This might only apply to the life begins at conception pro-lifers.
A man has sex with a woman and two weeks later she misses her period. A few days later she has an especially strong menstruation. She goes her doctor and discovers she had a miscarriage. She never tells the man.
Is this man a father?
If he was to discover that the woman had a miscarriage, would he justified in having the same amount of grief as a man whose six-year-old child died?
A person is justified in having any amount of grief he or she chooses to have.
Well, would the mother feel the same level of grief as if she had lost a 6-year-old? I think grief is a very subjective thing.
Why single out the man in this instance? Is it possible that the woman might grieve over her miscarriage? Is it meaningful or relevant to ask whether her grief is greater or lesser than the grief she would feel if her six-year old child died?
If a six-year-old orphan died, with no suriving parent to grieve for them, would that mean that the orphan was not human?
Whatever your opinion about the life-begins-at-conception viewpoing, I don’t know a single person who holds that view and attempts to support it by pointing to the grief that either parent feels in the event of miscarrriage.
Do you really mean that? Do you really think that man who is in grief because Baywatch was canceled is as justified in his grief as a man whose child was murdered?
Who is he required to justify his feelings to?
The terminology is perhaps poorly chosen. It’s not as though there is something morally wrong with feeling grief at the cancellation of Baywatch; however, at the same time, most would grant such a man less sympathy, etc., than the man whose child was murdered. We might even say “Wow, he’s really overreacting”, without implying that this excess is a moral flaw demanding justification/repentance/whatever. It’s this point that, I think, Two and a Half Inches of Fun is really getting at.
But is he entitled to get bereavement leave?
Why are you comparing the cancellation of Baywatch to the loss of a child? How are these two even remotely comparable?
In both cases, a little piece of him died.
D&R
I’ve known people who were sad about a miscarriage. They didn’t lose a six-year-old kid for me to compare with, though. Just guessing, but I don’t think their grieving would be comparable; losing a grown child is much worse.
My wife and I had our son in 1992. After that we went through 6 losses; 3 around 8 weeks, 3 in the second trimester. In between, we adopted our daughter. I am the father to all of my children. And I mourned and grieved each loss because each one was a child that we wanted in our family.
If someone asks how many kids I have, I tell them 2, simply because 1) I don’t want to get into the whole story, 2) the subject of miscarriages makes people uncomfortable and 3) I see no need to bring my grief out to strangers. When people get to know me better and I tell them my history, they learn that I am the father of 8.
Yes, for a very brief period, he was a father. He can grieve to any extent he sees fit, no justification from me required.
My wife and I lost a chld to miscarriage and, separately, lost a child ten weeks after birth. We grieved for them both, but we felt each loss in different ways. I would never presume to tell anyone else how they should experience either a miscarriage or the death of a child, and I utterly fail to see what conceivable relevance the way I, or they, grieve our losses has to the pro-life argument that “life begins at conception”.
Since this is your thread, why don’t you go ahead and give us your opinion?
No, the Baywatch is not justified in having as much grief as the father whose child was murdered.
They are not remotely comparable. That is why the Baywatch fan is not justified in having as much grief as the father.
No, because the baby was never truly conceived. Whether the man or woman wanted the conception is irrelevant, it didn’t “take”, so was therefore “aborted” by nature, which happens al the time.
A married couple trying to conceive would certainly be saddened by this, understandably, but holding up a bloody mess of DNA isn’t going to win ratings on the Maury Povich show, either.
That only leads us back to the question of to whom exactly the griever has to justify himself.
Besides, if “remotely comparable” is a factor, I can assume you mean relative measures are acceptable. I’m not sure that losing a six-year old is remotely comparable to having your city largely destroyed by an atomic warhead. Therfore, people who lose six-year olds are not justified in having as much grief as Hiroshima survivors.
If you disagree, I’ll defer to the judgement of the imaginary person who determines the appropriate grief quantites.
Please don’t be obtuse. Of course I meant answer your own OP.
Great Debates, we’re in?
Okay, I’ll keep my vocabulary rated G.
2.5" of Fun, this is not that difficult a concept, and I really believe that you are capable of grasping it*. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE.
!
I say this as someone who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the existence of Baywatch.
I dunno; Povich has been known to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
*I don’t tend to open Pit threads, but I have a shiny new one in the works for the first person who responds to that with “Cite?”