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submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Police in the United Kingdom are using data from period tracking apps and mass spectrometry tests conducted on blood, placenta, and urine to investigate patients who have had “unexplained” miscarriages.

Though abortion is legal in the UK, there are TRAP laws in place requiring certain conditions to be met first, paramount of which is that two separate doctors need to agree that the patient meets the criteria of the 1967 Abortion Act before any treatment can go ahead. Self-managed abortion is a criminal offense with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in the UK, as is any abortion performed after the pregnancy has progressed passed 23 weeks and six days, unless the patient is at risk of serious physical harm or death, or the fetus has severe developmental anomalies.

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[-] [email protected] 194 points 2 years ago

Hey, people who menstruate! Don't use software that leaks your period. There are clean, open source alternatives for your Android or Apple phone.

https://bloodyhealth.gitlab.io/

[-] [email protected] 42 points 2 years ago

A Data protective App funded by the German government. Take that, Brits!

[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

As if we needed more to be depressed about, what a mess our country now is. I can see why people immigrate.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago
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[-] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago

Not a bad idea in terms of keeping sensitive information out of the hands of companies and dragnet surveillance, but probably ineffective if your threat model is local police seizing your phone (like in the article) because you had a miscarriage, and using period tracker data against you somehow.

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[-] [email protected] 80 points 2 years ago

this sounds so fucking dystopian...

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[-] [email protected] 70 points 2 years ago

Amazing how many governments are interested in making sure babies happen - to the point of sounding alarms.

What do they know that they're not telling? Is the pollution so bad that we've wiped ourselves out biologically?

[-] [email protected] 36 points 2 years ago

The birth rate is dropping almost everywhere and that’s bad for capitalism

[-] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

All nations that receive the benefits of the industrial revolution, followed by increased education, medicine, resources, and stability seem to trend to a demographic transition. The net result is a stable, and usually falling, population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

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[-] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago

They know that democracy has always just been an illusion to keep us in line and that we are actually just chattel slaves for the ruling class. The system they built requires a stable or growing population when in fact it's declining, so they're taking the easy way out to boost numbers.

In the future, they'll just grow us in vats so if we get out if line, they will just murder us all and grow a new batch of slaves. Progress! 😃

[-] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago

Aging populations are feared.

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[-] [email protected] 63 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Soon, tampons will have wifi so they can send your data to the govt, and then they'll know you're pregnant before you even do.

[-] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago

DNA matching too, to make sure you don't pollute the data.

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[-] [email protected] 59 points 2 years ago

And the UK goverment really REALLY wants to have backdoors put into every kind on encryption.

Well, I'm sure the two aren't related.

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[-] [email protected] 58 points 2 years ago

Wait so I thought this was a thing in the US because of all the Christofascists. Does the UK also have a christofascist thing going on? Or is this just kind of an everything goes culture war bullshit thing?

[-] [email protected] 46 points 2 years ago

The UK is a Christian theocracy. Their legal head of state is the head of the state religion.

[-] [email protected] 29 points 2 years ago

Also I've I'm not mistaken UK lore dictates that the king/queen derives their power directly from God or something.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

Lol I love the idea that the monarchy is just a group of LARPers that have made up lore about themselves as a backstory.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

That's exactly what they are. Royalty made up the idea of divine right and then let the church in on the deal to provide legitimacy to it.

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[-] [email protected] 38 points 2 years ago

Fascism is closing its jaws on the human race globally.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Your Christo-fascists are pushing their agenda in the UK from here.

This network has been linked to major US funders of climate change denial and right-wing political causes including the Koch brothers and Robert Mercer, and to populist far-right parties in Europe, such as the Sweden Democrats and the Brothers of Italy

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[-] [email protected] 52 points 2 years ago

Wow, that's not maliciously intrusive at all. Big Brother is hard at work over in jolly old fuck that noise.

[-] [email protected] 46 points 2 years ago

Wow, you never hear the UK mentioned as a place with abortion restrictions, but they have life in prison as a hypothetically administerable sentence for it, if done the wrong way.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Technically abortion is illegal. There has to be a medical reason for the abortion. In practice a Doctor would consider not wanting to be pregnant would make an abortion necessary. Practice and society expectations differ from the actual law.

This would suggest no prosector would bring charges against anyone, as it wouldn't be in the public interest. So the police shouldn't wast resources on it.

There has also been a rise in abortions lately. It appears to be down to misinformation online about contraception.

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[-] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago

I heard a good news article on unexplained miscarriages on NPR last week.

There's a correlation between having a healthy baby and the volume of the placenta. Small placentas result in loss.

Which makes sense, the placenta is passing all the oxygen and nutrients to the baby, if it fails to size up, the baby is starved of nutrients and... well...

The doctor who invented the process to measure placental volume is getting the usual pushback from established medicine though. :(

Worth a listen if you have time:

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/placenta-pregnancy-loss/

[-] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Almost all miscarriages are unexplained. Because research into health issues that primarily affect women is still in the fucking dark ages.

I had a friend who suffered multiple miscarriages (including one that wouldn't complete itself and almost required surgical intervention because she was bleeding so badly - a procedure that her home state of Ohio is trying to ban now because it's the exact same procedure that is used in ~~electric~~ elective abortions.

After so many losses they finally figured out that her progesterone levels were extremely low and supplemented progesterone the next time she got pregnant. She now has a healthy baby boy as a result.

Medicine doesn't even have solutions for so many of these problems, and half the government wants to take away one of the few tools available to us to keep women alive and healthy.

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[-] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago

Ah yes, just another day of people living their best lives in the free world.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

100% nonsense if you apply some logic. British police have 0 time or budget to be investigating this. If someone stole my wallet while I was standing in front of a police officer they wouldn't be able to do a thing about it

By all means don't use software that shares your personal information with anyone but also don't waste time getting het up by this article

[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

Orwell was right about that plce

[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

Kim Jong-un liked it

[-] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago
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this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
537 points (98.2% liked)

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