Living in an abortion ban state is bad for mental health

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The false idea that getting an abortion makes women irreparably depressed and anxious, that it causes a deep psychic wound, has for decades been used by anti-abortion activists to support abortion restrictions.
But the argument is entirely based on anecdotes, personal beliefs, and vibes. No good science has demonstrated this link.

That’s not because nobody’s tried to answer the question of what the mental health impacts of abortion are on the women who obtain them. It’s because the answer to that question, over and over again, is: none. In study after study, researchers have consistently shown that getting an abortion does not cause mental health problems.

What does reliably worsen women’s mental health, however, is banning or restricting abortion access.

A wealth of research has shown that when people are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies, it negatively impacts their physical health and finances — and mental health. In a survey conducted before the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, women living in states with more abortion restrictions had higher rates of mental distress. In another study, states enforcing abortion restrictions between 1974 and 2016 had higher suicide rates in women of childbearing age in particular.

But when the court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, it wasn’t making a decision grounded in science.

Now we’re more than a year and a half into living with the consequences. And when it comes to women’s mental health, the fallout is following the exact pattern scientists predicted.”

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“Using data gathered as part of US Census Household Pulse surveys, the researchers looked at respondents’ self-reported anxiety and depression scores from about six months before and six months after the Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion. They compared scores on a scale of zero to 12 among people in states with and without trigger bans, abortion restrictions that went into effect as soon as the Supreme Court issued its ruling.

What they found was, frankly, predictable: Before the Court’s decision, anxiety and depression scores were already higher in trigger states — a population-wide average of 3.5 compared with 3.3 in non-trigger states. After the decision, that difference widened significantly, largely due to changes in the mental health of women 18 to 45, what the authors defined as childbearing age. Among this subgroup, anxiety and depression scores subtly ticked up in those living in trigger states (from 4.62 to 4.76) — and dropped in those living in non-trigger states (from 4.57 to 4.49). There was no similar effect in older women, nor in men.”

https://www.vox.com/24071802/abortion-roe-overturn-trigger-ban-states-mental-health

The Kremlin has never been richer – thanks to a US strategic partner

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Russia is entering its third year of war in Ukraine with an unprecedented amount of cash in government coffers, bolstered by a record $37 billion of crude oil sales to India last year, according to new analysis, which concludes that some of the crude was refined by India and then exported to the United States as oil products worth more than $1 billion.
This flow of payments, ultimately to Moscow’s benefit, comes from India increasing its purchases of Russian crude by over 13 times its pre-war amounts, according to the analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), exclusively shared with CNN. It amounts to US strategic partner New Delhi stepping in to replace crude purchases by Western buyers, reduced by sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the analysis said.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/kremlin-never-richer-thanks-us-080408989.html

iRobot Lays Off 350 Employees as Amazon Kills Merger Elizabeth Warren Opposed

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Today, Amazon terminated its planned acquisition of iRobot, manufacturer of Roomba robot vacuums, as the companies saw “no path to regulatory approval.” iRobot then announced that it would be cutting nearly one-third of its work force.
While the companies blamed regulators in the European Union for the termination, meddlesome U.S. lawmakers played their own part in souring the deal.”

…

“as the companies waited on regulators, iRobot was losing money: The company took out a $200 million bridge loan in July 2023 to tie it over until the deal closed (at which point Amazon lowered its offer to account for the new debt). With the deal scuttled, Amazon will now pay a $94 million termination fee, but iRobot expects to report an operating loss of as much as $285 million for 2023.

It’s worth wondering, then, if this is what lawmakers like Warren had in mind. The FTC letter worried the merger “could harm consumers and reduce competition and innovation in the home robotics market.” But without the merger, iRobot could very well face insolvency, and nearly one-third of its work force will lose their jobs—and considering the company is based in Massachusetts, a substantial number of them may very well be Warren’s constituents.”

https://reason.com/2024/01/29/irobot-lays-off-350-employees-as-amazon-kills-merger-elizabeth-warren-opposed/

Biden’s Natural Gas Export ‘Pause’ Is Based on Bad Math

Posted on by Lone Candle

“the pause is a limited one. It will only affect exports of LNG to countries with which the U.S. does not have a free trade agreement, and it does not prevent exports from the eight LNG export facilities already operating—though it will slow construction on several other export facilities, including one in Louisiana that would be America’s largest when finished. Even with the “pause” in place, the White House says America’s LNG exports are expected to double by the end of the decade, thanks to America’s booming natural gas industry and the energy needs of a world that’s getting wealthier.
While it is all a bit complicated, what the Biden administration announced last week amounts to an attempt to slow the growth of America’s natural gas exports—underpinned by the rationale that the slowdown will reduce global carbon emissions.

That’s a rationale based on some dubious assumptions. The climate activists who pushed the White House to consider the “pause” on new LNG export facilities point to an analysis released in November by former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policy advisor Jeremy Symons. Among other things, that report found that planned expansions of LNG exports in the U.S. would cause an increase in carbon emissions equal to the current level of emissions from the entire European Union.”

“Even if Symons’ report is right—indeed, an increase in natural gas exports seems likely to result in more global use of natural gas, even if he’s wrong about the scale of the increase—there’s a huge blind spot in that analysis. On his Slow Boring Substack, liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias points out that Symons “doesn’t even purport to estimate the net impact on emissions.”

In other words: How much would the increase in global natural gas consumption offset emissions from dirtier forms of fuel like coal and oil?

That’s the key question to ask. A significant reason why the United States has seen an overall decrease in carbon emissions in recent years is due to natural gas supplanting coal as the country’s top energy source.

The Biden administration is well aware of how exporting more natural gas could facilitate a similar transition in other parts of the world. When the Department of Energy signed off on a new LNG export facility in Corpus Christie, Texas, in March 2022, it concluded that “to the extent U.S. LNG exports are preferred over coal in LNG-importing nations, U.S. LNG exports are likely to reduce global [greenhouse gas] emissions on per unit of energy consumed basis for power production.””

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“this looks like a politically motivated maneuver aimed at garnering election-year praise from environmental activists on the left”

https://reason.com/2024/01/31/bidens-natural-gas-export-ban-is-based-on-bad-math/

‘Zero Illegal Crossings’ Is an Unattainable Goal for the Border

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The U.S. government, for all the money and agents it’s thrown at the border over the past several decades, has never been able to practically “shut down the border” or achieve zero illegal crossings (all the legal issues with those proposals aside).
Between the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 and January 2021, the U.S. has spent $333 billion to fund the agencies tasked with immigration enforcement, according to the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration nonprofit. The budgets for those agencies have been rising for years.

But more enforcement money hasn’t necessarily led to lower illegal crossings. As budgets have gone up, apprehensions of people who crossed the border between authorized ports of entry have gone up, down, and remained static. In other words, they don’t cleanly align: Though Customs and Border Protection reported 2.05 million apprehensions in FY 2023, it reported somewhat close to that number—over 1.5 million—in FY 2000. Annual apprehensions hovered below 500,000 from FY 2010 through FY 2018.”

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“The U.S.-Mexico border stretches nearly 2,000 miles, much of it treacherous. No matter the funding and no matter the enforcement mandate, there’s no way that agents could stop every illegal crosser traversing the deserts, mountains, and waters that make up the border region. That’s proven impossible along much smaller and more surveilled borders, such as the boundaries of East Germany and North Korea.”

https://reason.com/2024/02/02/zero-illegal-crossings-is-an-unattainable-goal-for-the-border/

Ron DeSantis Supports Legislation Banning Lab-Grown Meat

Posted on by Lone Candle

“DeSantis came out in support of Florida legislation that would ban the sale of lab-grown meat in the state.
“I know the Legislature’s doing a bill to try to protect our meat. You need meat, OK? We’re going to have meat in Florida,” DeSantis said during a Friday press conference. “We’re going to have fake meat? That doesn’t work. We’re going to make sure to do it right. But there’s a whole ideological agenda that’s coming after, I think, a lot of important parts of our society.””

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“like many attempts to curb vegan alternatives to meat and dairy, DeSantis’ support for these bills is also aimed at protecting animal farmers from competition—even if such competition is basically hypothetical.”

https://reason.com/2024/02/05/ron-desantis-supports-legislation-banning-lab-grown-meat/