Nonsense, of course, just as it’d be nonsense to say that in the twentieth century, male children were brought into the world only to serve as killers and cannon-fodder, as targets of violence and contempt.
Considering that marital rape and female bodily rights are fairly new concepts, I’m of the opinion that we’re emerging from a time frame where sometimes this DID happen. I’m decidedly not for a return to ownership/possession status, where I would be primarily a brood mare not necessarily for the state, but for my husband. A reversion to 17th century morals and legal status is not what I’d like. And Yes, I consider the condition of women’s rights in that period to be no better than slavery in many cases. Of course, if you came from a rich family and your daddy liked you, you got better treatment, but that was about it. There are still unrepealed laws on the books in many states that show just how little autonomy women were afforded. Admittedly they’re not enforced, but they’re still there.
The idea that people would go from now to “forcing” women to give birth instead of providing incentives to the high producers and so on is abhorrent on several levels. The OP does say “force”. I’d be all for “enticing” or “subsidizing” or any number of other methods, but not “force”. If the OP didn’t say “force”, I might be a little more amenable to considering making rules and regulations enhancing the idea of glorifying motherhood for the good of the race.
When people say stuff like this, I have to wonder how much they’ve really read about slavery. Especially if we’re talking American-style chattel slavery. I pretty much guarantee you that if you asked middle-class white women from the period if they’d like to trade places with a black man, they’d fall over laughing.
Yes, of course it’s abhorrent. So is the idea of billions of people dying horribly from a total collapse of all infrastructures. The question isn’t, “Should we all live in rainbow happy land, or should women be forced to bear children?” We’re comparing two evils, and deciding whether we’d institute one to prevent the other.
I was actually considering Norse/Viking slavery and traditional middle-eastern slavery ideals, rather than new world slavery ideals.
I disagree with your stance. It’s not rainbow land vs. force, it’s “we see a problem, and should we try to make motherhood something to intensely desire or should we just force women to have babies?” In the scenarios I prefer, the “17 kids and counting” people, Octomoms, and Gosselins, would be HEROES. Women could line up to be canonized! The more kids you had, the more money you’d get! We could take all those supposed welfare moms having umpteen kids on the public dole and hold them up for veneration! Instead, the first thing you people think of is, “Make the women get pregnant and have babies. FORCE THEM!” It’s more than abhorrent, it’s a true statement on the real feelings about women’s rights in modern society. Women’s rights aren’t rights, they aren’t equal, you’ll just pretend that they are until it becomes inconvenient for you.*
*for the record, I don’t think everyone feels that way, but it sure seems that it’s great to be pro-choice and all equal opportunity, until it actually counts.
Fair enough, and I do think that’s a closer analogy: certainly the lack of women’s rights in the lion’s share of human history has been horrible. Still, I’d be surprised if many wealthy noblewomen in the Middle East would have traded places with male slaves, given the chance.
Again, I refer to the draft situation. In WWII, men were conscripted, AND treated as heroes. When you face such a horrible situation that abrogating a person’s right to autonomy over their body becomes better than the alternative, the least you can do is make a hero out of them.
In order to stop the Nazis, we said, “Make the men fight wars and risk their lives. FORCE THEM!” Was that a “true statement on the real feelings about” men’s “rights in modern society”?
That phrasing is ridiculous. Being pro-choice and equal opportunity actually counts right now. Your question really seems to be whether being pro-choice and equal opportunity should trump every other concern, even whether billions of people will die horribly otherwise. I submit that being pro-choice and equal opportunity is very important, but preventing the horrible deaths of billions of people is even more important.
Forcing women to get pregnant is not going to stop billions of people from dying, horribly or otherwise. It’s only going to make new people.
I already posted my reasoning for this, but I’ll do so again: the older generations live in a world maintained by the younger generations. In this ridiculous hypothetical, there will be no younger generations farming, maintaining the power grid, keeping sewer systems working, operating tractor trailers, running hospitals, and so forth. Civilization will collapse, bringing with it mass famine and disease at the very least. It’d be a horrifying way to go.
Coercing those capable of doing so to create a new generation that can maintain civilization’s infrastructure would indeed stop billions of people from dying horribly. It won’t make those billions of people immortal, but it might give them some more years and a chance at dignity and peace in their final days.
Wait, so we should turn women in brood mares and take away their reproductive decisions because you want old people to have a couple more years? And whence came “coerce”? You were saying FORCE, earlier. I’m all about COERCE. That’s right up there with lure, subsidize, and entice. We’re talking about FORCE. That’s the OP. Force women to give birth. Force women to do the most intimate things, like have sex/get IVF, and MAKE THEM carry the baby as far as possible, and then, if they give birth or miscarry, have another one, because the race is dying out. And so I’m clear, you want us to do this because you think old people are far more important than women. But hey, they’re just women, and it’s just, you know, BIRTH.
How early should we start forcing them to birth babies? Old enough to conceive? I mean, if we’re all about the old people having enough kids to support them, we want lots of kids, right? So, old enough to bleed, etc.? Or do you have other criteria? Are they allowed a break between babies? How much of one? I figure we’ll have to unite the planet in this effort, because we’re talking about the HUMAN RACE, not Americans or Canadians or any particular nation. So we’re also looking at worldwide maternal and fetal death rates, right? So you’re ok with 1 in 400 pregnant women dying, since we don’t have international medical standards. Increase that to 1 in 200 for those females under 19. Sounds GREAT so far, doesn’t it.
So we’re uniting the whole planet to force women to make babies so that old people can be comfortable, and we’re only sacrificing 1 in 400 women to do it, on a good day, since we’re going to assume most women will be ALLOWED to wait until 19. How sweet. Now, since we know that all fertile women are going to spend their lives making babies, there’s no reason to waste resources educating them to anything other than baby-making and baby-raising, right? So they don’t really need to READ or anything. And what are we going to do with all the completely useless females that can’t reproduce? See how this can escalate, all because you want old people to be comfortable?
I’m on board, as I said, with incentives and positive reinforcement. I’m on board with “save the human race, donate your eggs/uterus/etc.”, as long as it’s voluntary. I’m fully in favor of glorifying the quiverfuls and the octomoms that are currently vilified. I’m not on board with FORCE.
I confess I stopped reading after this paragraph–it made too little sense. “Coerce” and “force” are synonyms. Some old people are women. I’m not just talking about giving old people a few more years, I’m talking about keeping billions of people away from gruesome, horrific deaths. I never said we should turn women in brood mares (which sounds like an ancient Persian torture), or even that we should turn women into brood mares.
Did the next few paragraphs make any more sense, or are they similar gibberish? (Edit: despite myself, I did read the rest of your post, and I cannot imagine whom you think you’re arguing with–certainly you’re not addressing any point that I’ve made).
Something I think some of y’all don’t realize is that when civilization collapses, it’s not going to be someone apart from the women who weren’t coerced into childbearing who suffers: it’s going to be them. THEY’LL be the older generation when civilization collapses: it’ll happen after they’ve gone through menopause. The food riots, the famines, the diseases, and everything else that’ll come with the collapse of infrastructure will happen to them when they’re old, not to the generation older than them.
So you’re choosing whether to coerce women into childbirth when they’re in childbearing years, or to let population dynamics coerce them into starvation when they’re past childbearing years.
No. It might give MEN “a chance at dignity and peace in their final days”.
Yes, you are. And probably killing quite a few men in the process, since surely some will try to defend their female friends and relatives.
Better to starve. Starvation doesn’t take decades of suffering. Nor does it result in a society based on rape. Nor are older women likely to be treated remotly well in Rapetopia.
As I said earlier; there’s no point in saving humanity by turning it into something SHOULD be exterminated.
Oh no they don’t! Do you know how pissed off I’d be if I’d been turned into a magical humanity-saving baby-making machine only to have people still murdering others around me? Mad as hell.
I’m curious when the switch would flip here. Yes, society would be getting older (as it is), but at what point does it go from ‘Please have more kids! We might even give you a week off work after you give birth and a free check-up for your kid!’ to ‘All right. Mandatory fertility testing for everyone in the forced sex camp!’ Who would the youngest person in society have to be? How would they go about testing for pregnancy?
I’m leaning toward bowing out of this conversation, because the hypothetical makes so little sense. I’m trying to reason what would be an ethical approach when nothing is clear. Why has half our species suddenly lost one of our major instincts, but the other half hasn’t? Is there something biological going on? Is it a cult? Are other instincts fucked up also? Is it a genetically-engineered virus that attacks the ovaries?
Without answers to these questions, the hypothetical is unanswerable. I’ll fall back on gluing Der Trihs to the obstinate fertile women using glue made from Hitler’s kneecaps, and call it a day.
Let me tell you mine.
Given the dire circumstances for the entire human race, the only species with a hope in hell of saving other species, If I was the supreme leader I’d make it a crime punishable by death to assist you in securing contraception or abortion.
That would put you in the same situation as females of all other sexual species, and I don’t hear them complaining.
Now look at Dutchman’s proposal, look at mine, and tell me there’s no relevant difference between them.
The world has gone to hell and there is no fixing it. Do you:
A: Wait it out, do your best, and if things get too miserable, kill yourself in a peaceful and dignified way.
B: Start raping people.
Seems to me the answer good people should choose is obvious. I still don’t understand how a moral obligation to people who don’t exist somehow outweighs your moral obligations to people who do exist, feel suffering, etc.
Generally, the only thing we save other species from is ourselves.
The survival of our species is in jeopardy!
What do we need? More executions!
True that. A lot of things said in this thread have been questionable, but that one’s just laughable.
I hope that you’re actually trying to convince people what a bad idea the forced childbirth plan is. Because if not, ouch. I don’t think you have a future in PR.