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The one question we all need to ask in the wake of the SCOTUS Dobbs decision on abortion

Losing the right to medical privacy hurts us all.

abortion, supreme court, dobbs
Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash

Roe v. Wade guaranteed the right to privacy in our medical decisions.

The Supreme Court has issued its ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson, a decision that we knew was coming and that overturns 50 years of precedent in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Roe v. Wade is widely known for upholding the right to an abortion, but it also upheld an individual's fundamental "right to privacy" (in the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution). In a 7-2 opinion (written by a lifelong Republican justice, for what it's worth), the Supreme Court decided that the right to privacy and liberty covered the right to abortion.

In the decades since Roe, people have rehashed all kinds of questions surrounding abortion: the nature of life and personhood, bodily autonomy, the rights of the unborn and more. And in those debates, we've lost the core of what the Roe ruling was really about—the right to privacy in our medical decisions, which affects each and every one of us.

The one question we should be asking, fellow Americans, is this:

Should the government have the authority to access someone's private medical and sexual history to investigate, judge, intervene in and/or prosecute their healthcare decisions?

That's the question. That's the debate. And I don't know anyone in their right mind who would answer that question with "yes."


In the Dobbs opinion, Justice Alito wrote, "It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives." Is it, though? Is government overreach just fine and dandy at the state level? Should elected representatives really be given the authority to determine people's medical needs? I don't think so.

Make no mistake—abortion is sometimes medically necessary to save the life of a mother or prevent undue suffering of an unborn baby. If it's sometimes necessary and the law acknowledges and allows for that, then the law would have to make the determination of whether or not it's necessary in each and every case. Not doctors, not the person carrying the baby, but representatives of the law. Investigators would have to delve into the personal, private medical records of patients to decide if an abortion was legitimate or not.

Who really wants that kind of government interference in their healthcare decisions?

If there are exceptions in state abortion laws for rape or incest, now we're looking at investigations not only into someone's medical records, but also into someone's sexual history. After all, anyone can claim they were victims of rape or incest. Such allegations are notoriously difficult to prove, so now we get 1) a slew of false accusations by women desperate to be able to get an abortion, which harms both real victims and innocent men, and 2) even more invasive investigations by the government into extremely private and painful matters.

I don't personally need a right to an abortion at this point in my life. There is almost no chance I will ever get pregnant again, and I can't imagine having an abortion even if I did. I do, however, need a right to privacy in my own medical care. That's what's being lost here.

I also don't begrudge anyone their belief that abortion is always wrong. I can actually understand how people get there, though I disagree. So by all means, debate the ins and outs and rights and wrongs of abortion all you want. Go out and hold up signs and preach to the masses and try to convince people to make different decisions. Set up pregnancy support clinics. Educate people about birth control or abstinence or whatever you believe is moral and right.

But allowing the government to legislate it is wrong. After all, the question of when life begins is fundamentally a religious or philosophical question, and we live in a country where we do not establish a religion. (It's literally in the first line of the First Amendment of the Constitution. And besides that, abortion access is a religious requirement in some faiths, so religious arguments for and against access are moot, legally speaking.)

We don't live in a black-and-white world. Every single pregnancy is a unique situation with a million different variables. Speaking in generalities is simple, but individual cases are nuanced and complex. Should the 11-year-old who has been raped and impregnated by her brother be forced to carry and bear his child when her own body hasn't even reached full maturity? Should the mother whose water broke prior to viability and who has a life-threatening infection, necessitating an abortion to save her life, now have to go through a painful investigative process to determine whether she's a criminal under the law? Should a pro-life Congressman with means be able to access abortion for the mistress he impregnated because he can afford it, all while trying to remove access for the rest of us?

You could say those are exceptions, but who makes that determination? Who gets to say what counts as an exception or not? Who gets to decide the criteria and determine who meets that criteria? Politicians most of us wouldn't trust to watch our dog? Is that really what we want from our government?

And what about the notion that abortion bans save lives? Do the lives of pregnant women not count? Not only will people risk their lives seeking dangerous unregulated abortions, but we could also see an increase in suicides in women who feel trapped in an impossible situation. In El Salvador, where abortion is banned with no exceptions, 3 out of 8 maternal deaths—more than one-third of mothers who die—are pregnant teens who die by suicide. Please read that twice.

The U.S. also has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations. And Texas specifically, where some of the most stringent abortion laws are being enacted, topped the developed world for maternal mortality as of 2014. Pregnancy and childbirth are not without risk, especially in this country.

But none of that, sadly, is even relevant to the central question:

Should the government be granted the authority to dive into someone's private medical and sexual history to investigate, judge, intervene in and/or prosecute their healthcare decisions?

Or more specifically:

Should the government—the random fellow citizens we elect on occasion—be granted the authority to access someone's personal medical and sexual history to determine the circumstances of a pregnancy and judge whether the healthcare decisions surrounding it are valid?

The answer is no. Obviously, no.

At this point in my life, I don't need the right to an abortion. But I do need the right to privacy in my personal healthcare decisions. We all do. That's what Roe guaranteed. That's what we have lost.

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National Geographic Documentary Films
National Geographic Documentary Films
Family

Nat Geo's 'Blink' tracks a family finding beauty while facing blindness as they travel the globe

“Let's go all in and fill their visual memory with as much beauty as we can."

via Edith Lemay/NatGeo

Mia, Leo, Colin, and Laurent Pelletier pose on top of their camper van in front of adouble rainbow while in Mongolia.

True

“Blink,” a new film by National Geographic Documentary Films shows how a family with four children, three of whom are going blind, embraces life in the face of an uncertain future. It’s a testament to the resilience of the Lemay-Pelletier family but also a reminder for all of us to seize the day because all our futures are uncertain.

Edith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier are the parents of Mia, a 13-year-old girl, and three boys: Léo, 11, Colin, 9, and Laurent, 7. Over the last six years, they’ve learned that Mia and the two youngest boys have retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease in which the cells of the retina slowly die. As the disease progresses, the person develops “tunnel vision” that shrinks until very little vision remains.

The diagnosis devastated the parents. "The hardest part with the diagnosis was inaction. There's nothing they can do about it. There's no treatment,” Edith says in the film.

However, even though the parents couldn’t affect the progress of the disease, they could give their children’s senses an epic experience that would benefit them for a lifetime.

“We don’t know how fast it’s going to go, but we expect them to be completely blind by mid-life,” said the parents. Mia’s impairment advisor suggested they fill her visual memory with pictures from books. “I thought, I’m not going to show her an elephant in a book; I’m going to take her to see a real elephant,” Edith explains in the film. “And I’m going to fill her visual memory with the best, most beautiful images I can.”

The Pelletier family (from left): Mia, Sebastien, Colin, Edith Lemay, Laurent and Leo inKuujjuaq, Canada.via National Geographic/Katie Orlinsky

This realization led to an inspiring year-long journey across 24 countries, during which every family member experienced something on their bucket list. Mia swam with dolphins, Edith rode a hot-air balloon in Cappadocia, and Léo saw elephants on safari.

Colin realized his dream of sleeping on a moving train while Sébastien saw the historic site of Angkor Wat.

“We were focusing on sights,” explains Pelletier. “We were also focusing a lot on fauna and flora. We’ve seen incredible animals in Africa but also elsewhere. So we were really trying to make them see things that they wouldn’t have seen at home and have the most incredible experiences.”

Cameras followed the family for 76 days as they traveled to far-flung locales, including Namibia, Mongolia, Egypt, Laos, Nepal and Turkey. Along the way, the family made friends with local people and wildlife. In a heartbreaking scene, the boys wept as the family had to leave behind a dog named Bella he befriended in the mountains of Nepal.

But the film isn't just about the wonders of nature and family camaraderie. The family's trip becomes a “nightmare” when they are trapped in a cable car suspended hundreds of feet above the Ecuadorian forest for over 10 hours.

annapurna range, blink, nat geoLeo, Laurent, Edith, Colin, Mia, and Sebastien look out at the mountains in the Annapurna range.via MRC/Jean-Sébastien Francoeur

As expected, NatGeo’s cinematographers beautifully capture the family's journey, and in the case of “Blink,” this majestic vision is of even greater importance. In some of the film's quietest moments, we see the children taking in the world's wonders, from the vast White Desert in Egypt to a fearless butterfly in Nepal, with the full knowledge that their sight will fail one day.

Along the way, the family took as many pictures as possible to reinforce the memories they made on their adventure. “Maybe they’ll be able to look at the photographs and the pictures and they will bring back those stories, those memories, of the family together,” Edith says.

But the film is about more than travel adventures and the pain of grief; ultimately, it’s about family.

“By balancing [the parents’ grief] with a more innocent and joyous tale of childlike wonder and discovery, we felt we could go beyond a mere catalog of locations and capture something universal,” the directors Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher, said in a statement. “Keeping our camera at kid-height and intimately close to the family, we aimed to immerse the audience in the observational realities of their daily life, as well as the subtle relationships between each of them. This is a film built on looks, gestures and tiny details—the very fabric of our relationships with one another.”

Ultimately, “Blink” is a great film to see with your loved ones because it’s a beautiful reminder to appreciate the wonders of our world, the gift of our senses and the beauty of family.

The film will open in over 150 theaters in the U.S. and Canada beginning Oct. 4 and will debut on National Geographic Channel and stream on Disney+ and Hulu later this year. Visit the “Blink” website for more information.

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'It's not Little Sun': Mom admits she's having trouble pronouncing her newborn's name

It was fine 'til other people tried to say it and now she's confused.

via JustusMoms29/TikTok (used with permission)

Justus Stroup is starting to realize her baby's name isn't that common.

One of the many surprises that come with parenthood is how the world reacts to your child’s name. It’s less of a surprise if your child has a common name like John, Mohammed, or Lisa. But if you give your child a non-traditional name that’s gender-neutral, you’re going to throw a lot of folks off-guard and mispronunciations are going to be an issue.

This exact situation happened with TikTok user Justus Stroup, who recently had her second child, but there’s a twist: she isn’t quite sure how to pronounce her child’s name either.

"I may have named my daughter a name I can't even pronounce," Stroup opens the video. "Now, I think I can pronounce it, but I've told a couple of people her name and there are two people who thought I said the same exact thing. So, I don't know that I know how to [pronounce] her name correctly."


@justusmoms29

Just when you think you name your child something normal! #2under2mom #postpartum #newborn #momsoftiktok #uniquenames #babyname #babygirl #sahm #momhumor

Stroup’s daughter is named Sutton and the big problem is how people around her pronounce the Ts. Stroup tends to gloss over the Ts, so it sounds like Suh-en. However, some people go hard on the Ts and call her “Sut-ton.”

"I'm not gonna enunciate the 'Ts' like that. It drives me absolutely nuts," she noted in her TikTok video. "I told a friend her name one time, and she goes, 'Oh, that's cute.' And then she repeated the name back to me and I was like, 'No, that is not what I said.'"

Stroup also had a problem with her 2-year-old son’s speech therapist, who thought the baby’s name was Sun and that there weren’t any Ts in the name at all. "My speech therapist, when I corrected her and spelled it out, she goes, 'You know, living out in California, I have friends who named their kids River and Ocean, so I didn't think it was that far off.'"

Stroup told People that she got the name from a TV show called “The Lying Game,” which she used to watch in high school. "Truthfully, this was never a name on my list before finding out I was pregnant with a girl, but after finding out the gender, it was a name I mentioned and my husband fell in love with," says Stroup. "I still love the name. I honestly thought I was picking a strong yet still unique name. I still find it to be a pretty name, and I love that it is gender neutral as those are the type of names I love for girls."

The mother could choose the name because her husband named their son Greyson.



The commenters thought Stroup should tell people it’s Sutton, pronounced like a button. “I hear it correctly! Sutton like Button. I would pronounce it like you, too!” Amanda wrote.

“My daughter’s name is Sutton. I say it the same way as you. When people struggle with her name, I say it’s Button but with a S. That normally immediately gets them to pronounce it correctly,” Megan added.

After the video went viral, Stroup heard from people named Hunter and Peyton, who are dealing with a similar situation. “I've also noticed the two most common names who run into the same issue are Hunter (people pronouncing it as Hunner or HUNT-ER) and Payton (pronounced Pey-Ton or Pey-tin, most prefer it as Pey-tin),” she told Upworthy.

“Another person commented saying her name is Susan and people always think it is Season or Steven,” Stroup told Upworthy. After having her second child, she learned that people mix up even the simplest names. “No name is safe at this point,” she joked.

The whole situation has Stroup rethinking how she pronounces her daughter’s name. Hopefully, she got some advance on how to tell people how to pronounce it, or else she’ll have years of correcting people in front of her. "Good lord, I did not think this was going to be my issue with this name," she said.

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Science

Sorry, Everest. Here's why we can't officially declare you the tallest mountain on Earth.

Measuring a mountain is a lot more complicated than you think.

via Mário Simoes/Flickr

Sunrise on Mount Everest

If you asked people what the tallest mountain on Earth is, most would respond with Mount Everest, which is on the border of Nepal and Tibet. Everest is the highest peak in the Himalayan mountain range, rising 8,849 meters (29,032 feet) above sea level.

Everest is also commonly seen as one of the high points of human conquest. Scaling the mountain and reaching its peak was once known as one of the most significant challenges a human could undertake.

However, according to Joe Hanson, PhD, host of PBS’s “Be Smart,” Everest may not be the tallest mountain on Earth. In a video called “Why No One Can Agree on What's REALLY the Tallest Mountain,” he shows that height is in the eyes of the beholder when it comes to mountains.

Hanson is a science writer, biologist, and educator whose work has been published in WIRED, Nautilus, Scientific American, Texas Monthly, and other publications.

“Everest checks in at 8,848.86 meters tall today. But we still don't really know if that's right. Because on a planet that isn't perfectly round wrapped in a crust that keeps moving, measuring a mountain turns out to be way harder than you think,” Hanson opens the video.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

Hanson says that the title of tallest mountain on Earth has changed more than a few times over the last 300 years. In the 18th century, Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador was considered the tallest, but in 1908, that honor switched to Dhaulagiri in Nepal. Thirty-nine years later, that honor was taken by Kangchenjunga on the border of Nepal and India, until Everest usurped it just five years later.

There are two major problems with definitively ranking the tallest mountains on Earth. First, there is no universally accepted rule on what a mountain is or how one is defined. Second, mountains aren't the massive unchanging things that they appear to be.

What is the tallest mountain on Earth?

If you count the submerged part beneath the water, Hawaii's Mauna Kea is 20% taller than Everest. If you just measure base-to-summit, then Denali in Alaska is the tallest. "Everest only takes the title because most of the time, we measure mountains from sea level," Hanson says.

Everest is considered the tallest mountain because we measure from sea level, but that’s not the most reliable place to start. Due to Earth's gravity and shape, sea level varies across the globe, creating different elevations across the various oceans and seas. Scientists average these variations to create a “mean” sea level, the baseline for measuring mountain heights.



“But these days, the commonly accepted view is to measure a mountain's height above mean sea level. So Everest gets the title of tallest, despite other mountains having pretty strong claims to the throne,” Hanson says. “So, to summit all up, it's pretty easy to figure out where a mountain ends, but not everyone agrees on where a mountain starts. So when it comes to figuring out what's really the tallest mountain, maybe first we should get to the bottom of that.”

The funny thing is that even if Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth, it may not be that way forever; according to Hanson, Nanga Parbat in Pakistan is growing faster than Everest and could eclipse its famous neighbor in the next couple hundred thousand years. So, enjoy your time in the spotlight, Everest. In a few hundred thousand years, you may be downgraded to number two.

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Family

Dad uses simple math trick to stop his 6-year-old's tantrums in their tracks

It works — and it's psychologist approved.

OPPO Find X5 Pro & Chris Liverani/Unsplash

Sometimes parenting tricks are deceptively simple.

Tantrums, meltdowns, and emotional outbursts are the bane of parents' existence.

Once they start, they're like a freight train. There seems to be almost no way to stop them other than staying calm and letting them run their course.

That is, until one dad on Reddit revealed his secret method.

A thread titled "Hack your youngster's big emotions with math" has every parent on Reddit saying, why didn't I think of that?

User u/WutTheHuck posted a simple comment on the subreddit r/daddit earlier this month.

"Heard about this recently - when your kid is having a meltdown, doing math engages a different part of their brain and helps them move past the big feelings and calm down," he writes.

"We've been doing this with our very emotional 6-yr-old, when she decides that she wants to cooperate - asking her a handful of simple addition and subtraction questions will very quickly allow her to get control of herself again and talk about her feelings."

So, basically, when the sobs and screams come on strong, having your kid tell you the answer to 3+3, or 10-7 is a good way to get them calm again, and fast.

OP goes on to call the technique "magical," and mentions that his 6-year-old is legendary in his household for her epic tantrums.

The unique trick became a popular post on the subreddit, with a few hundreds comments from dads who were intrigued and willing to give it a try.

A month later, the results are in. The math trick works wonders.

math problemsOK, we said SIMPLE mathAntoine Dautry/unsplash

What struck me as I read through r/daddit was how many follow-up threads there were that said something to the effect of:

The math trick worked!

One user wrote that when his kids woke up screaming from a nightmare, he responded with a simple addition question.

"Soon as my wife closed the door ... [my kid] wanted mommy and started yelling her head off. I remembered the math trick and went 'what's 2+2?' It worked like a charm; the screaming ceased by the second question," he said.

In a separate thread, u/LighTMan913 had a message for "whoever posted here a few days ago about having your kid do mental math when they're upset..."

"You're a mother fudging genius," he said.

"My 7-year-old got in trouble for being mean to his brother shortly before bed time. He was rolled over facing the wall in bed. Wouldn't say goodnight. Just giving mumbles into the bed that are impossible to hear for answers.

"Started with 2+2 and by the time we got to 4096 he was smiling and laughing. 5 minutes after I left the room he called me back in to tell me he thinks he figured out 4096 + 4096 and I worked him through his wrong, albeit very close, answer.

"Worked like a charm. Thank you."

It's not just random dads on the Internet. Experts agree that this method is a bona fide winner for dealing with tantrums and outbursts.

upset kidHelping kids calm down can be a challenge.Annie Spratt/Unsplash

Amy Morin, a psychotherapist and author, had this to say about the viral technique:

"When our emotions rise, our logic decreases. The more emotional we feel, the more difficult it is to think clearly.

"A simple math problem requires you to raise your logic, which automatically decreases the intensity of an emotion."

Morin says that the math trick basically boils down to a distraction. A distraction with the added bonus of re-engaging the logical side of a child's brain.

"If you do what's known as 'changing the channel' in your brain, you get your mind thinking about something else--like a math problem. When you shift your attention, your thoughts change," Morin says, adding that adults can use this concept when they're feeling overwhelmed, too.

"When a child is upset, don't talk about why they're upset or why a tantrum is inappropriate. Instead, help them change the channel in their brains and raise their logic. When everyone is calm, you can have a discussion about how the strategy works--and how they can apply it themselves when you're not available to remind them."

Now I just need to get my 4-year-old up to speed on basic addition and subtraction and I'll be made in the shade!

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Joy

Mic'd up pro tennis players can't stop laughing at sounds they make hitting the ball

It sounds hilariously NSFW.

Novak Djokovic via Wikimedia|Yann Caradec and Aryna Sabalenka via Wikimedia|Hameltion

Mic'd up tennis players making NSFW sounds can't keep it together.

There are so many instances where you wish you could be a "fly on the wall" or some other cliché about eavesdropping, not necessarily because you want to hear some juicy gossip but rather because you want to hear someone's inside thoughts or private mumbling.

Imagine professional football players being mic'd up on the field—what on Earth would they be saying to themselves while safely out of earshot of their coaches or teammate that fumbled a perfect pass? It's like a sneak peek into a private world that the general public isn't usually privy to.

There have been some on-mic moments the world got to witness, like when a hockey goalie was mic'd up and caught giving himself a pep talk or when an NFL linebacker was caught looking for his mom in the stands. Those moments were so unexpectedly wholesome, you might expect the same when professional tennis players are mic'd up for a charity match.

Except in this case, things got a little less wholesome and a little more NSFW pretty quickly.

It's not because the tennis players were chucking racquets and swearing like sailors. They were simply playing the game as intended, but even the players couldn't stop laughing. Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka faced off against Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari for a doubles charity match ahead of the Australian Open 2024. The four were mic'd for the event and accidental hilarity ensued as sounds from the players hitting the ball echoed through the stands at a decibel most are not used to.

In the clip posted to Reddit, Djokovic can be heard cackling saying, "This is going to be so good," while Sabalenka does her best to not burst into hysterical laughter when she tries not to grunt hitting the ball. Djokovic teases his teammate, "Ahh come on, you're famous for your grunt," to which she replies, "People will leave here if I'm going to be loud." The pair are barely keeping it together but the match must continue.

The four players hit the ball back and forth increasingly sounding like a little afternoon delight is taking place, which causes the audience and players to burst out in laughter. There's really no getting around what this tennis match sounds like, and it's not safe for work in the most innocent way possible.

Novak Djokovic | On the practice court at the Fever-Tree Cha… | Flickrwww.flickr.com

Either the person who thought to mic up the players knew what the sounds would resemble and did it as a practical joke, or even better, they didn't know and everyone was embarrassingly surprised. If you've ever heard a tennis match being played then you're aware of all of the grunts and moans that occur when a player hits the ball. Usually those sounds are muffled by distance so they sound a lot less...inappropriate.

The mics attached right next to the players mouths made every moan, grunt, and heavy, fast paced breathing sound as if you walked in on Cinemax after dark. Suddenly a charity tennis match made amplified sounds that made it seem as if children shouldn't be present and none of the players could stop laughing.

Aryna Sabalenka playing tennis Aryna Sabalenka in 2017commons.wikimedia.org

Commenters are Reddit also couldn't get enough of the accidentally inappropriate sounding match with one writing, "This would make tennis so much more popular! LOVE IT!"

Another person writes, "Once my family sponsored a tennis event at the Staples Center. I saw Sheripova play against Williams and they both would grunt so loud. Williams was very manly and Sheripova was just like the video. The entire match everyone was dying laughing."

"This is hilarious. I'm surprised this is the first time i've seen them do this," one person says.

"Great way to raise the collective energy. This should be done more often, funny stuff," someone else jokes.

French Open Reaction GIF by Roland-GarrosGiphy

"Whoever had the idea to do this either overlooked this completely, or knew exactly what they were doing," one commenter shares while another responds, "They watched that one episode of American Dad and was like 'I have an idea.'"

The entire charity match is on YouTube, but be sure not to have the volume up too loud if you plan to listen to it in the office...or in the living room. Maybe just keep your headphones in while you get a chuckle at the players making interesting noises while trying to win a game.

Watch the entire match below:

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Joy

Moms go out for a night and forget their breast pumps. A hilarious look at motherhood ensues.

Just a dose of wholesome chaos.

@labor_junkie_rn/TikTok

The bathroom is always a safe space for the chaos of womanhood.

Nights out with girlfriends become precious after becoming a mom. But certain aspects of motherhood—like lactation—don’t always get the “off-duty” memo.

Just ask this group of friends, who just so happen to be labor and delivery nurses, what happened when they tried to hit the town and realized two moms in their group forgot their breast pumps.

Besides a doctor-prescribed pain medication, the only way to really deal with the painful, throbbing sensation of breast engorgement is to express, or release the milk. Though that milk ideally goes into a baby’s mouth or breast pump…sometimes you gotta improvise.

And that’s exactly what we see in a viral video posted in March by @Labor_Junkie_RN, which is basically an educational video and hilarious glimpse of motherhood all rolled into one.

In the clip, the onscreen text reads: “POV: you forgot your breast pump on moms’ night out…but you’re all labor and delivery nurses.” The camera quickly cuts to two women dressed in gorgeous night out attire…all while hysterically giggling and hovering over the sink to express their milk down the drain.

In case anyone is wondering, the woman filming the whole thing assures viewers that “Yes, we rinsed the sink. Yes, I’m an overproducer. Yes, I (normally) donate,” in the caption.

@labor_junkie_rn yes we rinsed the sink😘 yes i’m an overpoducer. yes, i (normally) donate 😘 #ftm #pregnant #baby ♬ Funny Song - Funny Song Studio & Sounds Reel & Thomas Hewitt Jones

But rather than any finger wagging, the video actually got a ton of positive responses.

“I’m loving how this is a group activity,” one viewer wrote.

Another said, “I can feel the relief of those sprays.”

Many reminisced about their own breast pump emergency that forced them to get creative.

“I did that in Vegas on my first kid-free vacation. We got there at 11pm and the Target didn’t open until 8am. I hand expressed in the bathroom stall into toilet paper.”

“Forgot my pump for a wedding and had to hand express into the toilet during dinner time.”

“I once DoorDashed a manual pump to the venue I was at.”

Plus it became a teaching moment for some. One person wrote “OK, but still super educational! Because I didn’t realize it went in all different directions.” While another echoed, “not me, pregnant, thinking there was just one milk hole………”

There’s that funny meme that comes to mind with this story—one you’ve undoubtedly seen once or twice—that says “girlhood is a spectrum.” In our 20s, the women’s bathroom is a place where girlfriends congregate to gas each other up, fix each other’s makeup, maybe even help hold back the hair of the friend who drank too much. While certain elements might change, like swapping out the expelling alcohol for expressing breast milk, the important stuff remains the same.

In essence: the women’s bathroom will forever remain a place where girlfriends look out for one another and share a laugh as they navigate womanhood together.

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