This meme makes it seem like minors in Florida are “forced to give birth” and/or need a judge’s approval, which is misleading without context.
▪️In FL, a minor needs parental consent for an abortion. This isn’t unique to FL, 27 states require parental consent and 36 require parental involvement (FL is one of just 6 states which requires parental notification & consent, although not sure how you’d get consent w/out notification)
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/parental-involvement-minors-abortions
▪️These parental consent laws were in place long before the Dobbs decision overturned Roe, in fact this headline is from a case that happened in 2020, when Roe was still in place.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k8gxq/judges-denied-14-year-old-abortion#
▪️This particular case involved a girl who said her mother lived in Guatemala & she lost touch with her father, thus couldn’t get consent. In this case, minors must get a judge to approve their abortion. The judge in this case had questions about the location of her mother & her credibility. It’s unknown if the girl ended up getting an abortion or not.
▪️Advocates may have a point about FL’s cumbersome legal process for minors without legal guardians being unfair, but this affects a tiny minority. The Vice article claims 342 have been denied by courts in the past 15 years, which is only 22/yr. And many get it changed on appeal.
▪️The reality is that, like most states, minors in FL are free to get abortions provided they get parental consent. And now 13 year olds can’t get social media accounts. Linking these two together as being hypocritical seems quite a stretch.
So many of these right wing accounts are just whiners now, this is a diatribe about automatic sinks and towels, the horror! As I explained in a prior post, most of the newer terminals have great bathrooms, some now have completely private stalls and plenty of them. The worst and most crowded airport bathrooms are invariably found in aging terminals that are decades old. It’s a reminder that airports were usually drab and uncomfortable.
I think the heyday of the air hand-dryers was like 15-20 years ago, where often you couldn’t find real towels. Now you can at least usually get real paper towels in airport bathrooms. Remember those old cloth roller towels that would go in a loop and somehow “clean” themselves? Yuck! Public bathrooms have always been gross, it seems some are deliberately having selective memories.
Airport food and drinks were always expensive, but now practically everyone brings those huge cooler flasks with them and fills them up. So not sure what he means that ...
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
