The Skeptical OB

Over the past week or so I’ve engaged with a number of radical feminists who have a remarkably dismissive view of women. They appear to believe that — against the background of historical and ongoing patriarchal oppression — women are incapable of making authentic choices about their own lives. Any decisions they make about makeup, […]

Yesterday I critiqued Kate Cohen’s recent piece in The Washington Post, Sorry, but these choices aren’t ‘feminist.’ They’re sexist. on substantive grounds. It isn’t specific choices that make women feminists; it is the conviction that choices should be made BY them, not FOR them. It’s anti-feminist for women to knuckle under to specific choices prescribed […]

Another day, another misguided feminist who mistakenly believes she has the right to define feminism. Writing in The Washington Post, Kate Cohen feels it necessary to tell us what she thinks about other women’s personal choices, in this case women like Jennifer Lopez who change their surname after marriage: … some claim that changing their […]

Anti-choice advocates say they oppose abortion because it stops a beating heart. They say it makes no sense to have a rape or incest exception because it’s not the fault of the beating heart that it was conceived through violence. That’s rather difficult to believe when the exact same people also say that capital punishment […]

‘Breast is Best’ or ‘Fed is Best’? A Study of Concessive Relations in the Debate on Methods of Infant Feeding is a fascinating new paper about the rival claims of the Breast Is Best vs. Fed Is Best movements. The paper was written by linguistics professor, Giorgia Riboni. As a linguist, she analyzes the claims […]

One of the most contentious aspects of the currently roiling debate about the rights of transgender persons is that both sides imagine that they are defending the principle of justice. Trans advocates are absolutely, positively, unalterably convinced that justice REQUIRES not merely acceptance of transgender individuals, but capitulation to all their demands. Anyone who doesn’t […]

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently released guidelines promoting breastfeeding each child for two years — despite the fact that there is NO scientific evidence for the recommendation. How did that happen? When you let lactivist zealots make breastfeeding policy, you end up with breastfeeding policies that ignore scientific evidence in favor of lactivists’ cherished […]

There has been a furor over the latest American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation to breastfeed children for two years. The paper that offers the new recommendation is Policy Statement: Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk written by Joan Younger Meek, MD and Lawrence Noble, MD. Extended breastfeeding dramatically increases the physical, psychological and economic […]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and the images above and below are quite impressive. They compare the rate of autism over time compared to the rate of breastfeeding over time: Over the past 4 decades, there has been a shocking rise in the prevalence of autism. Antivax activists have pointed out […]

Breastfeeding is the “normative standard.” So says the American Academy of Pediatrics in a new paper entitled Breastfeeding and The Uses of Human Milk. You know what else is the “normative standard”? Right-handedness. Heterosexuality. Genotype determining gender. Here’s what I say: fuck normative standards! Why does the AAP give moral authority to nature when it […]