(Source: jaymug)

6:04 pm  •  20 February 2012  •  472 notes

weexist-weresist:

propaganda-for-life:

This is a growing list. If you ever want me to add an argument here, just say so! Here is a shorter version of it by solo1y.

Last edit: 9/29/2011

1. Fetal Pain:
   Fetuses cannot feel pain before 24 weeks, at which point elective abortion is usually illegal and almost never happens in the first place.
   
   There are some studies that may suggest that fetal pain exists. These are bad studies. This one, for example, is by one KJS Anand, who I can find practically no qualifications for. His medical qualification is only an MBBS, a Bachelor’s Degree in medicine. His Oxford degree is in philosophy. And it mentions here that he lived on the Harvard campus, but never got a degree of any kind there. He also has a PhD in pediatrics, but that’s children’s medicine; children usually don’t have to worry about abortion. He has an impressive resume, sure, but he’s certainly not qualified to write such a gigantic study on fetal pain. Besides, the study showing that fetuses don’t feel pain before 24 weeks is newer.
2. Abortion is Unsafe:
   It’s actually one of the safest procedures in existence, and it’s actually safer than pregnancy, carrying to term, and delivery.
3. Planned Parenthood is Primarily an Abortion Provider:
   I can’t believe we still have to go over this, but abortion is only 3% of what Planned Parenthood provides. “90%” was a total lie spread by US Senator Jon Kyl, who later confessed that it was “not intended to be a factual statement.” Moreover, they provide so much contraception (well over 30% of their services) that they actually prevent more abortions than they perform to the tune of 800,000 fewer abortions per year.
4. Our taxes (US) are spent on abortions: 
   For the moment, we have the Hyde Amendment preventing exactly that, though it really should be repealed as it is a discriminatory law. Besides, so what if you disagree with abortion as a taxpayer? My taxes have paid for multiple wars I never wanted to happen since I was born; now it’s your turn. That, and I pay my taxes without much for moral complaints now because I’m an adult who likes fire departments and traffic lights.
5. Only women get pregnant: 
   False. Meet trans-men. Anti-choice legislation affects anyone with a uterus, which is not restricted only to cisgendered women.
6. Abortion kills babies: 
   No, it kills a fetus and a potential person (more in the next point). When you might actually call it a “baby,” elective abortion is usually illegal. (Specifically, that’s past twenty-one weeks in most countries.) When abortions do happen at this stage (only 1.5% of abortions do), virtually all of them happen because the life of the mother is in danger, and no mother going through this actually wants it to happen.
7. A fetus is a person: 
   No, it is a potential person. This post explains it better than I can: “Webster’s Dictionary lists a person as ‘being an individual or existing as an indivisible whole; existing as a distinct entity.’ Anti-abortionists claim that each new fertilized zygote is already a new person because its DNA is uniquely different than anyone else’s. In other words, if you’re human, you must be a person.
   
   […]
   
   The defining mark between something that is human and someone who is a person is ‘consciousness.’ It is the self-aware quality of consciousness that makes us uniquely different from others. This self-awareness, this sentient consciousness is also what separates us from every other animal life form on the planet. We think about ourselves. We use language to describe ourselves. We are aware of ourselves as a part of the greater whole.
   
   
   The problem is that consciousness normally doesn’t occur until months, even years, after a baby is born. This creates a moral dilemma for the defender of abortion rights. Indeed, they inherently know what makes a human into a person, but they are also aware such individual personhood doesn’t occur until well after birth. To use personhood as an argument for abortion rights, therefore, also leads to the argument that it should be okay to kill a 3-month-old baby since it hasn’t obtained consciousness either.” 
8.  Most women regret abortion: 
   False. “The most common feeling experienced after an abortion is that of relief and confidence in the decision. Few women may experience feelings of grief and guilt, and these feelings usually pass within days to weeks in most cases and do not lead to mental health problems.” (Source) Also, 80% of women who terminate do not regret their decision. (Source)
9. On a similar note, “Post-Abortion Syndrome”: 
   Neither the American Psychological Association nor the American Psychiatric Association recognize this as a real phenomenon, and in fact reject its existence. As stated above, most women do not regret abortion, and in fact are usually satisfied with their decision. PAS is a fictitious concept invented to scare women. That’s all it is.
10. “Pro-choicers are murderers/baby-killers/oppressors/anti-life/pro-abortion/the most evil people on Earth!”:
    I think you need to look into the definition of libel, my friends.
11. “Emergency contraception (Morning After Pills) is the same as abortion!” 
    Nope, it keeps you from becoming pregnant in the first place by pausing ovulation to inhibit fertilization. This is basic science. Did we all graduate high school here? Contraception prevents abortion; wouldn’t contraception and “pro-lifers” make natural allies?
12. Emergency contraception is unhealthy! 
    Wrong again. This is slightly harder science right now, I know, but here you can read an accurate list of all of the observed side effects of EC/MAPs, none of which are lethal or long-term.
13. Birth control is the same as abortion! 
    Wrong again. Similar to EC, they keep you from getting pregnant. Here, however, they perpetually keep the ovum from beginning its ovulatory cycle and are generally taken every day or on some regular basis.
14. The only purpose of sex is procreation: 
    In most animals, this is true. But not for humans. Our psychology is more advanced than that, and sex can do far more for us than just procreation. It’s a method of bonding in humans, too. 
    
    The extension of this argument is inevitably that if someone doesn’t want children, they shouldn’t have sex. Besides being a homophobic argument, let’s for example take heterosexual, bisexual, or pansexual people (all attracted in some way to the opposite sex) who never want children. Do you really expect all of these people to never have sex? To die virgins? This is a completely fallacious and erroneous expectation.
15. Adoption! 
    I could make a litany of all the problems with the adoption system. It’s admirable at heart, but the system has serious racism and ageism problems. Not to mention ableism problems. That too.
    
    Moreover, adoption isn’t an alternative to pregnancy. It’s an alternative to parenthood. Abortion ends the gestation process. When a person (trans-man or cisgendered woman) becomes pregnant, they are more likely to be murdered, and murder accounts for 20% of deaths of all pregnant people.
    
    Furthermore, I’ve brought this up before, but let’s say that, like me personally (sanityscraps.tumblr), your mother drilled into you that if you ever got pregnant as a teen, she would throw you out of the house to fend for yourself. I’m not the only one who had this threat. Thankfully for me, that never happened, but not all people are so lucky. Would you really, then, tell a fourteen year old child, a fourteen year old me, even, that life on the streets with no resources was better than simply terminating the pregnancy?
    
    Oh, and putting your child up for adoption is more emotionally traumatic than having an abortion.
    
    So it really is not that simple. Stop pretending you understand the lives of everyone, because you absolutely do not. Sometimes the pregnancy is the problem too, not just the developing child itself.
16. “I’m pro-life because God is.” 
    Let’s keep religion out of this. This is a debate about a medical procedure, not what some invisible man thinks. But there are some very convincing arguments showing that Yahweh is not pro-life, using quotes from the Bible. He advocates rape, child abuse, and murder, and is in fact impressed by it.
17. “Look at all these pictures of aborted fetuses! Abortion is disgusting!” 
    Almost all surgery is bloody. (Warning: these links are graphic.) Gallbladder surgery! Open heart surgery! Lung surgery! These aren’t very visually appealing either. And yet, they all save lives, as does abortion. Should all of these procedures be illegal just because they don’t look pretty?
    
    Besides, a lot of the “fetus” pictures you post aren’t even fetuses at all. Many of the photos anti-choicers use are of fully-grown, smiling infants. But even with the bloody pictures you claim as aborted fetuses, some are, but some are not. For instance, I doubt this is actually an aborted fetus (graphic). It looks more like an infant, perhaps premature, killed in a war zone. The anti-choice site it’s on claims it’s from an abortion at seven months—at which point elective abortion, again, simply does not happen. Only 1.5% of all abortions take place after four months at all, and at this point, it’s virtually always because the mother’s life is directly threatened. So even if that last image were an aborted fetus, it would not have been one done on the mother’s whim.
18. Partial-Birth Abortion:
    Is a total myth. Yes, it exists, but it is NOT a birth, and this name is a misnomer. It only LOOKS like a birth. “It is an abortion that looks like a birth, not a birth interrupted by an abortion.” These are only performed past 20 weeks. Again, as I’ve cited multiple times above, only 1.5% of all abortions happen past 21 weeks, and when they do, they’re exclusively because the health of the mother is in danger from the pregnancy itself.
19. Abortion clinic escorts are paid!: 
    I can’t actually verify this either way. The best primary source I can find indicate that some are paid, and some are not. It’s hard to say for everyone, but at the very least, most escorts are unpaid volunteers. However, many people from anti-choice CPCs are paid to harass women to go into their fake clinics, which emotionally terrorize the poor women who accidentally end up there.
    
    And last, but not least… 
20. Abortion is immoral! 
    No it’s not.

needed this!

An addition I can’t help but make (though properly it should be on the abortion-is-not-immoral list) is one of my favourite points of Thompson’s, great as a counter to those who hold the extreme view - i.e. that abortion is never morally permissible under any circumstances - and they claim this is because ‘the fetus is a person’. Well actually that’s just idiocy, because even if the fetus were a person (and most of us certainly don’t want to claim that) then that person-status wouldn’t grant them such protection: we kill people all the time - and it’s permitted. I’m sure many right-wingers who are anti-choice are also heavily in favour of the death penalty, and wars heavy on the body count. Even without such political opinions, you have to be at a very uncommon end of the scale to believe ‘killing a person is never morally permissible’. Take a scenario where a person is about to set off a bomb that will destroy your entire family, rip through the entire street, the entire city even, unless you kill him. Most will certainly say killing one person to save eight million is permitted.

But when it comes to the fetus - oh, then they want to introduce a ‘under no circumstances!’ clause - but it can’t earn that by ‘being a person’. If we truly wanted to treat a fetus like we treat persons then we’d certainly be allowed to kill it under given circumstances. Instead, then, what anti-abortion types are demanding is that fetuses are not treated like people, but better than people - occupying some all-other-considerations-obliterating space, where no-one can touch them. And dear me when you’re thinking that a fetus in a woman’s womb is of more worth than any person in existence past or present - then you probably really need to take a step back and reconsider your morals.

(via oogishkamaanisee)

12:02 pm  •  20 February 2012  •  1,048 notes

neuroticthought:

All of the RSA Animate videos are worth watching, here’s one on the differences between the left and right hemispheres. The video has some great information, but one particular item he covers is good to remember: the main function of the frontal lobe - the characteristic that best sets us apart from other animals - is to INHIBIT the rest of the brain. 

It allows us to stand back from the immediacy of experience.

6:00 am  •  20 February 2012  •  34 notes

violent-buddhist:

Scientists discover most relaxing tune ever

Sound therapists and Manchester band Marconi Union compiled the song. Scientists played it to 40 women and found it to be more effective at helping them relax than songs by Enya, Mozart and Coldplay.

Weightless works by using specific rhythms, tones, frequencies and intervals to relax the listener. A continuous rhythm of 60 BPM causes the brainwaves and heart rate to synchronise with the rhythm: a process known as ‘entrainment’. Low underlying bass tones relax the listener and a low whooshing sound with a trance-like quality takes the listener into an even deeper state of calm.

Dr David Lewis, one of the UK’s leading stress specialists said: “‘Weightless’ induced the greatest relaxation – higher than any of the other music tested. Brain imaging studies have shown that music works at a very deep level within the brain, stimulating not only those regions responsible for processing sound but also ones associated with emotions.”

The study - commissioned by bubble bath and shower gel firm Radox Spa - found the song was even more relaxing than a massage, walk or cup of tea. So relaxing is the tune, apparently, that people are being Rex advised against listening to it while driving.

The top 10 most relaxing tunes were: 1. Marconi Union - Weightless 2. Airstream - Electra 3. DJ Shah - Mellomaniac (Chill Out Mix) 4. Enya - Watermark 5. Coldplay - Strawberry Swing 6. Barcelona - Please Don’t Go 7. All Saints - Pure Shores 8. AdelevSomeone Like You 9. Mozart - Canzonetta Sull’aria 10. Cafe Del Mar - We Can Fly

6:04 pm  •  19 February 2012  •  69,169 notes

invisiblemoose:

This is the best metaphor for the patriarchy I’ve ever seen.

12:00 pm  •  19 February 2012  •  1,178 notes

gaksdesigns:

The Singing Tree  is a wind powered sound sculpture resembling a tree set in the landscape of the Pennine mountain range overlooking Burnley, in Lancashire. Listen to it’s creepy noises Here 

6:00 am  •  19 February 2012  •  1,544 notes

The participants – all white – watched simple videos in which men of different races picked up a glass and took a sip of water. They watched white, black, South Asian and East Asian men perform the task.

Typically, when people observe others perform a simple task, their motor cortex region fires similarly to when they are performing the task themselves. However, the UofT research team, led by PhD student Jennifer Gutsell and Assistant Professor Dr. Michael Inzlicht, found that participants’ motor cortex was significantly less likely to fire when they watched the visible minority men perform the simple task. In some cases when participants watched the non-white men performing the task, their brains actually registered as little activity as when they watched a blank screen…

The trend was even more pronounced for participants who scored high on a test measuring subtle racism, says Gutsell.

So much talk about mirror-neurons these days, but the vast majority of research isn’t any where nearly as interesting/socially important as things like this.

(Source: darkjez, via adailyriot)

6:05 pm  •  18 February 2012  •  727 notes

(via walkinthewords-deactivated20120)

12:00 pm  •  18 February 2012  •  55 notes

Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America’s uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th nuclear weapon. “Our intelligence estimates indicate that, if it is allowed to progress with its aggressive nuclear program, the United States may soon possess its 8,500th atomic weapon capable of reaching Iran,” said Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, adding that Americans have the fuel, the facilities, and ”everything they need” to manufacture even more weapons-grade fissile material. ”Obviously, the prospect of this happening is very distressing to Iran and all countries like Iran. After all, the United States is a volatile nation that’s proven it needs little provocation to attack anyone anywhere in the world whom it perceives to be a threat.” Iranian intelligence experts also warned of the very real, and very frightening, possibility of the U.S. providing weapons and resources to a rogue third-party state such as Israel.

Courtesy of The Onion.

6:00 am  •  18 February 2012

mentalflossr:

It began as part of a magazine’s campaign to sell flags to schools.

6:02 pm  •  17 February 2012  •  275 notes

Interesting Guardian article detailing how ‘Neuromarketers are using MRI scanners and electrode caps to work out our hidden reactions to their adverts’: though the opening line, ‘The world’s biggest companies have got a new way of convincing you to buy their products – by getting inside your head’, might stir up a fair bit of reactionary terror in even the most forward-thinking hearts, if you pause for a moment from yelling ‘George Orwell was right!’ and hastily flicking through pages of 1984 for advice on how to fight this thing, and instead read further into the article, it does explain how this is really just a step onwards from, but in the same style as, using traditional focus-groups.

“We put a cap on your head that measures your brain impulses,” said AK Pradeep, a pioneer of neuromarketing science and chief executive of NeuroFocus, one of the biggest players in a booming industry. “We measure all parts of your brain continuously. Second by second, we measure how much attention you’re paying. We get [to learn] what emotions you’re experiencing and what memories you’re memorising.”

Pradeep says watching people’s brains via caps covered in electrodes or magnetic scanners that are normally used by hospitals to detect cancer is better than direct questioning because, “when you ask people to tell you how they feel, the very act of thinking about a feeling changes the feeling”.

What’s more, not only does thinking about a feeling change the feeling, but also verbalising experiences is certainly never a simple case of transcribing them - no matter how vividly or definitely you may feel a certain feeling, and know you feel it, it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to translate that into language - as anyone who’s ever found themselves in a frustrating ‘I know what I want to say but it’s not coming out right!’ situation will recognise.

For those less interested in the marketing world (or who generally consider advertisers a kind of evil): I wouldn’t go around smashing up such technologies just yet - I prefer having the possibility of putting these methods to use in wider realms - to produce a whole catalogue of readings for the emotions evoked in people by certain works of art, or literature, or music, for example. The ability to record how people are feeling at the very instance of an experience, before the moment of reflection, before the moment of verbalisation, is by no means a bad thing, and could be a very interesting one. Using it to so effectively sell products that we find ourselves with flats packed full of thousands of boxes of cereal and straight-to-DVD movies but only £2.53 left to pay the rent, on the other hand - that’s the point when the dystopian element really kicks in.

12:02 pm  •  17 February 2012

Contronyms are words which have identical spellings but opposite meanings.

For example:

• ‘fast’ = moving quickly / being stuck (‘stuck fast’)
• ‘overlook’ = to inspect / fail to notice
• ‘weather’ = to endure / erode
• ‘sanction’ = support for an action / penalty for an action
• ‘clip’ = to attach / cut off
• ‘out’ = visible (‘the stars are out’) / invisible (‘the lights are out’)

For many more examples in English, see here, and for an idea of how these strange-seeming phenomena come about see, as ever, the relevant wise words of Wikipedia.

6:00 am  •  17 February 2012

6:02 pm  •  16 February 2012  •  1 note