris. My #1 issue is I support American democracy, and the Republican party just, uh, doesn't anymore??? Never thought that would be something a major political candidate would oppose. We all remember January 6. Why are people still voting for this guy?

The phenomenon of just going along with what other people ("role models") believe... to some extent it's unavoidable, because nobody has the time to research every issue. But it's a problem if it allows you to feel justified in your positions which are motivated by your own selfishness/fears/biases. I think all of us are susceptible to this; it's not related to being a Republican or being a Democrat.

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Related: 

I'm just wondering what happened to the Republican party

"This Doesn't Make Sense, But It Must Be Right" 

That Time I Voted For Obama ... Plus a Bunch of Republicans

I'm concerned that there's still an argument to be made for "pro-life" policies where women die