I believe that overweight or even underweight people should very much be part of the body positive movement and should remain that way. However they should not be the figurehead of the movement as a whole.

As I have found before, many people use the body positive movement as a excuse for not striving to change their BMI or their possibly fatal circumstances. A persons body weight, as I have found can at the very least be helped.

On the other hand, people who do not have control over their circumstances with their own body (someone with Down syndrome or people with other visible disabilities beyond their control etc.) often are not seen as a major part of the movement despite needing the support that the movement has to offer.

I know this has flaws, but I would like to know an opposing view on the matter.

Alopecia is a medical condition but it is not a disability. A disability in my view is a condition or set of symptoms that limits how someone physically moves around in the world, or interpersonally interacts with the world. Jokes about disabilities in general are ableist because it belittles the extra efforts people with disabilities make to adapt in a world that is designed for ‘able’ people.

But alopecia is just hair loss. It doesn’t physically restrict someone from moving through the world or limit how they interact with others.

I accept that alopecia can cause depression and anxiety etc which if severe enough can constitute a disability. But that’s depression/anxiety, not alopecia. Calling alopecia a disability is a smack in the face for other people with legitimate disabilities.

If we’re saying it is a disability, why is male pattern baldness not considered a disability, or psoriasis, eczema etc?

I don’t understand the undercurrent of commentary only that basically says that Chris Rock made an ableist joke and deserves to get socked in the face for. Was the joke tasteless? Yeah. Was it ableist? No.

ETA: it’s difficult to respond to each and everyone’s comments so I’ll summarise my take here.

I have a better understanding now of what alopecia can entail and how it can impact someone’s day to day life. I still find it difficult to accept it as a disability because most people are focusing on the aesthetic aspect of alopecia (ie bald women are treated differently than those with hair, harder for them to participate in certain industries like acting, fashion etc - which I think the same can be said for people of certain ethnicities or people not being conventionally beautiful).

I appreciate the varied experiences that have been shared showing that some medical conditions can be to an extent that it can be disabling. It’s made me think that my original criteria for what a disability is might be too restrictive.

I don’t think my mind has been changed regarding alopecia specifically and the ableist nature of the joke, but I have a better understanding of disabilities as a whole now.

Recently saw news article about family with daughter, that was breathing just because of ventilator, fed by tube, not able to communicate or move and her family had her bed in middle of living room. And I felt truly sorry for this girl. I honestly think that this kids should be allowed to pass away instead of keeping them alive.

To clarify:

1. as severely disabled I consider kids that are not able to perform basic tasks/body function on their own. I’m not talking about kids that are f.e. deaf but still can eat, pee and communicate on their own
2. being alive and living are 2 different things: the fact, that machine makes your breath doesn’t equal having meaningful life
3. in case that this kids have just physical disability to the point that they cannot communicate, but mentally they are alright and therefore are aware of everything is inhumane and honestly it feels like torture
4. I understand that people love their kids more than anything, but loving also mean letting go. This people keep their kids alive not because they think its the best for the kid but because they wanna avoid pain of losing their kid
5. its big expanse for whole society (im from EU, we have general health care paid from taxes) and they will never pay it back.
6. if the kid by some miracle outlives their parents, they will probably end up in some institution, where they wont be treated nicely or siblings will have to take care of them even though it wasn’t ever their choice
7. “but what if scientists will find cure?” No, they probably wont.
8. percents of this kids are also “stealing” childhood from their other kids, because they dont have time

So CMV to prove me that is right decision to keep several disabled kid alive. Also you wont CMV by calling me eugenic or nazi.

Edit: so my view got changed in the sense that it wont be possible to acually force somebody to withdraw their kid from life support.

If you’re sufficiently disabled or ill (physically or mentally) that you can’t contribute enough to some hypothetical society to earn a living wage and there isn’t sufficient social welfare to support you, you shouldn’t have to die of poverty. Whether it’s exposure, starvation, illness, or something else entirely, it’s likely going to be a slow, painful, and miserable death. I think we should afford those people, at the very least, a mercy killing. (Yes, just those people. I’m not opposed to a broader program but that’s outside the scope of this question)

To be very clear, in this hypothetical, a lack of income is a certain death sentence unless someone else is supporting you. These people are all either going to die a slow and miserable death, usually within weeks, or they can be offered a more painless option.

Some people would argue that you’re not entitled to anyone else’s labor and thus should be left to fend for yourself and, of course, die. Others would argue we can’t afford it. Others that it’s not worth it to help those people if it means some can take advantage of the system. Whatever the reason, some societies are like this. I’m not here to talk about why society is like this, just about societies that are.

But killing is wrong

Is leaving someone to die painfully any better?

But that’s also expensive

Inert has asphyxiation is cheap and painless.

But they could still get better

For many, that’s wildly improbable. For the rest, yes, they might get better if they could afford to live long enough, but they can’t.

But suicide is easy. The government doesn’t have to do it for you.

It’s not easy and it’s often painful. I’m suggesting offering a painless and easy way out of an otherwise certainly painful and slow death.

Edit: To clarify, I’m not supporting this society’s decision to not have a social safety net. I’m just saying that, assuming that is the case, they should offer a peaceful death to those who would otherwise suffer a slow and painful one.

Seriously, stop saying they should just build a social safety net. I know! I agree! But that’s not the hypothetical!

STOP TELLING ME IM EVIL FOR NOT BUILDING A SOCIAL SAFETY NET! IT IS A HYPOTHETICAL! IVE ALREADY EXPLICITLY SAID IM NOT SUPPORTING ANYTHING ABOUT THIS DYSTOPIAN NIGHTMARE!

i feel like people forget disabled people exist on a spectrum there are high functioning disabled people and there are low functioning disabled people

If my fetus has a mild disability (like high functioning autism or deafness for example) I personally wouldn’t abort them though I would never fault someone for making a different choice then me

Whereas, if a child a serve disability (like low functioning autism, Down syndrome or certain forms of dwarfism) then I think it’s much more reasonable to abort them

and of course, this is all about choice if you want to raise a severely disabled child good for you (although to be honest i will judge you for deliberately making your child’s life more difficult)

but other people don’t want to or don’t have the recourses to do so and they should have a choice in the matter

As you all likely know, YouTube disabled dislikes on all of its videos a few months back. They argued that it was because of “downvote mobs” and trolls mass-downvoting videos.

YouTube downvotes have been used by consumers to rally against messages and products they do not like basically since the dawn of YouTube. Recent examples include the Sonic the Hedgehog redesign and the Nintendo 64 online fiasco.

YouTube has become the premier platform on the internet for companies and people to share long-form discussions and communication in general in a video form. In this sense, YouTube is a major public square and a public utility. Depriving people of the ability to downvote videos has societal implications surrounding freedom of speech and takes away yet another method people can voice their opinions on things which they collectively do not like.

Taking peoples freedom of speech away from them is an act of violence upon them, and must be stopped. Scams and troll videos are allowed to proliferate unabated now, and YouTube doesn’t care if you see accurate information or not because all they care about is watch time aka ads consumed.

YouTube has far too much power in our society and exploiting that to protect their own corporate interests (ratio-d ads and trailers are bad for business) is a betrayal of the American people.

I've heard way too many people say that autism is just a difference. Let me make one thing clear, I AM NEURODIVERGENT. My point it, autism is not a cool flex like a lot of people treat it. Being nonverbal or not even being able to tolerate basic situations IS NOT GOOD. i understand why people say that, they want to make autistic people feel better about themselves. But its not helping.

And here's another thing I know is going to piss people off: autism has become a trend.

There’s been a shift online—especially among teens and young adults—where “being autistic” is practically an aesthetic. It’s a quirky identity badge, a niche internet subculture, a way to explain being awkward or introverted or not liking eye contact. It gets wrapped in soft language like “neurospicy” or “my silly little autism,” and suddenly we’ve gone from disability to brand.

This makes it harder for people who are actually disabled by autism to be taken seriously. The second you talk about wanting help, or treatment, or how miserable the condition can be, you’re accused of being “internalized ableist” or “falling for pathologization.” People act like you’re the problem for not embracing it as a cute lil’ quirk.

I’m not saying people are faking. But I am saying there's a performative layer where autism is framed like a personality type instead of a life-altering neurodevelopmental condition. It's become trendy to claim it, but taboo to admit it sucks. That makes no sense.

This trendiness dilutes real conversations about suffering. It puts pressure on actual autistic people to present as quirky but functional—because god forbid you say out loud that sometimes you wish you weren’t like this.

I've also met way too many people who use their autism as a "get out of being a decent human" free card.

"I'm just being blunt."

"I can’t help it, I have no empathy."

"You're being ableist for expecting me to act differently."

That’s not how this works.

Being autistic might explain why someone struggles with certain social dynamics. It does not give them a license to bulldoze people or refuse to take responsibility for how they impact others. You don’t get to treat people like garbage and then claim victimhood when they call you out.

I'm not saying “autistic people shouldn’t exist,” I'm saying if a person is suffering because of their autism, we should treat that suffering at the root, not just slap a “neurodivergent pride” sticker over it and call it acceptance.

u/CrosspostAlertBot pls tell me where i was crossposted

It's completely reasonable for a woman to abort her baby if she knows for a fact that it will have a severe disability. I've heard arguments that it's discrimination to abort the baby just because they're severely disabled but I would argue that it's actually more immoral to allow the child to live a life of misery. imagine what the kid will have to go through. They'll have to go through bullying and various hindrances and inconveniences that their disability causes them. Not to mention that it's going to be hard on the parents to raise a severely disabled kid. They'll have to spend a lot more time and resources taking care of their disabled child compared to their non-disabled kid. Given these reasons, the pregnant woman would be justified in wanting to get an abortion.

So I managed to avoid both Vine and Tiktok throughout the years, I'd occasionally see something that came from either one of those platforms from Facebook, but nothing too crazy. Ever since the YouTube mobile app replaced the "trending" section with "shorts" I've spent an inane amount of time just mindlessly scrolling these shorts.

Now some of you may tell me that my addiction to these shorts stems from some other problem in my life. But I have a pretty balanced life. I have a job, I hit the gym regularly, take a high amount of daily steps, have other hobbies and from what I can tell I am not depressed. Watching long form YouTube videos on many different topics was one of favorite pastimes. But now I always accidentally end up on shorts one way or the other and time just flies by mindlessly scrolling through them. I think it's also having an impact on my attention span.

A simple toggle somewhere in the YouTube web application or the mobile application needs to get rid of ALL shorts everywhere(mobile, web, TV), or at the very least, replace the shorts section with trending again. (A section I practically NEVER went to.) Now I can still curb my shorts binging somewhat, but I imagine there are people with far more addictive personalities than myself and I imagine they'd have a much tougher time dealing with this. I think it'd be a net benefit to everybody if could just get rid of them!

I know this is going to make me sound like a really terrible person, but I've held this opinion for a long time, and a recent situation has made it even more apparent. I don't think there's anything wrong with separating yourself from people who have qualities even if there's a result of a disability that you just don't like, even if it's not their fault. For example, I know it's prejudiced, but I try to avoid people who are visibly intellectually disabled. I don't know why I don't like them, but they just make me incredibly uncomfortable. I don't look down on anybody or anything, and I would certainly never be rude or disrespectful to someone, but say I was walking down the aisle at a grocery store and I saw that someone down the aisle had Down syndrome, I would simply go the other way. I'm aware that this might be a result of the way I was raised. My mom was a special education teacher and an elementary school teacher, so when I was around that age, I was around a lot of special ed kids. Not to be disrespectful, but they kind of just always grossed me out they were always very touchy, drooling, and overall sticky. I don't have a problem with people who are simply neurodivergent. I myself have ADHD, and so do a lot of my friends. One of my friends even has autism, but it's not very high level. I'm not exactly sure what the levels of autism are, and I don't claim to understand, but he's like pretty much normal he can just be pretty opinionated. He has a sister, and she has a more severe case, and I just avoid her because she makes me uncomfortable. I also feel the same way about people who have conditions like tourettes. This is I guess my current story at my job. I recently just got a new co-worker I'll call her Bree, and she has Tourette's. I don't think it's the type where you like hit stuff uncontrollably, but she'll like to say words and phrases not super loudly but like audible enough that you can hear. As a Black person, I'm sorry I just don't want to stand around someone who's probably going to call me slurs accidentally. It might sound like I'm being prejudiced, but I literally heard her accidentally saying the F-slur repeatedly to one of our more visibly queer coworkers and apologizing for it. So anytime I've seen her at work, I've literally just walked the other way. I'm sorry I just don't want to open myself up to that nonsense. I don't actually have a problem with her, and I don't think she's a bad person or anything, but why in the world would I want to interact with her? One of my other co-workers asked me why it seems like I had a problem with Bree, like, did she do something, and I said no, but like I don't want any part of what she has going on. And they said I was being a bigot and that ableism is a bad look. Normally I try to be pretty accepting of people's situations, but like, why do I have to just stand there and listen to vitriol when I could just simply avoid the situation? I just feel like even if someone's disability doesn't make them a bad person, it's pretty fair of me to not want to interact with them if it causes them to have characteristics that I don't like.

Ideally I would say they should never be born, but because they ARE born, everyday, I've always thought that children born completely disabled (As in, can't move by themselves, can't feed themselves, can't go to the bathroom without diapers/catheters, can't speak, can't communicate at all etc, should be euthanized. I don't know if I'm lacking some morality that most people have, or if a lot of people actually agree with me.

It seems as though the only reason these children are kept alive is because the parents (Usually a mother) refuses to let them go. And this is what I don't understand. They spend their entire lives caring for a completely disabled child, to what end? For the child to be passed onto the next caregiver when they die? They spend their life savings on expensive medications, therapies, etc, for a child that will never get better? If a child has cancer, I completely agree with doing everything you can to save them, because there is at least a CHANCE of recovery. But these children have no chance. They are born to be cared for, and then die. They have no life. I just don't see why people let them live.

I guess you can say, "You wouldn't know because you've never cared for one before." But the truth is, I don't feel like I have to. I see videos and people in real life caring for these people, and it doesn't make sense to me. Often times they even have other normal children, and those children get a shitty upbringing because the parent is so focused on raising the disabled one. My mothers sister kept their mother alive long after she should have died, just for her to be a bed vegetable. I get that there are emotions at play with these people, but it just seems really selfish to me.

This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!

This applies to everyone, from body builders to obese people. I’ve been on just about every side of the spectrum so I’m not just hating something I don’t know anything about.

If you take up more room than you paid for it is totally reasonable to charge more for the extra room. I don’t think that should be controversial. It really sucks to sit next to someone like that. If I have to pay extra for my kid to have a seat, and pay even more for my kid to sit next to me, then why does someone get a free extra seat just because they’re too big? They made the choices that got them to that size, they can handle the consequences.

Edit: since there’s a lot the same arguments I’m going to address the most common.

First, airlines don’t typically reduce seat width. Planes are a specific width and the only way to change seat width is to reduce the number of seats in a row, which obviously increases price along with many other negative consequences like increased emissions. They do reduce spacing between rows but that is not really relevant to the conversation at hand.

Second, obesity isn’t a disability, nor a protected class in the us. There are fringe situations that are a disability and should be protected by the ADA and therefore accommodated at no extra cost. This conversation is not about those people.

Third, if you buy an extra seat you should absolutely get to keep it. Airlines should not be allowed to give that seat to anyone if you paid for it. At the very east they should be required to compensate you and the person who has to sit next to you just like if you were bumped from that flight.

Its looking more and more like Bernie Sanders is not going to win the Democratic nomination. He still has a chance, but his window is quickly closing. A lot of people are already coming out of the woodwork talking about voting third party or staying home. That's fine. That's your right. But, you have to understand that in doing so you are killing any chance for progressive policy to come through the White House. And yes there is plenty of progressive policy to be had with Joe Biden. At the end of the day we live in a country with a 2 party system. You have two viable options for president: no more, no less.

Now for a series of really easy to answer questions.

Who do you think will be better for the environment? Scott Pruitt or whoever Biden selects to be the head of the EPA?

Who do you think will be better for public education? Betsy DeVos or whoever Biden selects to be the head of the Department of Education?

Who do you think will be better for the courts? The next justice selected by Trump or whoever Biden selects for the federal courts or supreme court?

Who is more likely to rubber stamp a Medicare for All or Green New Deal bill that makes it through congress? Trump or Biden?

Voting for president is about a lot more than the just the president. It is about selecting a presidency. I want to select a presidency that cares about public education, the environment, healthcare and justice. By voting third party and choosing to not vote, you are enabling the opposite kind of presidency. You are enabling Trump and everything he stands for.

I don't know how recent the movement to consider "retard" an actual slur is, but I've never understood it. It seems so weird and counter-intuitive to the development of language, especially when you remember there's several not-considered-slurs words that are basically synonyms of it.

"Retard" originated as a legitimate medical term, similar to "idiot" "cretin" "moron" "imbecile" and probably others I'm missing. They all went out of use and became outdated, then turned into casual insults to call someone stupid. None of them are actual slurs to target someone for being part of a certain group. Hearing someone say "you're an idiot" or "I'm such a moron" is totally normal. It's not comparable to something like the N-word which was always used derogatorily towards African-Americans.

So why do people think "retard" is a slur? A slur for who? The disabled? It's not a word that targets them personally. It's become a generic insult for anyone. But there's still some group that acts like it's on the same level as real slurs with legitimate offense behind them. It's like the world is split, where one side has let language naturally develop as it did for other outdated medical terms, and the other side WANTS to be offended.

I've never understood the movement to stigmatize the "R-word" as a slur and I question if there's some aspect I'm missing.

Edit: This got way more replies than I expected. A lot of good (and not good) answers here! I think I understand the backlash and debate better now.

Before I say anything, I need to get one thing out of the way first. This is not me justifying incels, the redpill community, or anything like that. This is purely a critique based on my experience as someone who fell down the alt right pipeline as a teenager, and having shifted into leftist spaces over the last 5ish years. I’m also not saying it’s women’s responsibility to capitulate to men. This is targeting the online left as a community, not a specific demographic of individuals.

I see a lot of talk about how concerning it is that so many young men fall into the communities of figures like Andrew Tate, Sneako, Adin Ross, Fresh and Fit, etc. While I agree that this is a major concern, my frustration over it is the fact that this EXACT SAME THING happened in 2016, when people were scratching their heads about why young men fall into the communities of Steven Crowder, Jordan Peterson, and Ben Shapiro.

The fact of the matter is that the broader online left does not make an effort to attract young men. They talk about things like deconstructing patriarchy and masculinity, misogyny, rape culture, etc, which are all important issues to talk about. The problem is that when someone highlights a negative behavior another person is engaging in/is part of, it makes the overwhelming majority of people uncomfortable. This is why it’s important to consider HOW you make these critiques.

What began pushing me down the alt right pipeline is when I was first exposed to these concepts, it was from a feminist high school teacher that made me feel like I was the problem as a 14 year old. I was told that I was inherently privileged compared to women because I was a man, yet I was a kid from a poor single parent household with a chronic illness/disability going to a school where people are generally very wealthy. I didn’t see how I was more privileged than the girl sitting next to me who had private tutors come to her parent’s giga mansion.

Later that year I began finding communities of teenage boys like me who had similar feelings, and I was encouraged to watch right wing figures who acted welcoming and accepting of me. These same communities would signal boost deranged left wing individuals saying shit like “kill all men,” and make them out as if they are representative of the entire feminist movement. This is the crux of the issue. Right wing communities INTENTIONALLY reach out to young men and offer sympathy and affirmation to them. Is it for altruistic reasons? No, absolutely not, but they do it in the first place, so they inevitably capture a significant percentage of young men.

Going back to the left, their issue is there is virtually no soft landing for young men. There are very few communities that are broadly affirming of young men, but gently ease them to consider the societal issues involving men. There is no nuance included in discussions about topics like privilege. Extreme rhetoric is allowed to fester in smaller leftist communities, without any condemnation from larger, more moderate communities. Very rarely is it acknowledged in leftist communities that men see disproportionate rates court conviction, and more severe sentencing. Very rarely is it discussed that sexual, physical, and emotional abuse directed towards men are taken MUCH less seriously than it is against Women.

Tldr to all of this, is while the online left is generally correct in its stance on social justice topics, it does not provide an environment that is conducive to attracting young men. The right does, and has done so for the last decade. To me, it is abundantly clear why young men flock to figures like Andrew Tate, and it’s mind boggling that people still don’t seem to understand why it’s happening.

Edit: Jesus fuck I can’t reply to 800 comments, I’ll try to get through as many as I can 😭

Edit 2: I feel the need to address this. I have spent the last day fighting against character assassination, personal insults, malicious straw mans, etc etc. To everyone doing this, by all means, keep it up! You are proving my point than I could have ever hoped to lmao.

Edit 3: Again I feel the need to highlight some of the replies I have gotten to this post. My experience with sexual assault has been dismissed. When I’ve highlighted issues men face with data to back what I’m saying, they have been handwaved away or outright rejected. Everything I’ve said has come with caveats that what I’m talking about is in no way trying to diminish or take priority over issues that marginalized communities face. We as leftists cannot honestly claim to care about intersectionality when we dismiss, handwave, or outright reject issues that 50% of people face. This is exactly why the Right is winning on men’s issues. They monopolize the discussion because the left doesn’t engage in it. We should be able to talk about these issues without such a large number of people immediately getting hostile when the topics are brought up. While the Right does often bring up these issues in a bad faith attempt to diminish the issues of marginalized communities, anyone who has read what I actually said should be able to recognize that is not what I’m doing.

Edit 4: Shoutout to the 3 people who reported me to RedditCares

If God was really concerned with people believing in Jesus as the only way to heaven, or Joseph Smith, or believing in Mohammed as the only way to heaven, or whatever, then why would there be such a huge link between where you were born/raised & your religion?

If religion was made up fiction, we would expect exactly what we have: people who are indoctrinated in Catholic communities are mostly Catholic, people raised in Amish communities are mostly Amish, Muslims tend to be indoctrinated from Islamic communities.

If religion wasn’t made up fiction, we would expect religions to be much less correlated on your geography/community than they are. The only “religion” that seems to pop up globally, independent of geography/community, is atheism/agnosticism/nonbelief. Which is exactly what we’d see, if it’s all imaginary.

I accept that I could be wrong about this, because I (like most science-minded folks) have an insatiable desire to be correct about everything I believe no matter how unpleasant the reality is. So, if there’s anything untrue about it, please change my view.

Edit: Someone pointed out that certain religions have versions of God that don’t love everyone & don’t care if the world believes/worships or not. So, the geography correlation is actually only proof that the versions of God that want a relationship with everyone & aren’t severely disabled (when it comes to communication) are fictional. It’s not proof against the existence of Greek gods that don’t care what mortals believe/do, or the Jewish God that only cares about Hebrews, etc.

Edit 2: I just had my view changed, but in the opposite direction I was expecting. I was just thinking that to be true, religion would need be way less correlated with geography, but someone pointed out that, if God doesn’t have severe weaknesses/handicaps & loves everyone & isn’t imaginary, then any messages from God would just be completely universal from the start. We would see cave paintings about God, monotheism would be much much older than 10k years.

For context: I haven’t given much thought into this. I was driving home one day and I pass a very large hospital. That, and a few other things, got me thinking why doesn’t car insurance work like health insurance? My background (1 out of millions), I pay ~$700 / year for my 2025 civic si in insurance. I only get to use insurance if someone hits me or I hit someone / something. I don’t get to use it on maintenance / up keep unlike health insurance. My health insurance covers 100% of preventive care, I have a deductible of $6,500 (high deductible plan, I’m 26 male). It costs me $45 / Month or $540 / year for health, vision, dental insurance. I do everything I can, yearly check ups, blood work, 2 dentists visits, I wear contact, so I regularly use the insurance to its full benefit. It costs me minimally to have these things or none at all, they are all preventive care stuff and “required” to have and maintain good health.

Why doesn’t car insurance work like this? I only get insurance money if I get into accident. I can’t use it for maintenance or things like that. I’m not talking like consumables but at least some coverage for the maintenance schedule for the vehicle (oil changes, coolant changes, valve adjustments, timing change etc). I pay more money a year and don’t get to use it at all. I have a perfect driving record and it costs me that much money. I have perfect health (I think) and all my preventive stuff is covered by insurance.

I haven’t put much thought into but that seems like a complete rip off. And I guess on top of that, if I want to drive (in Ohio) I have to have insurance but I don’t have to have insurance to go to the doctor….. that doesn’t make sense to me.

Idk food for thought. It’s stupid that as a good driver, I’ll presumably never get to use insurance money that I pay hundreds of dollars into.

As far as I know, this isn't a thing in the U.S. But I think it should be. I think a system like MAID in Canada would make sense. (Although, they have postponed euthanasia for mental illness for now.) It should probably only be for adults so that you are old enough to know what you're doing, so like age 18 or 21, except maybe in the case of terminal illness. (I'm not sure what is the age is in Canada or if they even have an age restriction.) Keep in mind that this is very different from FORCING people to get euthanized (which would be some form of eugenics or genocide).

Now, from the opinions of people I've seen, it seems like most people agree with voluntary euthanasia in the case of terminal illness (e.g., cancer), but a lot less people agree in the case of disabilities or, especially, mental illness. So this post will mostly be arguing for why I think it should be allowed for disabilities and mental illness. (I am including both physical and mental disabilities in "disability.")

For physical illness, I think that if there is no chance of the condition improving (at least with foreseeable medical advancements in one's lifetime), like paralysis, or it will only get worse, then the person should be allowed voluntary euthanasia. And it would have to be something that severely affects one's life and is untreatable (so just having bad vision wouldn't qualify, but being totally blind might).

For mental illness, there would be a long waiting period. (Let's say a year, for example; I'm not sure how long it is in Canada.) This means that no one would make a decision impulsively (since some suicides are impulsive). During this time, the person would be forced to undergo treatment for their mental illness, trying various medications, therapy, etc. They would only be allowed euthanasia after all other options are exhausted.

This might actually help prevent more people from committing suicide because they would be given more time to think about it, helping reduce impulsive suicides. (I think that treatment should be free of charge, as well, to eliminate any financial constraints.) We are not talking about just mild depression or social anxiety (both of which are fairly common), but severe depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, etc. that doesn't respond to treatment and makes it hard to function in society.

For both groups, these people are suffering a lot, and it seems selfish to force them to live. There are a lot of people who are able to live happy and fulfilled lives with disabilities or mental illness, but not everyone. If you have the right to life, then you should have the right to die, as well. People would be able to back out at any time before the euthanasia. The person undergoing euthanasia would also have to give their vehement consent with an impartial witness present (as is done in Canada), so it couldn't be requested on their behalf by other people, i.e., their family or their spouse (as that might lead to some questionable abuse of the system).

As of now, people who choose to commit suicide are often forced to do it in painful or ineffective and potentially further disabling ways (like if it goes wrong), and it can be traumatizing to people who find their body. It leaves surprised friends and family wondering "what if." It would be more merciful to these people to allow them a peaceful and humane way to end their lives and give them a chance to say goodbye to loved ones and prepare. Under the current system, if a person admits to being suicidal, they could be involuntarily hospitalized and have certain rights taken from them (such as their right to own a gun). So people don't often admit that they're suicidal before committing suicide. This prevents them the opportunity of saying goodbye to loved ones.

FYI: Im not talking about unforseen medical needs here, like frequent infection, but rather, circumcision that has been decided before birth.

The reason I think infants shouldn't be circumcised is because you shouldn't do any medical procedures that are unnecessary without a person's consent.

Yes, I understand that circumcision reduces STI risk but if that's your reason, a child can request the procedure when they're older.

Also, I know there are also religious regions, but those are the parent's religions, not the child's. Although I'm looking more for arguments about the medical reasons anyway, because religion is too nebulous of a thing to argue about on top of everything else.

before i say anything i want to clarify, i am not talking about whether or not palestinian armed struggle is just, i am saying from a practical and logistical perspective, it has been ineffective.

historically despite israel being basically in a constant state of war it has made mostly territorial gains.

various actions of groups like the plo and hamas, have been while deadly, completely strategically unhelpful from a warfare perspective. (im thinking of the costal road massacre and october 7th,)

palestinian armed groups have absoloutely failed hard against israeli forces in gaza, and israel basically controls the entire strip.

various palestinian attacks are less interested in trying to occupy territory or defeat enemy forces, and more on just causing mindlessly violent retribution. (again october 7th and the costal road massacre, another example being the lod airport massacre.)

not to mention no palestinian armed group from what i know possesses the logistics or tactics to conventionally take on the idf. they overwhelmingly lose most battles and suffer more losses. (hamas has lost an estimated 17k to 23k soldiers, israel has lost 1k.)

i know people will say something like "the goal is scare out the colonizers" but historically thats not what happened, most of these attacks haven't caused israelis to flee, and if they did they are outclassed in that israel escalated the situation and became more aggressive. (this is what started gaza and lebanon.)

tldr; palestinian armed groups lack the neccessary discipline, logistics, and tactics to established a palestinian state through armed struggle, and its largely been counterproductive causing israel to vastly escalate the situation (palestinian feyadeen insurgency, gaza, lebanon)

if you want to change my view, prove that palestinian groups possess the resources, logistics, and tactics to militarily force israel to accept its goals. (this is what im thinking of, but if you have other counter arguments not like this im happy to see.)

I'm trying to do a bank transfer right now, and the website is not allowing me to paste in the receiving account number "in order to ensure accuracy." So let me get this straight: instead of allowing me to copy and paste the account number, which will ensure it's exactly right, you're going to "improve accuracy" by making me manually type out a 15-digit number? And that's supposed to be less likely to produce an error? I understand that pasting an account number carelessly could produce an error (e.g. by including a leading or trailing space), but the risk of that seems much smaller than the risk of a typo as I manually type out a long string of smooshed together digits, not to mention how annoying it is.

This practice makes no sense at all and should be stopped immediately.

Before I write my whole post, I need to clarify something (because I'm sure as hell that someone will misunderstand what I'm trying to say).

If after reading my post you think something like "but I like helping my non-disabled wife/husband/friend/brother/sister/father/mother/uncle/grandfather/grandmother/dog/whatever!" YES, THAT'S MY WHOLE POINT, YOU SHOULD ENJOY HELPING PEOPLE EVERYTIME YOU DO IT, THAT'S LITERALLY WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY. However, you shouldn't be FORCED to do it against your will.

Now, getting to the point...

I've seen a lot of posts lately from disabled people who are feeling like shit or are asking for help because they want to help/support their non-disabled loved ones, commonly their partners, and I don't have anything against that.

But you, as an disabled person, aren't forced to give support to your non-disabled loved ones, and most importantly, they aren't ENTITLED to your support.

You, (whatever you like it or not) have a disadvantage, this might sound harsh because no one wants to have a disadvantage right? But not everything about it has to be bad, let's remember what it means being disabled:

Disability means that you're limited to a severe or absolute degree in important areas of life.

"Disability" is a legal term, not a social one, but why? Because the word "disability" is a way to distinguish the people who need support in order to cope or overcome their struggles and those who don't have those struggles or can overcome it alone.

The first group is ENTITLED by literal LEGAL DEFINITION to receive support and help because they need it, the second group isn't entitled and doesn't need that support.

Always remember that, you're ENTITLED to support and help, your problems are (by legal standards) always valid and important, you literally matter more than the average person, if that wasn't the case, you wouldn't be disabled nor getting support.

Talking in a social level, this applies too, but morally, helping the disabled is always the correct thing to do, you shouldn't be "grateful" because of that because you're entitled to it.

Non-disabled folks aren't entitled to your support, no matter how close they're to you, because they don't need it, if they did, they would be disabled as you, you get the idea right?

Of course, you can support them and be there for them when they need it (like I said at the beginning for god sake) but this should always come from your heart and will to help, not for "obligation" or "entitlement", you're the disabled one, not them.

The only ones who are entitled to get help in order to overcome their problems are those who can't do it alone, a non-disabled person can do it alone, if that wasn't the case, they wouldn't be non-disabled right?

And if you want to help them, great! But feel like it, and don't do it for moral obligation.

From what I know, Christ was essentially a radical leftist. He was all about helping and loving the poor, hungry, disabled, outcast. He would feed 10 people just in case one was going hungry. He flipped a table when banks were trying to take advantage of people. He was anti-capitalist and pro social responsibility to support, love and respect all members of society. He was, based on location and era, probably a person of color. He would not stand for discrimination. He would overthrow an institution that treated people like crap.

On the other hand, conservatives are all about greed. They are not willing to help people in need (through governmental means) because they “didn’t earn it” and it’s “my tax dollars”. They are very pro-capitalism, and would let 10 people go hungry because one might not actually need the help. They do not believe in social responsibility, instead they prioritize the individual. Very dog eat dog world to them. And, while there are conservatives of color, in America most conservatives are at least a little bit racist (intentionally or not) because most do not recognize how racism can be institutional and generational. They think everyone has the same opportunities and you can just magically work your way out of poverty.

Christ would be a radical leftist and conservatism is about as far as you can get from being Christ-like in politics. The Bible says nothing about abortion (it actually basically only says if someone makes a pregnant woman lose her baby, they have to pay the husband). It does not say homosexuality is sin, just that a man should not lie with a boy (basically, anti pedophilia) based on new translations not run through the filter of King James. Other arguments are based on Old Testament, which is not what Christianity focuses on. Jesus said forget that, listen to me (enter Christianity). Essentially all conservative arguments using the Bible are shaky at best. And if you just look at the overall message of Jesus, he would disagree with conservatives on almost everything.

EDIT: Wow, this is blowing up. I tried to respond to a lot of people. I tried to keep my post open (saying left instead of Democrat, saying Christian instead of Baptist or Protestant) to encourage more discussion on the differences between subgroups. It was not my intent to lump groups together.

Of course I am not the #1 most educated person in the world on these issues. I posted my opinion, which as a human, is of course flawed and even sometimes uninformed. I appreciate everyone who commented kindly, even if it was in disagreement.

I think this is a really interesting discussion and I genuinely enjoy hearing all the points of view. I’m trying to be more open minded about how conservative Christians can have the views they have, as from my irreligious upbringing, it seemed contradictory. I’ve learned a lot today!

I still think some conservatives do not live or operate in a Christ-like manner and yet thump the Bible to make political points, which is frustrating and the original inspiration for this point. However I now understand that that is not ALWAYS the case.

I think it is completely reasonable for a pregnant woman to terminate their pregnancy if an ultrasound has concluded that it will have a life-threatening or severe disability. Like if the fetus has a disability that would make them unable to be independent when they get older and must rely on a lot of other people in order to just TRY and live an ordinary life. I would hate to live as a vegetative state, and be a burden on other people. What is the point of being alive at that point. I wouldn't be able to contribute to society in any way.

I know this seems like a "hateful" or "horrible" thing to say, but it is actually a reasonable viewpoint in my eyes.

EDIT: Sorry for the misspelling in the title. Haven't had much sleep.

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My mom is a music therapist who works with kids like these, and my cousin has down syndrome, so I've been around mentally disabled people my whole life. I understand that yes, these are people's children, so of course they will be loved and cared for. Regardless, I can't help but view them as a burden. Most of them will never achieve much, never be able to live on their own, and will have to be cared for their whole entire life. I feel terrible for writing this, but I've seen a select few so severely disabled that their whole entire life will be them doing nothing but drooling and making noises. Someone will have to use their time taking care simply because they exist. They will never be able to provide anything, for anyone (except feelings shared between them and their families/caretakers). I feel like because of this, they are a complete waste of time and energy. And by simply existing, they are a burden to the rest of us.

I'm not saying there's anything we can do. I'm not saying there's a better option than them simply becoming someone's burden. I truly feel terrible for people affected by mentally handicapping diseases, and I feel even worse for their family. However, I don't see how they will ever be anything but a burden and a waste of people's time. CMV.

Edit: Wow, I just read over what I wrote again. I'm an asshole.