I like you even more 
Sorry, I forgot to answer this before. No one’s personally called me a dirty whore, but I’ve walked friends and acquaintances in need of affordable gynecologic information past picket lines before, and that was the least of the epithets, believe me. It’s most infuriating when they’re not even there for an abortion.
So you don’t think women who don’t want children should have to be abstinent their whole lives - just until they get a hysterectomy. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for a woman to find a doctor who will perform a “not medically necessary” hysterectomy if you’re under 35 and haven’t had kids yet? Almost impossible. So basically, you do think that women who don’t want children do have to remain abstinent until they’re probably 35 or 40. Gee, that’s really big of you. :rolleyes:
The problem arises from biological fact. The pregnancy happens in the woman’s body. It’s ultimately her body and her domain.
Not only that but is it fair that the guy can just up and take off in the middle of the pregnancy leaving her to raise the kid alone? That his body suffers NONE of the trials and tribulation of pregnancy?
Indeed, but demanding that there is a point unfortunately doesn’t make it so. Flying about the room demands that I have wings. Trouble is… I don’t - and no amount of wishful thinking is going to change that fact.
That we develop gradually as people is, I believe, undeniable. Society and law affords considerable benefit of doubt in assigning us more or less full status as a human being with rights at the point of birth (and to some extent, before that time) - even though we still aren’t really anything like a person when we’re first born. When we’re born, we’re trainee people.
kainicbird is insisting that we push that benefit of doubt all the way back to conception - certainly I can understand arguments for pushing it back, but all the way to conception? There’s simply no reason - outside of religious dogma (or a twisted desire to use pregnancy as a punishment for copulation) - to do that. There’s no material reason to call a zygote a person.
IMHO people have a moral obligation not the murder the children that their very actions created. If that means one would remain abstinent, that would be a personal decision. If those people should chose such activities such as sex or turkey basting and should create a life there are other options available besides murdering their child. IIRC anyone can walk into a NYC subway station, find a transit worker and had them a newborn, say you don’t want him, and walk away no questions asked, so no one is suggesting anyone to have the child for 18+ years.
Once you start talking about ‘murdering children’, when you actually mean removing a zygote, I think the end of the debate has probably been reached. Zygotes are not children and removing them is not murder, by any definition that is supportable by real-world data.
I admit that it is asymmetrical it would be silly not to, but the main issue IMHO is by far the child, the adults knew about the asymmetrical nature of our biology and took the actions that created human life.
In which case you should have been out of the debate on page 3 when you entered.
And when you think about it, we already assign children “half rights” and privleges under law now, or at least we do here in the states. My 2 year old has the right not to be killed, and the right to care that’s not neglectful. She does not have the right to leave the house herself (and in fact if she did, I would go to jail or lose custody of her for it), she doesn’t have the right to drive a car, or vote or have sex or drink alcohol or exercise her “freedom of speech” in a restaurant full of Dopers. A 17 year old in my state also has the right not to be killed, the right to leave the house on his own without my permission (I think. That might be 18.), the right to drop out of school without my permission, the right to have sex and the right to drive a car and the right to free speech in public. He still doesn’t have the right to vote or drink or own a firearm. And so on.
We don’t count them as half-persons on the census, but we do accord different rights to different age humans.
Or perhaps you could have provided the real-world data to support the notion that it is in fact children being murdered.
Because our bodies are involved. A man’s body is not involved. This basic fact of life justifies any legal inequalities that you speak of. Child support and pregnancy are not the same things.
I am actually serious about this. Really. In what meaningful sense is a fertilised ovum actually a child?
And women do have to pay child support. Men do not, ever, get pregnant.
It’s already wildly unequal, through no one’s fault but that cow Nature.
Thank you for reiterating this!
It is also true that a woman who has a child owes it support on an equal basis with the father.
Maybe women understand this better than men because we get reminders about gender inequities every 28 days.
All right. Fine. I’m convinced. Even though I’m quite sure Kancbird is writing from a monastery on a remote island somewhere, I’ll never have sex again unless I’m certain I’d like a child. And if I don’t want children, I’ll get a black market hysterectomy or devout myself to a life of abstinence (or at least until I’m way past menopause). Will convince my friends to do the same. I do feel bad for the city’s prostitutes, though…
Not good enough. Think of Sarah/Sarai and Isaac!
Oh dear. If we bring in the Bible, we’re in a world of hurt. Think of Mary!
There obviously is no safe way to have a uterus.
I don’t think a human that doesn’t exist has rights.
This still has the same “you didn’t read the fine print” quality to it. It’s not that the couple doesn’t know sex can result in pregnancy, it’s that they don’t know about this agreement with the fetus. Nor do they know they “shouldn’t” have intercourse unless they want to have a child.
Some of us men get those reminders every 28 days, too, although only indirectly. We know we’re walking on egg shells for a few days. 
You know there’s a contraceptive device.
Basically it’s implanted in the uterus without major surgery. It stops cycles dead in their tracks with a steady trickle of horomones. No obviation, no red curses, and it’s good for 5 years before it needs to be replaced.
An ex of mine had one.