yeet

Women seeking third-trimester abortions already comprise less than 1% of all abortions administered, and they’re done because the fetus inside is either a) already dead and will cause infection and death for the mother, b) horrifically deformed and will live for a few agonizing hours before dying and might kill the mother on the way out, or c) babies who were very much wanted but who for whatever reason have a high risk of killing the mother. If their doctor recommends terminating the pregnancy, then it must be the woman’s choice and no one else’s if she does.

something prohibited the earlier abortion

new information

the first is solved* by more access to abortion - free, commonly available, without conditions…etc.

the second is impossible to solve*. women’s lives can change within a 9 month span that makes motherhood, or pregnancy, or labor simply incompatible with living her life to the fullest most satisfying it can be for herself. it can be medical, it can be circumstantial, it can be emotional, regardless it’s no one’s fucking business. to put a condition on abortion is to tell women she is not allowed to control her own life. a woman is a grown adult who can decide for herself, who can be rational, logical, and understand the decision completely. she is the most informed of her own life.

you know how gender nonconformity is increasingly being medicalized?

i was in an ultradistance trail race last weekend and the second place finisher in the 50 mile was a woman, which i had never seen in a road race (and i know that a woman won this race outright last year). there were 5 women in the top 15 finishers in the 50k. the men were more numerous, but the women were running almost as well as them, on average.

and this was not because of the sheer distance, because men can run long distances on a circular track much, much faster than women can (i don’t think any woman is ever going to run 6:50 miles for 400 laps on a 400m track, for instance).

the women ran fairly well, compared to the men, because of the course, not the distance. twisting, turning single track trail with ankle deep mud everywhere from the spring rains, swamp crossings, sudden sharp climbs, gullys and ravines with running water and slippery rocks, these awkwardly tall platform bridges where you had to climb these 18” steps. you could not run more than 3 steps without having to make a decision. it took great patience and psychological resilience just to finish.

i think this more natural kind of environment eroded the extravagant male advantage we’re used to seeing. pure power, pure speed, matters less in the woods than on a perfectly beveled artificial track, which is why men have chosen to measure running performance in this “man-made” environment, and why they imposed these practices on women when they started allowing us to compete, less than a century ago.

the point is not that men have no athletic advantage over women, because they definitely do. but they choose to measure their athletic prowess in contexts that disproportionately favor themselves.