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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24348 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 10, 2026

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Popping the filter bubble and the sanctity of life.

This Tuesday I was presented with a piece of Trivia that brought me up short.

More people are killed each year by doctors in Canada than are killed by gun violence in the US.

My initial reaction was to quite literally exclaim "bullshit!" but having looked into it, there does appear to be a case. According to the Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada (which is currently the most recent report available) Canadian doctors euthanized 16,499 individuals in 2024, an increase of 7.5% over the 15,343 euthanized in 2023. Meanwhile The Trace a website maintained by the Gun Control advocacy organization Everytown USA maintains that there were 14,651 instances of Homicide by Gunshot in 2025. While this number does not include self-inflicted gunshots (IE Suicides) it does include an estimated 1,200 cases where the shooting was likely justified (IE suspects being shot by police or by would-be victims) and at least 2 instances of execution by firing squad.

Upon review of those numbers and their associated trend-lines where instances of euthanasia in Canada have increased with each consecutive year since it was legalized, while homicide in the US has been trending downward for the last 5 years from it's Pandemic-era peak it actually seems likely to me that more people are killed by doctors in Canada than are killed by guns in the US. Not "per capita" but by raw quantity (16 thousand people and change versus 14 thousand and change).

Considering the above in the context of another story that came across my feed a couple weeks ago. A Ghoulish Proposal Gets a Prestige Endorsement, it seems to me that there is a concerted effort on the part of certain factions to commodify and devalue Human life. See this story from the New York Times last year Organ Donors are too Rare we Need a New Definition of Death. I expect the media to assure me that that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy announcing that the Network for Hope (an organ procurement non-profit serving Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio) having had their certification revoked on the basis of credible claims that many donors were not legally dead at the time their organs were harvested is completely unrelated.

On a slightly different track, back when Harris was running for president there was this "ridiculous claim" that the Left wanted to legalize Abortion up to the moment of crowning, but just this Monday, Massachusetts became the 10th state in the union to do just that.

As in my prior "Popping filter bubbles" posts I don't feel like any of these things really warrant a post on their own, but when taken together they illustrate a trend, and I find myself lacking the vocabulary to describe my growing sense of unease with where this one seems to be going.

On a slightly different track, back when Harris was running for president there was this "ridiculous claim" that the Left wanted to legalize Abortion up to the moment of crowning, but just this Monday, Massachusetts became the 10th state in the union to do just that.

Um. Is this an exaggeration? How is that even possible? How do you get a doctor to kill a baby that's days from coming out and is clearly already a human? I don't see how this is possible without the mother and the doctor both being sociopaths.

How do you get a doctor to kill a baby that's days from coming out and is clearly already a human?

Ignore the traditionalists and their desire to make sex have consequences because their religion says it's evil.
That is a distraction and irrelevant, as all cassus belli are.

If you accuse these people of sociopathy, then do the power calculus as any sociopath would. [Note that you're going to have to put aside the assumption that sociopathy has a negative social valence for this to make any sense; this is raw human interest and will to power, nothing more.]

First, let's assume that female privilege is axiomatically good.

Next, assume that banning baby killing in any way threatens female privilege (progressives are trivially correct about this).

Therefore, ensuring women may kill their babies at will is a legitimate objective. As such, those babies are a legitimate military target- an enemy to be destroyed. Soldiers are not committing murder when they engage the enemy, which is how abortion is categorically not murder (some militaries may impose rules of engagement and charge soldiers for killing that does not accomplish military objectives, like "you can only shoot if they're under 20 weeks old or are about to kill one of your soldiers").

At the limit, it's just that simple. (It's more complicated for whom the question of female privilege does not dominate, but as the operations become more extreme the network of complications ultimately converges on this. Every asterisk or added rule of engagement weakens that goal[1].)

Or, to rephrase. Does abortion qualify as a just [civil] war? Well, let's check. To qualify:

  • The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain

The damage here is highly symbolic, but smashing the patriarchy remains the goal here, and given how bitterly the outgroup complains about it this seems to be satisfied.

  • All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

Self-demonstrating: "10 year old rape victim forced to carry to term". Apparently "teach men not to rape" is not working.

  • There must be serious prospects of success;

Babies are completely defenseless, and the soldiers are willing to do what is necessary.

  • The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. the power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

Collateral damage is limited solely to the target and random baby murder by outside parties has not increased. We are told the baby feels no pain.

I will also point out that the more traditional forms of self-defense also qualifies as a just [civil] war under these conditions (the criminal dies, the existence of police and the memetic threat of armed citizens didn't stop them from doing the crime, only carry if you can shoot straight, only shoot if you won't hit the bystander behind him).

[1] This is assuming immediacy only and disregards any long-term damage. Yes, this goal may become repugnant or the focus on it eventually deemed excessive, but one woman's time preference is another's practice of making hay while the sun shines. The point of having power is to get to do things like this.

In practice those kinds of super-late term abortions are... not very common. But it is literally not an exaggeration of what the law says; some states have even enshrined a right to abortion immediately after birth. I suspect these laws were written by radical activists and that lawmakers enacting them do not actually read them, but as the law goes it is legal for doctors to kill very young babies in a few states.

some states have even enshrined a right to abortion immediately after birth.

I havent seen that, before, im curious, where? I know there were cases in virginia where people were getting away with infanticide in the late 2000s.

I don't see how this is possible without the mother and the doctor both being sociopaths.

Oh, honey. This is going back years and years, and of course I don't have the link, but in one of those media pieces about the Brave and Stunning Abortion Providers, there was an article by an ob/gyn doing her abortion rounds while 16 weeks pregnant, feeling her baby kicking, performing abortions on women at that same stage of pregnancy, and because of course her brain was awash in pregnancy hormones she started crying.

But that was only an emotional, hormonal reaction and she soon reasoned herself back into "abortion is good and necessary and it's not a baby yet" etc. etc. etc.

How do you get a doctor to kill a baby that's days from coming out and is clearly already a human?

That's easy. It's only a baby if the mother wants it and is not medically terminologically classified as a "baby" rather than a "foetus" until after live birth and total separation from the mother. Pre-delivery foetus has no standing of legal personhood. That includes up to moving into the vaginal tract for delivery:

A fetus is not a legal person and only gains legal personhood at birth, when it is alive and has been delivered completely separated from the pregnant person’s body. A fetus, thus, cannot have a legal parent as it is not a legally recognised entity capable of being the subject of ‘parenthood’. By virtue of not being a legal person, a fetus neither has legal rights nor legal standing. No legal claims can be made by others on its behalf; for example, to protect its welfare. Legal parenthood cannot apply to it; no one can be its parent. However, significantly, the mater est principle as codified in the statute regulating ART specifies that a woman who ‘is carrying or has carried a child… is to be treated as the mother’.

Or after a failed abortion.

Several clinical studies have examined the medical circumstances under which live births can occur following attempted abortion, particularly in the second and third trimesters when the fetus has approached or is approaching viability (typically around 20 to 24 weeks of gestation). Additionally, though extremely rare, a few first trimester failed abortion attempts have resulted in live births later on in pregnancy. Live birth outcomes are most likely to occur with the labor induction abortion method and when feticidal measures, such as intracardiac injection to stop the fetal heartbeat, are unsuccessful or omitted. In the context of abortion, feticide refers to the intentional killing of an embryo or fetus prior to expulsion from the uterus.

One of the most comprehensive studies on this phenomenon is a 2024 retrospective cohort study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Reviewing over 13,000 second-trimester abortions (15–29 weeks gestation) in a cohort indicated for fetal anomaly, maternal emergency, or other causes performed in Quebec, Canada, the study found that 11.2% of these procedures resulted in live births. This risk was especially pronounced at 20–24 weeks, where the likelihood of live birth was nearly five times higher compared to abortions performed at 15–19 weeks. Significantly, the use of feticidal injections, specifically intracardiac or intrathoracic administration, reduced this relative likelihood by 57%.

But don't worry! The unwanted products of conception will usually die on their own if there is no medical intervention, unless those spoilsport pro-lifers managed to get laws passed about not just putting the thing on a shelf and leaving it to die. That was an entire controversy back in 2002.

These findings are supported by other clinical studies and observations as well. A 2018 study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology, which focused specifically on second-trimester abortions performed without feticide for fetal anomalies or genetic abnormalities between 20 and 24 weeks gestation, found that 50.6% of fetuses were born alive. The median survival time in these cases was 32 minutes. Live birth following the attempted abortions was more likely in cases involving higher gestational age and the absence of severe anomalies. A smaller study, published in 2016 via The Journal of Reproductive Medicine, found that 15% of labor induction abortions performed between 16 and 22 weeks gestation resulted in unintended live births. Most of these infants exhibited cardiac activity for less than two hours. Consistent with most other research, the probability of live birth increased with gestational age. The study also found that attempted terminations due to prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome (trisomy 21) were associated with a higher likelihood of live birth.

There is no obvious line. Getting squeezed through a vagina is a pretty absurd standard for the beginning of personhood. I doubt they'll stop at pre-birth either; Singer and his cohorts argue that it should be fine to 'abort' one-year olds.

And why not? This sort of behavior has been pretty normal throughout human history. As usual, post-Christian fish have no clue about the water they've been swimming in.

Charitably, it's designed as a legal threshold, not a medical recommendation.

If you can't find a doctor to kill the baby one day before birth, then it shouldn't happen and it didn't. If you can find a doctor to kill the baby one day before birth then there must have been a good reason, therefore it should happen and it did.

This is the legislature 100% punting the question of abortion to doctors.

I wish I was exaggerating. What I find disturbing is that, as I was telling another user down thread, we seem to have gone from "don't be ridiculous, nobody is seriously suggesting we legalize infanticide" to "Massachusetts just effectively legalized infanticide and here's why that's a good thing" in the space of an election cycle.

I don't see how this is possible without the mother and the doctor both being sociopaths.

There are indeed, sociopaths in the world, such as this women, and this "doctor"

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