Combatting abortion disinformation: In a brilliant piece of journalism, a NYT article strikes into the heart of a vicious, decades-long disinformation campaign by forced birthers. They have successfully used emotion-provoking disinformation to dissuade many pregnant women from getting an abortion. This is the kind of fetus-oriented imagery that forced birthers routinely use to deceive and dissuade:
About 80% of abortions are done by week nine of a pregnancy. What the fetal tissue actually looks like at week 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 is shown below, left to right, top center to bottom right. There is no discernable, innocent little body to be seen because no such thing had developed by week nine. The top left image is uterine tissue, not fetus. This is what ~80% of abortions look like. This is not the kind of inconvenient information that forced birthers would ever show to a pregnant woman.
Now, compare the week 8 fetal tissue (center of lower row) with the image below of what forced birthers show the fetus allegedly looks like at week 8:
See the difference? This exemplifies the vicious, morally rotted tactics that forced birthers routinely rely on to deceive and dissuade. With infallible God is on the forced birther side, lies, deceit and guilt built on lies and deceit are good and proper. What a bunch of shameless, morally bankrupt liars.
What was the reaction to the publication of the real photos? Lots of people, including some pro-abortion advocates thought they were faked. The NYT commented:
The Guardian published our first photos on Oct. 19; they went viral, appearing in media outlets and getting shared widely on social media.
Many people, even those who support abortion rights, did not believe the photos were accurate. Some insisted we had deliberately removed the embryos before taking the photos. The images weren’t consistent with those often seen in embryological textbooks, magnified on ultrasounds or used in anti-abortion propaganda; these enlarged images are not what you see with the naked eye after an abortion. A Stanford gynecologic pathologist has validated our photos, but many people could not believe the pictures were presented unaltered.
We weren’t surprised by the vitriol. We knew we’d face pushback. While we have long felt comfortable showing our patients the pregnancy tissue after an abortion, we went through serious consideration before making the images public on our website. We did not want our message to undermine our unequivocal support for patients who make this decision at later stages when there is a visible embryo or fetus.
This shows, once again, just how powerful and effective a sustained, well-funded dark free speech campaign really can be. Actual medical professionals put out accurate information, but sustained propaganda has undermined trust in doctors and even convenient truth. Even people who just want the truth are blindsided and derailed by forced birther deceit and emotional manipulation.
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A flash of common sense about COVID: The WaPo reports that the FDA experienced a flash of common sense:
FDA proposes switching to annual coronavirus vaccine, mimicking flu modelThe Food and Drug Administration is proposing a crucial change in the way the coronavirus vaccine is handled: Switching to a once-a-year shot that targets the strain expected to pose the greatest threat during the following winter — a system akin to what is used for the influenza vaccine.
It was obvious to me over a year ago that this is exactly what needs to be done to deal with COVID for the long term. That it took this long for experts to see something this blatantly obvious is troubling to say the least.
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