A secular debate about abortion

[lordpasternack]

Warren - I'd add only for clarity to your point that the progesterone antagonist is usually followed around two days later by the insertion of prostaglandins into the vagina and against the cervix to quicken the expulsion of the pregnancy. In my experience, this was an in-patient procedure, and they also do all kinds of lovely stuff like shove an antibiotic suppository up your backside and make you take oral antibiotics to ward against infection before you leave.

And all the time you're there, when you go to the loo, you have to place a fresh cardboard bedpan thing over the toilet seat, into which you must do your business - so that hospital staff don't need to worry about missing that "baby" when it makes its exit. You place the bedpan into a little paper bag that you've just scrawled your initials on…

It's a really lovely, glorifying experience, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone,

[Seth]

They aren't. I love sex. This discussion is not about the propriety of having sex, it's about a woman's responsibility for her reproductive organs when she chooses to have sex.

It seems to be about the propriety of having sex, sometimes, when you arbitrarily find it to be relevant.

Nope. It's entirely about the implicit argument that women can do whatever they like by way of sexual misbehavior and can expect to be relieved of the consequences their bad judgment by being able to obtain an abortion at will, right up to the moment before full delivery.

Need we revisit your posts wherein you refer specifically to promiscuity being "bad behavior" and arguing that society has an interest in prohibiting or discouraging it? The bad behavior?

Quote mine if you must. Promiscuity is bad behavior if it leads to unwanted pregnancy that leads to an abortion. The misbehavior is the improper operation of a woman's reproductive organs that makes abortion an option for escaping the consequences of her actions. No misbehavior is imputed to women who have sex who WANT to get pregnant, or to women who have sex and DO NOT get pregnant because they have properly operated their organs. It's about society validating careless sexual behavior by providing a means of escaping the consequences of careless sexual behavior. My preference, in all things, not just women's reproduction, is that people man-up and accept without complaint the consequences of their actions and not try to escape them. This builds moral character and strength, and it makes better persons, better citizens and better societies. It's simply self-discipline, and society refusing to cooperate with those who cannot discipline their own conduct.

It's no different than a parent disciplining a careless child by allowing the full consequences of the wrongful action to fall upon the child, who thereby learns a valuable lesson: "Did it hurt when you did that? Yes? Then don't do that."

Society has a duty to the REST of society not to sanction, validate or support careless, unthinking behavior by ANYONE, and this is particularly true of women, when the impact of their carelessness is that a decision is made to terminate a living human being, and damage the rights and interests of both the father and the State merely in order to serve the convenience of the woman. That's morally reprehensible.

If the argument is not about the propriety of having sex, then why did you base part of your argument on the propriety of having sex and society's interest in limiting it?

Because society has a legitimate role in regulating sexual behavior.

The thread title is "a secular debate about abortion," and the decisions that lead up to needing or desiring an abortion are pertinent. With proper reproductive organ operation on everyone's part, abortions would never be necessary. The need for an abortion indicates that something went wrong in the decision making process.

Abortions are never absolutely, objectively, indisputably "necessary." They are merely more desirable than other alternatives in one or more persons' opinions. All pregnancies pose health and medical risks to the mother. When do those risks rise to the level of warranting an abortion? That depends on who's opining, doesn't it? The woman bearing the child may well have a lower threshold of what constitutes an acceptable risk than you or me. The question then becomes, whose opinion matters?

Everyone whose interests appear. And that includes the child's, the father's, and the State's interests.

So, the decisions that lead up to needing or desiring an abortion are pertinent TO YOU. In a given situation, however, those decisions may be of minimal or no importance TO THE PREGNANT WOMAN. For example, you may think that a woman is not properly managing her uterus because she engages in group sex on a regular basis allowing up to 10 men ejaculate into her uterus at any given evening. You may find that irresponsible. She gets pregnant and discovers that due to a particular medical condition associated with her pregnancy, her risk of dying during the pregnancy is double the normal risk. She decides to abort and she doesn't care at all about whether other people think she didn't manage access to her uterus in an acceptable fashion.

She's not the only one involved, and therefore she's forfeited some of her sovereign control over her body.

I'm taking the position, for the purposes of this debate, that since women have attained legal reproductive freedom and plenary control of their reproductive organs, which I happen to believe is a very good thing, they have also attained absolute personal responsibility for the maintenance and operation of them, and that therefore men are absolved of liability for what goes on within the sovereign space inside a woman. With liberty comes responsibility.

That's the position you have taken, but you've also taken the position that men are absolved of liability for some things that go on outside of the woman - you specifically stated that the "woman" should not be able to demand "child support."

True.

Yet, it's not legally the woman claiming child support. it's the child.

Only because that is how our legal system presently construes it. My argument is that "but for" the actions of the woman, against the express desires of the man, the child would not exist, and therefore in equity, the burden of raising the child should fall solely upon the mother. The fact that current social policy and law levy that burden on the father is beside the point. We all know how things are, I'm arguing philosophically about why they should REMAIN that way, and why we should not shift the legal burden to the mother, since it's her choice that the child exists.

And, you have specifically stated that the child is a SEPARATE HUMAN BEING. As such, doesn't the child have his or her own rights? And, since the child has not waived anything, it's not the child's concern whether mom was a weak negotiator and purported to sign away the separate human being's rights, right? Should the child's entitlement to child support depend on the intelligence, negotiating savvy, gullibility, or education of the mother?

The child is entitled to support and nurturing until it is able to care for itself. It does not follow that the burden of that entitlement must objectively and inevitably fall on both gamete contributors. We already know that sperm donors are expressly excluded from such liability. We know that mothers may escape that liability by putting the child up for adoption at birth. We know that fathers CANNOT escape that liability if the mother chooses to keep the child. Since nothing objectively dictates that both parents must provide the child with support, it's a social decision, and I'm arguing that the current situation is extremely inequitous to the father, who may be burdened with an obligation he does not consent to AS A RESULT OF the actions of the mother, over which HE HAS NO CONTROL.

But for the mother's decision to keep the child, the father would have no socially-imposed obligation. Society should change the law to provide equity to the father and fully burden the mother with the consequences of her decision.

If the child suffers some deprivation as a result of its mother's irresponsible conduct and inability to provide proper support, then the child has a cause of action against THE MOTHER. And the State, acting as guardian ad litem, has the authority to mandate that the mother provide proper care and support, and it can remove the child from the mother's possession if she fails in her duties, and can indeed not only sanction her civilly, but put her in jail for neglect. Moreover, when the child matures and is able to sustain its own legal case, the now-adult can sue the mother for "back child support" and other damages.

I see no reason why an unwilling father should have any responsibility at all towards the child, since the mother has made all the relevant decisions without his consent or input.

[Seth]

I expressly approve of RU-487 and the practice of taking a "morning after pill" to prevent implantation as a reasonable course of action.

Wait ... are we talking about RU-486, or are we talking about the "morning after pill", or are we talking about a drug I don't know about called RU-487, and if it's the last, what is RU-487?

The "morning after pill" is an overdose of birth control pills that prevents implantation. RU-486 is a progesterone receptor antagonist that causes the woman to spontaneously miscarry, or abort, an implanted embryo/fetus up to about 7 weeks pregnancy, allowing it to be used earlier than physical - "surgical" forms of abortion. I put "surgical" in quotes because a lot of physical abortions don't actually involve any cutting, so they're only technically surgery.

Sorry, wrong number....(click)

[Seth]

I'm taking the position, for the purposes of this debate, that since women have attained legal reproductive freedom and plenary control of their reproductive organs, which I happen to believe is a very good thing, they have also attained absolute personal responsibility for the maintenance and operation of them, and that therefore men are absolved of liability for what goes on within the sovereign space inside a woman. With liberty comes responsibility.

Consent to sex constitutes consent to the implied contract, which may include compulsory gestation. If you don't want to consent to that contract, don't have sex. It's just that simple.

I do wish I knew what your position was because in one statement you say Having sex is a contract to have a man's children even if you don't want them ,and in the other you say a woman has a sovereign space that men are absolved from responsibility of anything in it .

Two sides of the same argument.

EITHER women have sovereign wombs and are totally liable for what happens in them, and what comes out of them, thus absolving men of any liability or responsibility for the products of conception, OR women surrender some degree of sovereignty of their womb through the act of voluntary sex and must give due consideration to the interests of the child, the father, and the state when contemplating an abortion.

The argument is that they can't have it both ways, because that's unfair and irrational.

Pick one.

[Seth]

Warren - I'd add only for clarity to your point that the progesterone antagonist is usually followed around two days later by the insertion of prostaglandins into the vagina and against the cervix to quicken the expulsion of the pregnancy. In my experience, this was an in-patient procedure, and they also do all kinds of lovely stuff like shove an antibiotic suppository up your backside and make you take oral antibiotics to ward against infection before you leave.

And all the time you're there, when you go to the loo, you have to place a fresh cardboard bedpan thing over the toilet seat, into which you must do your business - so that hospital staff don't need to worry about missing that "baby" when it makes its exit. You place the bedpan into a little paper bag that you've just scrawled your initials on…

It's a really lovely, glorifying experience, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone,

Sounds like a really good reason to be very careful when having sex. Consequences, dontcha know...

[lordpasternack]

Indeed, Seth - having an abortion is being responsible and facing consequences. I choose not to trample the guy's genitals for a few minutes so he could face the consequences of his actions, too, though, in this instance…

As to sexual behaviour - it's frequency of sex, and fertility of those involved - not number of sexual partners - that'll heighten the risk of unwanted pregnancy. The sex could all be completely monogamous. It matters not a jot, anyway. But quit casting aspersions on the sexual habits of any/all women seeking abortions, and the nature of the behaviour that led to it.

[Seth]

Indeed, Seth - having an abortion is being responsible and facing consequences. I choose not to trample the guy's genitals for a few minutes so he could face the consequences of his actions, too, though, in this instance…

As to sexual behaviour - it's frequency of sex, and fertility of those involved - not number of sexual partners - that'll heighten the risk of unwanted pregnancy. The sex could all be completely monogamous. It matters not a jot, anyway. But quit casting aspersions on the sexual habits of any/all women seeking abortions, and the nature of the behaviour that led to it.

I cast aspersions only on SOME women seeking abortions, specifically those women who were careless in their uterine operation and seek abortion as a matter of convenience to relieve them of the consequences of their carelessness.

And ONLY those women.

I acknowledge that there are many other perfectly legitimate reasons to seek an abortion, which is why I'm not categorically opposed to abortion.

[lordpasternack]

An abortion still counts as a consequence they must face for whatever "carelessness" you wish to impute to them. And counts as taking responsibility for the situation, too. And beats the alternative in every way - of obligating such "careless" women into child-rearing (or at any rate pregnancy and childbirth) as some sort of twisted punishment for behaviour that just sticks in the craws of some self-righteous twats. As for the operation of one's genitals - I think it's mostly for the owners to make informed decisions about the right or wrong way to use them.

[Warren Dew]

Warren - I'd add only for clarity to your point that the progesterone antagonist is usually followed around two days later by the insertion of prostaglandins into the vagina and against the cervix to quicken the expulsion of the pregnancy. In my experience, this was an in-patient procedure, and they also do all kinds of lovely stuff like shove an antibiotic suppository up your backside and make you take oral antibiotics to ward against infection before you leave.

Remind me to recommend waiting until the brief, outpatient, "surgical" procedure can be used the next time someone asks me about this.

[lordpasternack]

Actually - correction - I was confused between the terms "inpatient" and "outpatient". I wasn't hospitalised overnight. Just pretty much the whole day - from sometime early morning, until around 4pm. I can't recall exactly. The passage of time gets a bit hazy with the procedures they go through, and then with the pain and pain meds and whatnot... it amounted to pretty much the whole day, though.

Another undesirable effect of it, though, was having to turn down some of the hospital food that actually smelled not bad, because I wasn't up to eating much…

[Ronja]

We have combined pills, progestogen-only pills, hormonal coils, copper coils, depo provera injections, progestogen implants, diaphragms and sponges with spermicide, and male and female condoms?

Edit: http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Contraceptio ... ption.aspx

And Ortho-Evra hormone patches http://www.orthoevra.com/what-is-patch- ... -work.html (need to be remembered every seven days) and NuvaRing http://www.nuvaring.com/Consumer/aboutN ... /index.asp (needs to be remembered twice per 28 days). And sterilization, of course.

I have always considered myself very lucky, partly because I live in a country and region where it is easy to find and afford a competent gynecologist and get contraceptives from pharmacies, and partly because I have always managed to find a comfortable and reliable method, at least after some hassle.

Yet, if you look at that rather long list of methods above: I'm too old for combined pills (which worked beautifully before 35, except for the stress of forgetting) and hormone patches, which both have too much estrogen -> trombosis risk, docs won't prescribe them anymore, progestogen-only pills killed my libido so all progesteron-based methods are suspect, I have had a coil for a week or so - it tried to come out on its own volition (and hurt like hell while doing so - I had to get back to the doctor very fast, and she said I should not try any kind of coil again), I'm allergic to every spermicide we've tried and also to the "glue" of the hormone patches.

So hubby and me, we are down to the various rubbers (diaphragms, male and female condoms) without spermicides, NuvaRing, and sterilization. Unless something has been forgotten from the list above? I am so relieved that NuvaRing exists and that my current gynecologist predicted that barring any surprises I should be able to use them until I'm 50. Nearing that (which is fairly soon) - M and I need to once again do our homework and discuss, and very likely consult my gynecologist.

So also someone who is mature and responsible regarding contraception and in a stable, monogamous relationship with a level-headed and supportive partner and has full access to all thinkable information and medical expertise, may have a non-trivial amount of difficulty when searching for a fitting contraceptive method. And, as has been pointed out before, every method even when used correctly can fail (also sterilization). That, combined with that it is better for a child to be born wanted / welcome than not, and that an early enough abortion is far safer than a full-term pregnancy + birth are the main reasons why I think abortion on demand should be as widely and as easily available as possible.

Late term abortions of non-viable fetuses or to save the mother's life are also a no-brainer from where I look at it. To have someone be born just to die (likely painfully and slowly) is cruelty, which we would not subject animals to, so why humans? And an already existing, fully developed human being is worth more in my book than a fetus.

Just my 2 bits, of course. Your mileage will vary.

[hadespussercats]

We have combined pills, progestogen-only pills, hormonal coils, copper coils, depo provera injections, progestogen implants, diaphragms and sponges with spermicide, and male and female condoms?

Edit: http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Contraceptio ... ption.aspx

As for female condoms, though, I'm reliably told that they do leave quite a bit to be desired in convenience and effectiveness, not to mention, cost. On the bright side, though - they can be sterilised and reused! ( )

The most effective form of contraception is to keep your knees firmly together... Had to be mentioned...

Aw, Seth, sex can be pretty freaking wonderful. What's so bad about having sex? Why are women who like sex so questionable in your book?

They aren't. I love sex. This discussion is not about the propriety of having sex, it's about a woman's responsibility for her reproductive organs when she chooses to have sex. The thread title is "a secular debate about abortion," and the decisions that lead up to needing or desiring an abortion are pertinent. With proper reproductive organ operation on everyone's part, abortions would never be necessary. The need for an abortion indicates that something went wrong in the decision making process.

I'm taking the position, for the purposes of this debate, that since women have attained legal reproductive freedom and plenary control of their reproductive organs, which I happen to believe is a very good thing, they have also attained absolute personal responsibility for the maintenance and operation of them, and that therefore men are absolved of liability for what goes on within the sovereign space inside a woman. With liberty comes responsibility.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that any of this reflects my personal beliefs about women, sex, abortion or anything else. This is an abstract philosophical debate, nothing more.

You have no stake in any of your arguments? Nothing of what you've said actually reflects your true beliefs regarding women, sex, abortion, or anything else?
Perhaps that's true-- though it sounds more like a get-out-of-jail-free pre-emptive strike in case you write something truly reprehensible or idiotic.

I tend to think you already have, since you refuse to see the contradiction between writing that a woman has total control over her body, and writing that she has no right to use abortions as birth control if that decision is exerted entirely at her own discretion.

This contradiction persists, unresolved, despite the fact that at least four, maybe more, commenters have called you out on it.

So your debate is inherently flawed, and you can't even use the excuse that your own deeply-held moral beliefs have blinded you to the irrationality of your stance.

Ho-hum, then. This so-called debate has lost its savor. Feel free to continue your mental onanism with any Ratz members who are still interested in watching.

[hadespussercats]

I expressly approve of RU-487 and the practice of taking a "morning after pill" to prevent implantation as a reasonable course of action.

Wait ... are we talking about RU-486, or are we talking about the "morning after pill", or are we talking about a drug I don't know about called RU-487, and if it's the last, what is RU-487?

The "morning after pill" is an overdose of birth control pills that prevents implantation. RU-486 is a progesterone receptor antagonist that causes the woman to spontaneously miscarry, or abort, an implanted embryo/fetus up to about 7 weeks pregnancy, allowing it to be used earlier than physical - "surgical" forms of abortion. I put "surgical" in quotes because a lot of physical abortions don't actually involve any cutting, so they're only technically surgery.

Warren, your careful reading and efforts to ensure clarity in discussion are very much appreciated by this commenter.

And I appreciate the extra weight behind my assertion that abortions are not necessarily invasive, and can be performed medically.

[lordpasternack]

Hades - Seth has said he's kinda playing a little game of arguing all kinds of points rhetorically, and being rather obnoxious to stir debate and make people think. Maybe he's insincere in saying that's what he's doing (which is essentially being insincere, anyway!) - but fuck it, it's a parsimonious enough explanation for his inconsistent posting pattern and I'll respond where necessary to any particular argument he makes - sincere looking or not.

[Seth]

An abortion still counts as a consequence they must face for whatever "carelessness" you wish to impute to them. And counts as taking responsibility for the situation, too. And beats the alternative in every way - of obligating such "careless" women into child-rearing (or at any rate pregnancy and childbirth) as some sort of twisted punishment for behaviour that just sticks in the craws of some self-righteous twats. As for the operation of one's genitals - I think it's mostly for the owners to make informed decisions about the right or wrong way to use them.

Sure it "counts." The question is whether it's a moral and ethical decision to make without consultation and agreement of the other parties involved.