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 azazel the cat wrote:

Frazzled wrote: -Frazzled, not caring about anything other than he just ran out of Swiss Cake Rolls, and now its time for the world to pay.

I think it's time for you to pay.



For more Swiss Cake Rolls.

Oh I will. I. Will. muahahahaha !

 Manchu wrote:
Sure we are. In one instance, the coverage is for treatment of an injury as/when it is suffered. In the other case, there is coverage for something without regard to an injury suffered.

Great argument for necessary abortion coverage.

After all, the party with the broken leg was injured, and so was the pregnant party.

Alternatively, we could just mandate the coverage of contraceptive care. Its much cheaper, and much less likely to be considered immoral.

 dogma wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Sure we are. In one instance, the coverage is for treatment of an injury as/when it is suffered. In the other case, there is coverage for something without regard to an injury suffered.

Great argument for necessary abortion coverage.

Only if you accept that pregnancy is an injury or disease. Can't do it, boss.

Alternatively, we could just mandate the coverage of contraceptive care. Its much cheaper, and much less likely to be considered immoral.

That'd make a great study: does mandated coverage of contraceptives reduce the incidence of abortion? Can we maybe look at some numbers from Massachusetts or something?

 Manchu wrote:
Only if you accept that pregnancy is an injury or disease.

Life is a STD.

Wasn't it Saint Augustine who said that?

 Manchu wrote:
Only if you accept that pregnancy is an injury or disease. Can't do it, boss.

I'll agree to disagree on this, because I know we're too far apart for consensus.

 Manchu wrote:

That'd make a great study: does mandated coverage of contraceptives reduce the incidence of abortion? Can we maybe look at some numbers from Massachusetts or something?

This is the first public thing I turned up.

 Manchu wrote:

Alternatively, we could just mandate the coverage of contraceptive care. Its much cheaper, and much less likely to be considered immoral.

That'd make a great study: does mandated coverage of contraceptives reduce the incidence of abortion? Can we maybe look at some numbers from Massachusetts or something?

Or even better... does Mandated Government paid brothel visits reduce the incidence of abortions?

THESE ARE THE THINGS WE MUCH KNOW!

I'll volunteer to participate in this program... who's with me!

 Manchu wrote:
Wasn't it Saint Augustine who said that?

That or Judge Death, but really we are splitting hairs at that point.

 dogma wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
That'd make a great study: does mandated coverage of contraceptives reduce the incidence of abortion? Can we maybe look at some numbers from Massachusetts or something?

This is the first public thing I turned up.

If it's true that publicly mandating insurance coverage will significantly reduce the incidence of abortion then I think anyone who thinks the end of abortion is the most important or among the most important aims of public policy pretty well must support that mandate.

 Manchu wrote:
If it's true that publicly mandating insurance coverage will significantly reduce the incidence of abortion then I think anyone who thinks the end of abortion is the most important or among the most important aims of public policy pretty well must support that mandate.

Well, if you make the rather generous assumption that opposition to abortion is legitimately about saving innocent lives, maybe. Unfortunately a large part of that opposition is based on hatred of women enjoying sex, so the goal is to ban both contraception and abortion and enforce abstinence-only policies so that the "sin" of having sex outside of marriage (or without the chance of making a child) is punished with unwanted children.

Manchu wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Sure we are. In one instance, the coverage is for treatment of an injury as/when it is suffered. In the other case, there is coverage for something without regard to an injury suffered.

Great argument for necessary abortion coverage.

Only if you accept that pregnancy is an injury or disease. Can't do it, boss.

I think one needs to pull of some pretty spectacular mental gymnastics to consider pregnancy a disease. But in the event of rape, I think pregnancy can easily be considered an injury.

 azazel the cat wrote:
I think one needs to pull of some pretty spectacular mental gymnastics to consider pregnancy a disease.

Not really. Sure, in a technical sense it's not a disease, but that's not really relevant unless you're a scientist or doctor analyzing the mechanisms at work. In the sense of being "an undesirable condition of the body", then yes, it can be a disease. Fortunately there's a nice easy treatment for the disease.

 Peregrine wrote:
In the sense of being "an undesirable condition of the body", then yes, it can be a disease.

Meaningless. In that sense, not having blue eyes can be considered a disease or injury.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, in a technical sense it's not a disease, but that's not really relevant unless you're a scientist or doctor analyzing the mechanisms at work.

So you're advocating the manipulation of average people?

 Manchu wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
In the sense of being "an undesirable condition of the body", then yes, it can be a disease.

Meaningless. In that sense, not having blue eyes can be considered a disease or injury.

Ok, fine, a temporary and curable condition. It's not a precise factual equivalence, it's an analogy, and a pretty accurate one.

 dogma wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, in a technical sense it's not a disease, but that's not really relevant unless you're a scientist or doctor analyzing the mechanisms at work.

So you're advocating the manipulation of average people?

Err, what?

Not really. Sure, in a technical sense it's not a disease, but that's not really relevant unless you're a scientist or doctor analyzing the mechanisms at work. In the sense of being "an undesirable condition of the body", then yes, it can be a disease. Fortunately there's a nice easy treatment for the disease.

Its as much of a disease as any location in the body that is not exposed to the immune system (see: the eye).

 Ahtman wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Wasn't it Saint Augustine who said that?

That or Judge Death, but really we are splitting hairs at that point.

Brilliant, funniest comment of the thread

As I understand it, the biggest cost in getting the pill isn't the pill itself, but the prescription. So while it might be very cheap at Walmart for the actual pill, the prescription might be a significant expense depending on the person's circumstances.

 daedalus wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
I was motioning more for a sustainable birth rate, rather than a high or low one.

Which almost demands enforcing a birth rate. I mean, for every one of us willing to remove ourselves from the gene pool, there's another couple having six to eight kids. That's not sustainable.

No, that's wrong. In developed countries the birth rate is almost bang on 2 kids per woman. In some countries, like Italy, it's actually dropped to about 1.8 kids per woman.

At this point the growth in population is almost entirely in poorer countries, where gender inequality, economic choices, poor infant health, and a lack of birth control drive up the population.

None of which actually has anything to do with resource consumption, which is actually driven mostly by developed and rapidly developing countries, where the resource use per capita continues to grow rapidly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Monster Rain wrote:
If only there were some way, that was free, for people to not get pregnant that was for all intents and purposes 100% effective.

Unfortunately, it turns out that having people talk about abstinance is approximately 0% effective.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Monster Rain wrote:
Cute, but the issue gets rather more "sticky" when it crosses into the territory of "other people's money."

Though, with that said, I hardly think this is any sort of pressing concern.

It's a little bit of money for childcare, or a gakload of money for welfare.

Sensible people pick the option that costs less money.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Sure but I don't think we should have to pay for those either. Personal responsibility is a pain but thus is life.

But the child isn't personally responsible for having been born to a mother that can't look after it. As a result, any human that is not a complete sociopath accepts that the child shoud have food, shelter, and an education. And that's a lot more expensive than providing contraception.

 sebster wrote:
Unfortunately, it turns out that having people talk about abstinance is approximately 0% effective.

That wasn't really the point.

 Peregrine wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, in a technical sense it's not a disease, but that's not really relevant unless you're a scientist or doctor analyzing the mechanisms at work.

So you're advocating the manipulation of average people?

Err, what?

You said that technical classification isn't relevant unless you're a scientist or a doctor analyzing the mechanisms at work. This is a nonsense claim that implies people who are not scientists or doctors analyzing the mechanisms at work cannot understand technical definitions. It is true that it will require more effort on their part to do so, but that's irrelevant; if the issue is important to you then you should make the effort to help them understand.

Now, I can appreciate, from a political standpoint, that manipulating people is often necessary to produce expedient change, but you're not exactly going to produce expedient change by way of this forum. Moreover, I'm a bit taken aback by your apparent lack of understanding with respect to what it is you're doing, and advocating.

 sebster wrote:
As I understand it, the biggest cost in getting the pill isn't the pill itself, but the prescription. So while it might be very cheap at Walmart for the actual pill, the prescription might be a significant expense depending on the person's circumstances.

There's also an issue with finding the right pill. As with all medication that significantly alters biochemistry the wrong medication can have serious side effects.

 dogma wrote:
You said that technical classification isn't relevant unless you're a scientist or a doctor analyzing the mechanisms at work. This is a nonsense claim that implies people who are not scientists or doctors analyzing the mechanisms at work cannot understand technical definitions. It is true that it will require more effort on their part to do so, but that's irrelevant; if the issue is important to you then you should make the effort to help them understand.

I said it's not relevant, not that you can't understand it. It's very simple:

If you're a scientist or doctor working in something related to diseases then it's obviously incorrect to call pregnancy a disease, since it would be stupid to, say, insist on the use of masks because otherwise someone might catch a bad case of babies.

If you aren't one of those people (and discussing it in that context) then it's just fine to call it a disease. It isn't technically 100% correct, but it doesn't need to be. It isn't a literal scientific claim, it's an analogy.

I really have no idea where you got the idea that there was any dishonesty or manipulation involved in that comment, especially since you'd have to be pretty stupid to think that babies are literally a disease.

 Monster Rain wrote:
That wasn't really the point.

Of course not, but that's why that kind of thinking keeps producing a conclusion that sucks so bad in the real world.

Because, yeah, sure, abstinence is 100% effective at stopping pregnancy. So you should stop having sex, and it'll great work for you. But you're not the problem, it's all those highschool kids and college kids who would really struggle to raise a kid right now.

So you tell them abstinence works great. And guess what? Telling them that does feth all. Nothing. They keep having sex. Telling people about abstinence is 0% effective.

At which point, given you want to stop unwanted babies and abortions, you have to start looking at other options.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dogma wrote:
There's also an issue with finding the right pill. As with all medication that significantly alters biochemistry the wrong medication can have serious side effects.

True, cheers for the addition to my point.

Anyhoo, point is 'the pill is only $4 at Walmart' really misses the point.

I want to know where all this cheap birth control is coming from. We paid $60 a month for ours before we got non-Catholic insurance.

 Peregrine wrote:

I said it's not relevant, not that you can't understand it. It's very simple:

If I can understand it, then it is relevant. If I cannot then it isn't. You're making a weak attempt at appearing diplomatic.

 Peregrine wrote:

If you're a scientist or doctor working in something related to diseases then it's obviously incorrect to call pregnancy a disease, since it would be stupid to, say, insist on the use of masks because otherwise someone might catch a bad case of babies.

If you aren't one of those people (and discussing it in that context) then it's just fine to call it a disease. It isn't technically 100% correct, but it doesn't need to be. It isn't a literal scientific claim, it's an analogy.

No, that's either lazy or manipulative. Analogies are used to convey a concept to a person that is ignorant of it. That would be fine if you took the next step of elaboration, refusing to do so is, as said before, either lazy or manipulative.

 Peregrine wrote:

I really have no idea where you got the idea that there was any dishonesty or manipulation involved in that comment, especially since you'd have to be pretty stupid to think that babies are literally a disease.

So your argument is that we shouldn't take you literally at all, but consider your words in a literal sense?

Good job.

 dogma wrote:
No, that's either lazy or manipulative. Analogies are used to convey a concept to a person that is ignorant of it. That would be fine if you took the next step of elaboration, refusing to do so is, as said before, either lazy or manipulative.

Err, lol? How the hell is "pregnancy is like a disease" the same as saying "you're too stupid to figure out that babies aren't contagious"?

 Peregrine wrote:

Err, lol? How the hell is "pregnancy is like a disease" the same as saying "you're too stupid to figure out that babies aren't contagious"?

Is that what I said? It doesn't appear to be what I said, but then I suspect you've been trying to fight your way out of a corner for some time, so I shouldn't be surprised at the equivocation.

More importantly, how are you not intentionally misleading people if you openly recognize that babies are not contagious and that, therefore, pregnancy is not like a disease?

 dogma wrote:
More importantly, how are you not intentionally misleading people if you openly recognize that babies are not contagious and that, therefore, pregnancy is not like a disease?

Because only an utter moron would read that comment and think that it's a literal statement that babies are a contagious disease, therefore only an utter moron would be misled by it. The point of the comment does not at all depend on pregnancy literally being a disease, only that it's LIKE a disease in many ways.

All you're doing here is nitpicking for the sake of having something to argue about, while ignoring the substance of the comment in question.

 Peregrine wrote:

Because only an utter moron would read that comment and think that it's a literal statement that babies are a contagious disease, therefore only an utter moron would be misled by it.

Shocking though it may be, there exist utter morons. In fact, you analogy depends upon their existence, because no intelligent person would ever believe that pregnancy is like a disease.

 Peregrine wrote:

All you're doing here is nitpicking for the sake of having something to argue about, while ignoring the substance of the comment in question.

No, I'm deliberately annoying a person who has repeatedly annoyed me by way of self-righteousness.

 dogma wrote:
No, I'm deliberately annoying a person who has repeatedly annoyed me by way of self-righteousness.

So, trolling. At least you're honest enough to admit it.

 Peregrine wrote:

So, trolling. At least you're honest enough to admit it.

And I'm sure you'll write it off as that.