Sizzing Chemisty

I spent the last few hours on a pro-choice blog - awful idea, because the crap they have to respond to riles me up and then I can’t sleep and I have work in the morning I have made poor choices this evening - and naturally, one of the “I believe that you can only have an abortion if you were raped” comments came up. I’ve had an argument with my reddit-reading brother over this, and I’ve never seen these points brought up before, so I thought I’d list my reasons as to why that “noble” sentiment is absolute horseshit.

So, how do you go about letting only rape victims get abortions? Surely you can’t just let people who say “I was raped”, and then they get all the abortions they want. I mean, why wouldn’t you? Safe abortion in a medical facility in exchange for untruthfulness sounds better than whatever back alley procedures you’d be forced to go through to become unpregnant (because not allowing legal abortions doesn’t stop people from seeking illegal ones. I realize pro-choicers already know this, but pro-lifers don’t seem to consider this possibility.) I’m sure law makers will realize that they can’t go this route, because those wily women lie about rape all the time already. What then? Clearly, rape victims will have to somehow prove they were raped.

How do we define “proof”? Does the victim have to report it? Or must they go so far as to get their rapist convicted? Statistics show that only around 47 out of 100 rapes are even reported. Being a victim/survivor/label of choice carries a ridiculously huge stigma. Remember that girl in Steubenville who was ‘ruining the lives of those two poor boys’ because she had the audacity to get them convicted for raping her and then putting recorded footage of their attack online for anyone to see? I’d bet that law-makers aren’t going to settle for just reporting In either case; after all, they don’t think that people who can become pregnant can be trusted to make their own decisions about their pregnancy. Hell, some of them don’t think people can even get pregnant if it was “legitimate rape”, therefore it would be safe to assume that you would need a conviction to prove that you’re not just one of those lying liars that women are.

More statistics: 5% of arrests and prosecutions lead to a conviction. What a terrifyingly low number. Basically, the victim/survivor/label of choice has gone to trial, no doubt faced a hundred different versions of “what makes you think this isn’t your fault?” (what were you wearing, what were you drinking, did you lead him on, did you fight back, are you sure you aren’t making this whole thing up), but they have a 95% chance that it will all be for nothing. One more thing - in the previous paragraph, I mentioned that “women lie about rape all the time”. There’s study going around says that 0.6% of rape allegations are falsified, and that’s not taking into account that this is only the percent of reported rapes and “falsified” may have been more like “withdrawn for reasons and falsified is just the word used even though it is completely incorrect”.  Anyway, what do you think will happen when you take the myth “Women lie about rape” and add “You must be a victim of rape to get an abortion” together? If you don’t think that myth will become 5 times more powerful, you have not been following the discussion. Under “rape victim only” abortion restrictions, that 5% conviction rate would probably fall even lower.

Alright, let’s try to have some optimism. Say a miracle occurs: you do manage to beat the odds, convict your rapist, and prove that you deserve that abortion. Well done, a winner is you— WAIT. Did you manage to do all this within 20 weeks? You didn’t think that throwing these extra “rape only” restrictions would drop the 20-24 week window of time you have, did you? Of course not. Remember, that fetus has nerve endings and shit by now, so it’s practically a person - more of a person than lawmakers consider you, actually.

tl;dr - ‘rape victims only’ abortion registration + minimal chance of rape conviction (because you know “proof” will need to be provided that rape occurred) + 20-24 week deadline to provide proof = SNOWBALL’S CHANCE IN HELL OF BEING ABLE TO OBTAIN AN ABORTION

This is why people who think that “allowing exceptions for rape victims” when they want to make abortion illegal are either fucking assholes who haven’t given an ounce of thought to what they’re suggesting, fucking assholes who have no idea how rape or abortion work, or possibly fucking assholes who just want to traumatize uterus-bearers in new and creative ways. Seriously, what better way than to force someone to go through a rape trial with minimal chance of success with their only chance at a safe abortion hanging in the balance? Only a complete monster would think this is a good idea.

sparkay:

Man, Javert. You gave up way too early. If you’d waited, you could’ve chased down an opera ghost. Just saying.

Some dude stole a loaf of bread and then broke his parole for 20 years? Psh, whatever. This guy steals 20,000 francs a month. And occasionally opera singers.

potofriendlyreminders:

hardaslightningsoftascandlelight:

potofriendlyreminders:

Friendly reminder that after Erik lets Christine go, he dies alone in the cellars a few weeks later (✿◠‿◠)

potofriendlyreminders:

Friendly reminder that the Hidden Plot exists. (☆^O^☆)

how could you

avengerofjustice:

anon submitted: 

Friendly reminder that Ma Chao, for the sake of stopping the Hydra, manages to put aside his desire for revenge on Cao Cao for killing his father… his father that is still very much alive, even after the Hydra appears ٩◔‿◔۶

“Indeed I did put it aside….”

“Wait. WHERE WAS HE?!!!!”

((not sure about other stages, but he’s in your group during Battle of Yiling, (video here). Ma Chao, you silly goose, your father was there the whole time c: ))

This latest episode of Grimm was game designers getting killed. It caused me great butthurt.

Guys, the game they made? If you know what Hardcore mode on Diablo is… it’s pretty much that. Every time you die, you reset to level 1, and whoever kills you gets all of your experience/items/etc. How do you even progress in a game like that? It just sounds like an exercise in frustration. I’m sure it would appeal to SUPER HARDCORE GAMERZZZZ, but I’m pretty sure there’s no market to anyone else. Not to mention I’m sure there would be rampant douchebaggery of higher level players picking off people as they’re trying to start the game.

Also, I sincerely doubt the people who made the game are going to be the people with the highest levels. The people with the highest levels are the ones who pretty much make the game their jobs. From what I’ve heard, game designers probably don’t have that kind of time.

It’s okay, Grimm writers, you can say the game has servers. That’s how MMOs work these days. You didn’t have to invent a way for there to be hundreds of players interacting with each other. We already do that. No, a bit of magic “ingenious” coding is not a suitable replacement for servers. That’s not how code works.

Do comic collectors actually put their comics up on the walls? How do you read them if they’re wall decorations?

Is this how people in the medical field feel when they watch doctor shows?

As for plot relevant (and spoilery) complaints… Juliet, what part of hallucinations are unclear to you? Stop asking if other people can see them. Srsly.

flowingchiaki said: Sounds like you have thoughts on the subject..?

I thought he had some sound points in the video, mostly concerning the Disney princesses; they have their problems in their portrayal, but their criticisms are sometimes unfair or inaccurate. About halfway, though, he changes gear and considers why it’s so often princess and not queen in media. When I watched it the first time, I thought this point -

”..why do so many girls prefer princess to queen? Well… Maybe because being a princess not only indicates you’re younger, which often translates to prettier, but also that you have a position of power and responsibility, but not too much responsibility… Thus projecting an image of daintiness and elegance who makes everybody cookies, instead of an image of strong determination who makes powerful changes.”

- was about how women are portrayed as weaker, even when they hold positions of power. It would have been a good statement, if he hadn’t basically summed it up as “girls prefer it this way.” This smacks of “stop oppressing yourself” to me.

I hope he didn’t mean it like that, but it’s pretty shitty and sexist to imply that the problems with princesses are because girls are less responsible or mature compared to boys. He says that Disney transformed fairy tales (and by extension, princesses, I assume), and who created these stories and characters? Mostly men. He says that, while men will often get angry if you call them “boy”, women value youth and innocence over strength and responsibility. Right, and that’s totally because women are just naturally like that and this has nothing to do with the infantilization of women in society.

Basically, what I’m saying is it sound to me like he’s directing his criticisms of the princess trope at the wrong people in the video. It sounds like he’s blaming princess characters for being what they are, instead of the people (who are probably men) that wrote them. He’s blaming the girls that take in the media as opposed to the people who create the media (who are mostly men).

Those are my thoughts. I hope it answered any questions and clarifies my sort of vague previous post.

- Certain male reviewer of movies and stuff that can be considered nostalgic does a video about the princess phenomenon.

- brings up the point that boys want to be kings and girls want to be princesses instead of queens

- notes that queens, when they’re significant characters, are often portrayed as evil while princesses are good and noble

- continues on to say that princesses are more popular because… girls prefer the idea of glamor and power without all the responsibilities of being a true ruler

Oh man, I just had that talk with my brother. He just could not understand why you would call yourself bisexual when you’re just going to end up ‘straight’ or ‘gay’, and that it sounds like they just can’t make a decision. Y’know, because the monogamous relationship you’ll end up in is how you should define your sexuality. And then he tried to explain himself by saying “it’s like being agnostic: it’s not a real thing. Either you believe there’s no god, or you do.” I just… all I could say was “Apples and oranges, kid.” I tried to explain it via “If you like cakeandpie, eating a cake doesn’t mean you don’t like pie, and eating pie doesn’t mean you don’t like cake.”

He closed the argument by saying we were going in circles. I have no idea how this concept is so hard to understand.

wickebine:

DAMN, PERSON IN THE BORDERLANDS TAG IS PRESSED AS HELL THAT IT EXISTS AND PEOPLE ENJOY IT

Apparently Fallout invented the post-apocalyptic wasteland w/ robot companions genre

WHOEVER KNEW

…Wow, you really weren’t kidding. UGH, PEOPLE LIKE THIS GAME I HATE, AND I HATE IT BECAUSE IT SHARES SIMILARITIES WITH A GAME I LIKE, SO IT IS CLEARLY A RIPOFF COPY.

Also, their tumblr is goddamn chunky and hard to deal with. And it has autoplay tunes. Gross.

wickebine:

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Similar situations in Skyrim. There’s pretty much no difference between being male or female in the game, and yet “it’s hard in Whiterun if you’re a woman.” And I sincerely doubt there’s a male equivalent for the woman who says “you’re pretty, better stay from my husband.”