let me explain: in america at least, the lower class have significantly worse health outcomes, even when accounting for other factors. just being poor is enough to make your overall health worse. we don’t know that being fat makes your health directly worse, like the data just isn’t there, but for a moment, pretend it does.

imagine going to the doctor with a health problem and the doctor looking at your chart and saying well, this problem will be less severe if you go up an income bracket. have you thought about becoming rich? it would really help. start by saving a little money every month.

ridiculous, right?? very few people successfully go from working class to rich, it just doesn’t happen on a large scale in society. maybe for a time you pick up some overtime hours, spend a little beyond your means, and appear rich. but eventually you burn out, your car needs to be repaired, and you return to being working class.

we do have this data: only some people can successfully lose large amounts of weight, and only a tiny fraction of people who lose that weight actually keep it off for more than a year. telling people to lose weight for their health is just absurd because they almost certainly can’t do it any more than they can double their income for their health.

Encouraging all people capable of being pregnant to get their tubes tied or get a hysterectomy isn’t the solution you think it is.

Most people who get abortions do so because they want to be able to get pregnant in the future.

Back-alley abortions often leave people unable to become pregnant again, even if they want to. Legal, safe abortion ensures that a person can terminate a pregnancy while still retaining the option and ability to become pregnant again.

PoC, disabled people, and trans and intersex people have historically been barred from the right to get pregnant and reproduce. These marginalized groups have faced sterilization and maternal mortality for a long time.

If you think reproductive justice is only about the right to *not* be pregnant, you are woefully misinformed.

Reproductive justice means people should be able to control their own bodies, whether it means ending or preventing a pregnancy, or becoming pregnant and remaining pregnant.

Reproductive justice means that healthcare providers should and must address the barriers and dangers PoC, disabled people, and trans and intersex people face when it comes to obstetrics and gynecology.

Reproductive justice means lowering the maternal mortality rate for black people in America.

Reproductive justice means not sterilizing disabled people and providing safe options for disabled people who want to become pregnant.

Reproductive justice means acknowledging that trans people may want to become pregnant and not mandating they be sterilized in order to legally transition.

Reproductive justice means not sterilizing intersex babies and children in the attempt to make them fit into a dyadic, binary sex.

“Cotton” is a perfect little opossum camouflaging as a perfect little white cloud.