Mothers, of course, have abortions. And it’s time to accept they are the experts in their own lives
Gina RushtonIf we trust people with the decision to have children, we can trust them with the decision not to
We’re all fine with the decision not to have children. It’s the getting rid of one that exists which is the concern.
Sure, OK, so the argument that the embyo is not a child – but the initial insistence is entirely ignoring even the concern that many to most actually have. And I do mean many to most too – because near all will in fact say that you can’t kill a child just because you don’t want it. Thus even proabortionists are making exactly that distinction, between what is a child which may not be killed and what is not which may.
This bird is just charging through as if the vital question, the releveant distinction, simply doesn’t exist.
My exasperated mother used to frequently threaten me with murder, but thankfully she was too oppressed by the Patriarchy to have me killed by an NHS doctor and then dumped as medical waste.
Different strokes for different folks, eh?
Again this daft bint (what is it about Australia,NZ, South Africa and Ireland that they seem to have created so many imbeciles – must be either Brexit or Donald Trump!) will come to learn what ‘oppression’ really is once Hamas and their paymasters are firmly in situ!!
“I’d like to abort my fetus of 7 weeks” is a different conversation than “I’d like to have my baby, to be born next week, murdered”.
One is legal and sanctioned, the other is illegal and horrific.
What sort of a psychopath do you have to be that can’t tell the difference between the two.
Next up:
“Jacob’s been struggling with his maths homework. Please take him away and feed him into the Soylent Green machine”.
Husbands have wives. Perhaps we should also agree that they are the ones who should decide when mum gets the chop.
But I suspect the lady would argue that it should be the wives who decide when hubby eats arsenic soup instead.
JG @ 8.03: “What sort of a psychopath do you have to be that can’t tell the difference between the two”.
What about those who would like to see abortion at any stage banned?
“We’re all fine with the decision not to have children”
Are we? Some of us think it will be the final nail in the coffin of western civilisation.
[Mothers] are the experts in their own lives
Always accepting the truth of that hypothesis and assuming that the claim includes women who aren’t yet mothers then the autonomy of women should not be constrained by others like the men who impregnate them or the taxpayers who supports them.
Interested @ 8.46, to see the possible consequences of ‘smart’ people not having kids have a look at the movie ‘Idiocracy’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA
Remember those DINKS in that article Tim linked to recently? (Smarmy childless Millennials boasting they have money to spend on stupid shit instead of a family.)
TikTok is pushing DINK memes hard, but maybe the Chinese Communist Party only wants what’s best for Westerners.
And it’s time to accept they (mother’s) are the experts in their own lives
If this is true why does the Graun carry so many column inches of mothers bleating how bad their lives are? If they’re experts you’d think they’d have it hacked.
@ BiS
Joined up thinking isn’t a thing at The Graudian. Even for Leftist who can maintain two contradictory ideas in their head at once don’t attempt to link these to obvious consequences.
It’s funny how bints like that never, ever are on the Barricades for the cheap and regular availability of modern contraception…
A person of less charitable thought would argue that this would be because the whole abortion schtick is their Paycheck ( physical and/or conceptual) , and that whole contraception thing would push abortions well into the realm of medical necessity, with just the odd and rare edge case that Waves may be made about.
“Shortly after I stopped writing about reproductive rights full-time” – obviously not in any way obsessive.
@Addolff – December 9, 2023 at 9:15 am
Interested @ 8.46, to see the possible consequences of ‘smart’ people not having kids have a look at the movie ‘Idiocracy’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA
Looks like it was based on the Cyril Kornbluth short story “The Marching Morons” published in “Galaxy” in 1951!. He was well ahead of the game!
The question of what is a child is a form of sorites paradox. If you take the position that no child may ever be killed, then a single fertilised cell is not a child and it is necessary to decide where to put the boundary. But it seems that there are many people who are so idealogically opposed to abortion that they have no interest in anything other than as big restrictions as they can get away with.
Sorites indeed. Somewhere between the moment before conception and 21 when a child has now become full adult. Well, where?
@Tim
Didn’t the church have a go at this one? When does a person first have a soul? Not sure whether it came up with an answer there, though.
Of course, if you don’t people have souls it all looks very different.
Whenever these women talk about abortion, it convinces me they are incapable of making any serious decisions involving children.
Entertaining Tim.
Of course in the good old days, infanticide was a much safer (for the mother) and cheaper solution.
The demand to get rid of the brat still exists, but improved medical procedures means it can now be done before birth which means that it is easier to consider it to be non-murder. And Grikath’s sensible suggestion of cheap and regular availability of modern contraception pushes the whole question further under the carpet.
I suppose what this really means is that we’re trying to cover a practical problem with some sort of moral judgement. One is reminded of the loud shrieks about how the Israelis shouldn’t kill civilians, when these same civilians have killed quite a few Israelis.
One answer was “the quickening”. Can’t recall if that’s about 40 days or 12 weeks. But about the time it’s obvious there’s a heartbeat in there maybe? That’s when he soul arrived it was thought.
Now the Catholic answer is conception.
Fair enough. I must admit I prefer the contraception approach. I don’t like the idea of killing a child at all.
But I’ve always had a nice life. Since I’ve never had to make hard decisions, I can afford to be squeamish.
Thanks Tim for articulating the question that it seems now must not be asked, by either side!!!
Not sure I know the answer myself (which on all questions shouldn’t, but does place me in a small minority on just about all questions). Your suggestion makes a lot of sense to me though.
Sorites indeed. Somewhere between the moment before conception and 21 when a child has now become full adult. Well, where?
It’s necessary to choose a more or less arbitrary point, and I’d go for “when the foetus has a better than 50:50 chance of survival, if we let nature take its course”, which would probably put it not too long after implantation. Prof Singer (Practical Ethics) opts for 27 months after conception, when (he claims) permanent memories first form. Any other offers?