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Maternity healthcare in the US is one of the worst in the developed nations. And yet we're banning abortion, and doing nothing to fix it. Even WIC has came unde
by malfist 4y ago
Maternity healthcare in the US is one of the worst in the developed nations. And yet we're banning abortion, and doing nothing to fix it. Even WIC has came under attack in the past.
Protecting the unborn is very convenient. They make no demands of you.
Edit: WIC: Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic
- nickff 4y agoWhat's "WIC"? I didn't see the acronym defined in the OP or your post.
- worldmerge 4y agohttps://www.fns.usda.gov/wic https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic
- pc86 4y agoCommonly referred to as food stamps.
- kube-system 4y agoOften SNAP is called "food stamps", but they're similar: https://www.benefits.gov/news/article/439 https://www.benefits.gov/news/article/439
- krzyk 4y agoI thought the 80ties behind iron curtain were bad because we had food stamps.
- InitialLastName 4y agoWait until you hear about Government Cheese [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_cheese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_cheese
- runako 4y agoThe Food Stamps program became SNAP. These are both distinct from WIC. It is crucial that we have lots of programs with distinct eligibility criteria to make sure that poor people are suffering sufficiently.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- runako 4y agoFood stamps was a different program, targeted at poor people more generally. It's now SNAP, and it does not require recipients to have children < 5 years old or be pregnant. 1 in 6 American kids live in a household that receives SNAP benefits. I don't have the stats handy, but some large plurality of Americans receive SNAP benefits at some point during their lives.
- runako 4y agoAid specifically targeted at food and nutrition for women and children. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIC
- notch656a 4y agoWIC is way overcomplicated for what it is. Just cut a check for the value of the goods you want to provide and be done with it. No excuse for the insane bloat and overhead associated with WIC.
- mikestew 4y agoJust cut a check for the value of the goods you want to provide and be done with it. Are you under the assumption that your suggestion hasn't been tried (and subsequently found wanting)?
- notch656a 4y agoHaving shopped in some pretty impoverished area (and worked as a grocery store cashier for more than 1 year), WIC and EBT for people who were going to use the value for bad/other purposes is just giving cash with extra steps. What they end up doing is hawking the goods (or vouchers) on the street for diapers, the rent, crack, gas, whatever it may be they need the money for. Just cut out the bloat and give the cash, IMO.
- runako 4y agoThe bloat and overhead is necessary to ensure that poor people suffer sufficiently and prove that they deserve to eat.
- coldpie 4y agoThis is generally what advocates for these kinds of programs ask for. The bloat and overhead gets added by welfare opponents under the justification of "preventing abuse."
- 4y ago
- mikestew 4y agoSocial services for Women, Infants, and Children, primarily around supplemental food assistance and health care, IIRC: https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dfxm12 4y agoNot just banning abortion, but any medicine that could maybe possibly be used as an abortifacient, even if it is normally prescribed medicine for something else. Some women suffering from arthritis can't get methotrexate for example.
- ok_dad 4y ago> Some women suffering from arthritis can't get methotrexate for example. Or, some kids can be denied access (even temporarily is a shame): https://www.kold.com/2022/10/01/teen-girl-denied-medication-refill-under-azs-new-abortion-law/ https://www.kold.com/2022/10/01/teen-girl-denied-medication-...
- pstuart 4y agoNot just that, but planning to make contraception illegal. Probably sex-ed too.
- vkou 4y agoYou're being downvoted because there is no way in hell that the Republican party will push for restrictions on contraception. After all, both their politicians and their court nominees insisted that abortion is a long-settled issue, and have not reneged on it the second they had the power to - we can trust them to continue operating in good faith, and in a matter that respects public opinion.
- fragmede 4y agohttps://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/07/ohio-state-representative-says-she-would-consider-banning-birth-control-following-abortion-outlaw.html https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/07/ohio-state-representa...
- pstuart 4y agoGOP SCOTUS Justice Thomas has posited that everything is on the table: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/24/thomas-constitutional-rights-00042256 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/24/thomas-constitution... At the risk of hurting the feelings of party members, I do not associate "good faith" with them. Edit: I missed the sarcasm. Poe's Law, ya know.
- xupybd 4y agoI understand that less abortions means more pregnancies to deal with but aren't they fundamentally separate issues. A health system needs to be able to deal with the load presented to it.
- neves 4y agoOne of main causes of abortion is high risk pregnancies. You are increasing the load with the most difficult and risk cases.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kube-system 4y agoI have family that specializes in high-risk pregnancy care -- much of the problems they deal with are rooted in drug addiction. That really needs to be fixed before you can have a successful pregnancy even with the best care.
- nsxwolf 4y agoAre you saying the solution to maternity related deaths is abortion here? Eliminating maternal death by eliminating maternity? I don't understand.
- malfist 4y agoIt is certainly one alternative here. Not the only. There's no reason abortion should be safe, legal and rare. And there's no reason we should be having such a high rate of preventable maternity related deaths.
- mnd999 4y ago
- kube-system 4y agoThere are some pregnancies which are dangerous to the mother's health. When it is difficult or impossible for those patients to get treatment, they will die at higher rates.
- petsfed 4y agoThe core of the argument is that for a significant number of these deaths (especially mental health or substance abuse related), if the mothers had been allowed to abort the baby, they would be in addition allowed to get the mental health or substance abuse issues under control. Of course, they might not get those issues under control. They might still have died of substance abuse or suicide. But the stress of being a new mother is well known (if not well understood or well supported by society or the American medical system - clearly). If a person is already predisposed to substance abuse and/or self-harm, maybe the additional impacts of post-partum mental conditions would push them further down that road. Especially as it pertains to the maternal-mortality/abortion discussion, I think its important to remember that the would-be mother's material conditions are not guaranteed to be static over the course of the pregnancy and post-partum period. The decision to conceive might be made in accordance with the best possible medical and financial advice, and still result in a bad situation for mother or child at the end of it all. My wife had a pretty easy time with both of our kids, but I am constantly haunted by stories from folks who made the same decisions we did, and lost mother, child, or both.
- dane-pgp 4y agoI completely agree with you, except I think the middle line of your comment is needlessly snide. One could equally say: "Protecting unborn (and newly born) humans is very inconvenient. They make all sorts of demands of you. (So maybe we should deny their humanity.)" The real questions are "At what point does human life begin / become valuable?" and "Should governments provide for their citizens or merely punish those who harm them?". There are good arguments to be made by decent people on all sides of those debates, so let's not make cheap shots which detract from reaching a better understanding.
- saiya-jin 4y agoYou can't reach middle ground if you have religious fanatics who feel righteous above everybody else and keep pushing their values unto all. This is valid in any religion, and can be currently seen causing havoc among christians and muslims alike. They can shield themselves by extremist interpretations of 'word of god' (which takes some mental gymnastics since his are, if at all, only 10 commandments and thats it, rest is just human-made stories). Funnily most of those folks fail with following even those 10 basic rules, but thats another topic. We went through this decades ago in Europe and largely emerged as better, more democratic and freer societies. Those times are regarded as dark primitive times when looking back, when a lot of trauma was done and a lot of regretful actions happened.
- frob 4y agoI believe it is an allusion to a speech by the Methodist pastor David Barnhart: "The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
- Dma54rhs 4y agoIts difficult to find countries with so liberal abortion laws as in America. As an European it amazes me that so many people think abortion at late stages is "Business as usual".
- ssully 4y agoI’ve never encountered someone who is pro-abortion that believes a late stage abortion is “business as usual”. It’s usually considered a tragedy because rarely does a mother get that late in a pregnancy and want an abortion. They get them because something terrible has gone wrong.
- watwut 4y agoI mean, this is a lie. Both in terms of late stage abortion being "business as usual" in USA and in terms of late stage abortion not being done in Europe. Laws vary between countries, but basically Poland is not Europe. Generally you can get late stage abortion for variety for health issues (abd even social ones). Also, you won't be denied prescribed medicine you need for pregnancy unrelated condition just because you are woman and it might also end pregnancy. Also, there is no ban on talking about abortion.
- Dma54rhs 4y agoIt's safe to say its 12 weeks in America, your conservatives lately proposed 15 weeks that is more generous than the average if EU.
- xupybd 4y ago>Generally you can get late stage abortion for variety for health issues Isn't this true in even the most extremely anti abortion states of the US?
- macintux 4y agoIndiana just outlawed all abortion after 20 weeks post-fertilization, even if it would kill the mother.