Tag Archives: Social media

Pregnancy, Down Syndrome, and Reproductive Rights

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Although I usually cloak myself in a filmy, gauzy haze of positivity, sometimes the real world slips through a crack or two.

Did you hear about the YouTube influencers who documented every part of their pregnancy, up to and including their decision to end the pregnancy?

Jesse Ridgway and his wife Ashley ended their pregnancy, and in a series of posts on the YouTuber’s Instagram Stories, Jesse said that they’d recently made the “difficult decision” to end Ashley’s pregnancy after receiving a fetal Down syndrome diagnosis.

“This week, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy due to Trisomy 21,” wrote Jesse. “The choice was not made lightly.”

Down syndrome, also known as Trisomy 21, is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21.

It’s usually associated with developmental delays, mild, moderate, or severe intellectual disability, and characteristic physical features.

Since they town-cried their controversial decision, it stirred up a hornet’s nest of the most vicious attacks against them, as well as from those who support them. People are saying he posted publicly so he needs to deal with the hatred. He tried to get attention and make money off of his unborn child. (However, thousands upon thousands of others document their pregnancy too, and for the same reasons.)

“Down Syndrome isn’t a ‘blessing,’ it is objectively s—ty from a health perspective,” Jesse claimed. “I didn’t realize just how rough it is for the child, let alone the family…more often than not, they would be fully dependent on others for the rest of their life.”

After posting about the loss of their unborn child, the couple was flooded with vitriolic comments, with critics calling them “murderous” and “evil”. The Ridgways were sent a “tremendous amount of death threats” from people across various social media platforms who were outraged by their decision. The harassment became so severe that Jesse revealed he put extra security measures in place. In an interview on TMZ Live, he disclosed that the threats were taken so seriously that his wife had to leave their shared home.

From Reddit: I don’t know why people feel the need to give their input on a situation that doesn’t concern them. People need to mind their own business. The commenters are on their high horse acting as if they have such a high moral compass,

Here’s my opinion…

First of all, this is a distraction from the hell that is going on in our country on so many levels, all due to that orange POS.

Secondly...If Jesse and his wife had kept their decision to terminate PRIVATE (or their whole life private), none of this would have happened. I just don’t understand why so many people feel it’s necessary to put their lives on display for impressions, clicks, and income from YouTube and Instagram and all the other social media platforms.

Thirdly… Literally no one LIKES to have an abortion, it’s not like we women throw parties and do gender reveals, but it’s OUR body and our RIGHT to be pregnant or NOT be pregnant and everyone can stay out of my uterus.

Finally...When I was in the teaching program at university, I started out thinking I wanted to major in special education but after doing some student teaching in Special Ed classes and experiencing their special and exhausting 24/7/365 needs, it’s not something I chose to do.

It’s grueling for parents, siblings, teachers, and everyone else. I would not subject a child of mine to merely exist like that. What happens to them when their parents are gone? It’s not a pretty thought.

I don’t think there was as much comprehensive genetic testing back when I was pregnant with my son as there is now, but if my tests revealed a severe genetic abnormality or birth defect, I’d have a lot of thinking to do, mainly about their quality of life–and mine.

Final thought:
Pearl clutchers and virtue signallers and everyone else with their fake martydom can do what they want with their own bodies, but keep their hands, laws, and opinions out of mine. It’s quite literally none of your business. #reproductiverights

Cyberspace Issues: Hardwired

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Finally, finally, I have been reconnected with the World Wide Web. The information superhighway has been restored.

It took the technician hours because it wasn’t a simple repair, apparently. Since I’m always interested in learning about pretty much everything, I watched him troubleshoot the problem.

Not my actual box, but similar.

First of all, somehow, there was an actual broken wire in the little junction utility box that houses all the wires on our street. Just mine, not anybody else. Weird, right?

He fixed it but that didn’t resolve the issue. He showed me his Ipad map that pointed to another broken wire seven hundred feet away, down the street and around the corner. He went there, didn’t see a problem, but his map then told him the main issue was a broken wire two more blocks away on the main street.

When he opened up that particular utility box, he had to sort through hundreds of twisted wires of various colors and find the one that eventually connects wifi to my address. When he did that, he discovered that it was broken in half, not connected at all.

He repaired that wire, came back here, we rebooted my router and got a strong connection. After doing a few more tests to make sure everything was successfully in working order, the technician left.

I asked him how often similar things occur and he told me that it happens fairly often because the wires get old and no one ever checks them unless there’s a problem like I experienced.

I’m grateful he didn’t give up!

CRAZY, right?

At some point, I’m going to examine my relationship with the internet. I’m not happy with myself and how I felt about being unplugged cold turkey. It caused emotional and psychological distress. I don’t have an addictive personality but this felt very much like descriptions I’ve read about withdrawals. It’s time to self reflect and try some neuroplasticity.

At some point, I’ll do that, but right now, I’m tap tap tapping away, SO happy to be reconnected.

Day of Reckoning | Doomsday

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I’ve had a really tough last few days. My WiFi broke on Thursday– I mean really broke. and there was nothing that the telephone tech could do to fix it so I had to schedule an appointment for a real, live human to appear in person.

The even worse news is that no one can come until Tuesday. TUESDAY.

That’s a lifetime, right? Nowadays, to be without internet access grinds our lives to a complete stop. I’m not sure that it’s a great idea to be so reliant on this technology.

I thought I was really smart and tethered my computer to my phone’s cellular data until I got the message that I was using too much data, so I had to untether…unplug completely.

In some ways, this really feels like the end; doomsday, my own personal day of reckoning. I guess I didn’t realize how totally dependent I’ve become on the internet — in every aspect of my life. I confess that I felt a level of anxiety, stressed out because it was as if I was marooned on a desert island, cut off from the rest of the world.

I was lucky enough to still have a radio because I couldn’t listen to music any other way. It was like turning the clock back more than thirty years.

No computer, no social media.

I had disconnected from cable TV a while ago but no WiFi meant that I didn’t have Prime or Netflix or Roku and I was stuck with only a handful of local stations. Crazy.

I found a couple books to read but it didn’t take me very long to finish both of them. I polished all the furniture, I washed windows, I cleaned out the refrigerator. I worked in the garden. I actually got a lot done, much more than if I had wasted time on the internet.

Psychology Today says excessive use of the internet is known to negatively impact a person’s mental health. It has been associated with mental health issues, such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Cybersex and pornography hurts our minds, souls, and relationships in so many ways — it’s incredibly sad.

While the internet has completely revolutionized the way we live and work in the modern world and opened up opportunities, it’s also closed the world. I believe that, too.

The internet transformed communication, information dissemination, commerce, education, and social interactions in unprecedented ways, reimagining the way we live, work, and interact with one another.

In the old days, we used typewriters to write papers or letters — or we hand wrote them. If we wanted to read a book, we went to library — or the bookstore. There were no e-readers or digital downloads.

If we wanted to hear a song, we listened to it on the radio or we bought a vinyl record, tape, or disk.

If we wanted to watch a movie, we either went to the movie theater or watched whatever came on television, and later we had Blockbuster to rent movies, remember that?

Upon reflection (since I’ve had a lot of time to THINK) I think life was better because there was more one-on-one interaction. Being alive didn’t feel as disposable as it does now. We didn’t expect everything to happen instantaneously. We didn’t give up as easily on things. We didn’t discard things as quickly. We learned how to take care of them and mend them if they broke. We didn’t feel the need to rush out and buy the latest new thing that was being sold, and then obsessively track its every delivery movement. (That’s me.)

It hasn’t been easy, that’s for sure. I only lasted three days before I packed up my laptop and drove to the (empty) city parking lot to access their free internet.

This is where I am right now, sitting in my car, typing away on their signal. After this, I think I might hit up Amazon and look for a new table runner to accent my now beautifully polished and shiny dining room table.

The pain is real. How long could YOU last unplugged?