I used “affected” in a very specific sense in my OP. I probably shouldn’t have, since that’s what I seem to be getting the most flack for. Anyway, they may be affected, but there’s nothing they can do about it. They can’t have babies and women can, it’s no one’s fault and no amount of legislation can change that.
But why should he, when he could never experience equal consequence?
That’s true, **pizzabrat, ** but it’s still absolutely pertinent to your OP, and your take on JThunder’s statement is one that I’d like to hear.
That women are the only ones that can get pregnant is true. But if men are kept from voting on feminine reproductive issues like abortion…well, then you might get started down an unpleasantly slippery slope. Race is also “nature.” Should white legislators be prevented from voting on issues that concern mainly blacks or other minorities? Or, as Pucky asked, should female legislators be prevented from voting on prostate cancer issues?
If men had the children, you would not be making this argument. Plainly put, you’d be demanding “equality.” Such hypocrisy makes your entire platform seem like opportunistic manipulation.
Which, as I pointed out, can actually make him more objective. That is, he has less of a personal vested interest in the outcome. This can be both a plus and a minus.
Q: Should women who aren’t pregnant have more of a vote then men, but less of a vote them pregnant women in pizzabrat’s world?
I think we have to break the vote into trimesters. The right to vote begins at conception. A woman then has 1/3 of a full vote. Second trimester, 2/3rds. At nine months, she has a full vote, but loses it if she delivers in the voting booth.
Forget men; we need to stop infertile women from voting on pregnancy issues.
Persephone:
BURNER said that men should have no place in the abortion discussion, to which JThunder responded that men had a say in the Roe V. Wade decision. I said that men shouldn’t be able to legislate to restict abortion, because when you restrict something in a law, you’re supposed to give up your right to do the same.
Our constitution prevents laws that discriminate based on race. What law could parallel the abortion issue regarding race? Besides, “race” isn’t as concrete and real as sex. And I don’t know anything about laws concerning prostate cancer issues.
Pucky:
I see you still haven’t fixed your What-if machine from the commedian thread. Or perhaps your finglonger just slipped.
…and post-menapausal women. They’re all getting in the way.
And I ignored it the first time because I thought it was insane. It doesn’t matter if a third party is more “objective”. The woman isn’t a child, if it’s her problem, she makes the decision.
And if the female in fact is a child: You’re saying her father (or mother) should have no ability to influence the situation?
Also, when has a pregnancy ever just been “her problem”? If you’re advocating that no one else has to contribute to her care, that’s an entirely different story.
No, because the non-pregnant women still CAN be pregnant, and thus will be theoretically sacrificing her potential right to an abortion.
Not past menopause. Shall we yank their right to vote?
Men (and women) in power (at least nowadays) represent their constituancies. I’m no demographer, but I would assume that much of the constituancies of legislators, at least in the US, are women. Whoever gets the most votes wins, so theoretically, legislators represent the views of their constituancies.
Women are in a majority. Thus, if all women voted, the legislators must represent the opinions of women in their districts.
If women choose not to vote, they are, in effect, deferring their power to affect change to the rest of the population. They choose to “let someone else decide.”
I would contend that women do legislate. They just do so by proxy.
You’re going to have to stop avoiding this, pizzabrat. You and I both know that men can’t have abortions. But men made the legal decisions that GAVE women the right to an abortion. Why should their rights to legislate regarding abortion issues stop there?
Our constitution prevents laws that discriminate based on gender, too. And preventing men from having a say in legislative issues regarding abortion, simply because they are not female and cannot get pregnant, is gender discrimination. pizzabrat.
Does anyone have any statistics on the percentage of abortion providers who are male? I think you can see where I’m going with this, but anyway … It seems like nearly every abortion doctor I’ve seen or heard interviewed was male.
One way to settle this would be to take the vote away from all men – including the pro-choice ones – and then have just the women vote on it. But, depending on where you live, the majority of women might vote against it, and then where would you be?
Pucky:
What do you mean where would I be? The same place I always was. If they want to outlaw it, what do I care? They’re women, it’s their issue.
Persephone:
Didn’t you read JThunder’s posts? Rights aren’t “given” by the government.
I find it hard to believe you have nothing invested in this emotionally or philosophically.
But if you seriously wanted to restrict the vote to only those who are capable of getting pregnant, you eliminate a large portion of women as well.
There are laws in the United States that prohibit women from exposing their bare chests in public, although the same laws do not apply to men. I would guess that these laws were probably conceived and passed by a majority of men. Shall we throw them out as well?