Moderate my ass - Discussion about Birth Control

[fundiefan]

I have the Mirena IUD. It is made of plastic and it releases low dose hormones that increase uterine mucus, making my uterus a place no egg wants to take up residence.

Even if sperm gets through the crazy environment to catch up with an egg, their meeting most likely will not go any further than a one night stand since there is no place for them to go together, safely and with growth potential.

A fertilized egg needs to implant in a uterus that will accept an nourish it. Otherwise, it's that time of the month. With or without 'help'.

[Angri-la]

Yeah, my first thought was "Oh, shit, what did we do to piss someone off now?" :D

My thought was "ooh, who wants me to moderate their ass? Let it be someone defrauding!"

[The Archivist]

My thought was "ooh, who wants me to moderate their ass? Let it be someone defrauding!"

lol

So.................I know this is going to come off as rather rich from someone who focuses on one fundie in particular, but boy does that woman have a thing for Mckmama.

What's that all about anyway?

Not that Mckmama is anything but an apparent grifter, but MHM has had it out for her in a really big way for quite a while. I always wondered about that.

[treemom]

MHM has some issues. She is a fb friend and I am always two seconds from defriending her ass.

[lauracat7]

I'm always amused that rabid fanatics never see themselves that way- instead, whether, religious, political etc., they pretty much always call themselves "moderate".

[Burris]

I don't know if I could moderate on a board like this. I would not know what to do. If anyone ever nominates me (fat chance!) just laugh in their faces.

I used to mod here. I like this forum and the people here. I also like and respect all the mods. But actually being a mod sucks festering donkey-balls. There are just too many situations where you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. I don't mind getting dirty, but being a mod requires a certain amount of personal restraint and there were so many times when I just wanted to respond with, "Won't you just fuck the hell off?"

As for Milehi, I've been on conversations with her over the years - on STC and off. She seems like a nice person, but her politics are nowhere near "moderate." She's a fundie Catholic who will swallow any amount of crap the Church is prepared to stuff into her gullet, as evidenced by her responses here.

[treemom]

I used to mod here. I like this forum and the people here. I also like and respect all the mods. But actually being a mod sucks festering donkey-balls. There are just too many situations where you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. I don't mind getting dirty, but being a mod requires a certain amount of personal restraint and there were so many times when I just wanted to respond with, "Won't you just fuck the hell off?"

As for Milehi, I've been on conversations with her over the years - on STC and off. She seems like a nice person, but her politics are nowhere near "moderate." She's a fundie Catholic who will swallow any amount of crap the Church is prepared to stuff into her gullet, as evidenced by her responses here.

I just want to be clear, I also agree MHM is very nice and I actually think she is quite compassionate about a large swath of things.

[kb2]

I think it is because the iud the pill and other things can be used as an abortifacient. They prevent already fertilized eggs (which are a life-they have 23 chromosomes from mom/23 from dad) from implanting in the womb, thus killing this already formed life.

The unfertilized egg is also alive. It won't start forming an embryo without fertilization,** but neither will a blastocyst without implantation. The distinction is pretty arbitrary.

*If a pregnancy has only paternal genes, because the egg accidentally got rid of all of its genetic material, and then got fertilized with one sperm which multiplied its genetic material and now has 46-chromosomes only from dad, it can only form a placenta. This can become a molar pregnancy--a pregnancy which never had any "being" with 23 chromosomes from mom and 23 from dad. An embryoless placenta, or placenta tumor, is such an inert thing, an organ gone wrong, a never-was entity. And yet my mom (and others) describes being really sad when she was diagnosed with a molar pregnancy--to her it was just like a miscarriage--she was pregnant, and then she wasn't. This is why I don't understand the argument that because miscarriage is sad, all embryos/fetuses are absolutely on the level of a born human. People do mourn the loss of a theoretical, but not real, life--they just do. Why can't people just have grief over a loss, without having to teleologically classify that loss to the world? It just is sad, whether anything was alive or not.

**Actually, unfertilized eggs have grown all the way to blastocysts in labs. Very theoretically (but not likely), an egg could start developing on its own in the body, but since it could never really implant properly you'd never know. (Parthenogenesis: a fun google search.) More likely, just being near sperm, an egg could be exposed to enough encouraging chemicals to start dividing into a blastocyst without actually acquiring sperm chromosomes. (This definitely happens in other animals, but I couldn't find it happening in humans.) Contrary to pregnancies with only paternal chromosomes, pregnancies with only maternal chromosomes (which really only happen in mammals which are not human) have insufficient placentas, but relatively well-developed embryos. Pigs can carry this pregnancy to about 30 days. Meaning the egg does carry the potential for an embryo that could reach the developmental point of having a heartbeat, all by itself, with no fertilization.

Also, there's some other combinations of genetic rearrangements that could take place and cause some of the situations above, but I just wanted to give some examples instead of going through them all. Actually, I did want to go through them all but then I was getting bogged down and my comment was so much longer and unreadable.

[Austin]

The unfertilized egg is also alive. It won't start forming an embryo without fertilization,** but neither will a blastocyst without implantation. The distinction is pretty arbitrary.

*If a pregnancy has only paternal genes, because the egg accidentally got rid of all of its genetic material, and then got fertilized with one sperm which multiplied its genetic material and now has 46-chromosomes only from dad, it can only form a placenta. This can become a molar pregnancy--a pregnancy which never had any "being" with 23 chromosomes from mom and 23 from dad. An embryoless placenta, or placenta tumor, is such an inert thing, an organ gone wrong, a never-was entity. And yet my mom (and others) describes being really sad when she was diagnosed with a molar pregnancy--to her it was just like a miscarriage--she was pregnant, and then she wasn't. This is why I don't understand the argument that because miscarriage is sad, all embryos/fetuses are absolutely on the level of a born human. People do mourn the loss of a theoretical, but not real, life--they just do. Why can't people just have grief over a loss, without having to teleologically classify that loss to the world? It just is sad, whether anything was alive or not.

**Actually, unfertilized eggs have grown all the way to blastocysts in labs. Very theoretically (but not likely), an egg could start developing on its own in the body, but since it could never really implant properly you'd never know. (Parthenogenesis: a fun google search.) More likely, just being near sperm, an egg could be exposed to enough encouraging chemicals to start dividing into a blastocyst without actually acquiring sperm chromosomes. (This definitely happens in other animals, but I couldn't find it happening in humans.) Contrary to pregnancies with only paternal chromosomes, pregnancies with only maternal chromosomes (which really only happen in mammals which are not human) have insufficient placentas, but relatively well-developed embryos. Pigs can carry this pregnancy to about 30 days. Meaning the egg does carry the potential for an embryo that could reach the developmental point of having a heartbeat, all by itself, with no fertilization.

Also, there's some other combinations of genetic rearrangements that could take place and cause some of the situations above, but I just wanted to give some examples instead of going through them all. Actually, I did want to go through them all but then I was getting bogged down and my comment was so much longer and unreadable.

That's incredibly interesting, kb2. Kind of amazing.

[alba]

As a whole, my beef is that prevention does not equal anti. I am not opposed to life and I would not consider ending the life of another living being (other than snakes and mosquitoes and sometimes spiders, and the humane sources of my meat). Preventing the creation of life, however, IS NOT BEING ANTI LIFE!

I agree, especially as, as you and others have noted, birth control preserves life in developing countries. Hence it's pro-life in that its intention is to prevent death.

Actually, that's a large part of my beef with the anti-choice movement calling itself pro-life; it's such a vague statement that isn't held up in their ideals and actions. Often the movement doesn't care about what happens to the woman or even to the fetus once it's born, only that it passes through the birth canal intact and alive.

Anyway, I maintain that I use birth control because I'm pro-life: I appreciate and savour life and don't want that hampered or destroyed by pregnancy :P

[RKB]

I was just directed to this thread when I was checking to see if anyone knew what happened to Sweeping the Cobwebs.

Is Greek Chorus REALLY MHM or was MHM just one of the mods?

I hate a mystery with no reveal. It would be great to know the answer to this!

What caused the flounce and the defunct site? (I miss all the good stuff...)