Safe, effective, and freely available birth control for women would go a long, long way toward this, as would social support for young families and a priority on the health, education, and care of young children.truehobbit wrote:Interesting! I wonder how you think that might be possible?can't we spend even half as much energy creating a society in which there would never be a need for abortion?
Roe v Wade has been overturned. How do you feel about that?
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Primula Baggins
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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
tp: A woman's notion of her own "human dignity" (as relates to terminating her pregnancy) - a woman's notion of a meaningful, dignified human life - these concepts and the moral ramifications thereof are surely central to the legal question of whether the Court's decisions that made these concepts relevant should be upheld. And these concepts demand an examination of women's feelings on the matter.
Which woman's notion of a meaningful, dignified life?
There have already been widely variant viewpoints of pregnancy given by women in this thread. And many different experiences.
Making the debate about feelings seems like stacking the debate so one side must lose. Once it is all about feelings, then of course you can only let the person with the feelings decide how it turns out, which means the pro-choice side wins by default.
I'm not arguing here for one side or the other, but I will fight this stacking of the debate.
Using feelings to justify any action is a bad idea. It's the convenient argument here so it's taken. Leaving abortion aside for a moment, there are so many wicked things that could be justified if it only came down to feelings.
Jn: Faramond, if feelings must be entirely out of the discussion, what factors do you think are relevant to the discussion?
Practical and theoretical questions.
Practical: What happens to people when abortion is legal? What happens to people when abortion is illegal?
Theoretical: When does life begin? When does "personhood" begin? Is it better to never be born at all or to be born into a situation where you aren't wanted and loved? What are the duties of parents? Is it right to force someone to bear a child?
Feelings can't be completely thrown out of anything, of course. Feelings will likely need to be considered when answering some of these questions, and then it is certainly important to listen to the feelings of others and not assume to speak for them.
The feelings shouldn't be the argument. They might be part of the foundation of an argument.
Which woman's notion of a meaningful, dignified life?
There have already been widely variant viewpoints of pregnancy given by women in this thread. And many different experiences.
Making the debate about feelings seems like stacking the debate so one side must lose. Once it is all about feelings, then of course you can only let the person with the feelings decide how it turns out, which means the pro-choice side wins by default.
I'm not arguing here for one side or the other, but I will fight this stacking of the debate.
Using feelings to justify any action is a bad idea. It's the convenient argument here so it's taken. Leaving abortion aside for a moment, there are so many wicked things that could be justified if it only came down to feelings.
Jn: Faramond, if feelings must be entirely out of the discussion, what factors do you think are relevant to the discussion?
Practical and theoretical questions.
Practical: What happens to people when abortion is legal? What happens to people when abortion is illegal?
Theoretical: When does life begin? When does "personhood" begin? Is it better to never be born at all or to be born into a situation where you aren't wanted and loved? What are the duties of parents? Is it right to force someone to bear a child?
Feelings can't be completely thrown out of anything, of course. Feelings will likely need to be considered when answering some of these questions, and then it is certainly important to listen to the feelings of others and not assume to speak for them.
The feelings shouldn't be the argument. They might be part of the foundation of an argument.
I would be pleased if Alatar would return to the discussion because his comments are always relevant and thought-provoking. Same goes for Faramond.
(edit: meanwhile Faramond returned. Good! I'll have to address your answer later, though, F., because I just killed my posting time on this post.)
Cerin, I understood Alatar's dismay to be directed a hypothetical situation that one poster had raised - what if the child were determined in utero to be deformed or diseased ... and he was following that to it's logical conclusion and expressing horror that parent's might predetermine who lives and who dies based on rather arbitrary ideals of the perfect child. I did not understand him to be saying that women should be condemned for aborting anecephalic or Tay-Sachs fetuses, etc.
Anthy: Again, NOT that anyone said that in this thread. But it has been said. Many, many times. Perhaps we need to be sensitive to the fact that many men have felt marginalized on this subject, for a long time.
Word of wisdom from Anthi (again!). Men also have a history of exclusion that we need to weigh into their reactions.
Think about the opposite situation, where a couple plans a pregnancy, wants the child, the woman carries it to term and they both participate in the delivery. How many fathers express remorse that they are not able to experience this as the woman does, and wish that they could bear half the children. Many men keenly felt their exclusion from childbearing long before the abortion debate started, and feel just as vulnerable as women do to a potential loss of power, only from a different kind of usurpation.
Teremia also said: ... both men and women find themselves facing a pretty profound loss of control over their lives.
Exactly.
Different topic - a couple neutral comments about things vison and Padme said:
vison: When "the pill" first came along, my mother was still a young woman and gladly took it. She had several friends whose husbands "wouldn't allow it".
Interestingly enough, the appearance of the pill does not seem to have impacted childbearing choices as much as commonly believed, though it probably had profound impact on the sexual life of couples.
There was a team of demographers at the University of Pennsylvania led by Richard Easterling who did a longitudinal study on family size from 1950 to 1970. They could not anticipate this at the start of the study, but the pill appeared on the market in 1960, exactly in the middle. They had not designed this factor into the study and were afraid it would contaminate the results, but it turned out that this categorical variable, pre/post 1960, had no statistical significance at all. In fact, there emerged from the study only one clear determinant of family size: how many children a couple stated they wanted to have at the beginning of their life together.
They took whatever contraceptive means necessary to assure this outcome ... in some cases that probably involved illegal abortion ... and what the pill did, basically, was make it easier to control something that people were already attempting to control. It did not change their expectations.
But expectations themselves did change. Families got smaller. So the follow up analysis was to determine what factor primarily influenced these expectations.
Unsurprisingly, the main culprit was economics. There was a very high correlation between the family living standard of the 'grandparent' generation and that of the 'parent' generation Easterling was studying. But the 'parent' generation was achieving the same living standard by having less children. If they had had as many children as their own parents had had, their living standard would have fallen.
That study was concluded in 1970. Tracking forward into the future, family living standards did start to fall in 1973 and have been falling ever since, even with smaller family size. So I have to place the blame for much of the stress that families are feeling on the declining economy in the US (post-Bretton Woods) and that factor should also be taken into account when discussing why people want what they want.
(Whistler may now berate me for bringing economics into every single discussion.)
Padme: My question is if a father wants the child and the mother doesn't, can the mother walk away from the child after birth and not look back, or will she be forced to pay child support for a child she wanted to abort?
What Idylle said. I would only add that the courts will not spring into action on their own. The custodial parent has to initiate a suit for financial support.
And back to what has been the main issue, even though it is off-topic from Ethel's original question:
Hobby: Hobby: Well, I disagree - as soon as there's another life, it's not just your body anymore, IMO.
Yes, I feel this way, too, Hobby. And perhaps that is why the comments of Alatar and Faramond and Idylle do not strike me as unfounded at all.
I do believe there is more than one 'right' to be considered in this issue. But I also believe that the health of the mother (in all senses) should be the foundation for whatever we do.
I'd also like to go back to issues that Jewel and Ethel and Cerin raised earlier, and the excellent example Cerin brought in her last post (as I write).
JS: Even the most vocal anti-abortionists will usually make an exception the case of rape. My question is - why? If the reason for being against abortion is that "abortion is murder" why does that change because of the circumstances of conception?
Ethel said, The only reason I can think of ... It's okay in the cases of rape because it wasn't the woman's "fault" that she got pregnant.
And Cerin raised the issue of test-tube embryos and forced kidney donation.
I also perceive a gross double-standard both under the law and in the public attitude.
My adopted mother, who believes that life begins at conception and probably would have murdered me in retaliation if I had had an abortion that she knew about, nevertheless wants aborted fetuses and test-tube fetuses used for stem cell research. Why? Because this benefits her of course! It might allow her to live to be 106 instead of 96.
That rancid comment which broke the news recently, that crime rates would go up if Black women were denied abortions ... I believe this is a deeply held attitude among White Americans. Black people have too many children and all of them are criminals in training - that is how the thinking goes. I'm sure all of us have heard comments of this sort made privately by people we know and otherwise like.
A man and a woman with fertility problems have the right to destroy as many fetuses as needed to attain their desire, because they have a right to the same property that everyone else enjoys. Denying them this opportunity would be like telling them they can't have a car or a washing machine.
And when a woman gets pregnant, it's her own fault, except when she is raped. Someone, you see, must be designated as the title-owner on this property, because the law as constituted cannot otherwise function to determine who is right and who is wrong. The fruits of rape are easily identified as anti-property - property which no one chose to create and no one wants to own, like noise, factory smoke and the plastic wrappers found in yesterday's garbage. It is a legal no-brainer to consign these fruits to a landfill, because we have a precedent for anti-property that is readily extended to the anti-property that results from rape.
I could go on and on about this ... but I won't.
And just to return this thread to Ethel's original question, before we wrested it by force from her hands 
.... no matter what happens with Roe v. Wade, the underlying incompatibility of property law and human rights will continue to haunt us, I fear, in the same way that the consequences of slavery haunt us and will continue to do so until we tackle the underlying stratification of our society.
Jn
(edit: meanwhile Faramond returned. Good! I'll have to address your answer later, though, F., because I just killed my posting time on this post.)
Cerin, I understood Alatar's dismay to be directed a hypothetical situation that one poster had raised - what if the child were determined in utero to be deformed or diseased ... and he was following that to it's logical conclusion and expressing horror that parent's might predetermine who lives and who dies based on rather arbitrary ideals of the perfect child. I did not understand him to be saying that women should be condemned for aborting anecephalic or Tay-Sachs fetuses, etc.
Anthy: Again, NOT that anyone said that in this thread. But it has been said. Many, many times. Perhaps we need to be sensitive to the fact that many men have felt marginalized on this subject, for a long time.
Word of wisdom from Anthi (again!). Men also have a history of exclusion that we need to weigh into their reactions.
Think about the opposite situation, where a couple plans a pregnancy, wants the child, the woman carries it to term and they both participate in the delivery. How many fathers express remorse that they are not able to experience this as the woman does, and wish that they could bear half the children. Many men keenly felt their exclusion from childbearing long before the abortion debate started, and feel just as vulnerable as women do to a potential loss of power, only from a different kind of usurpation.
Teremia also said: ... both men and women find themselves facing a pretty profound loss of control over their lives.
Exactly.
Different topic - a couple neutral comments about things vison and Padme said:
vison: When "the pill" first came along, my mother was still a young woman and gladly took it. She had several friends whose husbands "wouldn't allow it".
Interestingly enough, the appearance of the pill does not seem to have impacted childbearing choices as much as commonly believed, though it probably had profound impact on the sexual life of couples.
There was a team of demographers at the University of Pennsylvania led by Richard Easterling who did a longitudinal study on family size from 1950 to 1970. They could not anticipate this at the start of the study, but the pill appeared on the market in 1960, exactly in the middle. They had not designed this factor into the study and were afraid it would contaminate the results, but it turned out that this categorical variable, pre/post 1960, had no statistical significance at all. In fact, there emerged from the study only one clear determinant of family size: how many children a couple stated they wanted to have at the beginning of their life together.
They took whatever contraceptive means necessary to assure this outcome ... in some cases that probably involved illegal abortion ... and what the pill did, basically, was make it easier to control something that people were already attempting to control. It did not change their expectations.
But expectations themselves did change. Families got smaller. So the follow up analysis was to determine what factor primarily influenced these expectations.
Unsurprisingly, the main culprit was economics. There was a very high correlation between the family living standard of the 'grandparent' generation and that of the 'parent' generation Easterling was studying. But the 'parent' generation was achieving the same living standard by having less children. If they had had as many children as their own parents had had, their living standard would have fallen.
That study was concluded in 1970. Tracking forward into the future, family living standards did start to fall in 1973 and have been falling ever since, even with smaller family size. So I have to place the blame for much of the stress that families are feeling on the declining economy in the US (post-Bretton Woods) and that factor should also be taken into account when discussing why people want what they want.
(Whistler may now berate me for bringing economics into every single discussion.)
Padme: My question is if a father wants the child and the mother doesn't, can the mother walk away from the child after birth and not look back, or will she be forced to pay child support for a child she wanted to abort?
What Idylle said. I would only add that the courts will not spring into action on their own. The custodial parent has to initiate a suit for financial support.
And back to what has been the main issue, even though it is off-topic from Ethel's original question:
Hobby: Hobby: Well, I disagree - as soon as there's another life, it's not just your body anymore, IMO.
Yes, I feel this way, too, Hobby. And perhaps that is why the comments of Alatar and Faramond and Idylle do not strike me as unfounded at all.
I do believe there is more than one 'right' to be considered in this issue. But I also believe that the health of the mother (in all senses) should be the foundation for whatever we do.
I'd also like to go back to issues that Jewel and Ethel and Cerin raised earlier, and the excellent example Cerin brought in her last post (as I write).
JS: Even the most vocal anti-abortionists will usually make an exception the case of rape. My question is - why? If the reason for being against abortion is that "abortion is murder" why does that change because of the circumstances of conception?
Ethel said, The only reason I can think of ... It's okay in the cases of rape because it wasn't the woman's "fault" that she got pregnant.
And Cerin raised the issue of test-tube embryos and forced kidney donation.
I also perceive a gross double-standard both under the law and in the public attitude.
My adopted mother, who believes that life begins at conception and probably would have murdered me in retaliation if I had had an abortion that she knew about, nevertheless wants aborted fetuses and test-tube fetuses used for stem cell research. Why? Because this benefits her of course! It might allow her to live to be 106 instead of 96.
That rancid comment which broke the news recently, that crime rates would go up if Black women were denied abortions ... I believe this is a deeply held attitude among White Americans. Black people have too many children and all of them are criminals in training - that is how the thinking goes. I'm sure all of us have heard comments of this sort made privately by people we know and otherwise like.
A man and a woman with fertility problems have the right to destroy as many fetuses as needed to attain their desire, because they have a right to the same property that everyone else enjoys. Denying them this opportunity would be like telling them they can't have a car or a washing machine.
And when a woman gets pregnant, it's her own fault, except when she is raped. Someone, you see, must be designated as the title-owner on this property, because the law as constituted cannot otherwise function to determine who is right and who is wrong. The fruits of rape are easily identified as anti-property - property which no one chose to create and no one wants to own, like noise, factory smoke and the plastic wrappers found in yesterday's garbage. It is a legal no-brainer to consign these fruits to a landfill, because we have a precedent for anti-property that is readily extended to the anti-property that results from rape.
I could go on and on about this ... but I won't.
And just to return this thread to Ethel's original question, before we wrested it by force from her hands .... no matter what happens with Roe v. Wade, the underlying incompatibility of property law and human rights will continue to haunt us, I fear, in the same way that the consequences of slavery haunt us and will continue to do so until we tackle the underlying stratification of our society.Jn
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.
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Impenitent
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What about divorce? Feelings lead to action.Faramond wrote: Using feelings to justify any action is a bad idea.
Marriage...dropping out of school...
And all these affect other people, often profoundly and often negatively. All based on feelings.
Yes, many wicked things could be justified by appealing to emotion; just as many wicked things have been justified by appealing to science, or to law, or to perceived justice. I think to question is whether the argument used is authentic and that judgement requires honesty entwined with profound empathy.
"But never - NEVER - IMO, is "it's my body" a sufficient argument for an abortion, because as soon as that fetus is lodged in your body it's not just your own body anymore! "
Yes it is.
I am NOT arguing that "it's my body" is a sufficient argument for an abortion, although I suppose my words could be read that way.
The argument is that no one else has the right to decide what a woman does. Her reasons for seeking the abortion don't interest me. If she is a bad person, her reasons may be bad. How does this matter?
The law has no business in this issue, as far as I'm concerned. It was always a matter of someone else's "rights" over a woman and the fruits of her womb. And women have always, one way or the other, evaded the laws. They always will. How on earth is it better for anyone if "society" interferes in what must, in the end, always be a personal decision?
There has been and probably never will be a consensus about when the embryo/foetus becomes a "person". Until it is born, has been the historical rule. I see no reason to change that.
Cerin has raised an interesting question.
Let me consider it for a moment. If my sister needs a kidney to stay alive and I am a suitable donor and I refuse, am I immoral? Am I killing my sister?
Maybe my sister is a bad, wicked woman who's had five abortions, or she's a drug addict or she beats her husband or she's robbed a bank.
Maybe she's a saint, maybe she's an eminent scientist near to finding a cure for cancer.
Should any of those suppositions have any bearing on my decision? If not, why not? If so, why?
Why shouldn't the law force me to give up a kidney for my sister? Or to anyone else who needs it?
Well, my answer is: it's my body, that's why.
To drag myself back to Roe vs Wade: reversing it would be wrong. But I sadly assume I will live to see it.
BTW, excellent posts in this thread.
Yes it is.
I am NOT arguing that "it's my body" is a sufficient argument for an abortion, although I suppose my words could be read that way.
The argument is that no one else has the right to decide what a woman does. Her reasons for seeking the abortion don't interest me. If she is a bad person, her reasons may be bad. How does this matter?
The law has no business in this issue, as far as I'm concerned. It was always a matter of someone else's "rights" over a woman and the fruits of her womb. And women have always, one way or the other, evaded the laws. They always will. How on earth is it better for anyone if "society" interferes in what must, in the end, always be a personal decision?
There has been and probably never will be a consensus about when the embryo/foetus becomes a "person". Until it is born, has been the historical rule. I see no reason to change that.
Cerin has raised an interesting question.
Let me consider it for a moment. If my sister needs a kidney to stay alive and I am a suitable donor and I refuse, am I immoral? Am I killing my sister?
Maybe my sister is a bad, wicked woman who's had five abortions, or she's a drug addict or she beats her husband or she's robbed a bank.
Maybe she's a saint, maybe she's an eminent scientist near to finding a cure for cancer.
Should any of those suppositions have any bearing on my decision? If not, why not? If so, why?
Why shouldn't the law force me to give up a kidney for my sister? Or to anyone else who needs it?
Well, my answer is: it's my body, that's why.
To drag myself back to Roe vs Wade: reversing it would be wrong. But I sadly assume I will live to see it.
BTW, excellent posts in this thread.
Dig deeper.
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Voronwë the Faithful
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How about when her husband forces her to have sex against her will, after refusing to allow her to use birth control?And when a woman gets pregnant, it's her own fault, except when she is raped.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
I was stating that rhetorically, Voronwë. It is the presumption of the law, which I personally consider incorrect ... because of the example that you brought and many other circumstances that might happen.
Jn
Jn
Last edited by Jnyusa on Thu Feb 02, 2006 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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V, I think that quote was meant facetiously...in the context of pregnancy being the "punishment" for having sex.Voronwë_the_Faithful wrote:How about when her husband forces her to have sex against her will, after refusing to allow her to use birth control?And when a woman gets pregnant, it's her own fault, except when she is raped.
"Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame
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Faramond - okay, understood. But I must ask - that statement of the Founding Fathers, about inalienable rights including "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."
The pursuit of happiness. How can one possibly define that without recourse to considering the feelings of individual people? And yet American jurisprudence must take note of the right to the pursuit of happiness in framing law.
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Vinnie, it all comes down to the ancient view that a woman was property - chattels - owned by father or husband.
Therefore, what you describe above was not defined as rape (as you know) and the child thus conceived became the property of that same husband and father.
It does, indeed, come down to defining where personal rights begin and end.
The pursuit of happiness. How can one possibly define that without recourse to considering the feelings of individual people? And yet American jurisprudence must take note of the right to the pursuit of happiness in framing law.
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Vinnie, it all comes down to the ancient view that a woman was property - chattels - owned by father or husband.
Therefore, what you describe above was not defined as rape (as you know) and the child thus conceived became the property of that same husband and father.
It does, indeed, come down to defining where personal rights begin and end.
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Voronwë the Faithful
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Jn, my apologies for being a bit tricky; I knew what you were doing, but I felt that it needed to be made clearer. And you, Jewel, and Impy have done so admirably.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
Well, but I think that is the practical question at the foundation of the issue. If you are 'against abortion', does that mean that you want to eliminate it as an option for women? Certainly I have no argument with someone who opposes abortion but doesn't advocate outlawing the procedure.truehobbit wrote:However, I'm not arguing to force a woman to carry on a pregnancy, and I'm not sure anyone else here is.
If someone decided they didn't want to donate a kidney to save another person, I would not judge that person. I wouldn't consider it ethically questionable. I would certainly consider it admirable and self-sacrificing if they did, but I don't believe I would think it wrong if they did not.So, let me turn it round a bit: if you knew that you could save the life of someone who is close to you (we are making an analogy to the life of one's own child, so I think the life of a complete stranger doesn't quite equal that) by donating a kidney, but you decide against it - wouldn't that be at least an ethically questionable decision?
In the case of a parent and child, I would be surprised if a parent did not donate their kidney for their child. I guess I would think it somewhat unnatural, but I'm still not sure I would consider it unethical. It's something that needs to be a free decision, and if a person is unable for whatever reason to freely give that of themselves, I don't see how they can be condemned for it (and definitely not compelled to do it).
Jn, my understanding of the exchange was that an assumption was made, that a woman who aborts a Down's Syndrome child does so because it isn't 'perfect'. To me that comment -- whether or not it accurately reflects an actual attitude -- doesn't demonstrate much respect for either women or for the complexity of the issues involved in such a decision. A friend told me of a friend of hers who aborted a Down's Syndrome pregnancy because she felt it was a choice between the child or her marriage. The point is, someone who generally respects women and understands the agonies they go through contemplating these things won't assume babies are aborted for cosmetic reasons.
Your comments are very interesting and insightful (as always).
I'm trying to say that there should not be a direct circuit between feelings and what the law is. Feelings will of course be a part of why there are laws about things.
I'm really having trouble explaining what I mean, I find.
What I'm saying, and this isn't a kind thing to say, I suppose, but I'm saying that I don't think it's enough to just argue that abortion should be legal because of the feeling that we should get to control our bodies. ( Specifically that women may control their bodies in this case. )
I'm not dismissing the feeling, or saying it is wrong. I'm just saying there needs to be more. Outside factors have to be considered, even if they will eventually be dismissed. It just can't be as simple as saying "no one else has a right to decide" because they can't know what it's like. One could just as easily say no one else has a right to decide for the fetus whether it lives or dies. Letting primarily feelings dictate the law will usually lead to some points of view getting ignored.
Because the theoretical nature of the morality of abortion is so complicated and difficult to resolve, perhaps the only way to go is really to look at the practical effects of making abortion legal or illegal.
I'm really having trouble explaining what I mean, I find.
What I'm saying, and this isn't a kind thing to say, I suppose, but I'm saying that I don't think it's enough to just argue that abortion should be legal because of the feeling that we should get to control our bodies. ( Specifically that women may control their bodies in this case. )
I'm not dismissing the feeling, or saying it is wrong. I'm just saying there needs to be more. Outside factors have to be considered, even if they will eventually be dismissed. It just can't be as simple as saying "no one else has a right to decide" because they can't know what it's like. One could just as easily say no one else has a right to decide for the fetus whether it lives or dies. Letting primarily feelings dictate the law will usually lead to some points of view getting ignored.
Because the theoretical nature of the morality of abortion is so complicated and difficult to resolve, perhaps the only way to go is really to look at the practical effects of making abortion legal or illegal.
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Sassafras
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Oh dear.
Jnyusa wrote:
I strenuously disagree with this. It is my body until the child is birthed. Up until then the foetus is parasitical and utilizing my resources to grow sufficiently until a viable state is reached. If I die (barring medical intervention in the last trimester) the child inside my womb will die. It is not self-sustaining and is wholly dependant upon me for nuture.
That's factual. Not emotional.
As I said in a previous post, I've experienced the horror of an illegal abortion. I have also carried a child to full term. And raised that child to adulthood on my own without the financial, physical or emotional support of her father. In short, I am a statistic. A single mother.
Faramond, There is no way in hell (and I say this with the greatest respect), is it possible to completely separate emotion from the procreative/abortion equation. Not for this woman, at least.
Jnyusa wrote:
Hobby: Well, I disagree - as soon as there's another life, it's not just your body anymore, IMO.
Yes, I feel this way, too, Hobby. And perhaps that is why the comments of Alatar and Faramond and Idylle do not strike me as unfounded at all.
I strenuously disagree with this. It is my body until the child is birthed. Up until then the foetus is parasitical and utilizing my resources to grow sufficiently until a viable state is reached. If I die (barring medical intervention in the last trimester) the child inside my womb will die. It is not self-sustaining and is wholly dependant upon me for nuture.
That's factual. Not emotional.
I have never, in my 62 years, ever met a man who truly wished he could experience pregnancy and childbirth. Although I have met a great many who paid lip service to the concept without full awareness of the reality.How many fathers express remorse that they are not able to experience this as the woman does, and wish that they could bear half the children.
How different? Manifested in what way?Many men keenly felt their exclusion from childbearing long before the abortion debate started, and feel just as vulnerable as women do to a potential loss of power, only from a different kind of usurpation.
This is the crux of the matter and I thank you, Jn., for opening my eyes to a correlation I had not fully realized before... no matter what happens with Roe v. Wade, the underlying incompatibility of property law and human rights will continue to haunt us,
As I said in a previous post, I've experienced the horror of an illegal abortion. I have also carried a child to full term. And raised that child to adulthood on my own without the financial, physical or emotional support of her father. In short, I am a statistic. A single mother.
Faramond, There is no way in hell (and I say this with the greatest respect), is it possible to completely separate emotion from the procreative/abortion equation. Not for this woman, at least.
Ever mindful of the maxim that brevity is the soul of wit, axordil sums up the Sil:
"Too many Fingolfins, not enough Sams."
Yes.
The idea that we should all control or own bodies is an idea, not a feeling. It is the principle of personal sovereignty. We can feel very strongly about certain ideas because we believe in the truth of them, but the feeling comes from the belief and the truth we perceive.Faramond wrote:<snip>I'm saying that I don't think it's enough to just argue that abortion should be legal because of the feeling that we should get to control our bodies.
Admirable thought but the argument will immediately go back to the theoretical: to the serious anti-abortionist, practical efect of legalizing abortion is thousands, millions, of legally murdered children. The counter-argument takes us right back to the land of the theoretical.Because the theoretical nature of the morality of abortion is so complicated and difficult to resolve, perhaps the only way to go is really to look at the practical effects of making abortion legal or illegal.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
A couple of people have brought up kidney donation as a parallel. That's actually pretty tricky territory. Doctors and hospitals try to be very, very careful to prevent people from being -- not FORCED, exactly -- but coerced, guilted into, shamed into "volunteering" to donate a kidney to loved ones. Often they feel they OUGHT to, but really don't want to, and feel guilty about that. Doctors will cover for them by making up health reasons that prevent the donation from going forward. Why? Because it's awfully unethical to press someone to do something as big as donating a kidney, and it is not the default "right thing to do": it is a big, important, meaningful sacrifice that mustn't be minimized.
It's important not to minimize the difficulty of these things.
Having a child is at least as big a deal as donating a kidney. It is not something we can expect someone else to do for us, even people who love us greatly otherwise. Not everybody goes ahead and bears a child for their infertile friends, and when they do, it's such a Big Deal that it's controversial.
There are things that are too much to ask for or to expect; they can only be freely volunteered, and kidney donation and pregnancy are surely two such things.
It's important not to minimize the difficulty of these things.
Having a child is at least as big a deal as donating a kidney. It is not something we can expect someone else to do for us, even people who love us greatly otherwise. Not everybody goes ahead and bears a child for their infertile friends, and when they do, it's such a Big Deal that it's controversial.
There are things that are too much to ask for or to expect; they can only be freely volunteered, and kidney donation and pregnancy are surely two such things.
Sass,
Up until then the foetus is parasitical and utilizing my resources to grow sufficiently until a viable state is reached. If I die (barring medical intervention in the last trimester) the child inside my womb will die. It is not self-sustaining and is wholly dependant upon me for nuture ... That's factual. Not emotional.
It's partly factual ... and this is neither an argument for or against abortion but simply an observation. Yes, until the fetus is viable outside the womb its life cannot be extended beyond that of the mother. But while both live, the physical relationship is more symbiotic than parasitical.
In some ways, I felt the relationship became more parasitical after my children were born, because I breast-fed both of them and my own body would use nutrition to create milk before it would do anything else. In one way that's great because you lose the weight faster! But when I went back to work and had to expend lots of calories and also find time for sufficient meals, there were days I really wished it would all go away.
How different? Manifested in what way?
The way we are discussing here ... that the view of the man or the 'right' of a husband and father to have say in the disposition of their offspring might be entirely discounted.
I do not think it should be entirely discounted, though I agree that the grey areas involved here are vast and troublesome.
Jn
Up until then the foetus is parasitical and utilizing my resources to grow sufficiently until a viable state is reached. If I die (barring medical intervention in the last trimester) the child inside my womb will die. It is not self-sustaining and is wholly dependant upon me for nuture ... That's factual. Not emotional.
It's partly factual ... and this is neither an argument for or against abortion but simply an observation. Yes, until the fetus is viable outside the womb its life cannot be extended beyond that of the mother. But while both live, the physical relationship is more symbiotic than parasitical.
In some ways, I felt the relationship became more parasitical after my children were born, because I breast-fed both of them and my own body would use nutrition to create milk before it would do anything else. In one way that's great because you lose the weight faster! But when I went back to work and had to expend lots of calories and also find time for sufficient meals, there were days I really wished it would all go away.
How different? Manifested in what way?
The way we are discussing here ... that the view of the man or the 'right' of a husband and father to have say in the disposition of their offspring might be entirely discounted.
I do not think it should be entirely discounted, though I agree that the grey areas involved here are vast and troublesome.
Jn
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.