Send tick pics? No.

but when he does send tick pics he puts the camera up close to make it look big...
...don't we all?

ProTips itt

Being or Not Being

I've mentioned before that I work hard to avoid politics and religion here because they turn Internet threads into shitshows every time. So of course I'm going to tackle abortion in the wake of today's overturning of Roe v Wade. I'll try to achieve that improbable feat by keeping it personal.

I was born to a woman unknown to me 9 months after the original Woodstock concert, then put up for adoption as an infant, a few years before Roe v Wade legalized abortion throughout the country. It's entirely possible that I would have been aborted, had Rove v Wade been passed a few years earlier.

I'm here to tell you that I don't give the slightest **** about whether I would have been aborted or not, not the tiniest little ****. Had I been aborted, I would have been--at the time--a non-sentient clump of cells the size and shape of an immature kidney bean. I would not have felt it, or feared it, or known it; I didn't ask to be born in the first place. None of us did.

Listen to me: I made it just fine through the first 13.8 billion years of this universe's existence, without having any life in me. All of those countless eons went by in a flash. What would another 130 trillion years until the heat death of the universe be to the unborn me?

Same same.

As for the alive me: I've never had to worry about being 14 years old and carrying the evil seed of my adult rapist inside of me for nine months, or facing a felony conviction and jail time. I've never had to worry about dying of an ectopic pregnancy or a miscarriage that won't come out, or facing a felony conviction and jail time. I've never had to worry about handing over medical records or information from an app tracking my fertility cycle to some doddering old freak of a judge, or facing a felony conviction and jail time. I've never had to give up plans for continuing my education or for starting a new job or my own business to instead support an unwanted child in poverty or economic subjugation, or face a felony conviction or jail time.

So it's irrelevant as to whether I'm pro-life or pro-choice. I shouldn't have the smallest part in the decision-making, much less be in charge of the bodies and medical care of the women who bear the entire brunt of it.

But it's potentially my child too, right? Yeah, so potentially are every one of the billions of sperm cells I've wasted in my life. Should I cry a tear over all of them?

I have a lot more to say about this, but this is as far as I go without breaking my own rules. It's a sad day, and one where I can only hope that the arc of justice eventually swings back towards where it belongs.

A1 post.

Nice post SJ. Well thought out and written, as always.

Spring 2021, a bunch of us were in the cul-de-sac, sitting around the fire pit, discussing whatever. Somehow this topic came up, and I was asked my opinion.

I said that this is one of the rare issues where maybe my vote shouldn't count--I'm never going to have to go through it.