No, I never would’ve thought to consider that on my own. As someone who desires very strongly to never, ever have children or be pregnant, surgical sterilization by means guaranteed not to fail never entered my mind.
</sarcasm>
Considered it? I’ve begged doctors to do it for me. I’d much prefer it to a tubal ligation because there’s no possibility it would fail. I have been laughed at, told I don’t know what I want, that as soon as I have a kid my attitude will change, and that I need to seek psychiatric treatment so I can learn to be more ‘maternal’ and like the idea of having a few kids.
If I could get this done, I would do it right now.
It’s another cog in the wheel of six’s belief that all adults should have the ultimate right to decide matters of their own reproduction.
Which I don’t deny. What I’m denying is that I called catsix a “baby killer,” as per her accusation. Her accusation clearly implies malicious intent – specifically, name-calling – which should not be inferred from the logical progression that you outlined.
As you said, the phrase and tone are not identical! Not in the least.
I didn’t say your “reactionary political” morals, I was saying that, whatever your morals were, your demand to control my body paralleled that of reactionary groups; and
if you are demanding that your morality is reflected in law, it’s Joel-determination.
Saying that these are my morals is complete bull s**t.
Science proves that what’s in a woman’s body is human life. This isn’t some American right wing religious position, it’s a fact.
Who are you, or anybody else to deny it a right to live?
If anybody’s imposing morals, it’s you imposing your morals, on a helpless unborn child, who can’t defend itself.
Who are you, or anybody else, to tell me what has to happen to my uterus?
I am not a walking incubator, Joel. You do not get to tell me I have to act like one because you believe what you do. And no, what you believe isn’t a fact. It’s your belief. Stating it over and over again here won’t make it a fact.
They are to me. Why should I attempt to debate rationally with someone who has said even indirectly that I’m a baby killer? If you haven’t come right out with that direct of a sentence, the posts you have made indicate you believe that. It’s no less mean because you only think it and don’t say it out loud.
I’m sorry Joel but, as far as I’m concerned and I guess many others, hawking your moral position around waiting to be told what to do with it is precisely what you are doing.
Meanwhile, now you seem to have diverted from hitting me over the head with a metaphorical fetus to bring in ‘science’. I don’t want to shock you, Joel, but I didn’t actually need ‘science’ to tell me that a human being is created because, well, I don’t know how to tell you this but, it’s something mothers tend to discover.
Thing is Joel, ‘science’ doesn’t actually tell me what value to put on that life at different stages, my moral position does.
Ooops, looking at your reply, it’s back to demanding that my moral position should be dictated by yours and, oh dear, then you’re back to hitting me with a metaphorical fetus again.
Absolutely nothing…as long as it’s not causing the death of another human being.
That’s logical, but the child IS fully dependent on somebody, and unless we’re going to say that abortion is okay until a child is self-reliant, then this argument can’t really apply.
Why wouldn’t this ability to “govern” spill over into life after birth? I mean, if the mom has no help from a father or anyone else, the child is still as much her responsibility after birth as it was prior to.
Again, why shouldn’t this luxary of choice be available to the mother after the birth of the child? What about the journey through the birth canal makes it any different to choose to abort the life of the fetus/child/baby/human later rather than earlier?
Absolutely! This is medical research to which I would be willing to donote large sums of money! This should solve most, if not all of the abortion issues.
This is a point that I might be willing to concede ONLY if we could ban all other forms of abortion that are performed for convenience.
Then that woman must take proactive measures to keep it from being there. Once it is, it’s too late.
The woman gets to decide every day of her life not to become pregnant. It’s a simple concept – if you don’t want to become pregnant, don’t perform the actions that can cause you to become pregnant. Or, as you’ve stated elsewhere, make damned certain that there’s no possibility of pregnancy (i.e. tubal ligation, hysterectomy) by taking measures initially to keep that from happening.
Once you do become pregnant, however, that legislative body has to step in and represent the best interests of the “other” human being living inside you for the same reasons that they represent the best interests of other people NOT living inside you.
Nobody should tell you what you can and cannot do with your body for the 99% of your lifetime that another human being is not using it for his/her incubator. I’m appalled that you are having such a difficult time finding a physician that will appeal to your wishes and remove your uterus. I had no idea that this would be such a difficult ordeal.
It does seem ironic, however, that so many doctors are willing to sacrifice a life at the mother’s wishes, but will not perform the procedure neccessary to guarantee that life will never have to be sacrificed in the future. What does that tell us about the medical community’s attitude toward saving lives?
To be fair, both sides have been pretty nastily demonized in this debate. Being lumped in with the “religious right” and characterized, if not in thought, at least in action with those who are women-hating bastards and want nothing more than to turn women into puppets of the males is pretty damn offensive to me. Being told my opinion doesn’t matter because I’m not a woman is pretty offensive(as well as untrue in a democracy). Being told that no matter what I do, how good my intentions are or how fair and equitable I try to be I’ll just cause more suffering and pain(by driving abortion underground) and more injustice is fairly offensive as well. I imagine if we were all in a room together there isn’t a single person with more than one or two comments in this thread who would have escaped a well-deserved sock in the jaw.
There is no justification for your self-righteous stand on who you will and will not allow to converse with you based upon how they have treated you in this thread(though you may choose to terminate conversation based upon unjustified reasons of course). Take a look at how YOU, catsix, have demonized and marginalized those on the other side of the issue in this thread before you start throwing stones.
There are no clean hands in this thread. Trying to claim moral high ground on basis of someone demonizing you falls flat when you’re every bit as guilty of demonizing as they are.
Aw, how awful, there are all these guys who want to control women’s lives for nice reasons and guys who want to control women’s lives for nasty reasons and the guys who want to do it for nice reasons don’t like being ‘demonized’ by it being pointed out that
Your “moral position” seems to indicate that you place your value of another human being’s life (one that you are responsible for creating, I might add) somewhere below your value of convenience and choice.
If that’s the case, I don’t think the term “demon” is being applied to the correct individuals, here.
I have read your statement of personal position. It seems to me that my analysis of your previous statement is accurate.
My religious understanding of the nature of a fetus is that it is viewed as a baby before it emerges from the womb as well as afterward.
My “demon” suggestion came from your use of the term as it was applied to men, along with the pig-man analogy. Forgive me if my use of the term did not sufficiently emphasize my distaste for the aforementioned “moral position”, regardless of the people that ascribe to it.
As to the pig-man analogy, I’m afraid I was assuming a certain level of knowledge of popular liturature - it’s from Orwell’s Animal Farm and the pig/man equivalence has a meaning you will, of course, have missed, especially given your reading difficulties.
The reason I suggested that you check out other religious concepts of abortion (including non-Christian) was to suggest that it’s quite possible to hold a different moral position (morally) to the one that is so obviously yours.
Meanwhile, the knowledge that you will never and can never make my moral judgements for me, or enforce your moral judgements upon me, is a matter of some delight - especially given your reading difficulties.
I’m simply telling you that nobody should have their body used as an incubator without their continued consent to that use.
What consideration and recognition do you give to the effect on a woman’s health, physical and psychological, if forced to carry a pregnancy she doesn’t want?
From where does the moral authority you believe you have to force her to carry the pregnancy to term flow?
I’m sorry that you cannot discuss the matter without boorishly repeating some sad attempt at passive-agressive, petty, insulting references to my reading abilities. I can think of no other reason that you’ve had to resort to attempting to insult my intelligence other than the grasping of straws because your stance is weak. If you’d like to discuss the matter at hand, please do so. Otherwise, I have no use for your comments about my intelligence.
As for the few statements you made that actually had something to do with the topic, I’m not sure why I need to check out other religions concepts of abortion given that:
a) my argument does not hinge upon the religious description of a baby
b) my moral position does not hinge upon the religious description of a baby, and
c) religion invokes additional emotionalism that can cause further distraction from the focus of the debate
Luckily, I don’t have to worry about making your “moral judgements” for you in this case. With the strong popularity of the current conservative administration that will probably be appointing conservative justices to the bench, there’s a good chance the Supreme Court will do that for me sometime in the near future.
And I’m simply reiterating that once the incubation period has begun, it’s much too late to change one’s mind.
The same consideration I would give to someone who was paralyzed in a recreational accident. It’s not like either person in either scenario didn’t know the risks of consequences before they performed the action that caused them.
It flows from the common sense that the premeditated termination of the life of another human being is simply wrong.
At last, somebody who is genuinely funny around here!
I’m still sorry about your literacy problems and my having pointed them out so bluntly - you do seem to have more than something of a problem in that direction though, don’t you? It’s so hard, you know, when people don’t seem to be able to read what’s been written and get so silly about it.
Nevermind, I’ll try to get something over to you.
You see, MAV, you criticized my ‘moral’ position and arguments about ‘moral’ positions (quite what part of ‘I would not choose to have an abortion’ you didn’t understand I can’t imagine, your literacy problems again, I guess) and I said that it was possible to hold other moral positions, morally.
See, nothing hard there, MAV, really.
I’m afraid a Conservative Congress, Administration, Supreme Court - whatever - would still make no difference whatsoever to any decision I might possibly make over abortion, MAV. Not one jot of difference.
Sorry about that MAV, but there it is, I’m afraid.
That’s your personal belief. Mine is different. I respect that you will make your choices based on your belief. Whether or not you show me the same courtesy, my decisions will be made by me, not by you.
It’s not like either person in either scenario should be denied the ability to correct the accident. That’s the purpose of medical treatment.
Are you saying I don’t have common sense because I don’t believe a fetus is equivalent to a person?