Tim Tebow Ad, Take 2

[River]

You seem to have this idea that sex should result in procreation. Sociologically, it's a weird idea but a not uncommon on. Monty Python even spoofed it: Every sperm is sacred

[halplm]

Is it the right decision in every case? Of course not. But to deny women the option takes away their right to decided what happens to their bodies.

They took that choice themselves when they CHOSE to have sex when they didn't want to be pregnant!

So are you saying babies are punishment then?

I'm not quite sure where that idea comes from.

You said not having access to abortions takes away their right to decide what happens to their bodies. They had that choice, and chose to have sex. They made the choice to possibly get pregnant. That is where the choice is theirs and theirs alone.

When they have an unborn child to think about, what happens to their body is a consequence of their previous FREE choices, and that child has every right to exist regardless of the regrets his or her mother has that she made those choices as she did.

[halplm]

You seem to have this idea that sex should result in procreation. Sociologically, it's a weird idea but a not uncommon on. Monty Python even spoofed it: Every sperm is sacred

Yes, I know the spoof, but I don't know what your point is by bringing it up.

[halplm]

If you choose to have sex, as many will no matter what, the potential pregnancy is one consequence of those actions.

If that pregnancy is so horrifying that you would prefer to kill someone than have it... I would argue the sex is not worth whatever pleasure you get from it.

Of course you would argue like that. But as you say yourself it is a potential pregnancy... and for centuries, a fact from which a man could easily walk away without any blame.
Let me ask you a question: do you always eat healthy? No, I don't think so. You do things of which you know that they are potentially dangerous and you do them because they give you pleasure in the moment. Now, you don't have sex - well... your choice. But I think it is pretentious and unrealistic to expect others to have that same ability to supress one of their strongest natural instincts. Even before birth control, people have had unprotected sex and loads of it. Because it ends by far not always in a pregnancy and you take the risk. "It won't be me..." If you, Hal, are rational enough to think of a potential pregnancy in a moment like this, I am not so morally superior, although it would be my body. And most people are not.
Now, most people use birth-control. But it does fail.

Indeed it does, and it was the desire I expressed a couple of pages ago that in such a case, the child would still be welcome.

Just for the record, would you favour an abortion after a rape?

In favor of it? No, but that is a case in which the choice was not the mother's so I recognize the difference. I can't honestly say I've sorted out what I think about that situation.

[Nin]

But if is about the protection of the fetus rights - how would the fetus of a rape be different from one not from a rape? It would also be a person...

I cannot help seing the double standard: the woman is punished for choosing to have sex. In any of the cases, the pregnancy was not the choice of the woman.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

If my daughter chose through whatever circumstances to have an abortion, would I prefer abortion to be legal so she had the chance of the procedure being carried out safely.... or would I prefer it to be illegal and run the risk of her dying?


A no brainer really. Just translate that to everyone's daughter.

Edit: In other words I put the welfare and life of my daughter far far beyond the possibility of a grandchild.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I am hesitating even to post this because I feel like anyway my posts go unread.

Nin, I read your posts. In fact, I think they are among the only posts in this thread worth reading (although I read them all, because I have to).

[Elentári]

Well put, Tosh.


I always feel the same way when the topic of prostitution comes up, and people say well , it's her body, her right, etc...

They wouldn't feel the same way if it was their daughter.

But I digress...

What seems to have been argued here is that a woman shouldn't have sex if she doesn't want to run the risk of falling pregnant.

A dilemma which can NEVER be faced by a man...

How would a guy feel if that was his choice...to have sex ONLY if he was prepared to face 9 months with a baby growing inside his body, something that would change him mentally, emotionally and physically for ever... and to face that prospect EVERY TIME he wanted sex?

[yovargas]

For me it's all quite simple in terms of the social/legal perspective: There is no solid and objective moral grounding for thinking of a fetus the same way we think of an independent child. Therefore, the importance and value of the fetus is up to the person involved in making it and carrying it. It is none of my business, none of hal's business, none of the government's business. It is the mother's business, and perhaps to some extent, the father's business - that's it. Everyone else stay out of it and stop telling others how they should feel and think about their fetuses.

How I personally value a fetus is my business, but considering I will almost certainly never be involved in creating one and most certainly never carry one, that is an irrelevant judgment call on my part.

[MithLuin]

Yeah, celibacy is a really attractive option, particularly within marriage.

See how well it worked out for the Catholic priests?

I know many Catholic priests who are very happy in their celibate lifestyles. I can link you to reams of material on this subject, if you are interested. My cousin will be taking final vows with her community this summer. Yeah, I know we have a scandal on our hands -- but that specifically comes from not living an authentic life of celibacy.

I agree that celibacy would be fairly unnatural within a marriage (though certainly there are times when couples have to refrain from sexual relations for a time - due to health, travel, what have you.) But you'd have to have a pretty intense relationship with God to have a true marriage with another person without sex being involved ever. I don't really think it's possible this side of heaven. Sex is intricately caught up with human intimacy.



Now, as for the rest of it, I will point out that the connection between sexual relationships and baby-making is not something that was invented by hal. You can always go the Jurassic Park route and say that 'nature will find a way.' Things happen, no matter how cautious people are or how hard they try to avoid fertility. I think that adoption is an option for people who find themselves in the situation of being pregnant and not wanting to choose to raise a child. My cousin chose that route when she and her unemployed boyfriend ended up in that situation. I will not say it was easy for her, because it was not - but she thought it would be best for the baby. Since it's an open adoption, she's welcome to visit.


vison, I will reply to your mother-of-six-finds-herself-pregnant scenario in a very limited way. I agree that it is a very common hardship throughout the world. When Edith Stein was 2 years old, her mother was widowed and left to raise 7 children alone. No one would have been remotely understanding if she had chosen to kill off her youngest to help get through the situation. But she was a devout Jewish lady, and I certainly hope her community which places such a high value on caring for widows in their distress, would have come through for her in that situation. And that's the point - we all get dealt lousy hands at times in our lives. Some of us...really, really difficult situations. The point of family and community is not to have to face these things alone.


It is not easy, certainly. Killing off the fetus solves the problem, sure. But not only is this not the only solution, it's one of the poorest solutions. If women are so isolated as to see this as the only option, then shame on our modern society.

I know this is a charged topic. I know this involves very personal situations, life-changing events. I know pregnancy re-wires women's brains, so you will quite literally never be the same again. Having a child is taking on a responsibility for the rest of your life. And men's failures to step up and be fathers often contributes to their daughters getting into the situation of being young, unmarried and pregnant.

I also know at the end of the day, I'm the only person whose choices I'm responsible for. For me to get an abortion would be for me to kill my own child. I can't do that. If it's rape, and I cannot bring myself to raise the child...well, I'm pretty sure I can find a home for a healthy white infant, to be brutally honest. I know Jewel will say that I can't know what I will actually do until I'm in that situation. I have no intention of getting raped to prove a point. But I will say that I can think about the issue now, so that if I ever find myself in such a broken place, I will know what the 'real me' would have chosen to do. Who knows, that might even help.

But since I am not currently faced with this choice, the choice I have is what to do to help other women who are in tough situations. Like my sister, who is in another state raising 2 children under the age of 2 while her husband is out of the country for...and indeterminate amount of time, but at least 9 mo. Or my student who was in tears the day she found out she has an STD, or another who repeated a year of high school because she dropped out to have a baby at age 15. There are certainly charities who provide housing and other assistance to women who are faced with difficult choices, whether it's leaving an abusive spouse/bf or raising a handicapped child, or, yes, being unexpectedly pregnant.



Changing laws without changing culture will be about as effective as Prohibition was. I'm not in favor of that. But I am in favor of changing hearts. We do that, and abortion actually will become rare (in the US, it is currently far from rare).



Anyway, the Caps game is over, I have a sewing project to finish (plaid is intimidating), and I have no idea how much of this post will even be comprehensible. I feel like I'm writing in a shorthand that will get lost in translation. So...if something I've written is inflammatory, please ask for clarification...I might not have meant what you think I mean. Or, maybe I do. But, it's worth asking.

[vison]

MithLuin, there is no common ground between you and me on this topic. You are speaking out of your beliefs, not out of personal experience.

I'm 65 years old, and have formed pretty firm opinions - because I have seen the misery that comes from the various religious ideas about sex. Particularly the ideas of the Roman church.

It is a matter for one person's conscience and no other. It is not my business, nor yours.

No man has any right to interfere.

[Inanna]

Mith, that's a great post from a different perspective.

I agree that changing laws without comprehensive social change is ineffective. Sometimes laws can speed up social change - Nin's example of how abortion has gone down as it was legalized in Switzerland comes to mind.

[yovargas]

Good post, Mith.

[nerdanel]

Changing laws without changing culture will be about as effective as Prohibition was. I'm not in favor of that. But I am in favor of changing hearts. We do that, and abortion actually will become rare (in the US, it is currently far from rare).

I don't see anything wrong with anti-abortion people trying to persuade women against abortions, if it's done by offering women the idea that it will be a positive thing in their lives to give birth. However, I have a strongly negative reaction to "changing hearts," if it includes insisting that abortion is immoral or is "killing babies." I know you did not write that, Mith, but I think for a lot of anti-abortion people, part of what they desire is a cultural change such that abortion will be viewed as immoral. I am personally opposed to such a cultural change, since I view abortion as a moral neutral.

[Cerin]

No one would have been remotely understanding if she had chosen to kill off her youngest to help get through the situation.

And how is that relevant? We aren't talking here about persons, that is, separate, distinct individuals with a life of their own, such as this woman's youngest child. We're talking about fetuses/embryos, which don't live a life of their own, they live their life by taking life from the person whose body they inhabit. They are persons in the making, but the making depends on someone else's willingness to submit their body and life to that process.

[MithLuin]

Cerin, I will repeat vison's thought experiment:

Now imagine that you are the mother of 6 children. Imagine that you live in a society where birth control is not available, or that you belong to a religion that doesn't allow birth control. Imagine that you used the one method approved by your church and that's how you got to be the mother of 6 children.

Your husband comes home one day to announce he's been laid off and chances are he's not going to find another job easily. You have a stack of bills you can't quite pay every month. You either have no health insurance because you live where there is no such thing for a working class family or your health insurance ended when your husband lost his job.

Imagine that under these circumstances you get pregnant.

And then tell me the prospect of another child is a blessing.

In this scenario, what is daunting is another mouth to feed, raising a family with the main source of income gone. She did not mention that the woman was unwilling to carry another child to term, but that a woman is faced with very bad news right before she finds out she is pregnant. If the husband comes home one day and announces that he is laid off, but the baby is 2 mo. old instead of not born yet...does the family have moral/legal options to somehow get rid of that kid? Not really, no. Doesn't make it any easier to face that situation. You still have to deal with one more kid and all it entails. Her scenario reminded me of several stories I knew from real life, so I picked one - a devout Jewish woman living in Poland/Germany/Prussia before WWI who suddenly became a widow when the youngest of her 7 children was 2 years old. Had her husband died 2 years earlier, when she was pregnant with their youngest, would that have actually changed anything about her situation? That was all I was pointing out...that hardship in and of itself is not the issue - the issue is whether or not you are talking about a human person. Because killing someone else to solve a problem is a really lousy way to address the issue.

I am not unaware of your take on this question, or vison's. I know you view this situation very differently than I do. To you, abortion makes you not pregnant any more. To me, abortion means your baby is now dead.

nel, it's both. Encouraging a woman to keep her baby implies it would be negative to go through with the abortion - not just because abortion is bad, but because welcoming a new life is good. I realize you consider it a neutral, but the whole idea of changing hearts is that people reconsider that.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't see anything wrong with anti-abortion people trying to persuade women against abortions, if it's done by offering women the idea that it will be a positive thing in their lives to give birth. However, I have a strongly negative reaction to "changing hearts," if it includes insisting that abortion is immoral or is "killing babies."

Whereas I* have largely the opposite reaction. To me the question of whether giving birth is or could possibly be a positive thing in the live of a woman is something that is intensely personal to that particular person, and I could not imagine myself or anyone else influencing whether that woman would feel that way (although of course I could take actions that could help to make it more likely to be a positive experience). However, while I myself do not believe that life begins at conception, I can intellectually understand that there are people who wholeheartedly believe that to be the case, and can understand that the only possible logical extension of such a belief would be that abortion is morally wrong. I respect that belief, even though I don't share it.


* I certainly acknowledge that as a man I by definition have a more distant relationship with the issue than any woman has.

[halplm]

I have more to say, as one would expect... but I feel the need to refrain from speaking for a bit to avoid troublesome argumentative states.

I just want to once again express my extreme opposition to the idea that men are not allowed to have opinions on this matter because they do not have ovaries or a uterus.

Can I speak for all the men throughout history who have abandoned their offspring because they are insufferable idiots? No, nor do I wish to.

However, to insinuate that a man is incapable of understanding the positions of women in unfavorable circumstances is to deny the ability of anyone to understand a situation they have not directly experienced, and I find that concept obscene.

We are built with the ability to empathize with others, and to be able to understand the hardships of others, and the concept that gender is a gap that this ability is incapable of being crossed is impossible for me to believe. Frankly, I find it insulting and condescending.

There is plenty to argue about with regards to procreation, the willful termination of pregnancy, and the right or lack thereof to life of an unborn infant. To state a man or woman has more or less to say on the matter is to ignore how hard it can be on either.

[Primula Baggins]

It isn't obscene, insulting, or condescending to say that on a fundamental level a man cannot understand the experience of being pregnant, and changing your body and life forever.

The fact is that no one, male or female, can understand it on the real, visceral level we're talking about until it has happened to her. Any woman who has looked at the experience of pregnancy from outside and then from inside knows the difference.

However, women it hasn't happened to usually seem to understand this and to take what other women say about the experience at face value. They don't claim that they can imagine perfectly what it's like for other women, or attempt to tell us what we really felt or ought to have felt when it happened to us.

Nor do many of them try to pass laws that would control other women's decisions.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Nor do many of them try to pass laws that would control other women's decisions.

That's patently unfair. There are many, many women that believe that life begins at conception and that therefore abortion should be illegal. I don't have any statistics at hand, but I doubt that there are any that show that an overwhelming majority of those who believe that abortion should be illegal are male.