Quote Originally Posted by blackhillsbiker View Post
I'm with MomOnBike. There's cancer in my family history, and I have touch issues! I'd be more than willing to submit to a background check. They can go through my luggage with a fine-toothed comb, and I would wear lycra if that would help. Given the choice, I'd probably still take the scanner. The prospect of being touched all over by a stranger is more than I could take.

Deb
I've been kidnapped and viciously raped, with nasty brutality with a knife and threat of death involved.

I've had cancer.

Both gave me scars.

Frankly, I'm more afraid of the damn cancer. The kidnapping and the rape messed me up bad (and years of therapy still haven't fixed it, and simply can't... it's my life and every day is a choice to continue living) but cancer takes that choice to live away from me and puts it in the hands of one rogue cell of my body.

I can survive the pat-down. I can choose to fly to be with my loved ones and take the pat-down.

But the x-ray backscatter expends all its energy at the level of the skin, and that's where all my cancer has been so far. The choice is stolen from me with x-ray backscatter.

I can choose to have a mammogram, because I am at very high risk for breast cancer and that exposure is carefully controlled and I have decided it is worth it to me.

But when the choice is a pat down (not my idea of fun, but worth it to be able to fly this time) vs. the x-ray scan (no personal touch issues here, but the possiblity that the scan could trigger more cancer which I really think is bad news) my choice is to live.

As it is actively chosen. every. single. day. of. my. life.

Will I choose to fly next time? I dunno. Probably. Love is more important than fear. Getting where I want to be in 2 hours vs. 18 is more important than avoiding touch in pat-downs (which I have experienced before when I trigger the alert).

Will I let it make me stop traveling? No. Yup, I think the current stuff is stupid and does NOTHING to make us safer. Yup, the convenience of flying is worth the bearable anxiety of being touched through my lycra by a strange woman. (if it were a man, I'd probably freak, and that's the honest truth)

Everyone needs to make their choices. Fly or not? X-ray backscatter or pat-down? And then either live with those choices, or get up and do something about it.