First, I’m a woman, not a man.
Second, it doesn’t comfort me; far from it. It is, however, a reasonably amusing and more accurate view of the situation than I would wish to be true.
And that must be the end of contributions for me for the day, as I’ve teenage stepchildren chewing paint off the walls waiting for supper. Cheers.
Umm I didn’t mention the father because I was responding to a pro choice question (that…oh by the way didn’t mention the father either, you may wish to lambast CrazyCatLady for the omission) that asked why abortion providers should receive harsher sentences than the pregnant women.
FWIW, I’m certainly not adverse to exploring more ways to make men more accountable for their actions in causing the pregnancy. If you’re asking why that hasn’t occured yet (and you seem to be putting ALL of the blame on pro life folks for this), I can only hazard guesses.
For better or worse, determining the mother of a zygote/embryo/fetus is quite a bit easier than determining the father. If a woman has had multiple sex partners in the time period, the issue becomes even more complicated. I even suspect that some women might not be hip to automatic efforts to dig through their sex partner list to determine paternity.
I’ll repeat…the above paragraph is pure speculation on my part…I offer no proof. However, to put all the blame on pro life folks is ridiculous…unless you can show me legislation put forward by pro choice folks to do that…which has been blocked by pro life folks…I’ll wait patiently for that proof :dubious:
Holy smokes…could I have screwed up my coding even more… :smack:
Pro choice folks come with all kinds of viewpoints. The most common ones I’v seen:
The zygote/embryo/fetus is not alive till birth (EJsGirl and others have said this)
The z/e/f may be alive…but it’s not human or “a human being” until some point (those points range from things like viability to brain activity to sentience to birth)
The z/e/f may be a human, but it’s not a “person”…a philosophical notion applied again at different points like sentience, viability, brain activity or birth.
The z/e/f may be “fully” human and a “person”…but it doesn’t matter. The woman always has the right to abort for any reason. From what I see and hear, this last viewpoint is held by a fair number but is still a minority position among pro choice folks.
So, many pro choice folks think that the z/e/f is “a life”, but either “not human” or “not a person” before their magical point of demarcation. In other words…most pro choice folks have varying degrees to which they would “permit” elective abortions depending on the development of the z/e/f.
Bob’s point, "I do not agree that most pro-choicers would still be pro-choice if it were a given to them that a fetus is a human being. " applies to that group of pro choice folks (the group that I think constitutes the majority in the pro choice camp)
I don’t think it would be a minority position if abortion were made illegal. Then, I think many on the pro-choice side would reassess their own views. Right now, they can safely soften their opinions to make them more palatable for anti-abortion advocates.
For me, I don’t care what the fetus is. I only know what it does. Forcing a woman to bear an unwanted fetus is a form of torture and, well, I’m against torture.
Julie
Let me get this right…all of these pro choice folks who currently form their elective abortion philosophy based on fetal development are lying about their position? That in reality, an abortion philosophy only depends on fetal location, not fetal development?
Wow.
You’d think they’d have the honesty to say what you say…essentially “It doesn’t matter how developed it is, I can abort for any reason at any time”.
And exactly why do they feel a need to make their position more “palatable” for pro life folks? Do they honestly care about our feelings? :dubious: Or are you saying that they are delibertately distorting the truth for political (or other) purposes?
I just don’t get this. You say it’s torture. Why? The definition of ‘toture’ I found says “the infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure.”
Who is being punished or coerced? And who is getting sadistic pleasure?
I guess you mean more that it would be intensely unpleasant.
It’s hard to make analogies to abortion, because it is unique in the questions regarding the formation and destruction of human life.
My friend had a baby recently. It was born with severe birth defects and will be dependant on her for it’s whole life. If she regarded taking care of this child as ‘torture,’ could we just say, “I’m against torture” and allow her to kill the child?
I assume pretty much every one would say that this would be unacceptable. Abortion proponants would argue that abortion is different because the baby is not alive or not sentient or whatever. And we’ve all been down that path of debate before.
But just because you regard pregnancy as torture, is not reason by itself to allow any means to get out of the situation.
**I have not revised my opinion. Your argument is illogical, however. Do you believe that Planned Parenthood is representative of all pro-choice beliefs? Why would you think that? And what would lead you to conclude that providing prenatal services means that PP considers fetuses human beings? Why can’t they simply be providing a service? Again, whatever PP’s “mission” is, why in the world would that make what I say incorrect?
Can I ask if you support laws against child abuse? If so, then can I also assume that you will take in all children removed from abusive homes, pay out 20% of your paycheck to support those you don’t have room for, etc., etc.? Otherwise, where do you get off having an opinion regarding child abuse? Honestly, your post is so full of logical fallacies–begging the question, appeals to emotion, false dilemmas, strawmen–it’s hard to know where to begin.
What I won’t do, however, is accept your illogical premise and answer a question that you have constructed to have no good answer. If I tell you I devote every spare second and dollar to social programs, then you respond by saying I still haven’t eliminated the problems you perceive. If I tell you I don’t, I’m a hypocrite. And neither circumstance has anything to do with whether or not a pro-life argument has merit.
If I’m the biggest hypocrite in the world, that does not mean my argument is illogical. If I argue that killing neglected, unwanted toddlers is evil, I needn’t do a thing to support the little tykes in the aftermath (though ethically I should) and can still be absolutely correct in my assessment that the children should not be killed. I’m not “creating a mess” that I need to clean up. I’m preventing an evil. So, no thank you, I’m not playing this little game.
And you have yet to provide a single shred of evidence for your belief that all pro-lifers are unconcerned and uncommitted to helping those in need. Can you do that? It’s all I ask.
Who is being punished or coerced? And who is getting sadistic pleasure?
I’m not the one who wrote about “sadistic pleasure” but I think she’s on the right general track. I don’t think it’s a matter of sadism in most cases, but dominance. “We can make this woman bear a child against her will – look at her swollen belly, her swollen joints. We made her thus, it is our will over hers. When she bears her child she will be forced to either give her to another or raise her, and if she chooses to raise the child, for every moment she does so, it will be a triumph of our will over hers. Her life will be forever after ours, in a sense.”
And I can’t speak for the original poster, but I will say on my own behalf that I think it’s you and people like you, autz, who feel that way. I don’t know if you understand those feelings, and I know many of you would never publicly acknowledge them if you did. But they’re there in your subconscious. And they’re sick.
Damn, but there’s no lack of people in this particular thread forming arguments out of thin air. Pro-lifers have these sick motivations because…you guessed it, because Evil Captor says so. There you go, 'nuff said. No need to engage in actual debate with a bunch of sickos. :rolleyes:
Wow.
First of all, I am the original poster.
Those feelings aren’t in my subconscious. Really. There is no way to prove that, but since you are the one who made that assertion, I assume you have some way to back it up.
If not, retract it. Now.
No. They aren’t lying. Push hasn’t come to shove. For many, I think that if abortion rights were threatened, they’d find that they really don’t care if the fetus is alive, or human, or a person.
That is my opinion, of course, and it has no scientific validity.
Julie
Who is being punished? The pregnant woman. Who is being coerced? The pregnant woman. Who is getting sadistic pleasure? Well, one would hope no one.
Forcing a woman to bear an unwanted child is inflicting enormous physical and emotional anguish upon someone who has committed no crime.
Some anti-abortion advocates say it’s what such women deserve, that they are “culpable,” that they brought it on themselves. Sounds like punishment to me.
In any other circumstance, would you support the torture of someone who had committed no crime for the sake of a third party?
Julie
Again, in my previous example, if a woman has a child who is severely handicapped, she might consider that caring for that child is torture.
“In any other circumstance, would you support the torture of someone who had committed no crime for the sake of a third party?”
In this arbitrary definition of torture, anyone who has to do something they don’t like is being tortured.
In my example (based on a real life situation), the woman with the disabled child feels that she is being tortured, even though she has committed no crime, in order to benefit a third party (who of course has also committed no crime).
Should we therefore allow the woman to kill her child to end the torture?
And I just have to add, the woman is not being punnished. There are consequences in life. Sometimes they are not due to anything bad you did, things just happen.
If I get cancer, it may be terrible, but it doesn’t mean it’s punnishment. Punnishment is something inflicted on you by an outside source.
Being pregnant is usually not inflicted on anyone. There are the cases when pregnancy arises from a rape, but those are rare, and deserve their own thred.
Most unplanned pregnancies are the bad luck or bad planning. Either contraception fails or isn’t used properly or isn’t used at all. I’m not saying an undesired pregnancy is punnishment for this, but it is the result of this.
Just because something happens that you don’t like or want doesn’t make it torture.
No, Bob, what you won’t do is go back and look at the OP and see what the original premise was intended to be, and what you also won’t do is go back and look at my responses [or, I think, even read them.] And with a deadline two days away that I need to get cracking to meet, I don’t have time or patience to reprise what I’ve already said.
The OP wasn’t asking whether or not a anti-abortion or pro-choice stance had merit. It asked us to posit our views on what would happen in the event of an abortion ban in this society. I complied, and provided observations to support those views. The thrust, as I understood it, was the societal impact, not a tired retread of “is-this-right” or “is-this-wrong”.
What I wanted to see and hoped to see were reasoned and rational responses, with logical support, for possible reasons why a) those issues would not exist or b) could be adequately addressed. Simple enough, and couldn’t be more logical.
However, it is also my impression from your presentation and tone that you’re not interested in addressing the OP; you’re interested in attempting to circumvent the issue to the classic “right v. wrong” debate. Sorry; I’m not interested in going along those lines, and wouldn’t have joined in the discussion for that. I’m interested in viewing possible problems and attempting to find solutions. You are not. End of discussion as far as I’m concerned.
The reason I am not interested in discussing whether abortion is right or wrong is that I’ve done my homework on both sides of the issue [and FYI, I’ve interviewed as broad a base of anti-abortion people as I could find, covered several anti-abortion protests, including one of the kick-off ones for Operation Rescue, and taught for four years in a Catholic school. I’ve done the anti-abortion side justice in research.] Given the nature of this board, I trust you’ve done similar research and have similarly valid reasons to hold the point of view you do. I accept that you’re not going to change your mind; I’ll tell you that you will not change mine, either. The best and only thing we can do, given our EQUALLY VALID convictions, is look at possible social ramifications given one course of action, and see how they may be addressed. Unfortunately, it’s not happening here, so I’m out of the thread.
autz, thanks for starting the thread; it is a good idea. Cheers, out, and off for coffee and a large dose of motivation and anti-procrastination. [sigh]
No, I won’t retract it. Your saying those feelings are not in your subconscious doesn’t mean they aren’t there – there are a LOT of subconscious feelings of which your conscious mind is not aware – that’s kinda why they call it “the subconscious.”
In any event, you haven’t been insulted or called a “pervert” as Bob Cos seems to think. We all have subconscious feelings that our conscious minds would regard as perverted or evil or whatever. That doesn’t make US evil or perverted. We’re not in control of how our subconscious feels or what it desires, so we’re can’t be held in any way responsible for those feelings and desires, only for how we respond to them.
Frex, you might say that my pro-choice position is clearly the result of a subconscious desire on my part to kill my father and marry my mother. But that doesn’t make me a parricide or a motherf*cker if those subconscous feelings have never led me to do the things that would earn those titles, most especially if they were sufficiently buried that I was not even aware of them. It would just mean I have some of the usual human baggage that we all carry around in our subconscious.
So what is the value of asserting a subconscious need for dominance on the part of many anti-choice types if such claims can be made without any kind of scientific or legal proof?
It brings the underlying issues into focus. If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you will see that many pro-choice women see the issues involved in abortion as matters of control – whether or not they have control over their own bodies. The anti-choice folks never, ever cop to this. It is always about something else – the sanctity of human life, the legal definition of a fetus, etc. etc.
Well, why do you think the pro-choice women feel so strongly that you are attempting to control them if you are not? Is it not possible that they see something you don’t? Wouldn’t it be smart of you to ask yourself if you are not indeed trying to control them, and getting off on it at some level, if only to ensure that you have a good response to such claims?
If we could get a handle on these underlying control issues, maybe we could more easily deal with the other issues.
I hope that is a sufficient retraction to suit you, autz. And I hope you got my point about my not having called anyone a pervert, Bob.
No, this is Great Debates, the general consensus is that if you make an assertation, you should be able to back it up.
You asserted that I have these feeling in my subconscious. Somehow YOU know my mind better than I do.
So, show some evidence or applologize for your presumption.
I think all pro choice folks secretely wish to kill bunnies. And kill teenagers. And kill Sharon Osbourne. It’s in their subconscious, and you can’t prove otherwise. I win.
Yeah that’s what GD is all about. :rolleyes:
Women (who are not as politically active as men on average) would rise up (in huge numbers) to vote and overthrow those that made the legislation possible. And then the system would revert back and re-establish their rights. When polled a vast majority of Americans are in favor of abortion. So taking that away would be political suicide, for any party or candidate.