How ignorant are you about basic women's biology?

[Stripe7]

Whatever gives "pro-lifer's" the idea that the kids from unwanted pregnancies, whose parents do not want the children, will be raised properly by the parents. They could just as easily be dumped at the nearest church, or be totally resented and cursed each day of their life by the parents. Are they going to pass laws forcing people to be good parents as well? Swell, imprison the parents and then foster the children. Now where are you? More cops more bureaucracy and more crime, more prisons more people out of the work force, more drain on the country as a whole.

[Mac_Bug]

If having a baby is a choice and a responsibility then it seems to me like everyone needs a parenting license before they can have a kid, just like they need one to drive a car. So, mandatory sex ed and birth control for everyone, go get a license to get surgically altered to be able to have babies. No more unwanted pregnancies, no more dead babies.

if you still dont agree then im gonna start questioning whether you really care more about the baby or just resent the parents having recreational sex

[Trizzdog]

Can we ban people with STDs from having sex as well?

[Mac_Bug]

Yes but only because we don't want the innocent kid to get STD

[LoCo]

roflmao: Absolutely. I just wonder how people actually feel about this stuff themselves instead of which party line they express.

I'd imagine that, when faced with the reality of the situation themselves, many in the pro-choice camp might suddenly feel that it isn't really a choice at all. Or many in the pro-life camp might, when faced with the choice in private, find themselves leaning towards an abortion.

TDATL: Who, exactly, are you arguing with then? The argument that was happening was about consent to pregnancy. You now say - despite you using the word consent yourself - that you were arguing about responsibility... nobody arguing against you was arguing about that...

Reminds me of how my mother used to go around telling everyone who would listen (friends, girlfriends, bosses, possible future bosses, etc. Absolutely anyone who would listen) that I wasn't responsible. After 15 years of that I finally asked her what she thought 'responsible' meant, and she said "A responsible person responds well to others". I kid you not!

[Trinity]

...parenting license before they can have a kid

I said that in University during a rare class discussion. The nastiness that was hurled at me for the next 5 minutes was epic. Go forth and multiply is a very primal biological imperative for most and it colours their opinion on the subject

[Maktaka]

I'd imagine that, when faced with the reality of the situation themselves, many in the pro-choice camp might suddenly feel that it isn't really a choice at all. Or many in the pro-life camp might, when faced with the choice in private, find themselves leaning towards an abortion.

It's quite common: http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-ca...ti-tales.shtml. There's also plenty of anecdotes to find of people who regret having an abortion after the fact. It's easy to make the pro-life "right" choice when you're not making it for yourself, and it's human nature to feel you made "bad" decision after the fact even when there were no good alternatives to choose from.

[Trinity]

There are no absolutes. People will always makes choices based on what suits them best in the moment.

[TDATL]

@Cuddles: I never said it can't be done. I said it shouldn't be done.

@Starblade: Regulation is vastly different to government provided. All of your health and safety examples have to do with regulation. There is a major difference between saying "if you want to sell meat it can't be poisonous" and "here, free non-poisonous meat."

If you want to try and get a regulation put into place that requires people who don't want children to have the correct amount of contraceptives in place before having sex be my guest.

@LoCo :

re·spon·si·ble
Adjective:
1. Having an obligation to do something as part of a job or role.
2. Being the primary cause of something and so able to be blamed or credited for it.

#2 is the definition of responsible I am using.

I was arguing against LoCo's comments which painted a mother as being assaulted by some other force. His comments gave the distinct impression that because the mother didn't "consent" to the child being there that she was the injured party of some separate force outside of her own control.

I was arguing that her actions provided "consent" for the situation because she is directly to blame (and the father of course) for the situation she is in.

I don't see why both you and he are making me out to be in the wrong for attempting to correct a statement that by his own admission is an absurd statement.

edit:

There are no absolutes. People will always makes choices based on what suits them best in the moment.

Your first sentence is self contradictory. It is false no matter what. It states an absolute that there are no absolutes. A better statement would be "There are almost no absolutes."

Furthermore you then followed that sentence up with another sentence espousing another absolute.

[Starblade]

If you want to try and get a regulation put into place that requires people who don't want children to have the correct amount of contraceptives in place before having sex be my guest.

Who said this?

All of your health and safety examples have to do with regulation.

Do those regulations and their implementation protect people? Yes/no?

Also, the government does in fact provide food stamps.

[Trinity]

Your first sentence is self contradictory...

So you must think I am really stupid.

[roflmao]

I see a parenting license as contradictory with the idea behind abortion from a personal freedom standpoint. You're defining that it is a legal right that an individual can terminate his child, but now you require a legal certification for an individual to raise that child? Why not then require a license to abort as well that's government regulated? Doesn't seem very consistent to have free abortion but regulated parenting.

[Arbit]

TDATL: Who, exactly, are you arguing with then? The argument that was happening was about consent to pregnancy. You now say - despite you using the word consent yourself - that you were arguing about responsibility... nobody arguing against you was arguing about that...

I don't think anyone is using the word consent in a meaningful way, to be honest. Consent only has meaning when given/withdrawn from someone or something, and when it has some sort of practical effect. You can withdraw your consent to impregnate and get someone pregnant just fine, and you can give consent to impregnate and fail to for any number of reasons. And who is being addressed? You can't address the mechanism doing the fertilization, as that happens on autopilot. You can address the woman, but again what sort of practical effect is that going to have? And then consider what your consent or lack thereof means in a legal setting, or in society in general. A judge is not going to care when it comes time to pay child support. Now imagine telling a teenaged daughter's father "well I only consented to having sex with your daughter, not to getting her pregnant." If someone manages to knock up a girlfriend or one night stand, people don't ask whether he consented to get her pregnant because for all practical purposes it's friggin irrelevant!

So perhaps the reason TDATL was conflating "consent" with "responsibility" is because he's struggling to find a context in which withdrawing consent to impregnate has any sort of meaning.

[TDATL]

So you must think I am really stupid.

Nope, just using a phrase that is rather silly especially given the statement you followed it up with

@Starblade: I didn't say you said that. I said the examples you used were those of regulation not providing things for free. I simply extended that to point out a means of addressing the situation involving sex and unwanted pregnancies by using regulation.

As to food stamps that is a very different matter. If you don't have food you die. There is nothing you can do to change that but get food. If you don't have contraceptives and don't want children you can abstain from vaginal sex. You don't have to have sex.

The need for food is also a universal. Everyone needs to eat. Only certain groups of people can even make use of birth control. For example, homosexuals, people who aren't having sex (for whatever reasons,) or people who are infertile have no need for birth control. Though condoms do prevent spread of disease we were also talking about providing something like Implanon which has no such benefits.

Really though the key difference between food stamps and birth control hand outs is that you can't opt out of eating. You can hold off having sex for awhile in the interests of bettering your situation. The same cannot be done with food.

[Stripe7]

In the case of Rape a woman does not have a choice to "opt out".

[Starblade]

I didn't say you said that.

I didn't say you said I said that. I asked who did. Also I wasn't comparing food stamps to condoms. You said the government doesn't provide. I gave an example of it doing so. Welfare exists, and agencies and administrations exist to protect and provide for the governed. This includes sexual healthcare. Though, to be fair to you, the US government does kind of a shit job of it in many cases compared to some other countries so I can see why you might be a little dismissive of it.

In the case of Rape a woman does not have a choice to "opt out".

Half the posters in here have been routinely and conveniently ignoring rape despite that being one of the focuses of the OP.

[TDATL]

@Starblade: I don't recall seeing anyone who has been ignoring rape in this thread. We simply haven't had a disagreement over it. I don't recall a single person who has proposed that someone who is raped should be denied the choice of getting an abortion.

@Stripe7: Similar to what I just said to Starblade. I have been talking about unwanted pregnancy's formed by consenting adults having sex. I see no reason to continue pointing out "except for rape" every other sentence. It has been stated enough.

[Starblade]

I don't recall a single person who has proposed that someone who is raped should be denied the choice of getting an abortion.

That's good, because no one said that anyone said that one either. I said that many posters here haven't been considering (or actively ignoring) it. Look at some of roflmao's earlier posts on why abortion exists, for instance.

[Stripe7]

Late term abortions and partial birth abortions are usually in cases where the mother usually wants the child, but are unable for one reason or another to carry it to term due to her health. In one case I read about the fetus had developed with its brain outside the head.

Sex selection, do it like China did? Drown the female babies? What about genetic screening the fetus for fatal diseases? There is a reason doctors do what is called an amniocentesis.

My mom is very much ok with having had those two abortions thank you. No need for counseling. She was perfectly happy with having 4 kids and aborting 2, then sterilizing herself to prevent anymore. And I have seen those pro-life counseling videos thank you talk about 1 sided BS.

[Mac_Bug]

I see a parenting license as contradictory with the idea behind abortion from a personal freedom standpoint. You're defining that it is a legal right that an individual can terminate his child, but now you require a legal certification for an individual to raise that child? Why not then require a license to abort as well that's government regulated? Doesn't seem very consistent to have free abortion but regulated parenting.

You're already arguing for a license to abort, so I'm proposing instead to license child birth. You're going to have to explain to me why you don't support that.

Think of the children.

[Langy]

I don't think anyone is using the word consent in a meaningful way, to be honest. Consent only has meaning when given/withdrawn from someone or something, and when it has some sort of practical effect. You can withdraw your consent to impregnate and get someone pregnant just fine, and you can give consent to impregnate and fail to for any number of reasons. And who is being addressed? You can't address the mechanism doing the fertilization, as that happens on autopilot. You can address the woman, but again what sort of practical effect is that going to have? And then consider what your consent or lack thereof means in a legal setting, or in society in general. A judge is not going to care when it comes time to pay child support. Now imagine telling a teenaged daughter's father "well I only consented to having sex with your daughter, not to getting her pregnant." If someone manages to knock up a girlfriend or one night stand, people don't ask whether he consented to get her pregnant because for all practical purposes it's friggin irrelevant!

So perhaps the reason TDATL was conflating "consent" with "responsibility" is because he's struggling to find a context in which withdrawing consent to impregnate has any sort of meaning.

The discussion had nothing to do with consent to impregnate or anything like that. I used the word 'consent' because it's the correct word for what I was going for - a woman deciding that, okay, she will give birth. It's not quite a choice, as 'choice' implies that she actively decided to get pregnant and have the baby, but I wanted to include those times when she didn't actively decide to do it but isn't against the idea, either.

It had absolutely nothing to do with responsibility, impregnation, the father, or anything like that. It was purely about the woman deciding what to do with her own body.

The original argument (that a woman being forced to give birth against her will is akin to assault) was honestly a bit hyperbolic, but I think it's also accurate and would serve as the most likely avenue for abortion-rights advocates to pursue should a law be passed that specifies that life begins at conception. The point being that the whole 'life begins at conception/sometime later' argument doesn't even matter with regards to abortion rights. The only thing it'll really impact is things like in-vitro fertilization (by essentially making the current methods illegal).

[Trinity]

Nope, just using a phrase that is rather silly especially given the statement you followed it up with

The silly bit is that you didn't see it as deliberate. There are no absolutes and adding the caveat ... "except this one" is just being pedantic.

[TDATL]

The silly bit is that you didn't see it as deliberate. There are no absolutes and adding the caveat ... "except this one" is just being pedantic.

If you had stated "there are no absolutes" and either left it at that or expounded on the ways absolutes don't exist, then you would be right about me being pedantic about the phrase. However, you didn't do either of those things. You followed it up by providing another absolute.

Your second sentence contradicted your first. Considering your post was only those two sentences it becomes rather confusing to understand what you were trying to get across.

As to your comments on it being "deliberate," I am not a mind reader. Even if I was a mind reader I doubt I could read your mind from a forum post. An error for humor and an error because you made a mistake will look exactly the same on the internet. I did not see anything that indicated to me that you were making a joke so I assumed you were being serious.

If you were being serious and still think my comments have somehow missed the point then please elaborate.

[Trinity]

Here, does this help...
While there are no absolutes people will always makes choices based on what suits them best in the moment.

[Moe]

So all this accomplished was making both of you look like pedantic jackasses. Can we please move on.

[Trinity]

Can you be pedantic and not a jackass?

:P

[Agdune]

I've actually always liked the idea of a birth licence - years of working in social services has given me plenty of firsthand experience with people who should frankly, be forcibly sterilised and/or imprisoned for life for how they've managed to fuck up their children. Birth licence feels like the logical kneejerk reaction to that; some sort of bare-bones 'are you 100% likely to do some seriously, seriously wrong things in raising your children?' sort of test.

Of course, once you get past that feelgood 'fuck you, everyone' kneejerk component of it, there are too many questions to conceivably get it to work without gross abuse or inequality. Basically; how to stop it becoming a eugenics program within a couple of years, What constitutes 'bad parenting', who may or may not be elligible, what body or organisation would be involved with determining key criteria, how to stop populist politics from getting involved, what do do with anyone who has children without the licence (forced abortions?)... too many variables, too many things that could go wrong.

However, that said, there's some little nugget of merit here. I'm thinking of anecdotal cases; of say a drug addicted mother I knew who had fired out 12 heavily disabled children (pre-natal addiction ahoy!) and who was very vocally determined to keep firing them out until the state "gets sick of taking them off me". Perhaps a universal baby-license (e.g. automatically gained upon birth or something universal like that) that could be rescinded if an individual was proven to do something seriously wrong with their child-rearing. Or at least, y'know, a legal mechanism to sterilise people as a last resort because they keep firing out kids and systematically abusing them. (To those who ask it; No, prison is not guaranteed to stop that from happening. It might make some windows of a few months/years where people can't impregnate each other, but if people are wanting to have sex with their partners, the prison system is not much more than an inconvience in the longterm)

Ah... if only the world worked exactly as I wished it to...

Edit: Just to throw a little more kindling on the fire; Oh you zany Republican candidates. At least it's old, I'll give them that. This just seems to be the month for digging up any dirt possible on republican candidates; I guess this is the time it's going to have maximum effect, after all.

[Codex]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtzqvqzBdUQ

This is amazing.

"Legitimate Rape" Pharmaceutical Ad.