#(pregnancy is a temporary disability)

[briarpatch-kids]

One of my IRL friends is pregnant and dealing with clinical level fatigue for the first time and God, I forgot how frustrating it is. Poor woman is bored to tears.

[cistematicchaos]

pregnancy not being considered a temporary disability literally haunts me. it's ignored in so many disability spaces and so many feminist spaces fail to properly address accomodation for pregnant people because they don't have the knowledge of disability justice to discuss it.

but if you look at pregnancy in the light of disability justice, it clears up so much. there are so many types of accomodations that should be accessible for pregnant people, so many changes to the system and ways to implement them.

it also brings to light the ableism pregnant people often face while pregnant, from the frequent claims of "lazy pregnant people" to the lack of accessibility and options to deal with side effects like pain and loss of mobility.

the lack of intersectionality in both disability and feminist spaces leaves things like pregnancy slipping through the cracks and it's so painful to see.

[bonefall]

i dont think people are upset that the erins "weren't creative" enough with Moonpaw, they're upset that she's just. not a chimera. thats just a longhaired tortie and they justified it with chimerism. which is extremely insensitive because chimerism is a real medical thing that can cause issues in every species, including humans for those that dont know, and thats like. a big thing.

like, yay some disability rep (depending on how they write it. it wont be good. ughh) but like. its not going to be considered a disability when it can be in some cases. they are just going to say "ohh shes so special!!" like some people say with autism in this age (the infantilization of it) and its gonna be. weirdddd

anyways. sorry for ranting in your inbox.

Hey. Woah. THIS is insensitive and I don't know where you're getting this from. NONE of the three types of natural chimerism are a disability and it is extremely rare that fusion chimerism leads to medical complications.

Do not spread misinformation about a genetic condition because you're annoyed about the writing team confusing a common tortie fur pattern with chimerism. THEIR mistake is ultimately harmless. What YOU'RE doing is stigmatizing.

Quite frankly, after seeing a bunch of posts and receiving several asks about this, I don't think half of the people who are getting mad actually know anything about chimeras. I sure as fuck hope it's just ignorance, and that you aren't out here trying to call the state of being intersex a disability.

But I can fix ignorance. No need to assume malice. I will explain what chimerism is, and why you should stop going around implying it "causes issues in every species."

Chimerism is when a single individual is comprised of cells from two or more fully fertilized zygotes. There are two BROAD types of chimerism;

Artifical

Natural

Artifical chimeras are common with the advent of modern medicine. Ever had a blood transfusion? Organ transplant? You are a chimera. Or at least were for a while.

THIS can lead to complications and can cause disability, but it's not what Moonpaw is. She would be a type of natural chimera, which in and of itself has THREE subtypes;

Micro chimerism

Blood chimerism

Fusion chimerism

Microchimerism is so common that I could make a Your Mom joke out of it. It's caused by the passage of cells between the fetus and placenta during pregnancy. Everyone who has ever been pregnant is a microchimera.

While it can lead to complications, it can also be beneficial. Pregnancy could be considered a type of temporary disability, but no one would expect disability rep from every character who had ever given birth.

Blood chimeras are common in species whose twins typically share a placenta, such as cows and marmosets, but very rare in animals like humans and cats which usually don't. It occurs when tissue between two twins is exchanged through the umbilical chord. This type of chimera often ends up with a mixed bloodtype, hence the name.

This is the cause of freemartinism in cattle, when fraternal cow twins cause a sister to share her brother's hormones and act more like a bull. A type of intersex condition, not a disability-- so I sure HOPE you aren't trying to imply THIS should be "disability rep."

And even in the other case, would you automatically expect disability rep from a character that has two blood types?? No. Just like you wouldn't automatically expect disability rep from every character that had ever been pregnant, or every character who had ever needed a blood transfusion

And lastly, the one that Moonpaw ACTUALLY is. A fusion chimera. These are created when two fully fertilized zygotes fuse into a single individual.

These are extremely rare because you can't usually TELL when an individual is a chimera. There is no obvious physical difference between the "halves," with some cases of doctors insisting that patches are just weird birthmarks. They live their entire lives with normal health problems like non-chimeras. It mostly causes complications when DNA testing results in a false negative-- because the offspring of a fusion chimera occasionally end up being their genetic nespring.

Or, the two "halves" are male and female, causing gonadal differences. These people aren't disabled, there's nothing wrong with their bodies, but they're subjected to unneccesary cosmetic surgeries as children because they are intersex.

Say it. SAY IT. INTERSEX. I N T E R S E X. IM GRABBING YOU BY THE SHIRT AND SHAKING YOU THEY ARE INTERSEX.

Can some intersex conditions cause disabilities? YES. Are intersex conditions inherently disabilities? NO. Even when you're discussing infertility as a disability, tread VERY CAREFULLY because intersex people are fighting very hard to lift the stigma over their bodies.

Speak with care. Do not equate being intersex with being disabled. They are two different things.

You can be both and sometimes one could contribute to the other, but BEING intersex IS NOT a disability.

VERY rarely, even MORE rare than standard chimeras which are already very very rare and massively underreported because they are so unremarkable, a fusion chimera will happen LATE in utero. THIS can contribute to a chronic autoimmune condition where the cells reject each other, which is a disability.

And by rare I mean one case. Literally one. Of the 50 reported fusion chimeras in the review I'm referencing, Taylor Muhl was the only one with this. 4 were discovered via congenital abnormalities (unknown if connected to the chimerism b/c they were only tested because something was already wrong), 17 had fertility issues, and the remaining 28 didn't report immune conditions or birth defects but INTERSEXUALITY.

ANOTHER condition is often lumped in with chimerism, by people who do not know what chimerism is, which is mosaicism. Mosaicism, when there are two different sets of genes resulting from the same zygote, is NOT chimerism. MOSAICISM can be a cause of disability. CHIMERISM is usually not.

(Read the review in depth, as it includes mosaic cases for the sake of completion.)

They can both be fertilization errors, but are not the same thing. Follow me, I'm only going to woefully simplify a complicated topic once,

CHIMERA = Two zygotes in one body

MOSAIC = Two bodies in one zygote

CHIMERA = usually fine

MOSAIC = usually bad

And the last possible places you could be getting the idea that chimerism "causes disability" from, to my knowledge, is 1. This study that says the loss of a twin in early pregnancy increases the chance of congenital defects in the survivors (has barely anything to do with chimerism, this link is tangential, vanishing twin syndrome does not necessarily mean it was absorbed by its sibling)

Or, 2, this study of several animals where they correlated rates of benign tumors to % of chimerism based on SPECIES. BLOOD chimeras. It's COWS AND MARMOSETS AGAIN. The study ITSELF calls for further targeted research of chimerism cause of susceptibility to cancer.

It couldn't even link new growths or malignant tumors to chimerism in the mammals of its study. WE'RE mammals.

Correlation does not equal causation. Statistics 101.

So no. That's not "a big thing." Chimerism is fine, they're just very likely to be intersex if they're a fusion chimera of a male and a female zygote. Do not imply intersexuality is a disability. Please get mad about the actual ableism in the series, not the team being clueless about tortie patterns.

Also everyone say you're sorry to intersex Moonpaw. I better see you people making intersex Moonpaw pride flag edits as penance IMMEDIATELY.

UPDATE: Anon apologized! Growth! I still think this is an important post, especially in the context of the wider fandom conversation, so I'm leaving it as-is. Please feel free to reblog.

UPDATE 2: Clarification on infertility as a disability because I didn't word myself very well in one section!

[anexperimentallife]

EDIT: CRISIS AVERTED, THANK YOU!

Interracial US family w/ disabled autistic dad and toddler needs to get to the US for medical treatment

(New post because the old one was getting LONG with the updates. Details are under the "read more" to save your dash, with updates in the notes.)

TL;DR: If I'm going to live long enough to watch our daughter grow up, we need to get back to the US and get set up in a disability-friendly place where I can use my medical benefits.

Although I was already disabled (autism, adhd, and spine, joint, and head injuries), my health was stable--until four bouts of COVID left me immunocompromised, and utterly destroyed my health (including damage to my heart, blood clots that damaged one eye, neurological and joint issues, etc.), and although we started off fine, we've been hammered with one crisis after another, both medical and financial, that no one could have predicted.

Until we have enough to get back to the US, a chunk of whatever comes in has to go towards medical care that can't be put off, so the sooner we can reach critical mass on that, the better.

If you can help, or reblog, or share the links on other platforms, we'd be grateful!

The "Donate to Little or None" Paypal donation link takes the lowest fees, I think. (Kept the same link from when we were fighting to get our daughter's birth certificate fixed so we could get her citizenship affirmed.)

Then there's Ko-Fi:

And my little sister started a GoFundMe for us!

EDIT: The donation links above still work, but I removed the GoFundMe link.

IF YOU WANT ALL THE DETAILS SEE THE "READ MORE."

(There's more in my "rob gets medical" tag if you want a blow by blow account of how we got to this point over the past few years, but this is the gist.)

HOW IT STARTED:

I moved to the Philippines six years ago, after the deaths of my adult sons, in part to make my disability payments stretch further. Shortly afterwards, I was joined by my now-wife @thesurestthing (also from the US) for what was supposed to be a visit, but which turned into a permanent arrangement.

After I got a contract to license an old story for a mobile game (which tripled our income*), we found out we were having a baby, which was fine, because despite my disabilities (autism, adhd, two spine injuries, traumatic brain injury, a herniated esophagus, joint issues, etc.), my health was stable, and thanks to the contract, we were fine financially as well.

HOW IT STARTED GOING DOWNHILL:

Zoey's pregnancy was complicated, requiring two hospitalizations, and our daughter's birth was complicated, too--requiring a C-Section--which tripled our hospital bill. A few weeks after our daughter was born, the aforementioned contract was canceled without warning. THEN, when we tried to register our daughter's birth with the US embassy, we discovered an error on her birth certificate that left her stateless, and which took nearly two years, all our savings, and a fundraiser (thank you, generous people!) to resolve. Combined with medical expenses, that left us in a lot of debt.

A brief summary of went else wrong (leaving a lot out for brevity's sake):

I got COVID three four times during all this, became immunocompromised, and developed a slew of other medical issues (heart damage, eye damage and temporary facial paralysis from blood clots, persistent infections, a worsening of my joint issues, neurological issues, etc.) as a result of Long Covid.

I've had to be hospitalized a couple of times, undergo surgery, and was on an oxygen machine twice--once for an entire month, while I was bedridden. As of 24 January, 2024, I'm still recovering from my fourth bout of covid, which started at the beginning of October 2023.

There's a lot more, but you get the idea. COVID has completely wrecked my health, including tearing up my immune system.

And yes, I'm as fully vaxxed against COVID as one can be in the Philippines, with all available boosters, but again--I'm immunocompromised, plus they don't have the vax for the newest variant here yet. Zoey is vaxxed, also, and as a result, her bout with covid was extremely mild. El isn't vaxxed yet because they won't give the covid vaccine to kids under five here, but she's been able to share Zoey's antibodies from breast-feeding--which is apparently a thing.

The only way we can see for me to stay alive long enough to watch Eleanor grow up is to get back to where I can use my Medicare and VA benefits**.

WHY SO MUCH MONEY?

First, while we're still here, we need to pay for whatever medical care can't be put off. Plus, since I'm now immunocompromised, we have to get LOTS of vaccinations before we have to spend 24 hours or so in crowded planes and airports.

Second, we're going to be arriving with only what we can carry with us on the plane, and we'll need to get into a place near a VA hospital that I can easily get around in while I'm recovering from surgeries and getting various treatments. We'll need to pick up some secondhand household goods, and some kind of used transportation (because, you know, it's the US, where you kind of need a vehicle to get around).

We'll also need enough on top of my and El's disability payments to get by for a couple of months while Zoey looks for work. And all this is while we're still paying off the debt from the stuff I mentioned above.

So we're figuring that unless we catch some very lucky breaks, it'll probably cost between 20K and 36K altogether.

(We can't simply stay with friends when we get back, because literally every single close friend we have in the US with extra room and who lives close to a VA hospital has cats--to which I have a severe anaphylactic reaction. As in my entire respiratory system shuts down, and I have to be rushed to the ER to keep from dying; this has happened more than once. The only way I can be around cats is if I'm on immunosuppressants, and my immune system is ALREADY compromised, so I CAN'T do that.)

So again, if you can kick in, or reblog, or post our crowdfunding links (or the link to this post) on whatever other platforms you use, we'd appreciate it.

(*When I told social security about it, they said I could keep getting disability, too, because licensing IP rights didn't count as work income, and since it was a Moldavian company, it also fell under a special tax clause for getting paid by a foreign company while living overseas, so no taxes on it, either. )

(**VA benefits--I was a cold warrior in 1980s Germany. It was less than forty years after WWII, there was a lot of sabre-rattling--some of it nuclear--and we were there as a deterrent to prevent in Germany the kind of thing that's happening in Ukraine right now. Disclaimer because I'm tired of people accusing me of "invading" folks in the early 1980s when I was a dumb, heavily propagandized pre-Internet kid fixing generators in Europe. I wouldn't join today even if I could.)

[thebiscuiteternal]

The entire story is brutal and worth reading, but I want to point out some of the fact points interspersed in the second part, because they highlight just how fucking little the assholes who built this post-Roe-reversal system care.

Research indicates access to paid family leave is linked to a decrease in infant deaths and better economic, physical and mental health for new parents. Currently, 13 states have some form of paid parental leave to care for newborns. No states that banned abortion offer paid parental leave.

In 2019, nearly half of Tennesseans lived in a child care desert, an area that has three times as many children as licensed child care slots. In Mayron’s city, Clarksville, more than 3,000 children in 2023 qualified for government assistance for child care, but 941 were unable to access it. Between 2011 and 2020, 13 bills aimed at alleviating child care burdens were proposed in the Tennessee legislature. All of them failed.

In Tennessee, a family of four making less than $39,000 a year should be eligible for food stamps if their current bank balance is under $3,001 and they share their household with a person over 60 or with a disability. Tennessee’s child poverty rate ranks among the worst in the nation, in part, because families who qualify for government help aren’t getting it. About 1 in 10 families eligible for food stamps aren’t receiving them. According to researchers, the program requirements are too punitive and complicated, leaving such families shut out. In 2019, the state was holding nearly $800 million in unspent federal funding designated for temporary assistance to needy families. Since then, monthly benefits for eligible Tennesseeans have barely risen, from $277 to $387 in 2021. That ranks among the lowest in the nation for temporary cash assistance.

[koopytron]

For Disability Pride Month, I just wanna share some thoughts.

If you are not currently disabled, you will be.

Whether it's temporary (broken leg, pregnancy, surgery recovery, etc) or permanent (paralysis, macular degeneration, lost of limb(s), chronic pain, neurodivergent, etc), you will need aid.

Whether you need tools (wheelchair, leg brace, glasses, text-to-speech, etc) or not, you will need aid.

Ableism affects everyone. Becoming older is just a countdown to some form of disability; do not fear the inevitable. Instead, look to your peers who are already affected and gain insight into what truly helps them. Because you will be next. Do not fall into the trap that you are immune to the lack of ramps or public transit.

More under the break.

While I have you, here are ways you can be more accommodating:

- Speaking clearly for those with autism, and repeat yourself (sometimes with different wording) to help them understand. Let them stim and decompress in their own ways.

- Being patient with those with ADHD, they DO want to do those tasks and answer your texts. Give them the time to find the executive function to do so. Don't take a suddenly productive day as their new normal.

- Do not stigmatize those with mental illnesses. Sometimes it is genetic and out of their control, sometimes it is caused by too much stress, and sometimes they are simply not getting the help they need. Create clear boundaries if you must. Sometimes it can be scary, and it's your choice on how to respond. But stigmatizing is the last thing you want to do. It could be you next time.

- Please move out of the way of wheelchairs if you can. It's easier for an abled person to walk through dirt and grass and wheelchairs are more expensive than you might realize; most people cannot afford them to replace them. Please do NOT push them around unless they specifically ask for it. Otherwise you are kidnapping them and it's terrifying.

- People in leg braces and other mobility aids will move slower. They know they are slower. Being huffy about it will not fix their condition. Find the patience to step around them when there is the space to do so.

- Glasses are a disability aid. They are just normalized and sometimes even fashionable. Thought I would point it out since some people don't view themselves as disabled despite wearing them everyday.

- People with chronic pain often bear it without any external signs. Never assume someone is perfectly healthy when they politely decline to give up their seat on a bus or have a handicap marker on their car and you see them walk into the store. For some people, walking for twenty minutes to pick up milk and eggs is all they can manage before they have to rest their feet and parking closer keeps them from collapsing in the parking lot.

- Do not talk to deaf people like they are stupid. Barring any other conditions, they are just like you and me. Speak normally. Most can read lips if you face them. Learning a few signs like "thank you" and "hello" is easy and even fun. (I know about a dozen signs myself and still trying to learn more!)

- Related to that, for anyone making subtitles, if the dialogue is in another language and the audience is supposed to know what they are saying, please find it in your heart to convey it. None of this "Speaking in an alien language" unless the hearing audience is also supposed to be clueless. When it's a real language this is even worse.

- Also, lots of people use text-to-speech programs. Usually because they are blind in some way. Please avoid using acronyms and replacing real spellings with fake ones. The parsers cannot make any sense of k!ll and su!c!de. Just use kill and suicide for the love of god.

I could go on and on, but even if this post has left a lasting impression on only one person then it was worth it. We are all each other's support system. Laws that affect disabled people now will also affect you in the future. Overpriced medicine will also be the prices you will be paying. Insurances will find ways to not cover you because they are assholes.

No one wants to be disabled. No one is gloating about the frankly laughable amount the government provides in aid, if they give out anything at all. Disabled people often lose benefits upon marriage. They are not a subclass for you to ignore. Unlike being a certain sexuality or gender, being disabled is something you can be thrusted in without warning at any time.

Therefore, we must take pride in our disabilities, because feeling shame is not an acceptable replacement.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ian Millhiser at Vox:

Moyle v. United States should have been a very easy case. A federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), requires nearly all hospitals to provide “such treatment as may be required to stabilize the medical condition” of “any individual” who arrives at the hospital’s ER with an “emergency medical condition.” Though the law does not specifically mention abortions, EMTALA is written in capacious terms — requiring covered hospitals to perform an emergency abortion when that is the appropriate treatment to resolve a patient’s medical emergency.

And yet, last January, the Supreme Court effectively nullified EMTALA, at least for patients who require abortion. Moyle, which the Court will hear the last full week of April, asks whether this nullification should be made permanent. The case involves a conflict between the federal law and Idaho’s unusually restrictive anti-abortion statute, which permits physicians to perform an abortion when “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman,” but not when a patient’s pregnancy only threatens to disable or seriously harm them. EMTALA, meanwhile, requires most hospitals to provide whatever care is necessary to stabilize a patient who is at risk of “serious impairment to bodily functions,” “serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part,” or other nonfatal consequences that are defined as medical emergencies by EMTALA. So, for example, if a patient’s uterus could be destroyed, but she is likely to survive if untreated, EMTALA requires hospitals to perform an abortion if terminating the pregnancy would stabilize the patient’s medical condition.

When federal law conflicts with a state’s law, the Constitution provides that the federal law “shall be the supreme Law of the Land” — and thus the state law is “preempted.” EMTALA also contains a provision stating that state and local laws must give way “to the extent that the [state law] directly conflicts with a requirement of this section.” So, again, Moyle should be an easy case, and a federal district court ruled in 2022 that Idaho’s abortion ban must give way to EMTALA when a pregnant patient has a medical emergency that must be treated with an abortion. Last January, however, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked this district court’s order, reinstating Idaho’s sweeping abortion ban while the justices ponder the Moyle case. That’s a strong sign that, despite EMTALA’s clear text, the justices could permanently neutralize the federal law’s protections for people who must have an abortion to avoid catastrophic medical consequences. (No justice publicly dissented from this temporary order, but justices sometimes disagree with the Court’s orders but do not note their dissent.)

Moyle is a test of whether these justices will follow the text of a clearly drafted law

EMTALA is a reasonably straightforward statute. It only applies to hospitals with emergency rooms, and only to those hospitals that accept Medicare funds. That’s most hospitals because Medicare provides health coverage to Americans over the age of 65. The primary purpose of this law is to ensure that hospitals provide emergency medical care to patients who may not be able to pay for it. But the law is also written in expansive terms. It states that “if any individual ... comes to a hospital and the hospital determines that the individual has an emergency medical condition,” the hospital typically must “stabilize the medical condition.” (In limited circumstances, the hospital may transfer the patient to another facility.) [...]

Idaho also wants the Supreme Court to fundamentally alter the balance of power between Congress and the states

Idaho’s two legal teams also make a pair of arguments that seek to weaken Congress in fundamental ways and to place novel new limits on the federal government’s ability to preempt state laws. The first of these arguments is that EMTALA — or, at least, the Biden administration’s textualist reading of EMTALA — violates something called the “major questions doctrine.” The major questions doctrine claims that Congress must “speak clearly” if it wishes to give a federal agency the power to decide a question of “vast ‘economic and political significance.’” This doctrine is not mentioned in the Constitution or in any federal law, and appears to have been made up entirely by Republican appointees to the Supreme Court.

Even if you accept this made-up doctrine as legitimate, however, it is not at all clear why it is relevant to the Moyle case. By its own terms, the major questions doctrine only applies when a federal agency claims the authority to decide an important policy question. But no federal agency — meaning, an agency within the Executive Branch — has made any policymaking decision of any kind in Moyle. Rather, the question is whether a law enacted by Congress requires Idaho hospitals to perform emergency abortions. Idaho, in other words, is arguing that a made-up legal doctrine, which appears in no legal text and that was fabricated entirely by judges, should be read to limit Congress’s ability to decide important policy questions. If the Court agrees, that would be an extraordinary transfer of power from an elected Congress to an unelected judiciary. The state’s strongest legal argument, meanwhile, turns on the fact that EMTALA’s obligations only apply to hospitals that accept federal Medicare funds.

[...]

The Court’s decision in Moyle is likely to determine whether some women live or die

Theoretically, Idaho’s law permits abortions when necessary to save a patient’s life. Many other states with abortion bans have broader exemptions on the books, which theoretically permit an abortion when a patient faces serious health consequences that may not be life-threatening.

In practice, however, women in many states with strict abortion bans have struggled to obtain lifesaving or otherwise medically necessary care. In one case, a Texas woman with a nonviable pregnancy was told she had to wait to receive an abortion even though her body was discharging blood clots and a strange-smelling yellow liquid, Her doctors eventually agreed to induce labor after her vagina started to emit a dark, foul-smelling fluid.

This happened, moreover, despite the fact that Texas law permits abortions when a patient “has a life-threatening physical condition” or faces a “serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function” that relates to their pregnancy. Incidents like this are common because many state legal provisions permitting emergency abortions have never been interpreted by any court, or have been interpreted largely by Republican judges who are hostile to abortion. So hospital lawyers often cannot know in advance when their state’s courts will allow doctors to perform an abortion, and doctors who guess wrong risk very serious criminal charges. If the Supreme Court reads EMTALA to say what it actually says in Moyle, that would relieve some of this uncertainty. It would mean that doctors or patients who cannot obtain a state court order permitting an emergency abortion could also seek such an order from federal court. It would also mean that, over time, a body of case law would develop establishing when federal law entitles someone experiencing a medical emergency to an abortion.

SCOTUS is set to hear a pair of cases regarding EMTALA and abortion this week. The pair of cases, Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, deal with Idaho's abortion ban regarding hospitals and abortion when the life of the pregnant person is at risk of death or serious harm otherwise.

See Also:

HuffPost: The Supreme Court Is About To Debate Whether States Can Outlaw Life-Saving Abortions

[exuberantocean]

Pregnancy and Disability

Daily reminder not to throw people who have/had/are planning to have children via pregnancy under the bus in your activism.

"Pregnancy isn't a disability."

For some people no! But a lot of pregnancy related health conditions and even disabilities (some temporary, some not so temporary) do exist! And here's another shocker: sometimes people with disabilities get pregnant!

They should not get ignored or dismissed. We talk a lot about how it's morally wrong to demand people "prove" their disability every time they try to use aids or services, being pregnant shouldn't change that.

"And anyway it's their choice to get pregnant and they knew the risk."

...

I mean, there's a risk every time you get in a car, should we stop giving any aid to people in car accidents? You know most foods can be a chock hazard, should we just sit by and let people choke to death? Do we really want to argue that people don't deserve accommodations if "they knew the risks" of what caused their disability?

"They're trying to take away services from people who really need it."

How do you know? How do you know they don't "really need it." Please refer back to "Pregnancy isn't a disability." If there aren't enough of whatever accommodation is at issues for everyone to use, then this is an issue of needing more of the thing, not gatekeeping how can access it.

[beapuffsimmer]

Relationship & Pregnancy Overhaul

A mod that adds more realism to sims romantic and platonic relationships with a focus on pregnancy as well.

This modules can be downloaded together but also work individually.

M1: Pregnancy & Family Preferences / Reactions / Impact

Sims will have prefernces regarding their want for children (wants children, neutral, does not want children).

According to their preferences, sims will have different sentiments and buffs regarding their children or eventual pregnancy.

M2: Fertility & Protection

Different sims will have fertility rates that affect how hard or how easy it is for them to get pregnant and there will be ways to control that fertility.

M3: WooHoo Transmitted Diseases

The sims will be able to get diseases that are transmited through woohoo. There are different buffs and social interactions available.

M4: Paternity Testing & Drama

Sims can discover who fathered their child, lie, tell the truth, rope another into marriage, reject offspring, and more.

M5: Teen Pregnancy & Gameplay

In which Teen Sims can freak out about being pregnant, make their parents freak out, get support or get kicked out…

M6: Temporary Separations / Relationship Breaks

Take a relationship break and try to figure things out before fully breaking up or reconciling.

M7: Cheating (Infidelity) Expansion & Overhaul

offers added features and possibilities revolving around cheating. Blame, forgive, lie about having ‘only flirted nothing more”, confess to cheating, tell a Sim your Sim slept with their partner… and more!

M8: Insemination & Surrogacy

A module that offers the possibility for Sims to get artificial inseminations, become surrogate mothers or have another Sim carry a baby for them.

M9: Adoption Expansion & Overhaul

Ability to put children up for adoption. Offers different ways to adopt children. Adopted sims are able to look for their biological parents.

M10: Custody & Permanent Separations

Decide Custody and send children on Custody Visits – all it requires is for Sims to have had a child together and live in separate homes.

M11: Termination of Pregnancy

In thisadd-on, Sims can terminate pregnancies, accompany spouses to pregnancy termination, and experience the myriad of emotions that such a difficult decision can bring – differently according to pregnancy preferences as chosen in Mod 1 of course.

M12: Pregnancy Side-Effects

An add-on that brings mood swings, cravings and back pain to Sim’s pregnancies, among other little things!

M13: Miscarriages & Pregnancy Loss

This add-on makes it so that Sims might have miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies.

M14: Pregnancy & Family Tweaks

Settings and tweaks for pregnancy and family life, such as disabling the pregnancy walkstyle the idle animation, etc.

M15: Romances & Friendships

Block romance or friendship between specific sims; control relationships; allow/disallow romanceless woohoo, ...

M16: Dating App: Meet&Mingle!

Online dationg profile: Customizable, relationship goals, blind dates, semi blind dates, picked dates, various filters, preferences, etc

M17: Charm & Chemistry: Attraction System

Personality & Life Factors based and / or style (physique) based.

[secularprolifeconspectus]

Hi, I'm also a progressive and this blog was recommended to me by tumblr because I follow the #biology tag. I 100% agree fetuses are humans and deserve the same rights as anyone else. I am pro choice because no one has the right to another person's body. If you are in a situation where someone is dying and needs specifically a transfusion of your blood to survive, you have every right to deny that person your blood and let them die. It would be a cruel and callous thing to do, but you are not obligated to give anyone your blood not matter the circumstances. And that (blood donation) is a procedure that is minimally invasive and highly unlikely to cause major complication. Pregnancy on the other hand is the most invasive you can get; the other person is literally embedded in your body, radically altering its hormonal balance and shifting around organs and imposing major health risks. No one has the right to impose themselves on another person's body like this without consent. If anyone other than a fetus physically intruded into someone else's body in this way and rearranged their organs and took nutrients out of their blood it would be treated as an aggravated assault and battery, possibly grievous bodily harm. Pregnancy is physically harmful, interferes with a pregnant individual's functioning (it's pretty much a temporary disability) and in a way, abortion is self defence against an unwanted physical intrusion and violation of bodily autonomy. If the baby is not viable, then too bad. The other person's right to their own body comes first. If the baby is viable, then once they are born/removed every effort should be made to preserve their life.

Ngl, I was tempted to just delete this because I've already responded to these points multiple times, but because you appear to have put sincere effort into your argument in good faith, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. In the future, please scroll through my posts to make sure I haven't already posted a rebuttal. This once I'll save you time and dig up the links for you.

So, this is a mix of the autonomy (consent) argument, the refuse (donation) argument, and the self-defense (parasite) argument.

You start off making the McFall v. Shimp case against forced bodily donations: a classic argument of the Right to Refuse. Every living born person has been the beneficiary of a pregnancy; comparatively, almost no one has been the beneficiary of an organ donation, so these situations are actually not that comparable. BUT, let's pretend they are. Here's the relevant excerpts to that:

You have no obligation to extraordinarily sacrifice to keep someone from dying and may refuse to do so. In most cases of elective abortion, a preborn person is not already dying. They are in their proper environment where they belong at that stage of life, and they are healthy. It is completely ordinary to at one point in your life have your body sustained by a pregnant person; more people are at one point sustained by a pregnant person than are ever pregnant with a person.

Per the standard form of this strategy, you then make the case for self-defense by pathologizing pregnancy; a cliché misogynist tactic. Excerpts:

Pregnancy is no extraordinary sacrifice; it isn’t a regular sacrifice, and it’s a big deal. Yet that pregnant bodies take care of prenates is ordinary and healthy. Pregnancy is not disease. Disease may happen within pregnancy and is treatable. Pregnancy is not the regular state of the body, but to assert pregnancy is extraordinary is to imply a non-pregnant body is ordinary, and thereby normative. I reject the normatization of the non-pregnant body, for it implies that the male body is always normal and ideal as the rule, while the female body is not.

Next, you argue that the fetus doesn't have consent, which is pretty irrelevant considering that consent is not applicable to the relation between a parent and their dependent offspring. Pregnancy is an aconsensual, fiduciary relationship. BUT, for the sake of this (absurd) autonomy argument, I'll grant that the preborn child lacks consent. Excerpts:

It is a normal function and ordinary outcome of intercourse to become pregnant, and even contraceptives used regularly and functioning normally will foreseeably fail to prevent pregnancy on occasion.

When you gamble, you accept the risk that you may lose money as a foreseeable consequence. When you gamble with sex, you accept the risk that you may gain a child as a foreseeable consequence. You can only revoke consent to actions, not foreseeable consequences. You may not violently sacrifice a helpless person to “mitigate” risk or harm.

You also claim that fetuses are aggressors with some culpability for the changes the body naturally undergoes in pregnancy. This dips into the parasite argument as it implies that the parent-offspring relation is parasitic, and it weirdly adultifies literal babies. Excerpts:

Self-defense justifies violent force proportionate to a threat or violation, but this assumes an aggressor. A preborn person has not deliberately forced themself upon their parent’s body as an assailant. To suffocate, poison, or dismember a person forced into a vulnerable circumstance is excessive force and abuse of power, upon the same principle as police brutality.

A prenate has no volition & also isn’t an agent in pregnancy. A baby shouldn’t be held to adult standards. A baby’s existence is passive, not an aggression, and not a threat. On a gut level we know it’s cruel injustice to deliberately harm a helpless child, so we must construe either “child”, “helpless”, or “harm” as false to justify abortion.

Lastly, you describe pregnancy as an unwanted intrusion, which isn't reflective of the reality of why people seek abortions; people get abortions because they want no relationship to a living child. BUT, let's say hypothetically, someone did simply not want to be pregnant. Excerpts:

Another implication of these posits is that the prenate is invasive. This is predicated upon that the location of a human (in this case, the womb — where else does a prenate belong?) has an impact on their moral status, meanwhile dismissing place of origin and safe shelter. The argument is that something about being a fetus justifies her extermination; that autonomy takes precedence over dependence is just pretense.

Not to mention, you must reckon with the reality of elective third-trimester abortion, in which a fetus is viable yet deliberately killed via exsanguination, lethal injection, or dismemberment. You should see the victims of the discriminatory violence your ideology condones. I'll leave you with this:

Preborn humans are powerless people. Elective abortion is abuse of power. Abortion is a human rights violation.

[cistematicchaos]

Pregnancy isn't considered a temporary disability because it's a normal thing that happens to normal people and our disabilities are abnormal things that we're cursed with. Not everything that needs accommodations is a disability.

I'm assuming this is a serious ask bc of the last sentence. Uhm, eugenics is calling? They think you'd be a perfect spokesperson for the cause. Call back at 1800-TheFaceEatingLeopardsDefinitelyWontEatYourFace or just, yknow, go fuck yourself.

Btw, my argument had nothing to do with "things that require accommodations are disabilities" so maybe actually read what I wrote next time.

[insert-witty-user-name-here]

10+ Good Things Biden has Done: Education & Immigration Edition

Just a list of 10+ good things Biden has done in the last 4 years because I’ve been hearing too much rhetoric that it doesn’t matter who you vote for. It does make a difference. 

Find more good things here, here, and here.

Canceled over $140B of student debt for nearly 40 million borrowers. (x)

Strengthened protections for sexual assault survivors, pregnant and parenting students, and LGBTQ+ students in schools through an updated Title IX rule. This updated rule strengthens sexual assault survivors rights to investigation– something that had been gutted under the Trump administration, strengthens requirements that schools provide modifications for students based on pregnancy, prohibits harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and more. (x) 

Revoked an order that limited diversity and inclusion training. (x)

Cracked down on for profit colleges. (x)

Reaffirmed students’ federal civil rights protections for non-discrimination based on race, national origin, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender in schools. Specifically, the Department of Education made clear students with disabilities’ right to school, limiting the use of out of school suspensions and expulsions against them. (x) (x) 

Enhanced the Civil Rights Data Collection, a national survey that captures data on students’ equal access to educational opportunities. These changes will improve the tracking of civil rights violations for students, critical for advocates to respond to instances of discrimination. 

Provided guidance on how colleges and universities can still uphold racial diversity in higher education following the Supreme Court decision overturning affirmative action. (x)

Designated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) status for immigrants from Cameroon, Haiti, ​​El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sudan, and more. (x) 

Ended the discriminatory Muslim and African bans (x). 

Provided a pathway to citizenship for spouses of U.S. citizens that have been living in the country without documentation. (x) 

Expanded healthcare to DACA recipients (x) 

This one is… barely a win but not by fault of the Biden Administration. The Department of Homeland Security as of Feb 2023 has reunited nearly 700 immigrant children that were separated from their families under Trump’s Zero Tolerance Policy. From 2017-2021, 3,881 children were separated from their families. About 74% of those have been reunited with their families: 2,176 before the task force was created and 689 afterward. But that still leaves nearly 1,000 children who remain tragically separated from their families from under the Trump Administration. (x)

(okay this one is maybe only exciting for me who’s a census nerd) Revised federal standards for the collection of race and ethnicity data, allowing for federal data that better reflect the country’s diversity. Now, government forms will include a Middle Eastern/ North African category (when previously those individuals would check “white”). Additionally, forms will now have combined the race & ethnicity question allowing for individuals to check “Latino/a” as their race (previously Latine individuals would be encouraged to check “Latino” for ethnicity and “white” for race… which doesn’t really resonate with many folks). (x) (I know this sounds boring but let me tell you this is BIG when it comes to better data collection– and better advocacy!).

Rescinded a Trump order that would have excluded undocumented immigrants from the 2020 Census which would have taken away critical funds from those communities.

Has proposed investments in a lot of programs including universal pre-k, childcare, mental health programs in schools, a national medical leave program for all workers and more. (x) 

Last… let’s also not forget all the truly terrible things Trump did when he was in office. If you need a reminder, scroll this list, this one mostly for giggles + horror, for actual horror about what a Trump presidency has in store, learn about ‘Project 2025’ from the Heritage Foundation. I know this post is about reasons to vote FOR Biden but let’s not forget the many, many reasons to vote for him over Trump.

Looking for more?

10+ good things Biden has done in climate and labor

10+ good things Biden has done in healthcare and housing

10+ good things Biden has done in the justice and courts system

A few other notes

Voting for Biden or Trump shouldn’t be the only reason you vote. You know what elections have more power over your life? LOCAL elections. If you’re not feeling jazzed about Biden… vote for someone really cool running for mayor, or your rep, or on your school board and then begrudgingly vote for Biden. 

A reminder that if someone online is trying to discourage you to vote there’s a good chance they are a paid actor to do so. Voter suppression was a well-documented tactic during the 2016 election and I’m sure the trolls are out in force again. 

Check your voter registration here, make a plan to vote, and encourage your friends to vote as well. 

All in all, yeah… there’s a lot of shitty things still happening. There’s always going to be shit but things aren’t going to change on their own. And that change starts (it certainly doesn’t end) with voting. 

Go vote in November.

[ukrfeminism]

5 minute read

Thousands of protesters marched through central London (Saturday) afternoon as they demanded Carla Foster to be freed from jail, after her sentencing earlier this week reignited calls for abortion to be decriminalised.

Ms Foster was given a 28-month extended sentence on Monday after she admitted illegally procuring her own abortion during the pandemic when she was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant.

Protesters marched from the Royal Courts of Justice to Whitehall today chanting “Free Carla Foster” and waving signs saying “abortion is healthcare”.

They called for an end to Victorian legislation that renders abortion a criminal act in England, Scotland and Wales, with women granted exemptions in certain circumstances up until 24 weeks of pregnancy.

There are seven exemptions that can be granted to allow a woman to have an abortion, but none stating that a woman simply does not want a baby. For 98 per cent of women who had an abortion last year, it was recorded as being “performed because of a risk to the woman’s mental health”, classified as “F99 (mental disorder, not otherwise specified)”.

Under current legislation, abortions can only take place after 24 weeks in specific circumstances including when the mother’s life is at risk or if the child will be severely disabled.

Labour MP Stella Creasy delivered a speech to protesters who gathered in Whitehall this afternoon, claiming that current abortion legislation is no longer “fit for purpose”.

“This week proves what some of us have been trying to tell, often at length, patiently, to middle-aged men on Twitter,” she said.

“We do not have a legal right to choose in England and Wales, and that has very real consequences.”

She later told i that the significant turnout to the march “shows women aren’t prepared to accept to the possibility of prosecution hanging over their right to choose”.

“Lawmakers who think they can ignore these concerns fail to understand how important protecting a womans right to choose is to so many,” she said. “Parliament has to act as with more prosecutions on the way this issue isn’t going away.”

Lucy Wing, a 21-year-old from Walthamstow in London who attended the march, said she was “outraged” at Ms Foster’s case.

“I am here because I do not believe that the law that Carla Foster was sentenced under was at all just,” she said.

“A legal understanding of what a person is does not encompass a foetus and it does not encompass a child that was born not breathing. That child does not have any human rights because it is not seen as a person.”

Ms Foster was jailed earlier this week after being found to have ended her pregnancy in May 2020 with “pills by post” that allowed women under 10 weeks pregnant to receive abortion medication during the first Covid lockdown, when access to health services ground to a halt.

The “pills by post” scheme, which was intended to be a temporary measure ushered in during the pandemic, has now been introduced permanently.

Ms Foster, a mother-of-three, pleaded guilty to administering drugs to procure abortion significantly beyond the 10-week time limit, contrary to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. The offence carried a maximum life sentence.

The judge, Mr Justice Pepperall, had received a letter from medical bodies including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Royal College of Midwives urging him to pass a non-custodial sentence.

However, he said this was “inappropriate” and sentenced the woman on the basis of the law as it stands.

The case has reignited calls to decriminalise abortion in the UK, with charities launching a fresh campaign to reform “outdated” laws that allow woman to face life imprisonment for ending their own pregnancies. 

Ed Dorman, 64, an obstetrician and gynaecologist who also attended the march, said that Ms Foster’s case had “galvanised” the abortion movement and drawn attention to the punity of current laws. 

“As you can tell from today, it has galvanised a lot of very strong feeling about the inappropriateness of the way the law, if it’s applied, can result in somebody being sent to prison for ending their own pregnancy,” he said. 

“I would like to see, as in Northern Ireland, the whole remit of abortion care being taken out of the criminal law and, whilst still regulated, be like any other part of healthcare.”

Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in October 2019 after Westminster passed laws while the government at Stormont had collapsed.

However, abortion is still technically illegal in the rest of the UK as legislation brought into force in 1861 has not yet been repealed.

No 10 said earlier this week that the Government has no plans to alter abortion laws despite outrage over Ms Foster’s sentencing. 

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said on Tuesday: “Through the Abortion Act, all women have access to safe abortions on the NHS up to 24 weeks and we have made changes so that now includes taking abortion pills at home.

“We think this approach provides the right balance and … there are no plans to change this.”

The spokesman added: “We recognise that this is a highly emotive issue and obviously we recognise that the strength of feeling on all sides.”

[ifdragonscouldtalk]

"Why isn't pregnancy considered a temporary disability!" It literally is. Legally pregnancy is considered a temporary disability. I'm not even kidding like what are you talking about

[discyours]

You know I can't stop thinking about that opiawillreturn(I can't pronounce it right) ask about pregnancies. I also won't cater to women, couples with children who chose that life for themselves. I am pregnancyphobic and newbornphobic. This whole pregnancy thing give me a huge ick. Embryos are literally hairless parasite like worms that destroy your organs and health. They literally disgust me. I don't understand or agree with this societal idea that everyone should prioritize newborns and cater to pregnant women. They're aren't disabled. It was their choice not mine. People shouldn't suffer because of your personal choices.

I also noticed the age hierarchy when adults must prioritize children's lives (especially new borns) over their own lives by default even if they aren't related to them. It also the same for children. People expect them to sacrifice their lives for younger ones and for them to sacrifice themselves for new borns. I will never agree with this. My life isn't worth less than some human worm just because I'm older.

I don't understand why feminists get butthurt over pregnancies and children. I'm so sorry that you think you are entitled to special treatment because of your dumb choices.

I don't know which ask you're referring to and this reads like it could be a troll but I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt.

Our culture teaches us to think of children as a distinct concept from "people". Sometimes in a seemingly positive way (babies are the most precious things on this planet etc), sometimes more in the way you're describing (babies are human worms, kids are leeches, keep your fuck trophies away from me, etc). It's a false distinction at both extremes. Kids are people. They are underdeveloped and vulnerable people who require others to care for them, but they are full human beings regardless and they are in a stage of life that every single one of us has had to go through.

Your life isn't worth any less than a child's, but it is more secured. When we see children in an emergency (burning building, sinking ship, etc), most of us have an instinctual understanding that they aren't capable of protecting themselves. Either we grant them protection or they die. That alone is enough to make most people want to be protective, but you're still told to put on your own oxygen mask before helping anyone else.

Also, a lot of pregnant women are temporarily disabled. You don't get to deny them that status any more than you can for a guy who got a temporary handicap parking placard because he fucked up his knee going rock climbing. It was his own decision to take that risk, but that doesn't mean he's gonna be denied help when he needs it. Humans are social creatures. Act like it.

[cesium-sheep]

simone points out that an architectural example used in the video about elden ring lacks benches as intentionally hostile architecture which is both inhumane and impacts many other people like people with disabilities or pregnancies (which side note feels like it is also a temporary disability but people artificially squeeze so many people out of the "disabled" category already). this digression was not required by the story (as so many missing pieces seem to be in opposite instances) so it's cool that it was included anyway.