I feel sorry for women who can't experience the joy of marriage. My husband is a top oncologist, and he gave me a lakeside wedding at dusk. It was the most beautiful wedding, and then our first child was born 10 months later. Tony supports me, and I support him, and our children bring so much light into our lives.

This is where my stubbornness lies too. I have never had the flu. I hear too many anecdotes of people feeling worse after getting a shot, and then contracting the flu anyway. In my head that adds up to "flu shots barely work any better than no flu shots".

I get sick every time I get a flu shot. It may be the shot, or it may be coincidence, but I see the pattern clearly. I have friends who get it and have no problems.

Holy shit, there's a lot of bullshit in your post. I'll address one part of it, I'm sure other people here will address the rest.

Putting aside the horror that is FGM, it was the "settlement" that got me. The life of that beautiful girl was decided to be worth $700. This brings tears to my eyes.

Got it, so this is about your personal decision making process, not about establishing logical debate. I can't really engage that.

I will take a US court over one in the middle east any day of the week.

Male circumcision also does not serve a hygienic purpose. Men who are uncircumcised are just as clean as those who are. Removal of the foreskin is dangerous (though in the Western world is usually done in far more hygienic conditions), is performed without anesthesia, and results in a loss of sensitivity and lesser…

He denied performing an operation her parents took her to him to perform. Maggot.

Ah the Middle East, where justice is a joke

Damn I was really hoping for a picture of the Van.

I think I've read this novel. SPOILER, it ends poorly.

In my head, she rolls her Rs as she says, "I'm a Christian!" and it makes me laugh, which makes my coworkers give me side-eye, because this is work and nothing is funny here.

She should have bitten Don Lemon.

Warms my heart to think that the stench of my putrefying corpse might kill a debt collector!

Exactly. The data on homebirth safety in the US includes unintentional homebirths (baby came before Mama could get to the hospital) and unassisted births (teen parents who hid a pregnancy) along with planned births assisted by medically trained midwives/nurses. NOT a fair or objective data set.

That was part of the reason for our first homebirth. No insurance (Thanks Obamacare!) $10,000-$30,000 not counting prenatal visits. Homebirth $1500 all-inclusive. I'll take option B please. Now we have insurance so a hospital birth would only cost us $1000. We're still doing homebirth because my wife is more…

The thing is, I don't think it is a rejection of modern medicine. (In Canada), midwives study for four years (this is typically on top of a bachelors in another field), and they do carry a lot of standard birthing equipment with them. Yes, in extreme cases you do lose precious time, but you could say that for almost…

Except a home birth isn't necessarily dangerous by itself, (even unassisted, as you clarify above) just simply varying degrees of safety. If there was one definitely, absolutely safe method of birth, then everyone should be required to undergo that method, since anything less would be increasing the risk and dangers…

Uh. Saying "keep your opinions about someone's birth plan to yourself WHATEVER THEY MAY BE" is sanctimonious? I don't think that word means what you think it means.