“okay. hear me out. Romantic Comedy where @JohnBoyega helps his big brother @idriselba find a girlfriend. And it’s Christmas. i mean this writes itself. @idriselba was too busy raising @JohnBoyega to find love, but now, it’s time. And it’s Christmas.”
People seemed to really like this idea on twitter. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
A Tennessee woman was charged with attempted first-degree murder last
week for allegedly trying to use a coat hanger to end her pregnancy.
Anna Yocca, 31, was arrested
in Tennessee in September after she showed up bleeding at a hospital,
fearing for her health and safety. She gave birth to a very premature
baby boy, who was just 24 weeks along and weighed one and a half pounds.
It’s a tragic case. The baby has severe health problems, as most
infants born that early do, and will likely require oxygen for the rest
of his life. And whatever drove Yocca to try to end her pregnancy
herself, it probably involved serious desperation if she was willing to
take her chances by sticking a sharp metal object into her cervix.
But this story is about a lot more than one woman and one child. It’s
even about more than America’s dwindling access to safe, legal
abortion. This story has horrifying implications for all pregnant
women, even those who don’t want an abortion. It shows how any woman
can be treated like a criminal if law enforcement decides to take an
interest in her pregnancy.
The coat hanger is just the beginning
To be sure, it’s shocking to see a new case of a “coat hanger abortion” — the symbol of pre–Roe v. Wade America,
when women died or were maimed by the thousands every year because they
were that desperate to end their unwanted pregnancies. “I never thought
I would hear of a coat hanger abortion in my medical life,” writes OB-GYN Jen Gunter.
Pro-choice advocates fear that more women will try to self-induce abortions at home, since a skyrocketing
number of state-level abortion restrictions have made the procedure
much harder to access in the past five years. Tennessee, where Yocca
lives, is no exception. Women now have to make two trips to the doctor,
spaced 48 hours
apart. They may have to pay about $500 to $1,500 out of pocket
depending on how far along they are, since Tennessee is one of the many states that have outlawed abortion coverage in their Affordable Care Act health plans.
We don’t know what motivated Yocca’s decision, but these restrictions definitely make it harder for women to access abortion. Research suggests that the more restricted abortion is, the more often women take matters into their own hands.
But here’s the most alarming part of Yocca’s case: Abortion is still legal in America. Yocca is being prosecuted as if it weren’t. She is being charged with attempted first-degree murder. That’s a dangerous legal precedent for all pregnant women.
It’s not clear what injuries Yocca’s child sustained from the coat hanger itself, but his reported health problems are consistent
with the health problems you’d expect in any baby born that
prematurely. Only about half of infants born at 24 weeks survive at all.
And self-abortion attempts with sharp objects are more likely to result
in very early labor, as was the case here, than to kill the fetus
directly.
“If first-degree murder charges apply in this case, then any
woman who has a 24-week premature delivery could find herself subject
to police interrogation, investigation, and arrest, if it is believed
anything she did might have contributed to that premature birth,” said
Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant
Women (NAPW).
And Yocca isn’t the first, nor is she likely to be the last, to be harshly prosecuted for how her pregnancy turned out.
“Temperatures were down to 30 degrees this morning (in Seattle),” he
said. “Meanwhile, up at the North Pole they have had above normal
conditions. Temperatures were slightly warmer than Seattle with
temperatures between 30-35 degrees.”
So Seattle is colder than normal, while the North Pole is warmer than
normal. It may seem like a small margin between the temperatures, but
the northernmost place on Earth has to make quite a leap to reach even
close to Seattle’s temperature around this time of year.
“It definitely seems unusual. It looks like it was about 50 degrees warmer than normal (at the North Pole),” Michalski said.
Netflix wants to help out by assisting you in executing an elaborate
lie to trick your kids into thinking they counted down to midnight with
the rest of this time zone. Tomorrow, the video streaming site will
offer countdowns with six different themes, each starring different
animated and live action characters.
Your options include programs with the Project Mc2 girls, Inspector
Gadget, Oona and Baba of Puffin Rock, and DreamWorks characters Mr.
Peabody & Sherman and King Julien.
thew1ghtknight 