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The short answer is yes, and despite what the pious say, they do just like the immoral heathen atheists do. This video by Discern4 tackles this topic with an even handedness that, by standards of this blog, puts it firmly into the mild category of religious criticism. I guess one needs to take a break from slam dunking religion every once and awhile.
I quote from the latest news update released by the Guttmacher Institute.
“One-third of U.S. pregnancies occur within 18 months of a previous birth, according to “Short Interpregnancy Intervals in the United States,” by Laura Lindberg of the Guttmacher Institute et al., while 50% occurred within 18–59 months, and 16% occurred at 60 or more months. Short birth spacing, which was measured as 18 months or less, was found to be strongly linked to unintended pregnancies, and being between 15 and 19 years old at the time of conception.
Previous research has shown that short spacing between pregnancies can lead to harmful outcomes for mothers, such as preeclampsia, and for newborns, such as being born preterm or with low birth weight. Additionally, the federal Healthy People 2020 initiative aims to reduce by 10% the number of pregnancies that occur within 18 months of a previous birth. Lindberg explains that preventing this short spacing is thus a public health priority in the United States, and estimates that reducing unintended pregnancies could reduce shortly spaced births from 35% to 23%, a feat that would benefit the health of both the mother and the newborn.
“Pregnancy intervals of more than 18 months are considered optimal birth spacing, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and others,” said Lindberg. “Helping women plan and space their pregnancies through greater contraceptive access can lead to better outcomes for both mother and infant.” The researchers identify long-acting reversible contraceptives, such as IUDs, as particularly well-suited to increasing the space between pregnancies.”
Look what happens when science and social science intersect. Better outcomes for women and children – why? Because women can choose when and when not be pregnant. This is what the point so many forced birth advocates miss – the person who is pregnant knows what is best for her and her family and, given proper access to reproductive services, can plan for the best possible conditions for herself and her children.
Contrast this with the christian business uproar over providing contraceptives for sluts! women and how tragically unfair it is to their jebus-based-bullshite.
Religion continues to poison everything it touches, but we already knew that.
I love catching my dog doing cute things. Here is Shadow appropriating my neck pillow and looking entirely content with herself and the world.
Two of my favourite ytubers have collaborated to make a compelling story which fits very nicely into the DWR Sunday Disservice.
Enjoy. :)
Wave-particle duality is just one on a huge list of phenomena that we cannot intuitively understand. 1veritasium does a nice job of walking us through the steps and sharing the science behind the experiment.
PZ Myers discusses abortion and how asinine the anti-choice positions actually are. From the article Abortion rights are human rights.
[…]
However, the equivalence of mother and fetus is an untenable proposition. A mouse has more complexity and autonomy than a fetus, and we don’t even hesitate when the choice is between the life of a mouse and a human being. We don’t even argue about it. And to argue that a single-celled zygote or even an embryo with a few dozen cells at implantation is anything but a negligible component of any moral equation is utterly absurd. It’s a fantasy of the deeply ignorant, the kind of people who think the babies on Pro-Life Across America billboards are actually accurate representations of the age-specific fetus, to think that there’s something cute, adorable, personable about a self-organizing mass of cells.
So I have to agree, and think the only reasonable conclusion, is reflected in this memorial to Dr George Tiller, the man murdered by an anti-choice fanatic.
Dr. Tiller listened to his patients, he trusted their decisions, and he knew that the people he was helping deserved his ear and his trust. He treated his patients like people (which really shouldn’t be such a radical position but, because of how anti-choicers have shaped the narrative around abortion, it is). He believed that those he helped were more important than the fetus inside of them. That is not a morally-bankrupt position. THAT IS THE MORAL SIDE.
Trusting patients, seeing them as individuals, believing in their abilities to make decisions for their own specific lives: THAT IS THE MORAL SIDE.
Thank you for everything you did, Dr. Tiller. Thank you for everything and everyone you championed. Thank you for risking your life to provide your patients with a safe and legal medical procedure. Thank you for doing so with no regrets, no animosity, no judgement, and no apologies.
You, sir, were a moral man on a moral mission. And I won’t forget it. WE ARE THE MORAL SIDE.
Well said. Also, a brief summation from the comments section of that same post which bears repetition; many thanks to mythbri for making clear and concise argument:
This conversation has been had over and over again with other similar commenters here. Is any further evidence necessary to demonstrate that there are non-religious folk who are still anti-choice (even though both of these commenters seem to be in the “I’m pro-choice, but” category)?
…
jimashby
Here is why I despise “I’m pro-choice, but” people more than people who are just plain anti-choice:
You are setting arbitrary conditions on my humanity.
Do you understand this? Do you get that I am a person with bodily autonomy 100% of the time. Not just for 20 weeks. Not just for two trimesters. Not even 99.95% of the time.
I am a person (with all the rights that entails) 100% of the time.
That does not magically change when or if I become pregnant, and honestly, it scares the SHIT out of me that anyone thinks that it does.
You know why the anti-choice and the “I’m pro-choice, but” positions are necessarily misogynistic? Because you are making the assumption that there are women out there that are making choice that you don’t approve of, and that your opinion of their choices is even remotely relevant or worth respecting.
You think that it’s okay for a woman’s choice about her own body to be irrelevant. You’re okay with the fact that arbitrary “viability” restrictions on abortions DO cause women to have children they don’t want. You’re okay with the fact that these arbitrary restrictions DO cause women to lose their health or their life. And while you’ll probably claim that you’re not “okay” with these things, this is the fucking reality of the situation. Okay? Your wishfulness for a perfect legal solution does not magically make this solution the reality, and if you’re aware of that and are okay with the collateral damage this causes to some women who slip through this imperfect and wrong system, then I’ve got nothing further to say to you.
You know why I despise you “I’m pro-choice, but” types? Because I don’t see you doing anything to curb the erosion of reproductive rights that we face in the U.S. I see you shrugging your shoulders and saying “That’s plenty of time” or “They can always go somewhere else for an abortion.”
You know why I despise you “I’m pro-choice, but” types? Because in these discussions, there is barely a smidgen of difference between you and an anti-choice type.
Deal with it.
Guess which heroes you start out with – and guess which ones cost 20 Dollars to play.
Having some more free time on my hands, I decided to try out the new free to play Action-RPG Marvel Heroes. My impression is that the game suffers from exactly what happened to The Old Republic MMO (TOR): the curse of More of the Same. TOR took the same mechanics of the genre defining game World of Warcraft, put it into the Star Wars universe, added a neat story arc for each character class and called it a day. TOR was supposed to be the last of the Triple A monthly subscription MMO’s, unfortunately when gamers realized that it was just WOW in space, they left in droves dooming TOR to a rickety F2P structure that other small-fry MMO’s meekly follow while firmly in WOW’s shadow.
Marvel Heroes (MH) dev team made the same decision to not change the basic formula of the genre defining game (Diablo 3 – D3) and instead, slapped some sniny new intellectual property characters onto what is essentially Diablo 2 or 3, thus they too have taken their spot in the shadow of Diablo 3. It begs the question then, why play MH then if you can find a better experience in the game that defines the genre? We’ll return to that question at the end :)
MH is, out of the box, a free to play(F2P) game and thus is the unhappy subject to one of the most crippling monetizing systems I’ve seen in a F2P game. What differentiates MH from D3 is that you can play as a superhero from Marvel’s universe – as in “Wow! I could be Iron Man and fight the evil Hydra that would be cool!”, type of fun. Unfortunately if you are looking to be your favorite hero (the big draw of the game) be prepared to spend the 20 US dollars to unlock him and another 20 dollars if you want to choose his outfit. Errr…Ouch.
Just look at all the awesome Heroes you’ll almost never get to play.
Okay, so I don’t want to spend the $$ on a F2P game, you have to start with something right? Starting MH you get a choice of 5 second/third tier shlubs (Storm, Dare Devil, Thing, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye) and all perform their assigned roles adequately, you can be the ranged zappy zappy of storm or the armoured tankyness of Thing. But really, unless you’re a obscurantist comic fan with a big chubby for bland characters, the characters/power sets will quickly become boring, especially when you see the characters you want to play doing the cool stuff right beside you leaving you pining for their experience.
Oh sure it is a F2P game, but when the main distinguishing feature (the heroes) of your Action-RPG is behind a steep pay wall why would the average gamer bother? You can find a better, far more polished experience, in Diablo 3 or Torchlight 2 with Torchlight 2 being the better and less expensive of the two (D3 has always on DRM and micro-transaction that break the game). Oh certainly, you can grind in game and hope that you get lucky and get a “hero-drop” so you can get taste of the fabled land of milk and honey, but then when you have to use the word “grind” in context of a playing a game…
Action RPG’s in general are about having fun killing the monsters and reviling in the “magic pants” that they drop for your character – but if you don’t like your character there will be problems. (see the attached video for more on pants),
Edit: Oh hey, Total Biscuit also agrees with me, Meh! for the win.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…