Equal outcomes in social matters: pro life excesses - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

cmac2012 · #1 08-17-2009, 03:38 PM

It sorta amazes me how righties for whom the concept of equal outcomes in financial matters is anathema seem to think that equal outcomes can be had in personal matters. It would be nice if every child that came into the world was loved and wanted, especially if they are handicapped but sadly, it doesn’t work that way.

Up until the recent past, those who delivered babies knew that a severely handicapped child had little chance of surviving and even less chance of having a life worth living. Medical science was crude and resources limited. Why is it that people have children? I mean besides the fact that if they like sex offspring are unavoidable? For most of human history it was to add new labor to the homestead or tribe and to perpetuate it. A child that could not pull its own weight and then some would become the object of scorn and abuse by its siblings and tribe-mates in short order.

Until very recently, a midwife or other birther would quietly suffocate a badly deformed child and say that it had been born stillborn. My friends here in the militant pro-life camp can call that selfish or barbaric if they wish but they weren’t alive in that era when the luxury of believing that medical science can solve everything was not yet a reality.

Of course, medical science has limitations and many homes now exist for severely handicapped children whose parents can either no longer support them or just don’t have the heart to care for them any longer. I’ve been in such places and it’s heart wrenching.

I suggest those who denigrate anyone who decides to abort a deformed fetus put their money where their mouth is and volunteer or work (for low wages) at such a place.

Now is the point at which I will be accused of wishing to put such people to death at the earliest convenience. Oh boy, let’s just demonize those in the other camp – it’s much easier than trying to understand other points of view. Reminds me of Islamo-fanatics who believe that anyone not in their camp is an infidel worthy of exclusion at best, if not death.

If you want to hold the belief that each and every fertilized egg MUST be brought to full term and birth and that God frowns on any interruption of this, go for it. I find the practice of using abortion as a handy birth control method abhorrent myself and I’m not advocating that.

However, my cosmic belief system comes down somewhat on the side of re-incarnation – a sort of blend between Buddhist and Christian beliefs and I don’t care if the bible doesn’t say it’s OK.

We know that some fetuses do not make it to live birth regardless of careful attempts by all involved to make that happen. Other children die before their first birthday – quite common in the third world. I believe that the suffering of such a being will aid them in their progress to a better next life. And perhaps having the misfortune of being conceived by parents who don’t care enough for the eventual child, for whatever reason, such that they abort it will have a similar effect. I have no way of knowing for sure, just as the hard core Christian righties have no way of knowing for sure that they are going to be raptured up into God’s kingdom, something that is not mentioned anywhere in the bible, FWIW.

If some families honestly don’t believe that they can withstand the challenge of caring for a handicapped child, even something so relatively mild as Down’s syndrome, I’m not sure anybody has the right to force them to do so. We are in an unusual circumstance in human history. Are we to prohibit doctors from telling their patients that the fetus inside of them has this or that birth defect? And having heard that news, are we to harshly punish women who try to abort the fetus with their own hands – by jumping from a high place or using harsh chemicals – or who employ some barely trained butcher to crudely abort the fetus? Perhaps go after the crude butcher, but is the woman to be criminalized for doing damage to her own body? The fetus is not yet a human, not w/o full participation from the mother and I’m not sure we have the right, or the ability, to force such participation. Is it that surprising that parents would care more for their adult daughter, on whom they have lavished much love and care than they would for a fetus either doomed to early death or fathered by some scum-bag such that that they would wish to employ the services of someone who knows how to perform a safe abortion?

If I had a daughter who had been impregnated by some Svengali pimp like character who promptly abandoned her, and who came home in her third trimester barely alive after some suicide attempt, I think I might be in favor of a late term abortion. Bill O’Reilly will howl that this is aborting a child, late term, just because the mother is depressed. Never mind that the vast majority of late term abortions are performed because the mother’s life is in danger or because the fetus has deformities so severe that it will likely not live long past birth, O’Reilly and other chest-thumping pro-lifers insist they know the whies and wherefores of these things, end of story.

No, the Bill O’Reillys and the angry, bitter Elmer Fudd looking character who shot Dr. Tiller in his church will howl that aborting such a fetus is reprehensible murder and that doctors who do so are worthy of being shot.

Got to have those equal outcomes, doncha know.

kknudson · #2 08-19-2009, 12:17 AM

Very well stated.

I will put myself technically in the anti-abortion camp, not militant though.

BUT, I say technically because while I would prefer they not occur, freedom of choice by the woman, heavily overrides any position on abortion I may have.

cmac2012 · #3 08-19-2009, 12:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kknudson

Very well stated.

I will put myself technically in the anti-abortion camp, not militant though.

BUT, I say technically because while I would prefer they not occur, freedom of choice by the woman, heavily overrides any position on abortion I may have.

That's my general take. The thought of it is pretty distasteful to me but the notion that the state could or should require that a woman do with her body as the state insists is a bit weird.

450slcguy · #4 08-19-2009, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kknudson

Very well stated.

BUT, I say technically because while I would prefer they not occur, freedom of choice by the woman, heavily overrides any position on abortion I may have.

X2 to a degree, but I believe the father should have some say on the abortion. It's also his child that's being terminated. He certainly gets hammered with child support when the mother decides against abortion. Shouldn't he be entitled to some say when the coin is flipped the other way around? Never hear about that scenerio, but I bet it happens everyday.

kknudson · #5 08-19-2009, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 450slcguy

X2 to a degree, but I believe the father should have some say on the abortion. It's also his child that's being terminated. He certainly gets hammered with child support when the mother decides against abortion. Shouldn't he be entitled to some say when the coin is flipped the other way around? Never hear about that scenerio, but I bet it happens everyday.

Yes, the choice of the "parents" would be correct, and what I really meant.

450slcguy · #6 08-19-2009, 01:20 AM

As far as I know, the father has no legal voice in the abortion decision.
I've never hear any dicussion on the issue.

kknudson · #7 08-19-2009, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 450slcguy

As far as I know, the father has no legal voice in the abortion decision.
I've never hear any dicussion on the issue.

That is an issue for another thread, lets just keep it for now that the "parents" should have the right to make the decision.

JollyRoger · #8 08-19-2009, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 450slcguy

As far as I know, the father has no legal voice in the abortion decision.
I've never hear any dicussion on the issue.

Why should they? A man can leave at anytime while the woman is making a decision that would impact her destiny for the next eighteen years. At the heart of the American ideal is the concept that we all are free to choose our own destiny as long as we obey the law. What right does anyone have to make that choice for another? For the woman, it is a choice to endure the drudgery of motherhood. For the man, it's just another bill to pay if he so chooses.

aklim · #9 08-19-2009, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 450slcguy

As far as I know, the father has no legal voice in the abortion decision.
I've never hear any dicussion on the issue.

IIRC, there has been some legal issues with that. However, the question is whether the father is willing AND able to play host to the fetus should the woman decide not to.

cmac2012 · #10 08-20-2009, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 450slcguy

X2 to a degree, but I believe the father should have some say on the abortion. It's also his child that's being terminated. He certainly gets hammered with child support when the mother decides against abortion. Shouldn't he be entitled to some say when the coin is flipped the other way around? Never hear about that scenerio, but I bet it happens everyday.

Some merit to that POV, IMO but the woman does more of the heavy lifting in giving birth. The father enjoys an orgasim and then it's all woman, excepting material support, which is worth a lot, but if the woman has jettisoned the father for whatever reason and is being supported elsewhere, it's mostly on her.

aklim · #11 08-19-2009, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cmac2012

It sorta amazes me how righties for whom the concept of equal outcomes in financial matters is anathema seem to think that equal outcomes can be had in personal matters. It would be nice if every child that came into the world was loved and wanted, especially if they are handicapped but sadly, it doesn’t work that way.

A child that could not pull its own weight and then some would become the object of scorn and abuse by its siblings and tribe-mates in short order.

I suggest those who denigrate anyone who decides to abort a deformed fetus put their money where their mouth is and volunteer or work (for low wages) at such a place.

If you want to hold the belief that each and every fertilized egg MUST be brought to full term and birth and that God frowns on any interruption of this, go for it. I find the practice of using abortion as a handy birth control method abhorrent myself and I’m not advocating that.

The fetus is not yet a human, not w/o full participation from the mother and I’m not sure we have the right, or the ability, to force such participation.

Bill O’Reilly will howl that this is aborting a child, late term, just because the mother is depressed.

Religious entities don't care. (Insert Deity Here) will fix it all for you. Either way, they want the herd enlarged and therefore their faith numbers. Otherwise what do you think is wrong with homosexuality? Gay sex = no offspring. No offspring = smaller herd. The math is pretty simple.

As it should be.

Advocacy. A dirty word. You go do what I say and we'll talk when the consequences hit the fan. In the meantime, I get my religious points.

Then let your deity do the work then. Or as you said, you can do the work for your deity. As to abortion, if the fetus is just a blob of cells, it is akin to removing a tumor. Now, at say 8 months where it is viable, that might be different.

And I am "not yet" a doctor. Therefore I cannot practice as one. Kinda like the girl that asked the wife if her BF could give her an enema. BF was a construction guy and had done some reading. I think you can guess the answer the wife gave them. Either way, as we all know, My house, my rules. This is the woman's body. If you are in my house and you don't like the rules, take a hike. I will tell who to go when I want.

When Bill or anyone wants to pay the bill, I'll be interested in what they have to say.

lietuviai · #12 08-20-2009, 10:28 PM

If a woman decides to have careless and casual sex, then she should accept the consequence she made and have the child. I feel that's the choice she made and that's the only choice she should have.
It's too bad it's so difficult to adopt a child here. Most end up wards of the state as was mentioned earlier. There are so many people who want to adopt children but because of the system in place it makes it very difficult to happen in this country. It's too bad that so many couples end up adopting children from other counties when there are so many children here who need a loving family.

aklim · #13 08-20-2009, 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lietuviai

If a woman decides to have careless and casual sex, then she should accept the consequence she made and have the child.

As soon as it becomes alive, fair enough. Till then, it is a blob of cells. Take the tests used by doctors to declare death and reverse it. See what you get.