• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    8 months ago

    We did have a child, and I do not regret it, but we also have the means to support her and a way to escape the U.S. if things get much worse. Many Americans don’t have either option, and no child should be neglected or abused and every child should have a robust support system. I wish we would encourage and educate people on contraception on a grand scale.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      My wife travels a lot for work, and I dabbled in genealogy years ago to track down my own birth relatives. By combining the two, my wife and our daughter now have EU passports, and I’m eligible for a long-term visa.

      Theoretically I could be eligible for Slovakian citizenship (which is not their EU country) based on my own DNA ties, but that would require some mental gymnastics and a very progressive interpretation of how closed infant adoption affects legal rights.

      I am actually very fond of Texas, and I think the idea of it is worth fighting for, and that there’s a strain of tolerance and hospitality and diversity here that could be compatible with a much more progressive worldview. I have hope that it can be better than it is. I think any place with people who love it is worth trying to make into the best version of itself, to say nothing of the people who couldn’t leave even if they wanted to…

      but we’re also not going to be the last ones out if we lose that hope.

        • wjrii@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          You need a grand-grandparent (or more recent) born in Slovakia. My biological great grandmother was born in a small town in the eastern half of what is now Slovakia, and immigrated to the US in the late 1920s. I was adopted as an infant though, so my legal family has no such connections, and while I could try to make my case, it would be both circumstantial and rather technical unless I could get help from my birth father, which is, shall we say, unlikely.

          • ripcord@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Interesting. My grandmother was.

            I’ve wondered what my options to get to the EU are if I really wanted. That…is interesting.

            Edit: do you have a source by any chance? So far I only see rules allowing if parents were Slovakian citizens.

            • wjrii@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              The Australian embassy seems to have updated their page more recently than the US or Canada, and they mention the grandparents and great grandparents thing. I’d check with the US embassy (assuming you’re in the US) to confirm, but it looks like the long-discussed law change did happen. I kinda lost interest when I realized the doors I’d have to barge in to have a plausible chance of success. YMMV. :-)

    • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Yes, the same here. We had 2 kids (and then a vasectomy). We’re not rich, but we do have a house we could sell to aid leaving, and we have enough in savings to make it without selling the house, if we needed to leave right away. Of course, environmental issues will be a global problem, but the response to those will likely be better in some places as compared to others.