Category Archives: Viva!

First Draft: Most Americans Say Planned Parenthood Fight Isn’t Worth a Shutdown, Poll Finds

There is strong bipartisan agreement that it is unacceptable for members of Congress to threaten a government shutdown as a bargaining tactic

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Quote of the Day: Bill Nye schools anti-choicers on science

In a Big Think video entitled “Can We Stop Telling Women What to Do With Their Bodies?” a visibly frustrated Bill Nye the Science Guy valiently tries to convince anti-choicers who insist that a fertizilized egg is a full human being to respect science. 

Many, many, many, many more hundreds of eggs are fertilized than become humans. Eggs get fertilized, and by that I mean sperm get accepted by ova a lot. But that’s not all you need. You have to attach to the uterine wall, the inside of a womb, a woman’s womb. But if you’re going to hold that as a standard—that is to say, that when an egg is fertilized, it therefore has the same rights as an individual, whom are you going to sue? Whom are you going to imprison? Every woman who’s had a fertilized egg pass through her? Every guy whose sperm has fertilized an egg and then it didn’t become a human? Have all these people failed you?

It’s just a reflection of a deep scientific lack of understanding. You apparently literally don’t know what you’re talking about.

Of course, we know that the answer to “whom are you going to imprision?” is pregnant people. In some states, women, particularly low-income women of color, are already being held criminally liable for not doing everything possible to ensure that a fertilized egg successfully makes the long, perilous journey to become a healthy infant. (Read this recent Mother Jones article on how bad it is in Alabama.)

Nye continues to sigh deeply and reach into a deep reservoir of patience as he goes on to plea for a fact-based approach to sex education and access to birth control too. Ultimately, “we have so many more problems to be squandering resources on this argument based on bad science,” he says. “Come on. Come on.”

Blood Moon from Lunar Eclipse 2015!

KS Photography! posted a photo:

Blood Moon from Lunar Eclipse 2015!

Supermoon Lunar Eclipse 2015. The blood-red eclipse was captured from all around the world and I captured from not so clear sky of New Delhi (India). ‘Blood Moon’, takes its name from the reddish hue the moon takes as Earth’s shadow passes over it. People in North America, South America, West Africa and Western Europe witnessed Total Lunar Eclipse.

All rights reserved – ©KS Photography

All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without written permission of the photographer!

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Rape survivor told STI prophylaxis is “white people stupidness”, abused by police

Maryam Namazie and the Illiberal Student Union

Nervana

The Warwick Students’ Union has barred human rights campaigner and leader of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, Maryam Namazie, from giving a talk on campus, because, they say, she is “highly inflammatory and could incite hatred.” Now a petition has been launched against her ban, which has forced the Warwick Students’ Union to announce “no final decision has been taken.”

I have not met Maryam Namazie or read her views, but I can imagine how her stance might provoke some dogmatic Muslims. Nonetheless, it is deeply unsettling to see her barred from expressing her views in a British university. Any rational observer may justifiably ask the question: How can a single woman offend a divine faith that has survived for centuries? What kind of message is Warwick University sending to the many oppressed atheists or secular citizens in Muslim-majority countries?

My first encounter with an ex-Muslim came years ago…

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