The best thing to happen from WebMD is we got a bunch of actual medical providers like Mayo Clinic, University of Maryland, Merck Manual that went, "GAH! No!!" and made actually informative, updated medical websites.

Healthline, kids. Healthline is where we go for our medical information.

This is the exact problem with these bans. The medical procedure in question (dilation and curretage) can be and is used in cases with a fetus in any condition. The same procedure can be used for an elective abortion, a medically necessary abortion, or even to complete a miscarriage that is already underway.

The "abortion" procedure would have saved Savita Halapanavar's life. I personally know three women who were in similar circumstances, losing a lot of blood during miscarriages that weren't completing on their own.

You can't ban medical procedures that have valid use cases. These things are most properly regulated by medical professionals themselves.

What about this woman?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar

Fuck all the way off, asshole.

Literal ignorance. There are already studies.

"GnRHa treatment did not seem to have a particularly adverse effect on reproductive function or bone growth."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4342775/

Puberty blockers only with social transition until age 18 are the standard of care given to the trans girl I grew up with 30 years ago. She didn't start exogenous hormones or surgery until she was a legal adult. None of this is new and the people you're listening to are literally just making things up.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2798007

If you worked in healthcare, there was a pretty clear delineation. We got vaccines and people stopped fucking dying so much.

I opened 2021 to one of our chronic dialysis patients getting admitted for Covid, so severely short of breath they needed to go to the critical care stepdown unit, and I thought "this is it " By the time I was able to arrive at the hospital to run their dialysis, this person was already off oxygen and up walking around their room.

Come to find out, they had been vaccinated. I'm told that was one of the first people in the State of Massachusetts who got Covid after being vaccinated, and the difference in severity was so dramatic I'll never forget it.

That and movie theaters reopening are the only reasons I remember 2021. It was just a lot less scary even though I was still working like crazy.

I'm a nurse, not a doctor, just gonna chime in here that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is a thing:

https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/04/14/fatty-liver-disease-not-caused-by-alcohol-is-common-and-often-missed

In general, any kind of sudden changes to your normal functioning are things you should probably be discussing with a physician, even if you're young and otherwise healthy. The really encouraging news is that, if this is indeed caused by a health problem, you're young enough that it's really likely you can completely reverse it and get back to 100%. And if it's not, then no harm done by seeing a doctor and confirming that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(Also, not to scare you, but no I wouldn't expect to see that dramatic a decrease in alcohol tolerance over the course of just a couple of years at your age. I think it's worth talking to a doctor about this.)

Actual regular people haven't accepted it as normal. Fascists in our country continue to hamstring any efforts to fix the situation because they want the rest of us to keep being reminded that the fascists can and will murder us at will. Standard issue stochastic terrorism.

One of the big Boston hospitals tried to recruit me for their transplant team once. They wanted to pay me $15,000/year LESS for the privilege of commuting into Boston five days a week and paying for my own parking. Fuck that noise. I'll stay at my little community hospital, thanks. Prestige ain't gonna pay my mortgage.

United HealthCare

Oh wait, you CAN'T boycott them. The ultimate monopoly.

They pay 42% of INCOME taxes, which are only 40% of the annual federal tax receipts. Which means their income tax only amounts to about 17% of the overall tax receipts. Their FICA contributions are capped and they pay no FICA on anything over about $140,000. FICA tax accounts for 25% of overall federal tax receipts. The majority of remaining tax receipts are consumption taxes and property taxes, both of which are regressive and impact lower income citizens more.

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/us-tax-revenue-by-tax-type-2020/

https://www.bench.co/blog/tax-tips/fica-tax

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regressivetax.asp

Terminator 2 didn't even feature a single shot from the actual movie in its teaser trailer. It was just that iconic:

https://youtu.be/h4ThFNL_2tI?si=ufRA5SzDH1f6uf8b

I mean, we're fast approaching the 3rd anniversary of my first Covid vaccine dose, and I'm still waiting to drop dead the way they promised.