So in Oh, you can’t get pregnant, Homer asked why we don’t push for the women to give birth and put the sprogs up for adoption …
Homer, there are a number of reasons that women want abortions when they could be carrying to term.
Lack of money - prenatal care and the whole birth process can be expensive, roughly $10K and if you have no access to insurance or free/subsidized care many single women do not have that sort of money just laying around. Humans are not like cats, we can’t just blythly wander around then pop kids out like kittens - we have evolved enough that giving birth can be tricky, and there are quite a number of health issues that can pop up and kill the mother and/or kid.
Health issues - there are a fair number of health issues that pregnancy can cause, ranging from permanent tendon and ligament damage, nerve damage, tissue damage, gestational diabetes, battles with ultra high or ultra low blood pressure … being pregnant is not always healthy for the woman, especially if as above she can not afford proper nutrition and medical care.
Mental issues - many women look upon pregnancy with about as much love and affection as having an alien chest burster. It is a parasitic invasion that involves health issues, and also in many cases a fair amount of actual no shit pain. The pregnancy may be very negative in the cause - rape, date rape, coercion by lying, incest. If the woman does not want to be pregnant, what incentive is there for her to take proper care during the pregnancy to ensure a healthy baby. Crack whore pops into mind … what do you do, lock them up and forceably take away the booze, cigarettes and drugs?
If a woman wants to go through with a pregnancy, lots of resources have to line up and more and more frequently women are keeping the kids because it is no longer as much of a deal as single motherhood used to be. Unless some whacked religious group gets into power and forces a Handmaids Tale on us, we have to accept that it will probably devolve to a keep it or abort it and not give it up situation in the future.
Yeah, it’s not a timely response, but the issue is still valid for discussion.
I’ll throw in the point that even if a new human is adopted and never knows a moment of want, he/she is still likely to take away land and resources from other species.
It doesn’t have to work that way, but in practice it does. The wilderness is shrinking, the seas are overfished. There are thousands of large species being crowded into smaller spaces.
There’s no shortage of humans in this world, but many equally wonderful animals could disappear over the next couple centuries.
I am actually a fan of replacement births only, 1 kid per adult. I see no reason the population of the earth needs to get any larger. We no longer need to pop out a dozen kids hoping for 3 or 4 to stay alive to work the farm, be in the local overlord’s army …
We don’t have kids and I am fine with that, mrAru is fine with it also. We can have plenty of kid related experiences with nieces, nephews, cousins and godkids.
Though I would love to see some sort of parenting class being required before you pop out a kid, seems like some parents are just totally unprepared for the responsibilities and actual care and raising of having a kid.
[I will agree that the infertility issue is a serious hot button with people, but I do not see why beggering ones self is so great an idea just to pop out your own sprog. Put me down as one who says adopt and get the frell over yourself.]
It is a valid discussion, and here is another data point.
I was born out of wedlock and adopted. I have always felt like I was just tossed aside, and I resented that my whole life.
I would never do the same thing to a kid. To me, having a kid and then not taking care of it myself is worse than abortion. TO ME. And I don’t want to have kids. So for me the only option that remains is birth control, and if abortion if things don’t work out.
It always amazes me when a man, who will never ever be in that position, tries to tell me to just have the kid and adopt it out. YOU do it. I don’t want to put my body through that. I don’t want the pain or the trouble or anything.
ETA: I think there should be parenting classes, too. I don’t think they should be mandatory, but I’d like to see our culture get to a point where it’s unthinkable socially to have a kid without them. Just basic stuff, I think - we need licenses for guns, but we hand any idiot a kid with minimal preparation.
For me, its a math problem.
There are about 2.5 million couples waiting to adopt. They wait an average of three years. (This data is old). Many of those who wait three years go overseas.
There are about 2 million abortions per year - some of them would not result in a adoptable child and are aborted due to birth defects that will result in a stillborn child or one who dies shortly after birth. But most would. (also old data)
That means that less than a year and a half into it, you’ve tackled the waiting list, and now have a capacity issue - more babies than adults willing to adopt. What do you do with the spare babies?
Right now, children with special needs or who aren’t white stand a chance of being adopted as infants - there aren’t enough children for adoptive parents to be picky. A glut of children and that changes.
Also, while we don’t “encourage” women one way or another (well, we do, it depends on what type of pregnancy help center you end up in, but it generally isn’t TOWARD abortion), women are aware that there are options. It isn’t like placing a child for adoption is some sort of secret hidden option no one talks about. There are Pro-Life billboards suggesting the option.
So what happens when someone gets pregnant and hasn’t taken your required class? Forced abortion? Prison? Bullet in the back of the skull? $20 fine?
And of course a mandatory government parenting class could never be hijacked by people with an axe to grind. That would be as unlikely as hijacking sex education classes–oops, I mean Abstinence classes.
I know she says mandatory class, and I too am wondering what happens if you don’t attend. BUT, I just want to reiterate is what i would like is a free class, available at many places and times. Sure, it would cost us money, but I am 100% positive without even cites or facts that it will save us money in the long run to have a larger percentage of educated parents.
Education is the key to everything. People want the abortion rate lowered? The ONLY way to accomplish this is through education, so (more) people get pregnant when they want, and not randomly, and are prepared as they can be for the babies.
Presumably, a “push for adoption” would include funding for prenatal care and delivery for women who need the help. Unfortunately, in our current political climate, many folks who claim to be opposed to abortion think that “prenatal care” is a code word for “providing abortions”, and so will fight tooth and nail any attempt to provide it.
If I may–but you were adopted. Your real parents, the ones who raised you, wanted you. Enough to go “out of their way” to have you, right? Seems to me that more than outweighs the biologicals’ lack, whatever the details of that were. I’ve known a few folks who wished their birth parents had put them up for adoption by somebody who cared more.
No, sorry, they didn’t. My aunt adopted me to avoid at least some of the scandal to the family, and once I found out, she never hesitated to tell me that I was only her “duty” and that I was the spawn of my mother and thus would turn out just like her.
I mean, you were not to know - but not all adoption stories are happy, either.
For a lot of people, fertility treatments consist of a couple rounds of clomid, and that for many others it’s just a matter of getting some tests done and maybe a few rounds of artificial insemination. Even IVF is under $10k if it’s routine, and while that may sound like a lot of money, daycare for an infant runs $12K or more a year: if you can’t afford one round of IVF a year, you likely can’t afford a baby, either.
You hear about the people that spend years and hundreds of thousands of dollars because they are unusual: most infertility cases are resolved much more easily than that.
In school. We got sat down and forced to do home ecch<blargh face> that was useless. I learned to make a steak, a baked potato, canned beans boiled in a pot and a cake made from a box mix. I learned how to sew a peasant blouse. I learned how to keep a 5 pound sack of flour and haul it around without dropping it. In health class I got sat down and watched some stupid movie about menstruation by tampax, and then a very dated 50s one about the birds and bees [the boys got sent to a different auditorium and watched whatever they showed them.]
How about a class on basic human reproduction, the pregnancy and childbirth [why we need medical supervision and basic pregnancy nutrition to avoid birth defects] and basic child care [feeding, proper diet, bathing, diapering, naps, sleep requirements, basic illnesses] Add in budget, shopping for real foods and how to interact [play and read, dont just plunk it in front of a tv]
I would actually prefer mandatory birth control until you can take and pass a class, and demonstrate an income allowing one to afford a sprog. Barring that, I would love a real sex ed class for kids BEFORE they start experimenting, and free birth control in school bathrooms.
Which is entirely stupid. Perhaps if they would go to some city they have never picketed, and go in seeking services like STD testing or something to see how they are treated instead of knee jerk assholery that they do now. PP has so many other functions to help women [and couples. Don’t forget men can go in also] not to mention other funded free clinics.
Not meaning to pry–I understand if you don’t feel like going further into it–but as it is the topic, I wonder why they didn’t let another family take you.
Good lord! Insanely authoritarian. Do you go to Party meetings with Commissar or something?
No, results of 3 years volunteering at a womens shelter and seeing the crap that goes on with those poor families, and volunteering at a childrens shelter.
Because people want their own child, not someone else’s.
They want to look and see the same features, the same quirks, know that at least half the blood in their veins is the same - they want a child that is part of them.
There is a reason that there is an Irish curese that translates roughly as:
“May you raise another man’s son”
I have biological kids, but I think what there is of “me” in them comes from the time I spend with them, the things I teach them, far more so than the genetic inheritance.
No need to be sorry. I’ve long since gotten over my bitterness towards it. I mean, it was only hurting me and not them.
As for why they didn’t farm me out to another family, well it’s right up there. It was their “duty”. And their cross to bear. Basically they thought of it as a test from God and concluded they must have done some sins in their past life to warrant it.
Now don’t get me wrong - I can complain about a lot of stuff about my childhood but it wasn’t all bad. But that was definitely their mindset.
If I may–but you were adopted. Your real parents, the ones who raised you, wanted you. Enough to go “out of their way” to have you, right? Seems to me that more than outweighs the biologicals’ lack, whatever the details of that were. I’ve known a few folks who wished their birth parents had put them up for adoption by somebody who cared more.