Study: Abortions are safe (when not undermined by anti-choicers)

One argument used by anti-choicers is that abortion is medically dangerous and fraught with risks and side-effects. This has always been nonsense, as with everything else they say, and now a landmark new study lays out the obvious: abortion, when performed by qualified professionals in a timely manner, is perfectly safe for women.

The report, called "The Safety and Quality of Abortion Care in the United States," examined the four major methods used for abortions — medication, aspiration, dilation and evacuation, and induction — and examined women's care from before they had the procedure through their follow-up care.

"I would say the main takeaway is that abortions that are provided in the United States are safe and effective," says Ned Calonge, the co-chair of the committee that wrote the study. He is an associate professor of family medicine and epidemiology at the University of Colorado and CEO of The Colorado Trust.

Calonge says the researchers found that about 90 percent of all abortions happen in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. And complications for all abortions are "rare," the report says.

Of course, complications can arise, but doctors do everything they can to minimize the risk. One thing that increases the risk? Stupid laws that force doctors to lie to their patients, perform unnecessary medical procedures on them and make them wait for no reason, all to try to dissuade women from getting the medical help they need.

But the report did find that state laws and regulations can interfere with safe abortions.

"Abortion-specific regulations in many states create barriers to safe and effective care," the report says.

Calonge says those rules often have no basis in medical research.

[…]

The National Academies report says waiting periods and requirements for unnecessary tests can result in long delays because women may have to travel to get care and have trouble getting appointments.

"Delays put the patient at greater risk of an adverse event," the report says.

And the more adverse events occur, the more anti-abortionists point to them as proof that abortion is dangerous, and the more they push lawmakers to impose further obstacles. It’s a cycle of mendacity and ignorance.

Let’s not think for a moment that this study, or even a hundred like it, could ever sway abortion opponents. Their crusade is ideological, not fact-based. That they can force women to endure unwanted pregnancies, with all the personal and medical ramifications that may follow, and then pat themselves on the back for doing God’s work is evidence enough.

(via Friendly Atheist)

Daily Links #112: Mississippi Senate passes 15-week abortion ban

Apologies for the lack of posts these last couple days. Been busy learning the ropes in Cities: Skylines, much of which involves dealing with my whiny industrial zones. (WTF does “Not enough services” even mean?)

• Mississippi’s Republican-controlled Senate passes 15-week abortion ban, the worst in the country, that’s explicitly intended to launch a Roe v. Wade challenge. A challenge that could run perilously close to success.

• Andrew Wakefield’s lethal legacy lives on as a measles outbreak spreads across Europe, thanks to antivaccinationists.
  (via @EsotericCD; retweet by @Popehat)

• “Internal NYPD files show that hundreds of officers who committed the most serious offenses — from lying to grand juries to physically attacking innocent people — got to keep their jobs, their pensions, and their tremendous power over New Yorkers' lives.”
  (via @michaelhayes; retweet by @radleybalko)

• Roy Moore claims he’s broke. I hope he finds more money; the more he has, the longer he can keep getting sued by the women he preyed on when they were teens.

• Finally, a follow-up: The FCC’s ethics lawyers must’ve rang, because Ajit Pai has now turned down the NRA’s gun award for killing net neutrality rules.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links #109: Court rules Kansas can’t block Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood

• Federal appeals court rules Kansas can’t block Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood for non-abortion services.
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

• Georgia anti-LGBTQ adoption bill follow-up: State Senate passes the bill, sends it to the House for consideration.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Maryland prosecutors charge a man with attempting suicide. I’m sure a criminal record and years of probation will give him newfound reason to live.
  (via The Watch)

• As Lawrence Krauss’s reputation dwindles in the wake of BuzzFeed’s sexual misconduct exposé, his wife has bravely taken to quasi-anonymously attacking his accusers on Twitter.

• Finally, your headline of the day.
  (via @wordmancopy; retweet by @radleybalko)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links #106: Trump admin. dismantles pro-LGBTQ policies

• Politico examines the Trump administration’s pervasive dismantling of pro-LGBTQ policies, particularly in healthcare.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Pennsylvania Supreme Court releases their independently drawn, non-gerrymandered congressional map. Predictably, it slashes the old map’s Republican advantage, though the state remains red.
  (via @fark)

• The Georgia Senate advances a bill that would allow adoption agencies to use religion as a pretense to refuse same-sex couples.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Meanwhile, Wyoming Republicans’ anti-gay “parody marriages” bill comes to a very predictable end.

• Judge tosses out Pennsylvania Creationist’s idiotic lawsuit complaining about Evolutionary Theory being taught in science classrooms.

• Icelandic religious groups are angry over their government’s plan to ban them from slicing up baby boys’ genitals for non-medical reasons.

• Finally, Facebook has two great new security features: A VPN that spies on you and two-factor authentication that spams you.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Ontario court rules “pro-life” doctors can’t leave patients out in the cold

It’s one thing to refuse to do something that violates your beliefs. It’s another if you refuse to do the job you signed up for and help someone in desperate need, especially when all that’s asked of you is that you direct vulnerable people to someone else who can help them where you won’t. And for some Ontario doctors, it took a court to set them straight.

An Ontario court says doctors who have a moral or religious objection to treatments such as assisted dying, contraception or abortions have to refer patients to another doctor who can provide the service.

A group of five doctors and three professional organizations had launched a legal challenge against a policy issued by the province's medical regulator, arguing it infringed on their right to freedom of religion and conscience under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The group — which includes the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians' Societies and Canadian Physicians for Life — said the requirement for a referral amounted to being forced to take part in the treatment.

[…]

The court said the benefits to the public outweigh the cost to doctors.

[…]

"The requirements impair the individual applicants' right of religious freedom as little as reasonably possible in order to achieve the goal. The alternatives proposed by the applicants would compromise the goal of ensuring access to health care in many situations, often involving vulnerable members of our society at the time of requesting medical services."

Keep in mind what these treatments do. Assisted dying? Canadian law reserves that for terminally ill patients who want to end their suffering. Contraception prevents STDs from spreading like wildfire and keeps unwanted pregnancies from upending people’s lives. And abortion? Setting aside the issue of women’s bodily autonomy, it’s also a life-saver for women whose pregnancies pose serious health risks, it spares rape survivors from having to carry and birth their aggressor’s offspring, and it prevents infants with severe abnormalities from dying at birth or suffering beyond, amongst other reasons too numerous and self-evident to list.

These are the people those doctors refuse to help, at least in any way that would actually alleviate their problems. And not only are they already exempt from helping their patients, they want to reserve the right not to send those patients to someone else who will help them. It’s so unprofessional, unethical and dangerously irresponsible that it should be a career-ending move for any physician caught doing it.

Now that a court had to step in and force them to do their jobs, expect them to start whining about how persecuted they are in not being allowed to leave the people who put their trust in them out in the cold. Because evidently, “pro-life” means keeping people alive at all costs, regardless of their wishes or whether they’re suffering. It’s what baby Jesus wants.

Norway to decriminalize all drugs, focus on treating addiction

In 2001, Portugal took a radical approach to combating its epidemic of drug abuse by decriminalizing all drugs, opting to treat addiction not as a criminal problem but as a health issue. The results are more than clear: The country now has one of the lowest drug overdose and death rates in the world, soundly obliterating the prohibitionist argument that only ever-tougher laws can defeat the scourge of drug abuse. (Incidentally, countries where this mindset prevails never seem to reduce their drug use and overdose rates.)

Other countries are taking notice, though. Norway is set to become the first Scandinavian nation to remove all criminal penalties for drug use and focus on helping addicts rather than punishing them.

The majority of the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, backed the historic shift which was supported by the Conservatives (Hoyre), Liberals (Venstre), the Labor Party (Ap) and the Socialist Left (SV).

They directed the national government to reform its policies on drugs.

Sveinung Stensland, deputy chairman of the Storting Health Committee, told Norwegian publication VG: “It is important to emphasise that we do not legalise cannabis and other drugs, but we decriminalise.[” …]

Nicolas Wilkinson, the SV party’s health spokesman, told VG that parliament’s goal was to “stop punishing people who struggle, but instead give them help and treatment”. He added the aim is to transfer responsibility for drug policy from the justice system to the health system.

This isn’t happening on a whim. Norway has one of the highest drug overdose rates in Europe, with 2015 statistics placing the country’s drug-related deaths at 69.6 per million, third to Sweden (69.7) and Estonia (a whopping 126.8). (Meanwhile, Portugal is sitting pretty with only 3.) Norwegians caught in the grip of addiction can feel thankful their government has chosen to treat their illness and rehabilitate them rather than throw them behind bars and destroy their future prospects with a criminal record, as some countries are doing.

It sure seems like “liberal” policies always bring out the best in a nation.

(via @ggreenwald)

Edit (01/16/18 @ 7:04 PM ET): Added the missing article link and fixed the bottom attribution link.

Daily Links: 11/13/17 – Moore’s hypocritical Evangelical defenders

Roy Moore

Tomorrow comes Firefox 57, which kills support for non-WebExtension add-ons. So if half your add-ons stop working overnight, that’s why. (Losing URL Alias will hurt a ton. Been using it for years.)

• 37% of Alabama Evangelical Christians say they’re more likely to vote for Christian-fascist Senate candidate Roy Moore ^[pictured] after multiple allegations that he undressed and groped 14-to-16-year-old girls. In case you weren’t certain yet about being an atheist.

• Meanwhile, more than 50 pastors and clergy have signed a letter defending Moore. But, y’know, something something moral authority, think about the children, so on.

• A lengthy, non-exhaustive list of men accused of sexual misconduct since Harvey Weinstein. I’m somewhat amazed they’ve all faced consequences.
  (via @rkylesmith; RT: @Popehat)

• The President’s nominee for top environmental advisor doesn’t understand grade-school-level science. There was a time this might have been shocking.

• Also not shocking: Trump’s nominee for new HHS Secretary, who Trump tweets “will be a star for […] lower drug prices!”, is a former pharma executive whose company routinely raised drug prices. Because words mean nothing anymore.

• Finally, Shiva Ayyadurai, who likes to threaten and sue anyone who debunks his claim that he “invented email”, now threatens to sue Boston’s mayor over free speech.
  (via @adamsteinbaugh; RT: @Popehat)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Links: 11/10/17 – GOP’s predictably terrible tax plan

• Tax plan pushed by the “party of fiscal responsibility” would add $1.7 trillion to the US national debt over 10 years.
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

• Trump administration abruptly ends refugee program that saved hundreds of Central American children. Current applicants are left to twist in the wind.

• Maine voted to expand Medicaid to cover over 80,000 more low-income citizens. So Republican governor and noted terrible human being Paul LePage vows to block it. Join me in wishing him a crushing court loss.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Another head rolls: Louis CK now accused of sexual misconduct by several women.

• Two Avon and Somerset, England officers joke that a 14-year-old “should be raped”. Problem: They were recorded by the mother’s answering machine.
  (via @TimCushing; RT: @Popehat)

• Finally, former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka is a fascist fraud with dubious credentials and zero qualifications, so of course Fox News brought him on as their national security strategist.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Cleanses are bogus no matter where they go

It’s mostly politics on this blog, but scientific skepticism (that’s skepticism informed by science, not skepticism of science) and critical thinking are one of the things that got me into blogging in the first place. So here are a couple humorous debunkings of common bullshit, specifically these “cleanses” everyone’s annoying New-Agey relative goes on about:

Transcript:

(Click to open/close:) [−]

ROGER HORTON: Are you tired, bloated, pimply and constantly self-conscious?

WOMAN: Uh … I don’t know. Am I?

HORTON: Do you feel weighed down by all the toxins and excess weight that your body’s carrying?

WOMAN: I guess I hadn’t really thought about that.

ROGER: Hi. I’m Roger, and yes, I think you have thought about it, which is why you should try Horton’s Drinkable Salad Detox Cleanse.

TITLE CARD: If Juice Cleanse Ads Were Honest

ROGER: I’m sure you’ve heard about us. We’ve placed sponsored ads all over your social media feeds and pay celebrities to post pictures of themselves enjoying our product. The intention is to make you believe that our drinkable salads are the key to real happiness. It’s pretty simple: You’ll agree to stop feeding yourself food for some amount of time, and in exchange you’ll pay exorbitant amounts of money for a bunch of different juices for every meal.

WOMAN: [drinking juice] Oh – oh, it tastes like, like spicy grass.

ROGER: Many people believe that detox cleansing leads to improved mood, better digestion, clearer skin, weight loss and a general sense of well-being. But you know, many people believe all kinds of things; that doesn’t make it true. And you definitely won’t experience any of these benefits while you’re cleansing. That’s because depriving yourself of food will cause you to be a train wreck. The surge in sugar you’re consuming will lead to wild emotional vacillations, and for you regular coffee drinkers out there, the sudden deprivation of caffeine is going to feel like quitting smoking, with all the irritability that implies.

WOMAN: There’s kale in this? Kale was never supposed to be a thing that you drink. It should barely be a thing that you eat.

ROGER: Honestly, the whole idea of detox is pretty misleading. Our bodies naturally detox themselves; that’s what our kidneys, liver, lungs and skin or for. But hey, everyone else is doing it, so it’s worth a shot.

For just a significant amount of money, you’ll receive a variety of drinkable salads composed of pre-masticated vegetables and mashed-up fruit packaged in non-eco-friendly containers. And you can trust me when I say they taste totally fine. Imagine celery and apples that you can drink for breakfast. Do you like roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and a small salad? Well, now imagine drinking beets mixed with some nuts instead of that. Plus some tasty alkaline water! I don’t remember why we call it that, or what it’s supposed to do, or if it does what it’s supposed to do, but it’s six to nine dollars a bottle.

WOMAN: Jesus-[fuckin’]-Christ!

ROGER: Each bottle of Horton’s Drinkable Salad contains four to eight servings of produce, which is obviously way too much, but the process of juicing removes all its insoluble fiber, so it won’t feel like you’ve consumed anything.

WOMAN: But what is the pos—

ROGER: Ah! I know exactly what you’re going to ask: What’s the possibility that I’m going to be shitting water constantly?

WOMAN: I wasn’t.

ROGER: High. It’s very high. It’s almost a certainty.

WOMAN: I was going to ask what the positive side was, but that seems less important right now. [rushes off-screen]

ROGER: Oh, speaking of less, that brings me to the amount of nutritional value our blended fruit-and-vegetable Slurpees provide: Less. Less than you’re used to. Also, you’ll experience breakouts, body aches, flatulence, bloating, constipation and/or diarrhea and deep body aches, so I wouldn’t recommend going to work or attending any social engagements.

WOMAN: [off-screen] Way ahead of you.

ROGER: However, if you can tough it out ’til day three of your voluntary poop torture, you might experience feelings of euphoria and heightened senses. Our certified nutritionist says that this is a natural byproduct of the detoxification process, but I’m pretty sure it’s just that you’re literally starving to death, because our drinkable salad detox cleanse brings your caloric intake down to under a thousand calories a day, which sends you into starvation mode.

Oh – starvation mode is when your body shuts down in order to preserve calories and fat stores, burning muscle mass instead. Don’t worry: Our cleanse floods your body with diuretics, so you’ll still lose weight; it’ll just be water weight and you’ll most likely gain it back as soon as you eat a real meal.

WOMAN: Oh, I can’t wait to have a real meal again. I’m gonna get a big ol’ [fuck]-off cheeseburger and just murder it!

ROGER: Be careful when reintroducing food into your diet. Severe calorie restriction can permanently slow down your metabolism, so you may just need to eat less calories in general. Plus, reintroducing solid foods immediately after consuming nothing but liquids? That’s what we call a bowel game-changer.

WOMAN: What?

ROGER: One more word of caution: Since you’re going to be peeing and [shitting] just so much water, you’ll likely become quite dehydrated. Essentially, you’re buying dysentery! But our dysentery comes in pretty colors with cool, Instagram-able packaging. So that’s neat.

[to woman] Want me to get a picture of you drinking it?

[snaps phone photo of now-haggard-looking woman drinking juice cleanse]

ROGER: Gorgeous. #LivingMyBestLife #JuiceLife #BeachBod #OneDayDownFiveToGo.

WOMAN: [fuck]ing five?

ROGER: So if you’re ready to be successful, beautiful, desired and toxin-free, try Horton’s Drinkable Salad Detox Cleanse. It isn’t easy, but if you want to be loved and live a long, fulfilling life with a trim waistline and glowing skin, stop being a baby and suck it up.

[Woman desperately drinks juice cleanse.]

ROGER: Oh, thattagirl. Get them likes!

If you thought drinking medically useless and potentially dangerous scam-liquids is bad enough, hosing them up your butt isn’t any better:

Transcript:

(Click to open/close:) [−]

JULIA: Well speak your truth quickly, because I am not missing my cleanse. I’m full of toxins.

ADAM CONOVER: Ah, yes. Good ol’, bad ol’ toxins. The wellness industry tells us they’re terrifying, they’re inside of us, and we need their high-priced help to get them out.

TV AD #1: Is your blood toxic? Toxic blood can affect every organ in your body and it’s happening to millions of people.

TV AD #2: If you’re feeling tired and bloated, it fell in Thailand bloated and Lee Haney’s 7-day detox program is just what you need.

TV AD #3: Detox foot pads will restore balance to your body, stimulate your system, draw out toxins, improve your blood circulation. You will feel rejuvenated.

ADAM: But the truth is, that’s an all-natural, herbal-strength myth.

JULIA: No way. These things work. Look. [tears discolored foot pad off] That’s toxins.

ADAM: Nope. That’s color-changing fabric – [dunks white pad in cucumber water and pulls it out; it’s now discolored] – and a straight-up scam.

Despite what wellness companies say, as a matter of basic physiology, it’s pretty much impossible to suck toxins out through your skin.

JULIA: Well, then I’ll just sweat them out in the steam room.

ADAM: Also not possible!

[Adam snaps his fingers and they teleport into a steam room.]

ADAM: I’m never one to turn down a nice shvitz, but ask a scientist and they’ll tell you sweat is …

SCIENTIST: 99% water.

ADAM: Sweat is your body’s temperature control, and that’s it. Detox just isn’t your skin’s job.

JULIA: Okay, then I’ll just drink a ton of water. Hydration is great for flushing toxins out.

ADAM: Sorry! Science says nope.

JULIA: What about massages? Deep breathing? Cupping? Please tell me cupping works. in the name of all this Chrissy Teigen.

[Adam cups his face; the imprint reads “NO”.]

JULIA: So how do I get toxins out of me? I’ve been stress-eating fast food and touching plastic all week trying to finish this article, and now there are evil little particles inside of me and they’re slowly killing me. [looks at graphic of cartoon-her with toxins in her body] Aah! Graphics have toxins too!

ADAM: Hate to burst your bubble, but that’s not how it works at all. The fact is, toxins aren’t even a special type of chemical. It’s just become a trendy buzzword

The truth is that anything can be toxic if you ingest too much of it. Eat too much Vitamin C? That’s a toxin. Overdose on fiber? Uh, that’s a toxin. Drink too much water? You better believe –

JULIA: I get it.

ADAM: Okay. Luckily, your body comes naturally equipped with the world’s most effective detox products: Your internal organs! [holds plastic container with kidneys, lungs and a liver on ice]

JULIA: Foot pads were a lot less gross.

ADAM: If you have harmful levels of a substance in your body, your liver, kidneys and lungs naturally filter it, and then flush it out in your pee-pee and poo-poo.

JULIA: Um, weird that you call it that, but – wait, if toxins come out and my –

ADAM: Pee-pee and poo-poo.

JULIA: – then I will just – I’ll speed that up. I will get a colon cleanse.

ADAM: Oh no. Not that.

COLON CLEANSE GUY: Your impacted fecal matter is causing a lot of toxic blockage. So we’ll gently flush it out – by shooting 15 gallons of water up your rectum.

JULIA: Perf! Let’s do it.

ADAM: Julia, please don’t do this.

JULIA: Why not? My friend Basil said getting a colonic was life-changing.

ADAM: Well, if you ask any doctor, they’ll tell you …

DR. GERARD MULLIN: Colon cleanses are damaging to your intestinal health and can even be dangerous.

ADAM: Julia, this is Dr. Gerry Mullin. He’s a gastroenterologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

DR. MULLIN: I came as fast as I could. Julia, some people think that colon cleanses flush toxic matter out of the gut. However, there is absolutely no scientific evidence that high colonics are good for your health. The only thing they have been proven to cause are awful side effects such as nausea and vomiting, cramping.

JULIA: Then how am I supposed to get all of that old – you know – out of me?

DR. MULLIN: You don’t need to. If you have regular bowel movements, your fecal matter is expelled often enough. And you don’t want to force-flush excrement out of your colon. Fecal matter nourishes and protects your bowels. Your body’s like a garden: You want some fertilizer in there.

[Adam gives Julia a potted dandelion.]

JULIA: Aw, gross. Thanks, Dr. Mullin.

DR. MULLIN: No problem. And if you need me again, just turn on the Butt Signal. It’s like the Bat Signal, but for gastroenterologists. See ya.

Funny how our ancestors found a way not to die of some ill-defined “toxicity” for millennia, yet now we’re told the only way to stave it off is to pay out the ass for self-styled “wellness gurus” to force large amounts of dubious liquids right back up into it. Sounds legit.

Daily Links: 10/23/17 – WHO appoint(ed) dictator Mugabe as “goodwill ambassador”

Robert Mugabe

• It took all of one day for the World Health Organization to appoint Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe ^[pictured] as “goodwill ambassador” and then reverse course. In other news, wait what

• Indiana’s Lawrence County ends proven-to-work, life-saving needle exchange program … because Jesus.

• Cub Scout asks senator why she sponsored a bill to allow domestic abusers to own guns, gets kicked out of his group.
  (via Pharyngula)

• The sitting President of the United States can’t get enough of his favorite pastime of arguing with war widows.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

• Finally, pro tip for Bill O’Reilly: A good way not to put your family through a “horror show” with a sexual harassment scandal is to not sexually harass anyone.
  (via Joe.My.God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Sarkeesian takes on crisis pregnancy centers

The wunderbar Anita Sarkeesian devotes the latest FREQ Show episode to that mendacious anti-abortion ruse, crisis pregnancy centers:

Transcript:

(Click to open/close:) [−]

ANITA SARKEESIAN: Are you pregnant? Having a crisis? Whatever you do, don’t visit a crisis pregnancy center. It’s a trap!

Imagine this: Your father has a heart attack, and you’re physically blocked from taking him to the emergency room because a barrel of monkeys is jumping around the sidewalk yelling that heart attacks are “natural” and “beautiful”. You’d be justifiably pissed off, right?

Now imagine that your father is persuaded to skip the ER to go to a “crisis heart center” that dangles bogus alternative heart attack options in appointment after appointment, and he misses the chance to have a life-saving bypass operation. You probably can’t imagine that – because we wouldn't allow it.

There’s a very good reason why we don’t allow any yahoo off the street to put throw up crisis medical centers for heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. Because it would be medically and ethically disastrous … and also totally bonkers! And yet, in thousands of unregulated facilities all across America, taxpayer-funded religious groups are tricking people into carrying pregnancies to term against their will at so-called “crisis pregnancy centers”.

Sounds like an outrageous conspiracy theory, doesn’t it? But this isn’t a dispatch from an alternative timeline where A Handmaid’s Tale is this close to becoming reality. If you’re pregnant, or just seeking family planning advice, don’t be fooled if someone offers you a “free medical consultation” at one of these places. Their names might be benign, but the mission of these organizations is anything but. Crisis Pregnancy Centers, or CPCs, are funded by rabid anti-choice bigots. The agenda? Prevent people from exercising their legal and moral right to determine whether a pregnancy is right for them.

Now, if you buy into anti-choice propaganda, you might think there’s an abortion clinic in every strip mall, right next to the Target and the Starbucks. You know, grab a unicorn frappuccino, some dish soap, oh, and you might as well grab a quick abortion while you’re running errands. But in reality, there are less than 600 facilities in this country where a pregnant person can terminate a pregnancy. 600 clinics, to serve a country of over 300 million people. Let that sink in for a minute. There are currently 6 states that have exactly one – one – clinic to serve all of their residents. Contrast that with over 1,500 CPCs.

CPCs work with the abortion protestors who harass patients outside of bona fide women’s health clinics. They claim to provide options and support, but what they actually do is deny people access to licensed healthcare personnel and legitimate family-planning advice. If they do provide anything, it’s lies about so-called “abortion regret”, “abortion risks”, and maybe a bag of diapers and a dollar store teddy bear. If they can’t convince a pregnant person to forego a termination using their tricksy non-facts, CPCs often resort to stalling. They make patients come back over and over again for medically dubious advice until an abortion is no longer an option.

Remember those 600 abortion clinics we mentioned? Well, only a handful perform late-term abortions after 21 weeks. So for many, what used to be a challenge – finding a facility within a reasonable distance to secure a pregnancy termination – is now an impossibility. CPCs pull the wool over the eyes of every pregnant person who walks through their doors. But the groups who are the most vulnerable are folks who don’t have an abortion clinic anywhere near them; folks who are misled into thinking that a CPC is a viable alternative; and non-native English speakers for whom the American health care system can be a complicated mess to navigate. (Well, actually, the American health care system is a complicated mess for everyone to navigate, but that’s a whole other topic.)

These diabolical centers exploit the uncertainty and social pressures so many women feel about making the choice that is best for them. All in the name of a so-called pro-life movement that actually doesn’t care a bit about the lives of the people they damage. This is a national health emergency. There’s an anti-choice misinformation campaign and it needs to be denounced every time it rears its head.

Visibly, vocally, and financially support pro-choice organizations like Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Lady Parts Justice League, and the National Network of Abortion Funds. Groups that offer real support and real options. Get involved with your local pro-choice women’s health centers and reproductive justice organizations. Take a stand to help outlaw crisis pregnancy centers and facilities like them.

There is a crisis here: it’s one that these so-called crisis pregnancy centers have helped to create.

Study shows refusing to vaccinate causes outbreaks. News at 11

That vaccines prevent illnesses, and that refusing to vaccinate leads to outbreaks, is something that’s so self-evident that anyone who’s too deep in an anti-reality zone to understand it isn’t going to be swayed by studies. But that won’t stop researchers from proving the obvious nonetheless:

People who don’t get vaccinated are the most likely reason for the steady increase in the rate of measles and major outbreaks in the United States, according to an analysis released Tuesday.

The findings, published in JAMA, add to the body of evidence linking failure to vaccinate with the spread of the highly infectious and potentially fatal disease. Once common in the United States, measles was eliminated nationally in 2000 but has made a return in recent years largely because of people who reject vaccinating their children, experts say.

[…]

In the latest findings, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed 1,789 measles cases among U.S. residents reported to the CDC from January 2001 through December 2015. They found that nearly 70 percent, or 1,243 individuals, were unvaccinated.

Babies and toddlers had the least protection. Of 163 infants ages 6 to 11 months who became sick, only two had been vaccinated. Among 106 toddlers ages 12 to 15 months, 95 were unvaccinated.

The very young, as well as the very old and the very ill (and the rare few who are genuinely allergic to vaccines), are the reason it’s crucially important that everyone who can vaccinate themselves and their children do so. Failure to do this not only puts their own health at risk, it endangers anyone around them who relies on herd immunity to keep them safe. Vaccines aren’t a personal choice; they’re a matter of public health.

As long as misinformed people put their refusal to vaccinate above public safety, these outbreaks will continue, and people, especially children, will die.

(via @radleybalko)