Fair is fair . . . Georgia Democrats propose an anti-vasectomy bill

[Elok]

So if you're a women who gets an abortion you go to jail. If you are the father...what happens?

Yeah, that's reasonable.

I didn't specify jail, though given the economic situation of many of these women a fine probably wouldn't mean much. Anyway, if the father urged her to commit the crime, or was complicit in any other way, he's in trouble too, assuming it can be proven. If it wasn't his idea and he had no idea it even happened, why should he be culpable?

[Dinner]

If you want me to put you on ignore too, Grib, you can just ask. No need to post false analogies and goofy ad hominems.

I think grib made a good point. You said birth is natural and happens all the time but historicly so was starving to death or death by exposure or death by disease. I mean are those all not natural things as well? Yet we as man have taken it upon ourselves to eliminate or least reduce these things because doing so reduces the over all level of human suffering on this Earth, it makes people happy when they themselves or their loved ones don't die or suffer unnecessarily and in fact improve their quality of life due to the intervention of man.

In light of this wouldn't you say the whole "natural" argument seems a whole lot less compelling? It sure seems that way to me.

[Hauldren Collider]

So if you're a women who gets an abortion you go to jail. If you are the father...what happens?

Yeah, that's reasonable.

If you're the father, you have to help pay for the baby.

[Elok]

I think grib made a good point. You said birth is natural and happens all the time but historicly so was starving to death or death by exposure or death by disease. I mean are those all not natural things as well? Yet we as man have taken it upon ourselves to eliminate or least reduce these things because doing so reduces the over all level of human suffering on this Earth, it makes people happy when they themselves or their loved ones don't die or suffer unnecessarily and in fact improve their quality of life due to the intervention of man.

In light of this wouldn't you say the whole "natural" argument seems a whole lot less compelling? It sure seems that way to me.

I said it's a natural biological function. Starvation, disease, famine, fire, flood, decapitation, parasites, congenital defects and baseball fandom are all examples of something going seriously wrong with normal function, at least from the victim's point of view, or an unbiased bystander's in the case of baseball. Pregnancy, OTOH, is the body itself doing something which several million years of evolution have honed it too do pretty well. It is, in most cases, an easily foreseeable consequence of a rather complex joint action by two people, both of whom are perfectly capable of understanding that condoms can break, the pill can fail, ovulation can happen suddenly and really excited men frequently forget to pull out (not that that tactic works worth a damn anyway). So when people act like the woman is a victim of some incredible misfortune dumped on her head out of nowhere and it's outrageous to expect her to go through with something she should have anticipated as at least a real possibility (given an IQ over 80), I find it very hard to take them seriously.

[giblets]

How about the part where you quoted a big block of text, declined to respond to any part of it in a meaningful way, and instead imputed to me a sinister desire to control other people, mwahahaha, etc.? I guess that could just be a really egregious strawman, instead of an ad hominem. Depends how you look at it, really. Or it could be a troll, or just the result of a very, very superficial and careless reading. The one thing it cannot be is a valid criticism, and I know you're capable of those. Really, if you're just going to give me stuff like "starvation is a normal biological function," why bother to reply at all?

1. Starvation is a biological process (calling it a function may not be a good choice of words) and it's hardly unusual. The idea that someone is supposed to accept something against their will that technology can prevent because it's a product of how their body is built makes no sense.
2. You claimed that people who want risk-free sex should stop having sex. And apparently you think abortion should be banned, in order to discourage them from having sex. At least, I don't know why else you decided to go on a rant about how sex without consequences supposedly takes individuality too far and has massive demographics consequences and blah blah blah.

[giblets]

If you're the father, you have to help pay for the baby.

I don't think you understood the hypothetical scenario. The premise is that a woman got an abortion and went to jail. There is no baby to help pay for, unless you're saying that the state would demand that the dead fetus's parents pay damages for the demographic doom they have wrought.

[giblets]

I said it's a natural biological function. Starvation, disease, famine, fire, flood, decapitation, parasites, congenital defects and baseball fandom are all examples of something going seriously wrong with normal function, at least from the victim's point of view, or an unbiased bystander's in the case of baseball. Pregnancy, OTOH, is the body itself doing something which several million years of evolution have honed it too do pretty well. It is, in most cases, an easily foreseeable consequence of a rather complex joint action by two people, both of whom are perfectly capable of understanding that condoms can break, the pill can fail, ovulation can happen suddenly and really excited men frequently forget to pull out (not that that tactic works worth a damn anyway). So when people act like the woman is a victim of some incredible misfortune dumped on her head out of nowhere and it's outrageous to expect her to go through with something she should have anticipated as at least a real possibility (given an IQ over 80), I find it very hard to take them seriously.

So if someone eats a crappy diet you won't have any sympathy for them when they have a heart attack? You'll just dismiss their desire to not suffer because they were partly responsible for it?

[notyoueither]

If you want me to put you on ignore too, Grib, you can just ask. No need to post false analogies and goofy ad hominems.



No, if it changes at all it won't be short-term. But within my lifetime, it's entirely possible, though I wouldn't give you odds on it. The reverse is essentially what happened within my parents' lifetime, and we're paying for it now. Of course, there are a lot of other complications, having little or nothing to do with sexuality, which make it worse. For example, our asinine drug policy puts tons of parents behind bars for no particularly good reason.

From things I've read the trend to more liberal, or libertine, personal pursuits has been going on for a very long time.

There was a reaction against greater sexual freedom in the Victorian era, but we've been coming out of that for some time.

Here's an interesting for instance. The swinging lifestyle started in US Airforce communities during the Second World War. It served a useful purpose, actually. The numbers of men in flightcrews who did not come home was very high compared to other services. Swapping wives and husbands was a way of establishing bonds that could help widows and their children when husbands died. It also helped maintain unit cohesion when men were facing sometimes near-impossible odds of survival. That is your grand parents' lifetime.

The idea that morals are declining as compared to some ideal past is not a new one, but it does remain a myth. I don't see much morally valuable in a Victorian idea of sexuality and relationships when children born out of wedlock (and there were a great number of those) were often given a virtual death sentence when dropped off at a foundling 'shelter.'

[Elok]

1. Starvation is a biological process (calling it a function may not be a good choice of words) and it's hardly unusual. The idea that someone is supposed to accept something against their will that technology can prevent because it's a product of how their body is built makes no sense.

The two are not really comparable, but okay. I don't mean that they should accept it purely because it's natural; however, to treat it as some sort of unwanted intrusion instead of the normal result of an action they consciously took is ridiculous.

2. You claimed that people who want risk-free sex should stop having sex. And apparently you think abortion should be banned, in order to discourage them from having sex. At least, I don't know why else you decided to go on a rant about how sex without consequences supposedly takes individuality too far and has massive demographics consequences and blah blah blah.

It was tangential to the immediate argument, admittedly. I explicitly said I wasn't advocating legal restrictions, and I'm not aware of saying anything that could be construed as meaning "abortion should be banned to discourage sex." Short version for your impatience: abortion is merely a symptom of a larger, multifaceted social problem which will all have to be "fixed" together.

So if someone eats a crappy diet you won't have any sympathy for them when they have a heart attack? You'll just dismiss their desire to not suffer because they were partly responsible for it?

A faulty analogy; I'm not aware of any morally objectionable treatment for heart disease--certainly not one that kills anyone or anything. Also, most pregnancies are not life-threatening. However, I didn't say I didn't feel some sympathy for their bad situation; I just don't buy any claim of victimhood, or attempts to make the situation seem like an outrageous imposition of some sort. If this guy wants a liposuction, and liposuctions can only be done by torturing a puppy to death for some reason, and he says something like "I became obese against my will and it's wrong of you to claim I should be made to stay that way against my will for any reason at all"--er, I guess fat magically goes away after nine months in this alternative universe I'm postulating here, but that's another difference--I'm going to have a hard time accepting that argument.

But I guess this situation is somewhat akin to the "rant" you complained about; our country does have a serious obesity problem which I think is caused, in part, by people treating food as a purely recreational activity, something you enjoy without regard for its biological function (which is seen as an imposition to be dodged). No amount of lipitor is going to fix the long-term problem at the root of things. The difference is that most people, even the really fat ones, are at least prepared to accept this (if only intellectually).

[Dinner]

WRT the idealized moral past, I have to agree with NYE. In the 19th century it was so common for wealthy men to have mistresses, have sex with prostitutes, bonk their maids, or other wise stick their dicks in any female who happened by that when Edgar Allan Poe was confronted by an elderly matron for his womanizing behavior and asked what he would think if his own son behaved in such a manner Poe said he'd wonder if something was wrong with the boy if he didn't enjoy chasing women.

[Elok]

NYE: I'm not claiming actual behavior has changed (the Roman Empire's most popular abortifacient was so popular it went extinct), only societal attitudes towards sex--and they unmistakeably have. Nor do I think we need to go back to strict social enforcement of monogamy. What I'd like to see is the following scene: boy and girl meet at stereotypical teen-movie house party, chat over drinks, and wind up stumbling upstairs to a bedroom together. People who see them go, instead of chuckling, leering, or otherwise expressing approval, scowl and say, "what a pair of ****ups."

Okay, maybe that's a bit much to ask of teenagers. How about adults? How about we all recognize that our choices have consequences and affect more than just ourselves, and that when we have sex without regard for those consequences we're doing ourselves and society a grave disservice (even if we flush away the most obvious consequence at Planned Parenthood)? How about the next time a politician mentions struggling single mothers, we all stop to seriously think over why there are so many single mothers to begin with? The pendulum's been swinging towards greater freedom for a while, but it can swing back when and if the effects of unrestricted freedom start biting us in the ass, and we start getting sick of ass-bites. I don't know how long that will take. Maybe never, but I can dream.

[giblets]

There would be less single mothers if more people had abortions It's time to own up to the consequences on not getting an abortion. There are so many orphans

[notyoueither]

NYE: I'm not claiming actual behavior has changed (the Roman Empire's most popular abortifacient was so popular it went extinct), only societal attitudes towards sex--and they unmistakeably have. Nor do I think we need to go back to strict social enforcement of monogamy. What I'd like to see is the following scene: boy and girl meet at stereotypical teen-movie house party, chat over drinks, and wind up stumbling upstairs to a bedroom together. People who see them go, instead of chuckling, leering, or otherwise expressing approval, scowl and say, "what a pair of ****ups."

Okay, maybe that's a bit much to ask of teenagers. How about adults? How about we all recognize that our choices have consequences and affect more than just ourselves, and that when we have sex without regard for those consequences we're doing ourselves and society a grave disservice (even if we flush away the most obvious consequence at Planned Parenthood)? How about the next time a politician mentions struggling single mothers, we all stop to seriously think over why there are so many single mothers to begin with? The pendulum's been swinging towards greater freedom for a while, but it can swing back when and if the effects of unrestricted freedom start biting us in the ass, and we start getting sick of ass-bites. I don't know how long that will take. Maybe never, but I can dream.

I agree that something significant has changed. The pill and feminism have combined to liberalise sexual morals for women. Women can, and some do, enjoy sex every bit as much as the next guy. That has resulted in much more open displays of things that used to be much more hush-hush. I would hazard to say that it has also resulted in a lot more sex being enjoyed by far more people than would have been true before.

I disagree that it is a problem.

[Elok]

Yeah, and we should solve the obesity epidemic by reviving the vomitorium. That'll solve our problems long-term!

Actually, I should say that some forms of behavior have changed long-term. Specifically, serial monogamy is now the accepted norm, bastardy is unremarkable, and the extended family networks of the past which might have provided a support network for women without husbands/stable boyfriends are rapidly disappearing. Now, that last is at least partially due to technological change causing a highly mobile population, but it cuts out a vital safety net. Perhaps networks of friends will help to take its place? I don't know.

XPost

[Elok]

I disagree that it is a problem.

I understand it's a much smaller problem if you're affluent and/or white. What are the latest figures on fatherless black kids? I can't recall, but I don't think it's all due to our stupid drug laws. They just exacerbate the problem. And it's a big problem if you also acknowledge that the 4000 or so abortions a day in this country have different moral weight than a cyst removal.