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Sex is an enormous responsibility because it comes with the possibility of creating a new life, spreading diseases that can permanently disable or even kill people, or can lead to personal heartache and pain.
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Yes, Madonna has had multiple abortions. Maybe not 11 but several.
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I dont know squat about fertility clinics so I dont know.
You don’t know squat about fertility clinics but on Madonna you’re an expert enough to refute the woman’s own word? Misogynist-leaning hypocrite, that’s what you are.
To the OP - I wish this couple the best of luck, it can’t be easy for the whole family to be aware of and discussing the choices only the pregnant woman can ultimately make.
Because that is NOT what you said. You said “I find it very disturbing that a person could love a fetus the same way they love a conscious, conversant, personality-having, huggable person” and “…my point that people in general do not relate to a fetus the same way that they relate to a child that’s already been born”. That is what I disagree with. If you feel that way, fine, but don’t extrapolate your feelings to people in general.
This, for the record, is wrong. Per the article, "Anthropologist Laila Williamson notes that “Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations, including our own ancestors. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule.”
“IME” means “In My Experience”. The cite for that is my experience - with my wife and kids, with my sisters and their kids, with my friends and their kids. I never said that “most” women in general feel one way or the other because I understand that my experience and my feelings are exactly that.
I would guess that there were a whole range of feelings among those women, as there were among the ones who had the 4MM live births the same year - joy, fear, relief, depression - you name it.
If that is now your contention, I have no issue. It is a change from your original assertions.
Now I’m confused - that is exactly what I said. I cited 2 opposing studies, the one you cite and one that reported a higher rate of suicide among women who had an abortion. I then pointed out why both are flawed. My point was that we can likely never know for sure because people suck at quantifying feelings and correlation does not equal causation. I made no assertion beyond those.
Where did you cite 2 opposing studies? Please tell me where I can find that post because I must have missed it.
Your agnosticism in the face of fairly overwhelming evidence is in fact an assertion in and of itself. There is no basis for ever saying because it involves people’s feelings, we can never know for sure.
I thought I had pointed it out before, but-- it doesn’t matter what the prevalence of feeling is among women who have chosen abortions (or haven’t). Whatever it is, it says nothing relevant about any one particular woman’s feelings.
If you support a woman’s right to choose, as a matter of politics or policy, you have to agree that this woman
So if people value fetuses the same way they value children, why do most Americans think abortion should remain legal? Why is abortion even a thing, if most people don’t feel *some *way about fetuses that they don’t feel about other forms of human life?
Do you think most Americans would support killing children?
Do you think we will ever see legalized Child Termination Clinics?
Perhaps you answered my earlier question to you, but I was too pissed off about being misunderstood to see it. You say your wife felt a very strong love for her fetus–the same love she felt as the child grew and developed into a fully formed human being. How about you? Do you think you felt the same love your pre-natal baby as you did once that baby became a child, with a name and a personality? I don’t know why you’re talking about your wife’s feelings on this subject, but not your own. Because when I say “people”, I’m not talking just about mothers. I’m talking about fathers too.
No, because love can’t be quantified that easily, like you pour more in and check it with a guage. But once a child has a personality then your love for them is different - you love them, the little person, not just the idea of them as your child.
I am a little surprised so many people are claiming that it’s normal to love your unborn child, that has no personality and minimal interaction with you, just like you do your fully developed child that you’ve built up memories and experiences with. The key there is “just like.” That, I’m pretty sure, is rare.
Or people who blow themselves up in meth lab explosions.
MLS, if you’re still reading this:
Our first son’s ultrasound initially came back as being ‘high risk’ for Downs due to the thickness of the nuchal translucency (pocket of fluid) at the back of his neck and a few other measurements that came back as ‘wrong’ for his assumed age.
We had the amniocentesis done which came back as all clear.
Our kid was further along than estimated and was big for his ‘age’ at that point. That along with either an incorrect measurement or the Doc. reading the results wrong (we never figured out which) lead to the initial ‘high risk’ result.
If it’s something you are worried about, get the amniocentesis done if you think the risks are worth it:
http://www.pregnancybirthbaby.org.au/screening-for-down-syndrome
For full disclosure we had discussed the issue and would have had a termination if the amniocentesis had come back positive. We have both known families with DS kids and have seen the effects, plus my MIL is a nurse and has had some experience caring for DS kids so we made our decisions with a lot of information at hand.
Thank you for this information. I think they are screening my daughter’s (the mother’s) blood. Apparently the maternal blood contains some traces of fetal DNA, and they simply count the number of chromosome 21s found. She is now in her eighth month, and will not undergo amniocentesis. At this stage a premature birth would obviously make things worse. She and her husband would not have considered terminating the pregnancy even if a definitive DS diagnosis had been received early. Their choice, obviously.
I truly can see both sides of this argument. When my husband and I had our two youngest daughters, we were aware of the higher risks of chromosomal abnormalities due to our ages. And we made the decision, together, that we would choose birth rather than abortion unless reliable testing indicated some unsurvivable defect. (We were fortunate and had two wonderful, healthy daughters.) But the important bit for us is that we chose. We made a mutual decision that we could live with, as a couple. If that decision hadn’t been mutual, I doubt we would have remained together for long.
Regardless of our own decisions, however, I have the example in front of me - an old and dear friend is now middle-aged, with aging parents, and two profoundly disabled younger brothers. If my friend’s brothers survive past their parents’ ability to care for them, the friend is next up at bat. He has spent his entire freaking life carrying all of his parents’ hopes and expectations and a whole bunch of added responsibility, knowing that he is the only able brother. His father expected R to be perfect, in awareness/acknowledgement of the fact that the other sons wouldn’t be able to achieve. His mother ignored R, to focus on the children who “needed” her more. And now, R faces two paths that will make him unhappy in different ways - either his beloved brothers die much too young, or R becomes their full-time caretaker. And both of those options suck a lot.
I think it’s fair for a parent to make his or her choice, and I couldn’t judge harshly either way. But I think it’s entirely unfair to expect one’s other children to structure their entire lives around that choice…
Certainly, it’s right here in my first post in the thread:
Here is one cite that emotional recall, especially of incidents involving mixed emotions, is flawed:
And another:
There is simply a ton of data showing that human memory is flawed and that emotion makes it worse. Basing a study on recall of an emotional moment is just not going to get accurate answers.
Sigh. Moving the goalposts again. My only contention with you, monstro, is that the way you originally stated your point was that it is unnatural for someone to love a fetus as much as a baby (“I find it very disturbing that a person could love a fetus the same way they love a conscious, conversant, personality-having, huggable person” and “…my point that people in general do not relate to a fetus the same way that they relate to a child that’s already been born”). If your contention is now that some people do and some don’t, then we agree. I don’t think you or I or anyone else can quantify how many fall in each camp. Your experience apparently leads you to believe “a lot”, mine leads me to believe “very few”.
I, for one, am done with this highjack.
We had the same result at the 12-week ultrasound. My understanding is that the test has a 50% false-positive rate under the best of circumstances.
The name of this forum is IMHO. Meaning, it doesn’t make sense for you to argue about my feelings about something. My feelings just are.
I didn’t say a fucking thing about what’s “natural” or not. I said the idea that someone can love a fetus the same as a walking, talking, personality-having, name-possessing, cognizant, huggable, kissable human being is disturbing to me. But this is NOT the same thing as saying that such love is “unnatural”. You’ve got your drawers in a wad because of words you’re putting in my mouth.
There’s a ton of things out there that are natural that still I find fucking disturbing. One of them is the tendency for people to kneejerk on message boards when it comes to the topic of babies and abortion. This will never stop working my nerves.
For the record, monstro, I am totally on your side in this, and got what you were saying immediately. Doctor Jackson, you really are coming off as though you are deliberately trying to misunderstand her.
You are just as guilty of using over-reaching language in your (or your wife’s???) argument:
When someone says they find your behavior “very disturbing” it doesn’t mean they simply disagree or find it unusual. It means your behavior has caused them anxiety or agitation. I agree with Doctor Jackson and I think he had every right to defend his or his wife’s feelings from someone who is “very disturbed” by them. Was monstro using hyperbole? Then monstro should say so rather than go on a tangent about how those comments are OK because most people favor legal abortion.
It’s funny that no one posting in this thread has said they love their non-born child just the same as their born child/children. There have been a couple of people speaking on their wives behalf. But no one raising their hand. And there are a shitload of parents on this board. It seems to me that more than a couple of people should shitting a brick over what I said, if what I said was so mindblowingly, terribly offensively wrong.
But that’s besides the point, really. I’m not about to apologize for feeling disturbed by something, because I’m entitled to feel (and express how I feel) however I want about a topic in this forum. Just the same as people are entitled to express moral contempt towards parents who abort their DS fetuses. I don’t personally harbor such negative feelings, but I’m not about to tell the outraged they need to shut up lest they hurt the feelings of those who have terminated pregnancies. Because what is the fucking point of having a IMHO forum if everyone has to worry about hurting someone’s feelings at every turn? Every opinion has the potential to hurt someone’s feelings.
Doctor Jackson’s wife is a grown-ass woman. She doesn’t need someone defending her, especially since no one was talking about her or saying anything negative about her, personally.
Well, hold on to your hat because I loved my daughter in my wife’s womb as much as my then 3 year old son. My bond with my son was and probably still is stronger. But as I said before, bond does not equal love for me. I love my little girl the same as her older brother. Frankly, it is odd to me that I’d even have to explain that or that most parents don’t feel the same way.