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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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To go along with the others that say this is not new and this is not a mistake, I recently learned that back in 2002 the National Organization for Women -- one of the top feminist organizations -- actually pressured city bus networks to drop ads that educated women about risks to ferility:

The series of advertisements -- developed for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the nation's largest medical association devoted to fertility and reproduction -- uses provocative baby bottle images to highlight four major causes of infertility: cigarette smoking, unhealthy body weight, sexually transmitted diseases and advancing age.

When the ads appeared on buses in several U.S. cities last year, they drew the ire of the National Organization for Women. Accusing the doctors group of using "scare tactics," NOW argued that the ads sent a negative message to women who might want to delay or skip childbearing in favor of career pursuits.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/08/28/infertility-campaign-cant-get-ad-space/91d7b007-13b0-4664-bf27-80c94cc69d8d/

Meanwhile we have a generation of women who are woefully under-informed about how early fertility drops-off and how limited the power of science is to actually extend this. Even women doctors are grossly ignorant of this, often resulting in terrible heartbreak as IVF treatments fail.

As a reproductive endocrinologist, I have seen countless 40-something-year-old female physicians seeking fertility treatment, only to be genuinely shocked that their peak egg number and quality -- that is, their peak fertility -- has long since passed.

Often the only reliable treatment in the setting of substantial reproductive aging is using donor eggs from a much younger woman, which is infrequently a desired solution.

Despite decades of medical education, most physicians and other medical professionals have never had sufficient training in basic human reproduction.

Family planning, to the limited extent is taught in our schools, focuses entirely on the prevention of undesired pregnancy. Ironically, no attention is given to the limits of human fertility and the question of how to conceive when a pregnancy is desired. There is no reliable time in any American's life -- including our physicians' -- when they are taught even the basic reality and limitations of how to become pregnant.

https://twitter.com/jerryzmuller/status/1441546093536301057

That NOW and feminists in general are actively trying to downplay the risks of infertility due to age says everything about whether they really are working for what is best for women.