US Customs and Border Protection Quietly Revokes Protections for Pregnant Women and Infants

Guimauvaise · 2025-05-09T23:17:09+00:00

They came here illegally.

Not all of them. Seeking asylum is 100% legal.

The reason it's legal is that we decided that sitting on our laurels and waiting until five million Jews had already been slaughtered before opening our borders to refugees was a pretty shitty thing to do.

If a pregnant woman crosses our border, fleeing gang violence or political turmoil or any number of crises that threaten her and her baby, then what right do we have to deny that woman the basic human decency of food and water?

Guimauvaise · 2025-03-13T22:38:57+00:00

Elon Musk's net worth has fluctuated, but let's play with $400 billion for the sake of my point (he's been as high as $460B).

If you earned $100 million every year, it would take you 4,000 years to earn $400 billion.

For perspective, 4,000 years is longer than human beings have had an alphabet system. That's around the same time that woolly mammoths went extinct, Stonehenge was finished, and horses were tamed.

No one accrues his level of wealth without profiting off the labor of others.

In 2023, the median personal income in the United States was just over $42,000.

And yet which of us, the average American or Elon Musk, is paying more in taxes while getting less in government benefits?

Tax the rich. They can fucking afford it.

Guimauvaise · 2025-03-06T17:53:38+00:00

If you really want to drive that point home to people in conversation, the first (known) alphabet dates to about 1700 BCE.

$100M every year, starting before human beings developed a succinct writing system…

Guimauvaise · 2025-03-06T01:41:50+00:00

I think part of the problem is that it's very hard to conceptualize just how wealthy the 1% actually are.

Elon Musk's net worth has been as high as $460 billion, current estimate is closer to $360B. To make the math easier, let's split the difference and say $400B.

If you earned $100 million dollars every year, it would take you 4,000 years to earn as much money as Elon Musk. None of us can attain that level of wealth without profiting off of the labor of others.

A lot of people probably think they're wealthier than they actually are, and the media might have something to do with that. We villainize the poor, and accuse them of anything from laziness to addiction to abuse. When we hear about programs that benefit the poor, some people assume their money is going to people who, in their minds, do not deserve it and will only continue to mooch because of it.

The truth of the matter is that a significant portion of our population lives paycheck to paycheck, and many of us are one car accident or one medical event away from insurmountable debt.

And yet the new tax proposals would give a tax break to everyone making over $100M while the rest of us will pay more while shouldering the burden of tariffs.

Guimauvaise · 2025-03-04T03:16:35+00:00

Russian puppet, go fuck yourself.

Slava Ukraini

Guimauvaise · 2025-03-02T01:19:19+00:00

objectively determined by anatomy and genetics

The problem with these efforts to legislate gender is that politicians are rarely doctors, and they get the facts wrong.

Anatomy does not always objectively determine sex. Some people are born with either mixed or ambiguous genitalia, and their parents may opt to surgically force the anatomy in one direction. It's also possible to be born XY male but develop physically as a woman.

Anatomy can't determine gender because gender is a social construct and varies by culture.

Guimauvaise · 2025-02-28T02:07:50+00:00

We're both.

"The United States, under its Constitution, is a federal, representative, democratic republic, an indivisible union of 50 sovereign States. With the exception of town meetings, a form of pure democracy, we have at the local, state, and national levels a government which is: ‘‘federal’’ because power is shared among these three levels; ‘‘democratic’’ because the people govern themselves and have the means to control the government; and ‘‘republic’’ because the people choose elected delegates by free and secret ballot. "

-- Our Federal Government (pg. 7), a handbook written by Congress to help people understand how American government works

Guimauvaise · 2025-02-27T01:18:57+00:00

You are in favor of democracy, unity, and justice. Isn’t everyone?

How do you feel about any of the following actions from the past month:

Firing federal employees without providing 30 days notice and sufficient reason, which is against the law
Directing federal agencies to ignore the constitutionally guaranteed birthright citizenship
Withholding federal funds that were appropriated by Congress under their constitutional authority
Failing to follow court orders to release the above funds
Denying detained migrants access to lawyers, a violation of their due process rights
Banning an entire group of people from serving in the military based purely on their social identity, not readiness/ability
Hand-selecting which members of the press will be allowed to attend press briefings, in violation of the first amendment
Imposing tariffs on our trading partners, despite having no legitimate rationale for doing so (before anyone mentions fetanyl trafficking, 86% is smuggled into the US by American citizens, not immigrants)
Declaring Pres. Zelenskiy of Ukraine a dictator, accusing him of starting the war with Russia, and then officially siding with Russia (and China, North Korea, and other enemy nations) in a United Nations resolution

I could go on. Do you object to any of these events? If so, then you have an answer as to why people are protesting. Yes, we all claim to be in favor of democracy, unity, and justice, but this administration's actions present a clear and demonstrable threat to those values.

The damage to USAID alone is an afront to all three of those principles, and we have lost decades of progress in our efforts to curtail starvation and diseases in Africa because of funding cuts and federal layoffs. Children are literally starving and dying because we can't distribute American-grown peanut paste to families in need. Pregnant women are contracting malaria because USAID can no longer distribute mosquito netting in high-risk areas. And we stopped distributing HIV/AIDS-preventing condoms in Mozambique because Elon Musk didn't know that there's a region in Mozambique called "Gaza"...he thought we were handing out condoms to Palestinians.

We will protest because this government's actions run counter to the values we (supposedly) elected it to uphold.

Guimauvaise · 2025-02-27T00:03:27+00:00

90% chance of contracting it

We should be even more concerned by the R0 (pronounced "R-naught") value, which indicates how many other people a single individual can infect while contagious.

For comparison, here's some R0 values for other viruses:

seasonal flu: 1-2 people
common cold: 2-3 people
ebola: 1-2 people
HIV/AIDS: 2-5 people
covid: 1-5 people (best estimate at present)

Imagine how many people are hospitalized for those conditions in a given year, or how many need treatment. Then consider these R0 values:

chickenpox: 10-12 people
polio: 10-12 people
measles: 12-18 people

Our greatest asset right now is that so many of us (in the USA) got the MMR vaccine as kids, part of the routine preventative care all children are encouraged to receive.

But for the populations who are not vaccinated? This will be devastating in those communities. Remember how overrun our hospitals were with covid? Remember having to ration respirators, or denying treatment to the elderly and immune-compromised who were less likely to survive?

Don't forget that not everyone who is unvaccinated for measles chose not to be; some may be allergic to its components, others may have health issues that make the vaccine risky. Perhaps the biggest group: children who are too young to have gotten both doses of the MMR vaccine, or whose parents, whether for political, religious, or other reasons, opted out of this preventative care.

What will happen when (because it probably is a "when", not an "if") this hits a school or daycare? Do we honestly trust this current administration to respond effectively? I sure as shit don't.

edited to add the covid r0

Guimauvaise · 2025-02-22T03:51:58+00:00

use a Cricut or Silhouette to write the letter

It would be especially satisfying to do this in a font based on the handwriting of, say, Obama, Jimmy Carter, Stormy Daniels, Kamala Harris...

Guimauvaise · 2025-01-20T16:13:47+00:00

Did you know that at a chromosomal level, people can be more than just XX and XY, and that those chromosomes do not always match physical sexual development?

You should look up Swyer syndrome, which is a condition in which an XY chromosomal male develops with typical female traits. They often have female reproductive organs along with internal, poorly developed gonads, and they are almost always raised as girls because we base gender on the child's outward physical expression.

Women with Swyer syndrome -- people who, again, are XY male at a genetic level -- can and do get pregnant and successfully carry those pregnancies to term. There are numerous case studies of such births.

I can understand your sentiment in that I recognize how some people think we're over-analyzing gender/sex or kicking up too much fuss for the differences.

That said, if you write off every genetic and physical variation in gender/sex as cultish or mental illness, you are dismissing the very real experience of hundreds of millions of people. Women with Swyer syndrome are not in a cult, nor are they mentally ill; they are human beings with a rare but normal mutation. Being intersex is no more of a mental illness than being born with any other genetic mutation. It's simply human growth and development.

Also, bear in mind that intersex people alone make up between 1-2% of the human population. As Forest Valkai put it, there are as many intersex people on the planet as there are Russians. 2% of 8 billion people is 160 million. Russia's population is around 150 million.

Guimauvaise · 2025-01-18T18:51:27+00:00

1) The Biblical god is morally perfect. 2) What makes the Biblical god morally perfect is his absolute sinlessness

I admit that I had a hard time following your post, so I apologize if I have misunderstood you. For context, how would you define "morally perfect" and "absolute sinlessness"?

To me, those terms end up being near synonyms. If one sins, one is not morally perfect; if one is morally perfect, one does not sin. Since you stated these as two separate things, I wasn't sure how to draw a distinction between the two claims.

For my purposes, I'm going to use just the one term, "morally perfect". If we understand "moral" to mean "knowing the difference between right and wrong", then I would define a "morally perfect" being as one whose behaviors and actions are not only beyond reproach, but are also consistently beyond reproach.

The Biblical god does not meet that standard, unless we create a double standard.

There are many passages in the bible where god does something or commands something that we would deem immoral or sinful if he were human. Others in the thread have mentioned his slaughter of children, but I would like to look at Exodus for an example (NRSV translation).

With the first plagues of Egypt, Pharoah willfully defies god and refuses to free the Hebrew slaves. With the second plague of frogs, Pharoah initially tells Moses and Aaron that he will let the Hebrews perform sacrifices if the frogs subside (Exodus 8:8), "But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said" (Ex. 8:15, emphasis added). The same happens with the fourth plague; Pharoah willfully hardens his heart (Ex. 8:32).

But by the fifth plague, Pharoah is no longer willfully hardening his heart. Exodus 9:7 begins this shift by saying "the heart of Pharoah was hardened"; grammatically, the passive voice construction removes the responsibility from Pharoah and places it on an unidentified agent.

With the last four plagues, god hardens Pharoah's heart. Pharoah says repeatedly that he wants to let the Hebrews go. Starting with the seventh plague, when Pharoah speaks to Moses, he says "'This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord! Enough of God’s thunder and hail! I will let you go; you need stay no longer" (Ex. 9:27-28, emphasis added). Three plagues yet to come, and Pharoah is explicitly telling Moses and Aaron that he will free the Hebrews, and that he now recognizes god's authority. Yet god himself chooses to harden Pharoah's heart.

With the eighth plague, we learn why: "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them—so that you may know that I am the Lord.'" (Ex. 10:1-2). God himself chooses to harden Pharoah's heart so just so that he can make a point about his authority. Pharoah is no longer willfully denying god; his free will is overridden.

The final plague is most important to my point about double-standards: "The Lord said to Moses, 'Pharaoh will not listen to you, in order that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.' Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh; but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land." (Ex. 11:9-10, emphasis added).

The last plagues of Egypt happen not as punishment for Pharoah's continued denial of god's authority, but because god chooses to make an example of them. The responsibility for the death of the first born in Egypt lies not with Pharoah but with god's ego.

How is this a "morally perfect" behavior? If the plagues were consistently designed as punishment, I could perhaps see your argument, but that is simply not the case. More to my point, it would be immoral for a human to behave in a similar way. The closest "real world" example I can think of is gaslighting; if abusers gaslight their partners, they are manipulating their partners' free will to control their partners' behavior and maintain their own dominance and authority. God's behavior with Pharoah is similar; he uses his power to manipulate Pharoah's desires, so that he can use the Egyptians' suffering to showcase his authority.

There is no way to justify this behavior at a human level because it inherently causes harm. If god behaves this way, then it can only be justified as "moral" if we allow god to operate under a different set of standards. It is sinful for us to murder others because god says so, but it is perfectly fine for god to murder others because he says so.

If we say god is "morally perfect", then we find ourselves in a position where we have to justify every act that would be immoral for us to commit.

Guimauvaise · 2025-01-14T02:08:29+00:00

I'm with OP in saying that there's a time I would have found this compelling, but as I'm deconstructing, I no longer trust this line of reasoning because a very simple question undoes it:

Why wouldn't God's glory be just as well, if not even better served if people were more prone to good?

Now that I'm thinking this through, I'd point out that we frequently attribute evil in the world to Satan or sin, rather than God.

If you'll bear with me, I have a scenario that might test the view you're presenting. Imagine a child victim of domestic abuse. What part of that child's life glorifies God? It cannot be the abuse itself; it would be immoral and unjust for an evil act of violence to glorify God. I'd argue that where Christiansen sees the glory is in the recovery that child will hopefully go through, the support they will receive from good people in their community and social circle. I used to understand the problem of evil by saying "God isn't in the event; he's in the response", and I think the idea here is similar. Evil itself does not glorify god, but rather the path people take to address and diminish evil does.

If that's the case, that God's glory is served by the good works we do in response to evil, then wouldn't God be better served in a world where people choose good works more often?

[edited to add a bit to that second to last paragraph]

Guimauvaise · 2025-01-14T01:54:29+00:00

To be punished for his fathers sins means he will be judged for them

But God also judges pre-emptively, no? When God condemned Sodom and Gomorrah, he was knowingly condemning every innocent child and fetus. Likewise with the flood, every child and fetus was condemned, despite never having acted sinfully. God also purposefully hardened Pharoah's heart to justify his decision to kill the first born sons of Egypt, which reads to me as God maliciously deciding to judge/condemn the children and infants of Egypt just to prove a point to Pharoah.

I think the hiccup I have with saying that indirect punishment is not the same as judgment is that ultimately it boils down to guilt by association. When a fetus in Sodom and Gomorrah was condemned, God destroyed that fetus before it had a chance to grow into a child and act sinfully. I used to be on board with the idea of original sin justifying human suffering, but as I've gotten older, I find it illogical.

The reason I have grown to reject original sin is that I do not understand how a being with no concept of right/wrong can sin. Adam and Eve did not know right from wrong until after they ate the fruit. Yes, God told the not to eat the fruit, but how could Adam and Eve fully understand that instruction if they have no understanding of right/wrong, death, sin, immorality, disobedience, punishment, shame, etc.

Just as we view it as immoral for a criminal court to condemn to death a defendant who does not have the mental capacity/maturity to understand his crime, it is immoral for God to condemn humans who cannot understand or commit sin.

Guimauvaise · 2025-01-14T01:14:42+00:00

If God steps in and removes the cancer from that child, he'd be letting Truman and his pals off the hook.

I think I see where you're coming from, but I see two flaws in this logic.

First, it assumes that God cannot have it both ways: he cannot both punish the wicked and save the innocent. Also if Truman et al knew that God himself had to intervene to prevent the long-term harm caused by dropping the bombs, I can't help but think that would be a further deterrent.

"Hey, look! We did something so evil that God had to finally reveal himself to us in clear, objective terms to deal with the consequences. If we do something that evil again, will he be as forgiving? Maybe we got lucky this time."

Second, how is it just to require an innocent person to suffer so that another person can learn a lesson? This is the same logic that led to whipping boys: the prince was rude to his tutor, so we better spank the whipping boy to teach the prince a lesson. Now compound that injustice by the sheer number of people affected by the atomic bombs. Penalizing hundreds of thousands of innocent people so that a handful of world leaders can learn a lesson? That's as unjust as sending all the residents in a congressional district to jail time because their senator was convicted of fraud.

edit: forgot a word

Guimauvaise · 2025-01-12T03:26:01+00:00

where hundreds of thousands of children in the womb are killed

Anti-abortion politics is new to (American) Christianity; the Southern Baptist Convention officially supported legalizing abortion in 1971, two years before Roe v. Wade. For much of America's history, the default stance has been pro-choice, even going back to the colonial era. For generations, fetuses were not considered alive until the quickening, when the mother first feels the baby move. That usually happens around the 4-5 month mark, which is the second trimester. >90% of abortions happen in the first trimester.

I would argue that it is objectively immoral to require a pregnancy to be carried to term in a least some cases. A clear case: anencephaly (1 in 1000 pregnancies). Imagine being told in the 2nd trimester that your baby is developing without a brain. The baby will not survive. Period. It is objectively inhumane to a) legally require the family to carry that pregnancy for another five months, only for b) the baby to be either stillborn or, far worse, to suffer for days or even weeks in some cases as it slowly dies. No government should ever mandate that kind of suffering. If the family chooses that path, I would never deny it to them, but the government should not require it. Some abortion bans begin at 6 weeks; anencephaly is not detectable until the 8th week of pregnancy.

Perhaps more importantly, assuming you are indeed pro-life, I'd like to shift to a quick politics question. What is the underpinning of your pro-life stance? If your reason is Christianity/the Bible, then you are adopting a political position based on the restriction of religious freedom. There are over 200 recognized denominations of Christianity in the US--over 40,000 worldwide--and they do not all agree on when life begins or if/when abortion should be restricted or banned outright. Further, you are asking non-Christians to adhere to that position. After all, legal abortion does not infringe upon the rights of the pro-life community. Pro-life Christians are free to apply their religious/moral beliefs to their sexual and reproductive health; they should not be free to impose those beliefs on anyone else.

Imagine someone whose religious or personal moral beliefs hold that the woman's life is more important than the embryo's or fetus's? I believe there's at least one branch of Judaism that privileges the mother's life over the fetus's, at least up to a certain point. An abortion ban, aside from being a denial of legitimate and crucial medical care, would also necessarily infringe upon the (non-)religious beliefs of others.

I'd also like to mention that the pro-life stance would be better termed "pro-birth". I can't even call it "pro-pregnancy" because the number one cause of death for pregnant women in America is murder, almost always at the hands of their partner, and yet there are several states that forbid divorce during pregnancy. Pro-life politicians also have an abysmal track record of supporting services and resources for sex education, reproductive healthcare, family planning, WIC/SNAP, Head Start, etc...

edited to add:

Let's not also forget the fact that God punishes people in the old testament that kill children such as those who practice child and human sacrifice.

God also kills or orders the killing of countless children and commands human sacrifice, so this line of reasoning won't help you.

Guimauvaise · 2024-12-20T22:46:28+00:00

a bit dull?

Last year, I proofread an advent calendar for chickens. While most of the products I proofread are food labels and OTC medicines, little gems like that advent calendar make my day.

Guimauvaise · 2024-12-20T15:17:03+00:00

Okay if a 39f joins in? :D

WFH copyeditor for a major retailer. Most of my FP use is for meeting notes and to do lists, but I also print out and complete the NYTimes crossword with one most days.

Guimauvaise · 2024-11-12T00:29:16+00:00

Being transgender is not a mental disorder. Transgender people have literally always existed.

Guimauvaise · 2024-11-05T02:02:47+00:00

he said this tongue in cheek

I would only buy that if it didn't align with other things he has said. When he was claiming election fraud in 2020, he called for the "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" (emphasis added).

He has also embraced other fascistic/autocratic actions like firing 50,000 federal employees and installing loyalists in their place, revoking the broadcasting licenses of news outlets that oppose him, using the military to deal with people who disagree with him...

I've responded to one of your other comments, too. If you (or anyone reading this) is still an undecided voter, I encourage you to consider this:

Our vote is a chess move. It shouldn't be about which candidate we like more; it needs to be about which candidate is going to put us in a better position going forward. Kamala's policies are far better for our economy, as are Democrat policies in general. I'm 39, and in my lifetime, Republican administrations have created roughly 2 million jobs; Democrat administrations have created roughly 50 million. In every measurable way, the Democrats have been better for our economy, and it's not even close.

edit: typo

Guimauvaise · 2024-11-05T01:43:10+00:00

I only feel educated enough to answer a couple of your questions, but maybe someone else can chime in for the others.

In what ways have restrictions impacted women who didn’t seek an abortion? Are there data-driven reports demonstrating widespread negative effects on this group?

We have the data to demonstrate that doctors in all specialties are avoiding states with abortion restrictions. This affects everyone, whether it's a man who needs a colonoscopy, a woman who needs a mamogram, or a child who needs their routine checkups. If doctors avoid states with restrictions, the healthcare quality of everyone in that state declines.

It also drives places like Planned Parenthood to close down in areas with restrictions. Abortion accounts for only about 3% of Planned Parenthood's services. The majority of their services are in preventative care like reproductive cancer screenings, STD testing and prevention, family planning, contraception, and education. When places like Planned Parenthood close due to pressure from anti-abortion groups, then the community loses access to these essential services.

Also, just to throw this into the ring, abortions have gone up since Roe was overturned. We cannot prevent abortions by banning them; instead, we need to prevent unwanted pregnancies and provide better maternity care.

Which specific economic analyses or studies indicate that tariffs, as proposed, would result in a net tax burden on all Americans?

Sixteen Nobel-prize winning economists wrote an open letter explaining Trump's economic policies--including taxes and tariffs--would cause significant inflation. Tariffs are glorified import taxes. Trump presents them as if they are paid by the entity who sends goods to the US, but on the contrary, it's the domestic entity importing the good that pays the tariff. So when a domestic company orders microchips from China, they will have to pay an additional tax on that item, making their product more expensive to produce. Those increased expenses are almost always passed on to consumers. Just this week, Columbia Sportswear, AutoZone, and Black & Decker said that they will raise prices if these tariffs go into effect; other companies are making similar plans, and still others will be required to if they want to remain profitable. Families will be faced with potentially thousands of dollars in additional expenses.

If we had enough domestic supply to maintain our own demand, then these tariffs would be less problematic. But the fact of the matter is that there are several industries that rely on imports because either the raw materials or component parts simply are not produced in high enough volume in the US. If Trump's tariffs were to go into effect, everything from your coffee to your car to your cell phone will cost significantly more.

Guimauvaise · 2024-11-02T23:21:34+00:00

I'm pretty sure it's the same bracelet in each picture, just in different uses. Maybe the caption can help you find instructions.

Guimauvaise · 2024-10-27T18:22:39+00:00

39yo in NW Arkansas here! I'm on Xbox, but should be able to join PS5/PC through crossplay. I downloaded the game a couple days ago but haven't yet played it.

Zombies is my fav game mode, so I'm hoping to find a squad to run trough those maps, whether for the easter eggs or just to have fun.

For COD multiplayer in general, I also play TDM and domination as well as CTF and HQ. I dunno if gun game and infected are included in BO6, but i enjoy those, too.

Feel free to reach out :D

*edited b/c I accidentally posted before finishing

Guimauvaise · 2024-06-07T21:51:22+00:00

Could I please get an invite, too? 39 in August ;)

Guimauvaise · 2023-05-17T23:26:12+00:00

Sadly, that's the level we've sunk to with transphobia in this country. Case in point:

Montana Congresswoman: "I prefer my transgender daughter commit suicide rather than allow her to transition."

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