[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I can sympathize with their disappointment (and this recently happened to a couple very close to me), I just can’t conceptualize it as a literal loss of a child.
Loss during delivery is quite a different scenario than a miscarriage (which usually occurs within the first 6 weeks of pregnancy) and is certainly not analogous to a voluntary termination of pregnancy during the first trimester. I’m just not capable of humoring the pretense that the loss (especially the voluntary loss) of a non-sentient clump of cells is exactly the same tragedy as the loss of a real, born child. People seeking equal sympathy for the former are insulting those who have genuinely suffered through the latter.
[/QUOTE]
OK, at least now you are admitting to some nuance. And while I agree that anyone who equates a miscarriage (or abortion) to the loss of a child who had been born may not have a sense of proportion, who are we tell another person how or when to grieve? Not to mention that there are plenty of miscarriages that happen after 6 weeks. Most do happen in the first trimester, but many of the ones you’re talking about happen without the woman even knowing she was pregnant in the first place.
Really, though, framing this as if we’re all talking about miscarriage in the first 6 weeks of pregnancy is just ridiculous. It smacks of trying to frame the debate around a peculiar set of facts or circumstances specifically in order to avoid the nuance that does exist.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
OK, at least now you are admitting to some nuance. And while I agree that anyone who equates a miscarriage (or abortion) to the loss of a child who had been born may not have a sense of proportion, who are we tell another person how or when to grieve?
[/quote]
I’m not trying to dictate how or when other people should grieve, I’m just reserving the right to roll my eyes at people who (as you put it) lack a sense of proportion.
Missed a whole page of posts while I was away from my computer; reply is made irrelevant by some of Dio’s subsequent posts; nothing to see here, carry on.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I’m not trying to dictate how or when other people should grieve, I’m just reserving the right to roll my eyes at people who (as you put it) lack a sense of proportion.
[/QUOTE]
When you say things like “the man lost nothing”, you are doing more than rolling your eyes. You’re trying to make stake out a position, and that position doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
When you say things like “the man lost nothing”, you are doing more than rolling your eyes. You’re trying to make stake out a position, and that position doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny.
[/QUOTE]
I think it does. I think I’m right. I see it as being roughly equivalent to a man mourning the death of his World of Warcraft character. I don’t feel inclined to humor the conceit that anybody actually died.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
You knew a man who had an abortion?
[/QUOTE]
You know, the concept of a FTM transsexual who was made pregnant without having given uncoerced adult consent to intercourse does not seem completely improbable.
As for the OP, I don’t see these women given as examples as people who “backslide long enough to have an abortion”. That would be someone who was actively pro-life, got pregnant, had an abortion, then went right back to being pro-life. Frankly, I think there is a strong enough case to be made for keeping abortion legal that one needn’t distort reality to bolster that position.
It’s not about telling women what they can and can’t feel or say. It’s that the overwhelming majority of women who do procure an abortion do so regretting that they found themselves in a position where they felt no choice BUT to have one, but that having done so have not regretted that decision at all. Thus when you encounter folks like Sampiro did in the OP, it’s hard to take them and their wailings seriously.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly.
It’s very easy to say ‘if I could go back I’d never make that choice again’ from a position where you’re not actually facing the same choice and all that goes along with it. It’s also very easy to come to regret any choice in life and convince yourself that things would have been better with a different choice (if only I had proposed to my girlfriend of 4 years instead of breaking up with her I wouldn’t be 40 years old and single, and life would be wonderful).
Regretting a choice after the fact often has nothing to do with whether or not the choice was wrong.
And Diogenes, I think the biggest issue I have with your argument is this:
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Because who gives a fuck how the man feels? Nothing happened to him. He “lost” nothing. Why is he “lamenting” a decision someone else made about her own body? What kind of a douchebag goes around grieving someone else’s bloodclot. What a pear shaped loser.
[/QUOTE]
Who gives a fuck how the man feels? That might be a reasonable question when it comes to public policy, but good grief, if my neighbor is upset about something, even if it’s stupid, even if it’s only a ‘lost potential,’ then I’m going to care that he’s upset. It will matter. And he won’t be a loser. And, I imagine you actually feel the same way, and fell into hyperbole because it feels good to show how purely you feel that a [fill in appropriate non-person-meaning term for fetus] is not a living person in any way.
What sort of things are legitimate things to lament? Anything that isn’t a tangible, actual loss of life brands one as a douchebag and looser?
ETA: I get your point about equating an abortion with loosing a living child, but most everything you’ve posted so far has been about how any kind of grief or sense of loss is somehow wrong in this situation.
Absolute Convictions: My Father, a City, and the Conflict That Divided America by Eyal Press is a book by the son of an Ob/Gyn who performs abortions. It takes a larger view, looking at the city of Buffalo and the motivations behind both sides of the debate.
Abortion should be safe, legal and a private matter between a woman and her doctor. You don’t agree, well don’t have an abortion, you don’t get to decide what is best for anyone else.
A woman in the USA is 11 times more likely to die during childbirth than during a legal 1st trimester termination. Continuing a pregnancy to term is not risk free, even when you take away the emotional, physical and financial implications of raising a child. It is morally wrong to force 10,000 people into a stadium if you know 1 of them will die and several hundred will be seriously injured, and yet that is equivalent to what pro-life total abortion ban people are suggesting. No-one should have the right to put a woman’s life at more risk than the woman herself is willing to accept.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I think it does. I think I’m right. I see it as being roughly equivalent to a man mourning the death of his World of Warcraft character. I don’t feel inclined to humor the conceit that anybody actually died.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t be absurd. The fetus is real, even if it isn’t technically a baby, and comparing it to a virtual character is silly. That virtual character isn’t even like the blueprints of a house-- it can never become a reality. The fetus is a living organism that carries your genetic material inside it. You, the man, can feel it kick. You can see the ultrasound image of a beating heart. It has nothing in common with a character created as part of a video game. I’ve seen some bad analogies bandied about on this message board, but that’s one of the worst.
ETA: I get your point about equating an abortion with loosing a living child, but most everything you’ve posted so far has been about how any kind of grief or sense of loss is somehow wrong in this situation.
[/QUOTE]
Only when it goes to the extent of something like marking off “birthdays.” I’m not trying to as absolutist as all that.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I think it does. I think I’m right. I see it as being roughly equivalent to a man mourning the death of his World of Warcraft character. I don’t feel inclined to humor the conceit that anybody actually died.
[/QUOTE]
That’s a really bad analogy. A WoW character is never going to be any more than a WoW character. A pregnancy has the potential to be someone’s child. If that child is wanted, then it is a dream, an expectation of something that will happen if nothing goes wrong. And before you dismiss this as being just a fantasy, think how much expectations matter in the world, and how in some cases they even have legal ramifications. For example take a contract to buy a home… there are very real consequences to breaking such a contract because people make important decisions based on it. There is a difference between expectation and reality, but you’re carrying this to an absurd extreme.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Only when it goes to the extent of something like marking off “birthdays.” I’m not trying to as absolutist as all that.
[/QUOTE]
Uhm, yes you are:
If that’s not an absolutist statement, then I don’t know what is.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
The fetus is a living organism that carries your genetic material inside it. You, the man, can feel it kick. You can see the ultrasound image of a beating heart.
[/QUOTE]
DtC is so wrapped up in the woman’s right to choose that he’s blocking out the entire idea that a valued living organism could be on THAT side of the cervix. Once it passes through that magic barrier, it changes from a worthless clump of cells into a child, and he’d suddenly go from unconcerned about the clump’s disposition, and transform into a caring father. Not only does he have this odd idea for himself, but he expects the rest of us men to go right along with it.
Like DtC, my wife is pregnant, and I’m having a very hard time understanding how he can be completely unconcerned about how the fetus is developing. I’ve gone with my wife to the checkups and heard the heartbeat, watched him kicking around the ultrasound, etc. and I just do get that level of detachment.
I wonder what the hardcore pro-lifers’ stance is on abortions in cases of severe fetal abnormalities (trisomy 13, microcephaly, caudal regression, etc.). They never seem to mention this… Do they?
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
If I’m being asked to sympathize with it, I do. Is that so bad?
[/quote]
Depends on your point of view, I guess. To me? Yes. But I admit I’m a bit biased in this particular area, and I don’t really have the luxury of agreeing or disagreeing.
I think that there is certainly a potential to over react, but that’s usually the case when someone feels unheard, or when they think their feelings are being marginalized. I try to make sure it doesn’t get to that point. Whether I agree with that person’s feelings or not does not negate those feelings. What’s important is that they are given the opportunity to express those feelings safely and move on.
Sorry. Probably too touchy feely, but the scenario presented is a lot different in person than it is discussing it in black and white on a message board.
But as long as it exists, even in the imagination, it’s real to that person.
[QUOTE=Cosmic Relief]
That’s a really bad analogy. A WoW character is never going to be any more than a WoW character. A pregnancy has the potential to be someone’s child. If that child is wanted, then it is a dream, an expectation of something that will happen if nothing goes wrong. And before you dismiss this as being just a fantasy, think how much expectations matter in the world, and how in some cases they even have legal ramifications. For example take a contract to buy a home… there are very real consequences to breaking such a contract because people make important decisions based on it. There is a difference between expectation and reality, but you’re carrying this to an absurd extreme.
[/QUOTE]
Like I keep saying “potential” is not reality. A dream is not a child. An expectation is not a child.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
As for the OP, I don’t see these women given as examples as people who “backslide long enough to have an abortion”. That would be someone who was actively pro-life, got pregnant, had an abortion, then went right back to being pro-life.
[/quote]
It happens more frequently than most people think. It’s rather sad.
One would hope. Unfortunately, those emotional responses we were discussing tend to blur the issue, and reason is left behind.
[QUOTE=Johnny Angel]
It won’t be like that. Last I heard, it would cost some $2000 for the equipment to do a safe underground abortion and anybody could be trained to perform the procedure. Illegal clinics would likely be swiftly set up by Pro-Choice activists, and while they were organizing these affairs they’ll likely have a few more things to talk about concerning how this country was run. The abortion ban would energize the Choice crowd, driving them to the ballots while leaving the Republicans without their most powerful wedge issue. The Pro-Life ends are much better served under the current system in which at least in some states a girl in trouble has to make a road trip to the one clinic for hundreds of klicks around, wade through screaming fanatics to get to the doctor whose life is under constant threat in order to get a safe abortion. Once it becomes illegal, it will become much easier to get an abortion.
[/QUOTE]
And inexpensive legal clinics would be reachable by most middle class women in the Carribean or Canada.
Really, the only pregnant women making abortion illegal affects is those that don’t have the resources to find or afford either an illegal abortion or an overseas abortion. There will be plenty of those - and there will be coat hangers (belladonna, fenugeek, and a bunch of other methods - some relatively safe - some frightening).
[QUOTE=Cheesesteak]
DtC is so wrapped up in the woman’s right to choose that he’s blocking out the entire idea that a valued living organism could be on THAT side of the cervix. Once it passes through that magic barrier, it changes from a worthless clump of cells into a child, and he’d suddenly go from unconcerned about the clump’s disposition, and transform into a caring father. Not only does he have this odd idea for himself, but he expects the rest of us men to go right along with it.
Like DtC, my wife is pregnant, and I’m having a very hard time understanding how he can be completely unconcerned about how the fetus is developing. I’ve gone with my wife to the checkups and heard the heartbeat, watched him kicking around the ultrasound, etc. and I just do get that level of detachment.
[/QUOTE]
This is my third time around and I do all the same stuff with my wife. I care how the fetus is developing. I want it to be healthy. I just don’t mistake it for being equivalent to my born children yet.