CDC's top laboratory on STDs is shut by Trump administration

Is there something wrong with the practice of abstinence, or marital fidelity?

I mean, sex inevitably causes babies: it’s an incontrovertible but inconvenient truth for the modern urban human species. But we were designed that way, yes?

I'm gay, how does my having sex create babies?

But that's all beside the point, none of this is something the government should be acting to coerce. Abstinence is fine as a personal choice.

Why are you having a debate here? People are trying to understand the benefit for Trump voters, they are not directly taking a position.

Abstinence and fidelity are good things, and so is curing diseases.

Not if you choose that, but there is a problem attempting to coerce people into it by cutting off any fundings of STD research. And as for yourincontrovertible truth, many people have vasectomies or have contraceptives, so babies aren't actually an inevitability.

Nothing wrong with that. This is my practice as well.

But you seem to have a short-sighted view on what sex can be.

That's the wrong question to ask under these circumstances, since nobody else is imposing their beliefs on you and preventing you from practicing those.

The real question is, must sex invariably lead to pregnancy when there are known ways to prevent it? Because that's precisely what you're trying to impose on others. Your answer is clear from your comment. But it's completely illogical.

Nothing in the laws of nature say that humans or any other creature can't use their creativity to disrupt the natural order of things to make life more comfortable. To my knowledge, no other creature uses fire to cook food. Yet, human digestive system is uniquely adapted to that. And other animals don't cultivate food on the scale that humans do. Many of the food crop species won't even survive without human effort. I also don't see many other animals using clothes or money. So are you ready to give up those unnatural things - cultivated and cooked food, clothes, money and all modern technology?

The same goes for vaccine - the natural way of diseases is for children/people to simply die on a massive scale. What's the point of going through that when we have a way of preventing it? Why must it be any different for contraception and treatment of STDs?

The real issue here is the imposition of certain beliefs and moral values that are stale by a few millennia on an unwilling population.

I fully agree with that logic, and further think that the government should also not be subsidizing risky behavior through funding for STD treatment and prevention. People should get private insurance based on a lifestyle questionnaire to ensure that all costs are being appropriately allocated based on one's risk profile. If it turns out that it's significantly cheaper to be in a long-term monogamous relationship, well, then that's just the invisible hand of the market at work!

is there something wrong with drinking? depends on your culture, if we're being honest. There's no obvious benefit to your body to drink in the 20 century or later.

unlike drinking, we have quite a few ways to enjoy sex without having babies.But some of those methods can still cause STDs. a vasectomy won't save you from herpes.

Risky behavior... of having sex? Do you think anyone getting cancer should just pay for it themselves instead of society working to treat everyone of cancer? Do you think we should have taken premiums on our insurance to get COVID Boosters?\

>If it turns out that it's significantly cheaper to be in a long-term monogamous relationship

1. Why are we applying the invisible market to our bodies? Do you understand how dehumanizing that is?

2. monagamous relationships can still get STDs. Despite the name, some can also be spread by simple skin contact. So don't shake the wrong person's hand, I guess.

Hey pal I don't want to alarm you but the people opposed to STD treatment think you are a disease and want to eradicate you. They think LGBTQIA+ identities are a social contagion that must be protected from. Project 2025 wants to criminalize queerness as obscenity so that existing in public will be a sex crime. Coincidentally, they have a criminal law plan that calls for the execution of sex criminals.

> Is there something wrong with the practice of abstinence, or marital fidelity?

No, and there never has been and there are exactly zero people on Earth saying there is.

The problem with this viewpoint is that as soon as people say “hey, let’s not punish people” then people crawl out of the woodwork and cry about others attacking monogamy. Sigh, nobody is attacking monogamy. You are the status quo, you can calm down now.

> But we were designed that way, yes?

We were “designed” in a lot of ways, many of them stupid. For example, the infant mortality rate should be closer to 50%. That’s what it’s always been. Humans are extraordinarily shit at giving birth. It’s almost impressive how bad our bodies are at pushing out babies.

But it’s not, because of medicine. Even just since the 70s infant mortality has gone down significantly.

Appeal to nature is lame. I don’t even know what you consider is nature, and furthermore I don’t know why it’s good. You have to explain why what you’re saying is good. You didn’t do that, people with the argument usually don’t. That means you aren’t worth listening to.

> anyone getting cancer should just pay for it themselves instead of society working to treat everyone of cancer?

False dichotomy. Furthermore, “treat” is a creepy term that tends to conjure up images of sticky lollipops and Hallowe’en bandits with loaded diapers.

Some of us prefer not to subsidize immoral behaviors and activity on group health plans.

But in a hypothetical parallel utopia where chemotherapy is 100% out-of-pocket, my people would welcome fewer deaths from chemotherapy, far fewer invasive biopsies & “spelunking” diagnostics, and perhaps increasing incentives to produce cures, rather than Kevorkians.