(no subject)

[hawkwing_lb]

Hello, internet.

With half an assignment done, I’m sitting at home staring at the screen, drinking ice-cream mixed with milk, vanilla essence and a touch of Baileys, and staring down a fit of the black fugues. Thus, an LJ post brought to you by the rationale: Any Work But The Work We Should Be Doing.

So, I notice you USians are getting a bit crazy, with things like an anti-abortion law with no exceptions for rape and incest turning up in South Dakota.

(A side note: in my own dear republic, although the Supreme Court ruled abortion permissible in the case of rape – at least rape of a minor – back in, oh, 1991 or so, we have something called the Irish Council of Medical Practitioners – not a legislative body - who dictate what Irish doctors will and will not do. And the only time they will perform an abortion is where there is a significant threat to the health of the mother. Thus, Patient X of the 1991 Supreme Court case, although legally permitted to have an abortion in Ireland, in fact had to go to England to procure one.)

Personally, I’m not sure how I feel about abortion. It’s something of a moral grey area, for me: I can’t not find it ethically ambiguous once implantation has occurred, and definitely morally suspect after the first three months. It’s something – like killing a grown human being – that I’d have severe personal qualms about if it wasn’t a strong case of self-preservation.*

That said, my own belief is that everyone should be free to chose which sins** they prefer to commit. I’m not sure if killing something that’s not yet quite a child is entirely worse than giving birth to a child and spending the rest of your life resenting him/her. One way you extinguish one possible life: the other way you potentially ruin two or more.

And that said, let me just say that I think this ‘no exceptions’ for rape and incest shit is seriously disturbing. That’s setting the stage for a whole hell of a lot of psychological trauma for anyone unlucky enough to end up on the wrong end of a law like that.

Seriously fucking disturbing.


*This is in fact one of the picky things that I so dislike about the Catholic Church: they value the life of the child over the life of the mother. And although I can trace that to the historical need for clear line of descent in order to facilitate the transfer of property (because of course women weren’t going to inherit), I can’t forgive it.

**No, I can’t find a different word. Blame it on my upbringing – or better yet, suggest a different one. Word, that is.

ETA: Okay, I get my facts wrong. This happens. Apparently the 'no exceptions' thing is part of a proposed law in your Utah. (Note to self: fact-check. Being mistaken might do worse than embarrass you someday.)

Comments

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

I would certainly agree that abortion is an unwelcome choice, and something devoutly to be avoided. However icky the process may be, and no matter how morally difficult it is to justify, it still remains the mother's choice. Until the medical establishment can safely maintain a fetus outside of the mother's body (uterine replicators, please), it will remain the mother's choice.

I would agree that we should do everything we can to minimize the need for abortions, but we may not remove a woman's right to choose. I agree that we should each choose our sins, especially since we don't all profess the same religion (if any religion at all).

In the end, I point to Mother Nature, who in Her Ineffable Wisdom, allows the many misconceptions, mis-growths, and malformed babies to spontaneously depart this world. It's much harder to actually grow a normal baby than one realizes.

It's always an emotional issue, and we're unfortunately swinging our way back towards the "can't let women have control" end of the pendulum. South Dakota is a very conservative state, but note that the SD legislature refused to allow their own voters a say in this matter, for fear they would overturn the legislation.

The error they're making is the assumption that women are having abortions because it's cheaper than contraceptives..or some such twaddle. Rather than find out why women are really having abortions, they've decided to make the whole thing impossible -- and they should be found unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. One can only hope.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I don't argue against the need for a woman to have the choice. I only point out that I, personally, would have severe ethical qualms about making it myself.

But, of course, I can afford ethical qualms. Not everybody has that luxury.

That said, denying women the choice is an act that smacks something of paternalism and the idea of woman as a vessel, rather than as a person. To me, anyway. It hints at something along the lines of not letting women make (sometimes hard) choices because it distrusts their capability to do so, and maybe I'm just a mistrustful young cynic, but that sounds like chauvinism to me, and that gets my hackles up.

You don't make a thing impossible by making it illegal. Criminalising it, stigmatising it, will only make whatever problem is at the root of it worse. (When abortion comes up in debate here, people wave the flag of the mythical 'social abortion' around an awful lot, but I suspect that that's a chimaera in the wind.) Viewed from an absolutely cold societal perspective, abortion can be a useful economic safety vent, allowing people who are already living on the poverty line to avoid slipping under it out of the need to provide for more children.

And you know, I can't help thinking that people should consider the needs of the already-living before the putative rights of the not-yet-viable. But what do I know?

PS: You call it a 'right' to choose... Not to quibble with your phraseology, or anything, but I live in a country where that right does not exist. So... I'll say 'ought to be able to', instead :-).

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

I think all women have severe ethical qualms about the concept of abortion. Well, I suppose there would be the odd woman who doesn't, but the vast majority of us are more likely to have the same reactions.

Denying an adult woman the right* or privilege of owning her own body is indeed chauvinism. And until an embryo can be supported outside the body, it's part of the woman and falls under her control.

Social abortion used to be part of the argument here. My counter to it is to point to the dead women who'd bled out after a botched abortion. Those are sad photos.

*Understanding that it isn't a "right" in every country..;-)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I think my position on abortion boils down to: many things that are Not Good are in fact Necessary.

And while abortion may well be Not Good*, not being able to have one is a worse kind of Not Good.

And a much much worse kind of Not Good - actually a variety of Terrible - when there are no exceptions for things like rape and the (pyschological as well as physical) health of the mother.

*attempting to look at an argument from all sides sometimes causes brain-ache. :-(

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Yes..:-( All we can do is try to support women in their ability to make decision on reproduction, and hope that someday we will be able to have uterine replicators.