Hacker News Reader

Comment by ComputerGuru | Hacker News Reader

I'm just surprised at the lack of basic, non-identifying info being presented here. No mention of general locale, no mention of how far along in terms of percentages these women are, no mention of travel history statistics for the group, no information on whether or not the two deaths were from pregnancy-related causes, no info on how many non-microcephaly births, no info on anything, period. What's the point of this other than to spread hysteria?

View on HN

This is in an earlier comment below, but I think it's worth repeating:

"We can’t provide a lot of information about where these women are in their pregnancy. We don’t want to inadvertently disclose information about difficult decisions these women are making about their pregnancies"

Which really isn't much of an excuse. There are decades of accepted best practices to responsibly disclosing and discussing cases like this in a professional and non-identifying manner that does not compromise their healthcare or their privacy.

We're also not talking about 2 women or even 20, it's over two hundred. Lots of wiggle room there, there are probably smaller groups of people in the USA afflicted by random diseases discussed in depth with much vigor and zeal at medical conferences each month with no such complaints.

Sort of off topic, but it seems were much more concerned about privacy when it involves women.

I wonder if there's any merit to this hypothesis.

I am not aware of any difference in how privacy is handled between the sexes (nor should there be).

Can you elaborate on where you see the difference in how privacy is handled?

There is a large fraction of the country that regards termination of pregnancy as literal child murder. Severe microcephaly is as good a reason to terminate a 'viable' pregnancy as can be found, with care for a microcephalic child costing far greater wealth than the average family has in their future; Most of the women not being identified will choose to abort.

"Abortion is murder" is something we've been deadened to through repetition, but the literal proclamation of abortion to be "murder", and "murder" to be murder, ethically requires extreme measures to fight it, to the believer. It is only through utter cowardice or lack of true belief that we manage to operate abortion clinics with a rate of violent assault in the last few decades cumulative of around 10%. These people are potentially dangerous, but within a family are also likely to do things like shunning/disowning relatives or seeking a divorce if this info becomes public.

>>What's the point of this other than to spread hysteria?

Hysteria can be a good thing. I can start a public debate, for example, which can start putting pressure on Congress to start thinking of serious solutions.

To be clear, we do not need Congress to think of a serious solution; we need Congress to authorize funding. Once we have the money allocated, we know how to deal with things like zika.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com