Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Madeline (Brigit) on October 18, 2009 at 12:38pm

"the only difference that care is internally for one but external for ther other "

You seem to conveniently forget that internal care is intrinsically a health risk that has deleterious effects on physiology -and can be life-threatening- for the host while external care does not carry that amount of danger.
When I can see that being a caregiver of an infant will permanently screw over your cardiovascular health, or take you from having a propensity of osteoarthritis into a having osteoarthritis then maybe those two might be comparable.

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Permalink Reply by Simon JM on October 18, 2009 at 12:55pm

Yes but thats not always the case and would I be guessing that you would force a father paying child support to work in a work envionment that caused his body work related harm if there weren't any other way to pay child support?

Pls try the other do parents have more moral value than babiesthread.

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Permalink Reply by Madeline (Brigit) on October 18, 2009 at 1:14pm

"thats not always the case" You are truly that clueless about the amount health conditions that might be exacerbated permanently be pregnancy? Wow, it must be really nice not to have to think of all the ways you might die by getting pregnant. But plenty of people walk around with conditions that might get permanently worse if they host a fetus. Only the fact that 50% of those people don't necessarily have to think of getting pregnant that prevents this from being common freaking knowledge.
It is a fact that pregnancy is intrinsically life threatening. Only those of us fortunate enough to have access to quality medical care are safer, and even then we might be permanently harmed by some of its effects.
Being an external caregiver is not intrinsically life threatening, and your example has jack-fucking-squat to do with this.

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Permalink Reply by Simon JM on October 18, 2009 at 1:19pm

I've no doubt there are health problems but negative consequences don't abrogate moral resposibility for harms that are self inflicted and/or they affect other moral parties. So the health problems have jack-fucking-squat to do with it :)

BTW one could equally say you are in denial that men providing child support can be seriously affected by that requirement or that mother can themselves suffer seriously by being a caregiver.

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Permalink Reply by Madeline (Brigit) on October 18, 2009 at 1:48pm

Maybe you are getting confused about the topics you are arguing about with me.
You state "A baby cannot care for itself and is dependent on caregivers, the only difference that care is internally for one but external for ther other." I provide reasons as to why these two things are in fact not the same. You proceed to change topics around and give no evidence as to why they are the same.

"BTW that sort of sexism of denial that men providing child support can be seriously affected by that requirement."
Wow, can you actually read what people write instead of making wild assumptions of what is not written? I know how hard it can be to be providers -having a dad that went through hell and then some to be able to provide child support, as I have a mom that went through hell and then some to provide for me too. However, these things are not intrinsic to caregiving for your offspring. They are not a physical/biological consequence of child-rearing, but a product of different societal factors. At the same time you have my dad (who had to go to freaking Iraq to support me and my sisters) you have plenty of other people that can provide child support without qualms. It is a consequence of -among others- class dynamics, age discrimination, and a society which traditionally places the burden of economic support on the male and burden of child-rearing on the female.

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Permalink Reply by Angie Jackson on October 18, 2009 at 3:03pm

A) Paying child support - kind of a drag
B) Carrying a child to term despite serious health consequences - deadly.

A does not equal B.

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Permalink Reply by The Secular One on October 18, 2009 at 3:08pm

Not only are they not equal, but they are completely unrelated. It is a red herring argument. Whether or not men should be forced to pay child support has nothing to do with the abortion question, and Simon should feel ashamed for attempting to derail the conversation with it.

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Permalink Reply by Angie Jackson on October 18, 2009 at 3:01pm

This is so true. I know that if I become pregnant again, I will have an abortion. Period. I am not leaving my son a fucking orphan for some fetus.

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Permalink Reply by Simon JM on October 18, 2009 at 10:42pm

So you wouldn't sacrifice your life for your son? The point being tey are both your offspring. Funny how many parents seem quite prepared to do that for certain offspring but not others.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on October 19, 2009 at 1:19am

There is more parental investment in a child than in a fetus. That alone can be used as the determining factor if a choice must be made. Obviously, this is a continuum from conception to adolescence. Most people draw the line somewhere during pregnancy. Probably because they know that pregnancies are fairly iffy. They basically don't like to count their chickens before they've hatched, because they know that miscarriage is a strong possibility in any pregnancy.

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Permalink Reply by Simon JM on October 19, 2009 at 1:30am

Maybe you should tell that to parents who are shattered after having a miscarriage, or the couple devastated when their last frozen embryo was implanted in the wrong woman and she had an abortion.

Maybe they haven't lost so much afterall?

Permalink Reply by Jason Spicer on October 19, 2009 at 1:59am

I've known people who were quite upset to have had miscarriages, but emotional attachment doesn't change the basic equation. A thing is more valuable to you the more you invest in it, pretty much by definition. This goes for offspring as well, whether we like to admit it or not. Abortion is OK as long as the pregnant woman decides that the benefit of the pregnancy isn't worth the investment. It's an economic decision first and foremost, a cost/benefit analysis. That doesn't mean it lacks emotional, legal, or moral consequences. Just that the basic math doesn't depend on those things. Quite the reverse.

Different people do the cost/benefit analysis differently, emphasizing different costs and benefits. On average, sometime around viability outside the womb is where society thinks the benefit of the pregnancy outweighs the costs, and that the investment has become too great to throw away. Obviously, that's an average. Some people draw the line at conception, but that's extreme in my view, given the total lack of parental investment. If you draw the line after viability outside the womb, then you're throwing away an investment needlessly. Somebody else might benefit greatly from it. It's analogous to burning a house you're no longer using.

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