Sunday, September 5, 2021

And another day of selective morality, just getting started, religious exemptions, rationed care, rising vaccine popularity, World Cup qualifier Covid drama, racist text messages, and federal programs helping rich people retire in luxury comes to a close:

“Anti-abortion believers get to feel like noble advocates for Life, while still holding onto their prejudices and hang-ups and hatred.” — John Pavlovitz

Deaths

US: 666,219 (+361)

World: 4,581,744 (+6421)

Cases

US: 40,805,259 (+39,903)

World: 221,542,850 (+432,148)

The Easy, Selective Morality of the Pro-Life Movement. By opposing abortion, religious people can feel the intoxicating, easy high of self-righteousness and moral virtue—without having to actually love or help people: strange, disparate, uncomfortable-for-you-to-be-around people. That’s because embryos can be idealized into something pleasant and palatable, devoid of any of the messy characteristics they find undesirable in actual walking-around human beings. They aren’t yet gay or Muslim or liberal or Black or poor or atheist (or whatever other qualifiers trouble you), and so affinity with them is uncomplicated, solidarity with them does not cross the lines of their tribalism. Anti-abortion believers get to feel like noble advocates for Life, while still holding onto their prejudices and hang-ups and hatred. They can dispense all kinds of cruelty and expose human beings to staggering forms of bigotry—and still say they’re defending the living. Once these embryos are no longer embryos, these supposed life-lovers often don’t treat them as though they’re even human. Unless these lives conform to the narrowest and most stringent of criteria, they’re more often considered threats to be neutralized, enemies to be overtaken, and adversaries to be destroyed. When embryos become LGBTQ teenagers, terrified migrants, young black men, people dying of COVID, sick middle-aged adults with astronomical bills, the working poor, Muslims—suddenly, these lives seem far less sacred to them. Most ironically of all, embryos that grow into women who desire autonomy over their own bodies will find their lives and wills are now of little concern. They will be legislatively subjugated by those who’d have once declared them precious.

Anti-abortion groups are fired up over the Texas ruling. They're just getting started. "This is a massive victory for the pro-life movement and we are excited that the law can stay in effect," said Rebecca Parma, senior legislative associate at Texas Right to Life.

Oregon joins fight over Texas abortion ban. Mayor Ted Wheeler announced Friday that city commissioners will vote on an emergency resolution this week. It would declare the city's intent to ban future trade, exchange of government services, and travel on behalf of the city to Texas.

This is not the update I wanted to give you…

Religious exemptions to vaccine mandates could test 'sincerely held beliefs'. “I don’t think most of this is sincere. I think it’s just a way to get out of having to take a vaccine.”

A COVID Surge Is Overwhelming U.S. Hospitals, Raising Fears Of Rationed Care. The idea is an alarming sign of how the delta variant has ripped through large swaths of the country — primarily sickening the unvaccinated and straining an already depleted health care workforce.

Despite divides, Covid-19 vaccines are now as popular as Christmas trees. Three-quarters of American adults have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and it's clear looking at the data that vaccine hesitancy has been slowly dissolving throughout the year. To put this 75% in perspective, consider two popular things in American society: Christmas and household pets.

Brazil-Argentina qualifier suspended in coronavirus dispute. A World Cup qualifier between Brazil and Argentina was suspended amid chaotic scenes after local health officials walked onto the pitch on Sunday in a bid to remove three players who didn’t comply with coronavirus restrictions.

American tennis player Sloane Stephens received a flood of racist and sexist messages after losing the third round of the U.S. Open.

America Is Spending a Fortune to Help Rich People Retire in Luxury. How federal programs conceived for ordinary families became a piggy bank for affluent boomers.

Bodies floating downstream into Sudan reveal what appears to be a new phase of ethnic cleansing in Ethiopia, a CNN investigation found.

California passes America's first bill tracking violent deaths of LGBT+ people. If passed into law, AB 1094 would kickstart a three-year pilot program run by the California Department of Public Health to better track the LGBT+ status of victims of fatal violence. Known as the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data Collection Pilot Project, the program will teach coroners and medical examiners how to identify and compile information about a victim’s sexual orientation and gender identity in cases of violent death, including suicides and homicides.

Trans people who are enrolled in the North Carolina State Health Plan can proceed with a lawsuit over its 2018 decision to exclude transition-related treatment, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

Star Wars games will allow players to create trans characters, report claims. At present, this remains a rumour and it’s not clear which games this refers to.

Apple said Wednesday it has so far secured two states, Arizona and Georgia, to bring digital driver’s license and state IDs.

Sarah Harding, singer with Girls Aloud, dies aged 39 from breast cancer.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.