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The eradication of Down Syndrome with prenatal testing

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A child with Down Syndrome, featuring the characteristic facial features of someone with Down Syndrome: almond eyes, flat face, etc. (Found in Advanced Google Image of copyright-free images) Down Syndrome is the result of having too many copies of chromosome 21, or sometimes having part of chromosome 21 added to another chromosome when one already has two normal copies. Chromosome 21 is the only autosomal chromosome (as in not X or Y) that a human can survive to adulthood with more than two copies of. Down Syndrome is characterized by certain facial features, usually (but not always) some degree of mental impairment, and occasionally physical health problems such as heart defects, although these don’t happen very often. For decades, pregnant people have been going through tests to see if their fetuses have the condition, and between 60 and 90% of parents in America who get a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome get an abortion. 1   In general, I’m pro-choice, but there are...
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Realism When Writing About Aliens

Note: to avoid having to explain myself every time I use a big word and potentially boring readers who already know it, this time I've started using footnotes. If you don't know a word and there's a number next to it, the footnotes will either have a definition/explanation or a link to something that explains it better than I can. I also use footnotes for sources. There's still a great amount of debate among most people about whether or not there are life forms on planets other than ours. Sometimes this theory is shot down as unrealistic altogether, especially when it comes to intelligent life forms. Most evidence to disprove the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life is within the categories of "we haven't found life on any of the other planets in our solar system" or "we've never been contacted by aliens." But the universe is a lot bigger than most people realize. The furthest distance that we can see is about 46 billion lightyea...
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The Difference Between Democratic Socialism and Stalinist Communism

According to Karl Marx, communism is an economic state in which everyone shares everything (think "communal" or, for any Christians out there, "communion") and socialism is a stage in the making of communism, where all property and resources are public, and everyone does their fair share of work in production (Campbell 2018). These ideas play out well on paper, but people are greedy, so it can be hard to implement either communism or socialism completely as Marx planned. When most Americans with a high school education in history hear "communism," they think of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and the Red Scare. Some only think of Stalin. The communism that many picture is of the government seizing private property and personal belongings without redistributing the wealth fairly. "Socialism," although it defines a different economic state that is present and functional in countries such as Nicaragua, India, and Portugal ("List of socialist s...
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New Things to Do with Your Money in the New Year

Most people have their New Year's resolutions already decided by now. You want to lose weight, walk more, eat less junk food. But promising the same thing every year can get a bit boring and, I'll be honest, a bit sad. If you're looking for a new resolution for the new year, especially if you have a little bit of disposable income or you wish you had a little bit more, this post is for you. These are some New Year's resolutions to bring a new meaning to your money. Holiday Bonus Stocking Do you ever find yourself wishing you had more money around the holidays? Buying gifts, making a holiday dinner, and stuffing stockings can all get a bit expensive. Most of us, though, have a little bit of money we can spare earlier in the year. You could put your money in a savings account, of course, but here's a holiday-themed alternative. All you need for this resolution is your pocket change and a stocking. If you doubt your self control or have other people in the house ...
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Patreon!

I haven't posted on my Patreon in a while and I kind of gave up on it with no patrons to keep happy. The biggest problem was I was making a committment to something that takes me a lot of motivation and I'm kind of terrible at anyway. I can draw, sure, and even paint, but I'm not so great at drawing comics, at least digitally. Instead, I've been focusing on my store and on my YouTube when I have the time/privacy to record videos. Lately, however, I've also started knitting again. I gave it up in the first place because I had no time, because in high school I couldn't take it to class and had too much homework to settle down and watch TV, but now I have time to knit even when I don't have time to do other things, because I'm able to multitask and the teachers here don't care if I knit in class as long as I'm learning, and I am. Since knitting is so much easier for me than drawing (at least on a screen), I decided to change my focus in the followin...
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Self Care Tips for Spoonies

Most people have some sort of routine when they wake up in the morning and another one when they go to bed at night. For an able-bodied neurotypical, it might look something like this: Shower Get dressed Make and eat breakfast Brush teeth for the morning and then something like this: Set out stuff for the morning Put away anything you used today Brush teeth But for many people, whether they have a chronic illness or a disability or a mental illness, these steps are too big. I know I'm supposed to brush my teeth twice a day. I know I'm supposed to eat more than just cereal when I'm left to fend for myself. I know that I should shower every day and change my sheets every two weeks. But I have a certain amount of energy to use every day. When I wake up in the morning, I'm far too tired to shower or make myself real food, and I forget to brush my teeth and sometimes even to take my meds. When I come home at night, I've used up most of my energy and I r...
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The Effect of Male Privilege on Trans People

So, as a trans guy who didn't come out until I was 14, I was raised in the same way that a cis girl would be. My transfeminine friends, in their late teens, who still aren't out to everyone, were raised like boys. This is messed up, because everyone should be raised the same regardless of gender or agab (assigned gender at birth), but we weren't and kids still aren't. If you ask a TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist), trans women have male privilege until they come out as trans, and trans men don't. To a certain degree, they're correct, but that in no way means that trans women are privileged over trans men, and especially not over cis women. The thing is, my friends were raised with what most people would call male privilege. They were never sexualized or objectified, they were never told what they can or can't be, and they were able to walk places by themselves once they reached a certain age without fear of being harassed, assaulted, or murdered....
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