information addict

If there’s a bright center to the Universe, astronomers have found the planet it’s farthest from. Called Kepler-16b, it’s a Saturn-like world which has the distinction of being the first discovered to orbit both Sun-like stars in a binary system.

- Astronomers discover a wretched hive of scum and villainy | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

If a pregnancy threatens my wellbeing, the issue will not be whether the foetus is or is not a baby, regardless or the foetus is a lump of cells equivalent to an appendix, or a poetry-writing symphony-composing ante-natal mathematician. The point is that the pregnancy threatens my wellbeing, and I am justified in ending the pregnancy to protect my wellbeing. Almost nobody believes in an absolute right to life. Nearly everybody believes that it is acceptable to kill born adults in self-defense. Moreover, there are a great many things that people are not compelled to do to sustain life in the US or UK, although in some places you are required to phone emergency services in the event of a traffic accident. You are not required to attempt first aid if you come across an injured person unless you are an on-duty healthcare professional. You are not required to donate blood (not even to your own dying toddler) or organs. You are not required to attempt to pull a drowning child out of a swimming pool (not even if you are an Olympic swimmer). We might pass moral judgment on some of these situations, but the law has nothing whatever to say about them, and I don’t hear anti-abortion lobbyists making much noise about them either. And yet, anti-abortionists argue that you should be legally compelled to lend your own body for 9 months, despite possible adverse effects on your wellbeing, to sustain the life of a foetus, although you have no remotely comparable responsibility to sustain the life of born children or adults.

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Modus dopens, “Personhood” (via smart-tart) (via skirtonfire) (via clingtomymouth) (via ihatethismess)

This reminded me of Han Solo cutting open the tauntaun so Luke Skywalker could stay warm. This is sort of how I feel about pregnancy. Conservatives: I am not the tauntaun you are looking for.

(via robot-heart-politics) (via greaterthanlapsed)

best analogy EVER? i think so. (via isabelthespy)