Each of these links has been waiting in my tabs for a blog post of its own. But let's be realistic -- all those blog posts are never going to get written, and I have to restart my computer sometime. So here's a blurb for each.
FDA - Interstate Raw Milk Ban
This is a ruling of the FDA in which they say that we don't have the right to eat what we want, to buy what we want from someone willing to sell it to us, or to feed our children what we want. We don't have the right to health or to freedom of contract.
Immune Disorder at the Root of Autism
I can get behind this theory, though I still maintain that autism almost certainly has more than one cause. Some cases might be genetic and others environmental, for instance. But definitely our modern immune systems tend toward inflammation, and a lack of healthy gut flora is a contributing factor. On the other hand, curing autism with worms? Ick.
Giving Birth to a "Rapist's Child"
This scholarly article was really enlightening. The main point is that there should be more legal protection for mothers who choose to raise children conceived in rape, in order to ensure the rapist is not given custody of the child. (Few states have any law on this topic at all.) But along the way, it addressed so many other stereotypes: that a woman who conceives in rape will necessarily want an abortion, that if she doesn't want an abortion it means she wasn't really raped, or that most rapists are brought to justice. (An estimated 98% aren't, and of those who are convicted, the average sentence is 11 months.) It's full of citations from scholarly sources, proving the falsehood of many of these stereotypes. And it points out that fewer rape victims might choose abortion if only they could be certain they would be given exclusive custody of their children, rather than having to take a chance on a family court ruling in their favor.
1 comment:
1. I always go to the menu where you can set your homepage and hit "use current tabs" when I have to restart my computer or close Firefox for whatever reason. When I restart Firefox, it opens up all my tabs for me. (I'm assuming there's an equivalent in other browsers; I don't know what you use.)
2. I find that autism article especially interesting in light of an article one of my Facebook friends posted a while back supposedly "proving" that vaccines cause autism because the Amish, who don't vaccinate, also have a very low autism rate. (The article had a lot of logical holes; it certainly didn't come close to convincing me.) I imagine the Amish also live a much less sanitized lifestyle than people who live more in the mainstream. Though that still doesn't prove anything; there's that pesky correlation =/= causation problem.
Post a Comment