If you would deny bodily autonomy to anyone, you should accept that limitation for yourself. If you would deny freedom of expression to others, you should be ready to accept that proscription yourself.

I hold that no government has any business telling people how to dress or what they do with their bodies.

(April 10, 2024 at 11:50 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: Can there be no bipartisan compromise to this whole issue that takes into account the logical aspects of each opposing party and then ends up with a legal solution that works as a tool to promote human life and wellbeing?

Unlikely. Pro-Life contends that life begins at conception and that terminating the pregnancy at any time is murder. Pro-Choice contends that becoming a human is a process with no simple demarkation points and that abortion should be permissible at least up to a certain cut-off point if not entirely. You might note the lack of middle ground.

Several problems with your approach include:

- Having a bunch of old white men determine what women's rights should be. Again.

- Using religion in the determination. It has a 3000 year track record of failing dismally at health and human rights, so why would you ever consider using it?

- You propose no useful criteria for establishing a cut-off that would be meaningful to a secular society. Establishing arbitrary cut-offs is just going to throw fuel on an already nasty fire.

You might want to use the following as guidelines:

- Most developed nations allow abortion of some form and the few notable exceptions are all deeply religious. Yes, we're looking at you Poland. This debate was settled by the rest of the developed world and persists only in a few zealous hold-outs like the USA.

- One of the most distinctive attributes of what makes a human a human is our brain, specifically our prefrontal cortex. This is where the bulk of your thinking gets done and where the personality that makes you a person originates. This region of the brain doesn't begin development until late in the second trimester, develops the bulk of its function after birth, between 3 and 18 months, and continues developing into your twenties. This is why a newborn infant is largely a ball of squalling instincts. Using this as a guidepost I would have no problem with abortions up to the end of the second trimester and would need a mighty persuasive reason to ban them in the third trimester.

All that pretty much leaves us back where we stated. Get your old white man dogma off of women's bodies.

(June 2, 2024 at 10:01 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: If you would deny bodily autonomy to anyone, you should accept that limitation for yourself. If you would deny freedom of expression to others, you should be ready to accept that proscription yourself.

I hold that no government has any business telling people how to dress or what they do with their bodies.

I want to see somebody table a bill for enforced vassectomies for all men on the grounds that it would nearly eliminate abortions. And watch it soar like a lead balloon.

(June 2, 2024 at 11:43 pm)Paleophyte Wrote:

(June 2, 2024 at 10:01 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: If you would deny bodily autonomy to anyone, you should accept that limitation for yourself. If you would deny freedom of expression to others, you should be ready to accept that proscription yourself.

I hold that no government has any business telling people how to dress or what they do with their bodies.

I want to see somebody table a bill for enforced vassectomies for all men on the grounds that it would nearly eliminate abortions. And watch it soar like a lead balloon.

If men could get pregnant, you'd find abortions available at gas-stations. "I'd like $30 on pump three, and a D&C."

(June 2, 2024 at 11:40 pm)Paleophyte Wrote: All that pretty much leaves us back where we stated. Get your old white man dogma off of women's bodies.

To be fair, Leonardo is Turkish, so I'm not sure the epithet "white" applies. And even at that, so many non-white countries are also patriarchal that throwing that in there seems gratuitous.

(June 2, 2024 at 10:01 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I hold that no government has any business telling people how to dress or what they do with their bodies.

If you went into Walmart stark naked, the police would make you leave. You'd get a ticket, probably, if you weren't Baker Acted. 

If your mom wanted to go to McDonald's topless, she would get in trouble. 

Our society has rules dictating how we dress. Different societies tell people they have to cover up different bits. I assume you're OK with your government enforcing the anti-naked-in-Walmart law, which means that you accept legal limits on dress -- just different ones from some other countries.

(June 3, 2024 at 5:02 am)Belacqua Wrote: I assume you're OK with your government enforcing the anti-naked-in-Walmart law, which means that you accept legal limits on dress -- just different ones from some other countries.

No, you are just using False equivalence.
He doesn't care how people dress but that doesn't mean he doesn't care if people are undressed. Being dressed in a mall has other reasons than fashion, like hygiene.

(June 3, 2024 at 6:04 am)Fake Messiah Wrote:

(June 3, 2024 at 5:02 am)Belacqua Wrote: I assume you're OK with your government enforcing the anti-naked-in-Walmart law, which means that you accept legal limits on dress -- just different ones from some other countries.

No, you are just using False equivalence.
He doesn't care how people dress but that doesn't mean he doesn't care if people are undressed. Being dressed in a mall has other reasons than fashion, like hygiene.

The girls you go with have such dirty boobs that it's unhygienic to take them out?

Well, OK. I won't kink shame you.

(June 3, 2024 at 7:13 am)Belacqua Wrote: The girls you go with have such dirty boobs that it's unhygienic to take them out?

Well, OK. I won't kink shame you.

Non sequitur.

I bumped my head against a wall of text.

Quote:Hormonal gel trial shows promise

On Sunday, at the Endocrine Society’s conference in Boston, researchers with the National Institutes of Health’s Contraceptive Development Program presented encouraging phase 2 trial results on the hormonal gel.

The trial involved 222 men, ages 18 to 50, who applied 5 milliliters of the gel (about a teaspoon) to each of their shoulder blades once per day.

The second part of the two-part trial is still underway. Initial findings showed that the contraceptive worked faster than expected, according to Diana Blithe, chief of NIH’s Contraceptive Development Program.

After 12 weeks of applying the gel every day, 86% of trial participants achieved sperm suppression, meaning they had only up to 1 million sperm per milliliter of semen, the amount the researchers deemed effective for contraception. On average, the timing for effective contraception was eight weeks.

In comparison, normal sperm counts without contraception can range from 15 million to 200 million per milliliter.

The faster-than-expected timing to suppress sperm is an encouraging sign, especially since past attempts have taken longer to reach these sperm levels, Blithe said in a news release about the new data.

Prior efforts using testosterone alone have required higher doses of the hormone, which can cause side effects. Because the gel includes both testosterone and Nestorone, it acts more quickly and requires less testosterone, she said.

Nestorone is a type of synthetic hormone called a progestin that’s already used in the vaginal ring contraceptive. Combining Nestorone and testosterone in the new gel is meant to keep men from producing sperm without affecting their sex drive or causing other side effects.

So far, the men in the gel clinical trial have shown low enough blood levels of testosterone to maintain their normal sexual function.

Researchers are now tracking how well the gel works to prevent pregnancy. Because of pregnancy risk, male participants are required to be in committed, monogamous relationships, and need consent from their female partners too. The couple must agree to use the gel as their only birth control and to have sex at least once a month for a year. Throughout the study, men have their sperm counts tested periodically, which is a good predictor of fertility. If the sperm counts remain low, the chances of pregnancy are slim.

After decades of early-stage attempts and failures, there are no federally approved male birth control drugs. Only a handful have even advanced into human trials.

It’s not because the approaches haven’t shown potential, researchers say, but because there hasn’t been enough funding or financial investment to complete expensive advanced human trials.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mens-heal...rcna153349