What I have heard from a friend who gave birth at home after being with her sister giving birth in a hospital, is that she felt like her sister wasn't taking advantge of the various interventions, but rather that they were done to her, and my friend wanted to avoid that.

But that's a matter of electing to use a hospital or not, which is fine. But there seems to be an idea that somehow using drugs is a failure of will or something (my wife had some of these feelings since she did have an epidural), and that I don't understand. It's available, millions of birthing mothers have used them, why feel bad about it?

It's available, millions of birthing mothers have used them, why feel bad about it?

That, I think, is the cultural issue -- there is a lot of energy in our culture around feeling bad about whatever choice you make as a mother, from conception to college graduation.

What I have heard from a friend who gave birth at home after being with her sister giving birth in a hospital, is that she felt like her sister wasn't taking advantge of the various interventions, but rather that they were done to her, and my friend wanted to avoid that.

This is a pretty common experience. I did have an induction and walking epidural, and still had a pretty good birth experience, but I had a lot of things in my favor, like family who'd worked OB-GYN and an extensive reading habit that included most of my mother's medical texts, so I went into it over-informed. The c-section rate in the US is twice the upper percentage of the WHO recommended rate, and there's a lot of anger and push back about that. While it sometimes takes extreme forms and I roll my eyes, it's not happening just because the dirty hippies think modern medicine is crock.

There are those same sorts of feelings over practically any pain-relieving drug. "Strong" people are supposed to be able to "tough it out." There are also some things specific to birth, with the history of how medicine during birth has been presented and promoted, but I don't think I know enough about that to really sum it up too well.

It's available, millions of birthing mothers have used them, why feel bad about it?

Because it's not risk-free? Because when you have it, you may have felt pressured into it? Because if you wind up in the intervention cascade afterwards, you feel like you could have done something to have stopped it? Because women are humans too, and humans feel guilty about all sorts of things they couldn't actually have as much control over as they think they should have?

I never felt like a cadaver on a slab while giving birth or being examined. I don't doubt that some women experience this but my doctor was on call during a holiday weekend and had delivered a record number of babies. I was laboring with Owen for over 24 hours, including the Sunday my doc was getting ready to go off duty. I'm sure he was tired and ready to get away with his own family but he didn't push me into a c-section in order to get it over with.

I also dislike women who feel they've been pushed around by their own OBs after the fact dis the entire Obstetric profession. Taffy admitted she didn't "love" her doctor. And she recounts how he dismissed her questions. I agree that more women should be empowered enough to change doctors during pregnancy or demand the treatment they deserve.

I switched OBs at the beginning of my first pregnancy because of assholish attitudes by one of the practice's doctors whom I vowed would never touch me again.

ION (from PZ's blog) Comic-con reacts to Fred Phelps

Westboro Baptist Church decided that they were going to picket Comic-Con, and Justin Kirchart sent me pictures. He also sent me a photo of the WBC picket — it's a sad and pathetic 4 people standing and holding the usual "YOU HATE GOD" and "GOD HATES FAGS" signs, and it wasn't very interesting, so I didn't bother to upload it.

Here, though, are the forces of Comic-con madness across the street. They're much more entertaining. Click to zoom in!

My fave is the guy in the Bender costume holding a sign saying "Kill All Humans".

eta: io9 has more photos: [link]

I have an entirely different sort of question.

For (older) immigrant children, how young do they generally have to have immigrated to have no discernible accent? If they're in a place without a large population speaking their first language?

I know some people who immigrated around age 10 and had very little of the accent of their first language, and others who immigrated around age 6 and had a very strong accent.

My fave is the guy in the Bender costume holding a sign saying "Kill All Humans".

And "All Glory to the Hypno-Toad!"

I'm a little disappointed there weren't any Klingons, though.