N
nomadologist
Guest
I agree!
Right, so you're celibate? And if your girlfriend got pregnant tomorrow you'd both have it and live happily ever after?
How old are you? 40?
Abortion
- Thread starter fishe
- Start date
Right, so you're celibate? And if your girlfriend got pregnant tomorrow you'd both have it and live happily ever after?
How old are you? 40?
N
nomadologist
Guest
This is one of the major arguments potential manufacturers make against a male pill. To me it's utterly baffling that anyone would lie about that and risk consequences like paying 50% of your salary out in alimony. Of course, I'm sure it would happen, but the widescale problem some people assume it would be is weird to me.
Male birth control would be so much easier and foolproof.
I've made the argument to my friends that even if I could be on the pill, I wouldn't take it for reasons that fall under "feminist principles." I tried taking it as a teenager several times, but could never stay on because the side effects were so severe. As important as it was in liberating women sexually back in the day, it's become a new form of bio-slavery, where women have to literally put themselves at risk of serious medical injury just so their male partner can experience more pleasure during intercourse (and avoid having to get an abortion).
I think if more women would push the issue and refuse to ruin their body chemistry for their boyfriends, we might get somewhere near a readily available male pill and actual female sexual liberation.
Male birth control would be so much easier and foolproof.
I've made the argument to my friends that even if I could be on the pill, I wouldn't take it for reasons that fall under "feminist principles." I tried taking it as a teenager several times, but could never stay on because the side effects were so severe. As important as it was in liberating women sexually back in the day, it's become a new form of bio-slavery, where women have to literally put themselves at risk of serious medical injury just so their male partner can experience more pleasure during intercourse (and avoid having to get an abortion).
I think if more women would push the issue and refuse to ruin their body chemistry for their boyfriends, we might get somewhere near a readily available male pill and actual female sexual liberation.
N
nomadologist
Guest
When I went to Planned Parenthood I remember reading a lot of their literature in the waiting room...I was shocked to read that 40% of women in the "first world" get at least one abortion in their lifetime. That means abortion is an extremely common procedure. It pissed me off to think that people tried to make women feel bad and all too often solely "responsible" for an ACCIDENT, when accidental pregnancy is obviously something that happens quite often. I refuse to feel "stigmatized" by any of it.
I also felt so bad for the dozens of 14 and 15 year-old black girls there with no boyfriend or friend with them. I was pretty lucky to have my boyfriend there and paying for it. (what he considers the best $250 he ever spent) In the changing room they were asking me if it hurt, and I didn't have the heart to tell them that even on three dime bags of dope it was the most painful experience of my life. It continued to hurt and cramp for 6 months, too. So it's not some sort of "free pass" out of hardship.
I also felt so bad for the dozens of 14 and 15 year-old black girls there with no boyfriend or friend with them. I was pretty lucky to have my boyfriend there and paying for it. (what he considers the best $250 he ever spent) In the changing room they were asking me if it hurt, and I didn't have the heart to tell them that even on three dime bags of dope it was the most painful experience of my life. It continued to hurt and cramp for 6 months, too. So it's not some sort of "free pass" out of hardship.
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mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
I just want to know with all the people who are anti-abortion, y'know, what exactly are you going to do to stop people from having them? Are you going to shackle them to a bed until it's delivered and then make them look after it? I mean, please.
N
nomadologist
Guest
They're going to try to stigmatize and witch hunt abortion receivers to death.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Wouldn't you think men would be all for abortion on demand? Especially if it meant more consequence-free sex for them? It's only their mommyhood fetishizing that makes some sort of moral imperative out of social principles leftover from a bygone pre-technological/scientific era.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
I've been quite weirded out by this thread, really quite freaked out. And so I'm off to bed.
mixed_biscuits
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We would do the former and live in hope of the latter.
Regarding 'action' and abortion, I would have to consider to what extent I want legislation to represent or enforce the Ethical Good. Luckily, my remit doesn't go as far as legislation or organising witch hunts; I just deal with ethics.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
Medical ethics directly deals with cause and effect, to try and opt out by saying you're 'just' dealing with ethics means you haven't thought this through at all.
Nomadologist has finally said it (something that I concluded years ago, after many debates like this) - it's none of our (men's) business ultimately; we can't get pregnant, accidentally or otherwise! Once you accept that, then surely you have to come down on the pro-choice side, whatever the difficulties with the rational ethical debate, which seems to be fundamentally unresolvable, right down to the language used e.g. "killing a foetus/baby/person" vs. "terminating an unwanted pregnancy". I really believe that only women should be allowed to vote on the issue.
BTW I know perfectly normal women, who are great mothers, who would routinely describe their pregnancy as a parasitic invasion of their bodies (and they weren't writing feminist theory PhDs on Irigaray and the Sexual Politics of Reproduction in Alien or anything!), and the newborn baby as little more than a larva which processes milk into shit! The foetus is a parasite at least as much as it is a potential human being. "So where do you draw the line - what about infanticide? etc" - well, infanticide was pretty common up until recently (and probably still is in the developing world?), and how can you moralise from on high about difficult situations of poverty, a hostile social environment to unmarried mothers etc? And you just have to draw the line somewhere, don't you? So a certain number of weeks into the pregnancy seems to be as good as any quasi-arbitrary point to draw it, which balances some notion of respect for the developing baby with the right to terminate the pregnancy.
And yes we all can have an opinion on the death penalty without actually being on death row for murder, because we're all capable of murder or being convicted of it, or being murdered, so the opinion does count. Pregnancy and abortion are exclusively female experiences, so women should be allowed to decide.
Interesting point also about the bio-ethics of the pill, nomad - my girlfriend used to find even female doctors very difficult to talk to about pros/cons, side-effects etc, when they would push the pill on her and shut down discussion - and of course a constantly renewed prescription means a constant revenue stream for the doctors, retail chemists and the pharmaceutical companies that supply them, so they're all too happy with the setup.
BTW I know perfectly normal women, who are great mothers, who would routinely describe their pregnancy as a parasitic invasion of their bodies (and they weren't writing feminist theory PhDs on Irigaray and the Sexual Politics of Reproduction in Alien or anything!), and the newborn baby as little more than a larva which processes milk into shit! The foetus is a parasite at least as much as it is a potential human being. "So where do you draw the line - what about infanticide? etc" - well, infanticide was pretty common up until recently (and probably still is in the developing world?), and how can you moralise from on high about difficult situations of poverty, a hostile social environment to unmarried mothers etc? And you just have to draw the line somewhere, don't you? So a certain number of weeks into the pregnancy seems to be as good as any quasi-arbitrary point to draw it, which balances some notion of respect for the developing baby with the right to terminate the pregnancy.
And yes we all can have an opinion on the death penalty without actually being on death row for murder, because we're all capable of murder or being convicted of it, or being murdered, so the opinion does count. Pregnancy and abortion are exclusively female experiences, so women should be allowed to decide.
Interesting point also about the bio-ethics of the pill, nomad - my girlfriend used to find even female doctors very difficult to talk to about pros/cons, side-effects etc, when they would push the pill on her and shut down discussion - and of course a constantly renewed prescription means a constant revenue stream for the doctors, retail chemists and the pharmaceutical companies that supply them, so they're all too happy with the setup.
mixed_biscuits
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Can I change the law on my own? No. Am I going to organise witch hunts? No. Can I hope to guide my own behaviour after thinking about the ethical ramifications? Yes. Do you understand now?
mixed_biscuits
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Pointless - this argument removes the need to 'vote' at all by taking the problem out of the ethical sphere.
If direct personal experience is king (or queen), then only *that particular mother* with *that particular child* experiencing *that particular pregnancy* can lay claim to it being 'her business.' There is no 'ethical problem' any more, and no need to 'give reasons' for any of one's behaviour, as there is nobody to give reasons to.
mixed_biscuits
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I would like to think that the moment of conception makes for a somewhat more definite line than a 'quasi-arbitrary point', for reasons given previously.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
Oh please. Are you gonna cry, scream murder or even be bothered if someone in a lab drops a petri dish with 3 impregnated eggs on the floor? Didn't think so.
mixed_biscuits
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I don't think we can rely on crude 'empathy' here - it hasn't prevented things like slavery and genocide, after all.
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
What's with all the "cock" waving going on in this thread?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Although like all their best ideas, they nicked it from the Greeks...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm thinking mostly of the Christian, family-values, will-somebody-please-think-of-the-children brigade.
swears
preppy-kei
You seriously don't see any difference between a fertilised egg and a newborn baby?