So the Florida courts have decided that Jeb Bush can't force a pregnant thirteen-year-old girl to carry the child to term. Note that, under Florida law, thirteen is well below the age of consent, making her legally the victim of rape.…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
26 - Becky
Nancy, actually I DO agree with you that women should have the right to abortion. However you did say (or at least I interpreted you as saying... correct me if I'm wrong) that men have no rights whatsoever in the abortion debate. That's where I disagree. Each individual case is different, and there are plenty of good, decent men out there who should have a say in this matter, especially when it involves their own children. Just my opinion.
27 - Becky
"As in the case with your ex-boyfriend, if you had become pregnant, should he have had any say whatsoever in your choice about having an abortion, if you wanted to?
I don't think so. It's YOUR decision."
Bennett, you are right, I agree with you! I guess I'm not explaining myself well. I'd better shut up now...
28 - bhw
They're not "children." They're potential children. No men should have a legal say in what goes on -- or doesn't -- in my uterus.
Look at it this way: if a man has a legal position on whether or not a woman can get an abortion, what's stopping him from having a legal say in trying to get her to have an abortion she doesn't want?
If men have a say in stopping an abortion, then legally, they'd have the right to have a say in making the abortion happen, wouldn't they?
I wonder if all the pro-lifers out there would like it if it turns out that giving men legal rights to what's happening in a woman's body results in MORE abortions. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony?
29 - Bennett
We're cool Becky. Keep the ideas flowing. :-]
Good point bhw.
30 - Becky
Good point bhw. I wouldn't be surprised if something like actually happened!
31 - Becky
Thanks Bennett. I just felt kind of stupid because I don't really disagree with any of you! Like I said originally my opinions on this issue keep changing and I appreciate the input from everyone. It's really making me think! :)
For the record, I am finished with pregnancy and childbirth. If I got pregnant again and my husband expected me to keep the kid, I'd definitely be pissed. I also wouldn't want him to have to the legal right to force me to have another child. It IS my body, and my body is tired of having kids! ;)
When my husband was working in India for 18 months, I volunteered at a women's HIV clinic in Bombay. What these women went through on a daily basis was unbelievable and heartbreaking... I could write a whole book about it. I feel very lucky to live in North America, despite all the problems we women face.
Thanks for the interesting discussion everyone! :)
32 - bhw
It IS my body, and my body is tired of having kids! ;)
I hear that!
33 - Dave Nalle
>>Dave, Why do you make this stuff up? Nancy says no such thing. She simply asserts that her body is her body, and no one has the right to interfere with her choices. Why distort her words? What does it accomplish?<<
Bennett, READ what she wrote, not what you think she wrote. Nancy wrote this:
"In any event, you have no right - the government has no right - no religion has any right - to mandate that any woman should have to submit her body to serve as a breeding unit, just because she can."
What's ambiguous about this statement? Where do you see government doing anything like this? For this statement to be true the government or a religion would have to be engaging in forced impregnation.
Dave
34 - Dave Nalle
BHW: "That's a very bizarre statement. Most people would "rather see" fewer unwanted pregnancies, not more abortions."
Me too, but according to Nancy there's no control over the actual impregnation process, so all we have for birth control is abortion.
Dave
35 - Dave Nalle
>>Then again, check out the US crime statistics: according to the FBI, abuse of women by men is the #1 sport of America. Almost 100% of women are murdered by men, not other women. Men, on the other hand, are killed mainly by other men. You don't consider those to be telling statistics? And before you tell me that you don't know where I got those figures (your standard excuse for not accepting any argument involving numbers in any thread I've seen) I will direct you to the FBI website, and the figures there ref: female/male mortality rates and causes. I do believe the US D.o.H has the same, but I got mine from the FBI.<<
This is a classic example of misuse of statistics. If most violence is committed by men, then most violence against women is perforce going to be committed by men. That doesn't mean that men are violent towards women in particular or because they are women. There's no indication statistically that they are any move violent to women then they are to other men. Men are just more violent. Saying that men are especially violent to women because they are uniformly more violent to everyone is a complete misuse of the statistical data to serve your purposes.
>>You arguing that there is no bias by men against women is like the white person arguing that discrimination against blacks or other minorities is all in their minds. You don't experience it, so you don't see it, and will not admit it, since you are the main perpetrator (not meaning 'you' personally, Dave, of course, but 'you' in the plural as representing the cohort of men or whites in general). Go ahead: tell me all this is just in my own mind....<<
While there may be individual men who are biased against women, arguing that there is an institutional bias against women in the US is absolutely laughable. Affirmative action has given women an overall advantage in the workplace, and right now it is statistically easier to get almost any kind of job as a woman than as a man, especially higher-paying middle management jobs. The fact that women do not hold as many top management jobs or middle management jobs as they could is a funciton of biology, not bias. You cannot blame men for the fact that only women can get pregnant.
>>And BTW, this could be a thead on its own; we're getting away from the gist of the original argument. I'm not sure if this is allowed.<<
Yes, but the original topic was remarkably stupid. Anything would be better.
Dave
36 - Dave Nalle
>>That's NOT what I've said: does no one out there read English? I SAID/WROTE: IF A WOMAN DOES NOT WANT TO CARRY A PREGNANCY TO TERM FOR WHATEVER REASON, UNTIL TECHNOLOGY EXISTS OTHERWISE, THEN HER WISHES MUST TRUMP (i.e. take priority over, come ahead of) THE MAN'S, AND NO GOVERNMENT, RELIGION, OR OTHER PARTY HAS THE RIGHT TO FORCE HER TO CARRY TO TERM.<<
This technology DOES exist, however. But it raises the question of whether the woman can be forced to submit to an intrusive fetus-extraction instead of an abortion. I haven't researched it, but I believe there are at least a couple of cases in law on this subject and in those cases the court ruled against the father of the fetus.
Dave
37 - Bennett
Ah, Dave. You KNOW Nancy was waxing poetic about being denied the choice of terminating pregnancy. "Once a woman is pregnant...you have no right - the government has no right - no religion has any right - to mandate that any woman should have to submit her body to serve as a breeding unit, just because she can."
As in requiring her to maintain the pregnancy against her wishes versus having the choice to abort.
You can see that Dave. Can't you?
38 - Dave Nalle
>>They're not "children." They're potential children. No men should have a legal say in what goes on -- or doesn't -- in my uterus.<<
Would you admit that it's the man's potential child as well? Doesn't that give him some say in what's done with the potential?
>>Look at it this way: if a man has a legal position on whether or not a woman can get an abortion, what's stopping him from having a legal say in trying to get her to have an abortion she doesn't want?<<
Yes, he absolutely should. If a man wants a woman to abort a fetus he fathered and the woman chooses not to comply then the man should be legally absolved of all financial or familial responsibility for the child when it is born.
>>If men have a say in stopping an abortion, then legally, they'd have the right to have a say in making the abortion happen, wouldn't they? <<
I think so, but thus far the courts have been obstinately refusing to acknowledge that fathers have any rights at all.
>>I wonder if all the pro-lifers out there would like it if it turns out that giving men legal rights to what's happening in a woman's body results in MORE abortions. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony?<<
That would be fine with me, but then I'm not a pro-lifer.
The way I see it is this:
Both parents have a reponsibility to NOT get pregnant in the first place.
If they fail in this responsibility then they are both responsible for the disposition of the fetus.
Ultimately what's done with the fetus is the woman's decision, but if she decides contrary to the wishes of the man then he should have some legal recourse - either to salvage the fetus and arrange for it to be brought to term by other means, or if the fetus is born against his will, to not have to support the child in any way.
And pro-abortion though I am, I have to say that partial birth abortion of 'fetuses' which could live viably outside the womb without extraordinary medical aid is murder.
Dave
39 - bhw
Would you admit that it's the man's potential child as well? Doesn't that give him some say in what's done with the potential?
Only within the relationship; not, in my opinion, legally. The potential child is still inside the woman's body.
>>Look at it this way: if a man has a legal position on whether or not a woman can get an abortion, what's stopping him from having a legal say in trying to get her to have an abortion she doesn't want?<<
Yes, he absolutely should. If a man wants a woman to abort a fetus he fathered and the woman chooses not to comply then the man should be legally absolved of all financial or familial responsibility for the child when it is born.
Different issue. I was talking about where to draw the line with the man's legal right to the woman's body. If people want to give the man the legal right to have a say in preventing an abortion, on the basis that it's HIS potential child, too, then how can he be denied the legal right to insist on an abortion? If the man has a right to have a say in what happens to the fetus, then it cuts both ways, whether he's in favor of carrying to term or having an abortion. Why would he be granted rights only to prevent abortion? [Oh, wait, we're talking about Jeb, aren't we?] Isn't he the father? Can't he say he doesn't want the child brought into the world?
And as far as the man being legally absolved from financial support if he preferred abortion and the woman carries to term, that's quite a double standard you have there. Here's what you said about women:
No question that you have exactly the same right to self-rule and freedom to do what you want with yoru body as anyone else. That freedom brings with it responsibility to deal with the consequences of your actions as well.
Don't men have to deal with the consequences, too? They know that pregnancy is a potential outcome of unprotected sex, but I'd be willing to bet that they don't usually discuss what their partner is willing to do if a pregnancy does occur. Nope, they'll dive right in and only insist on an abortion later, without bothering to find out if it was even an option the woman would consider in the first place.
So, for example, if you have sex with someone who won't even consider having an abortion, why should you get to walk away from a child that results from the encounter?
Ultimately what's done with the fetus is the woman's decision, but if she decides contrary to the wishes of the man then he should have some legal recourse - either to salvage the fetus and arrange for it to be brought to term by other means, or if the fetus is born against his will, to not have to support the child in any way.
Sorry, but you can't really be serious about forcing a procedure on a woman against her will, either an abortion or some science-fictiony uterus harvesting, can you?
And, as I stated earlier, I'm not on board with the idea that fathers can walk away from their obligation to support a child that they helped conceive, any more than I would say a mother should be able to do it. It's too easy for men to just walk away from any responsibility.
Men's bodies don't have to go through the pregnancy OR the abortion. It's very easy for them to say someone else should do one or the other.
40 - Nancy
Lots of good additional points raised about forcing a woman to abort a pregnancy she doesn't want to end that I forgot to include (I'm not just going in one directin w/my thinking, altho it sure did read that way). Dave - I'm still interested in your news that an embryo can be raised in an 'artificial womb' all the way to viability/birth status by technology currently existing. When I say 'artificial womb'
I do not include human surrogate mothers, I mean strictly in a glass tank sort of thing. What are you talking about, and where did you hear about it; I'd like to read about that kind of scientific advance!
41 - Purple Tigress
I understand that the original post was to show how absurd Jeb Bush was.
So I think the main point is that while pro-life is in theory a good stance, it is also one that exists best in an ideal world where there isn't rape (underage, inability to give and refuse consent, acquaintance or assault).
In the case of incest or rape, the question should be: would either parent be fit or willing to bring up the child and if not, who will?
To force a woman or child to bear a child is to enslave a woman by her biology and the sentence isn't one of a matter of months, but years and it requires that she remain some how in contact and connected with the father of the child. The father has certain rights and responsibilities, the least of which is financial.
A child also has the right to be loved and well-fed and educated. Obviously this is not the case in our world today.
The problem with the real world is that between right and wrong is a gray area of emotional reality.
42 - Dave Nalle
Nancy, read what I said again. I specifically said human surrogate mothers, not artificial wombs, though I'm sure that technology is not far off.
Dave
43 - Nancy
Dave, thanks for clarification. I suspected I WAS misreading, but must've kept blipping over it. Brain fart, I guess.
At the risk of being accused of being anti-male again (which I really am not, altho I admit that on this thread I certainly sound like it), I would like to ask about something that has always profoundly puzzled me and other women as well, from the comments and conversations of my female friends et al: what is it about guys and their generative organs? Why do men focus so much on a part of themselves that women seem to take for granted is only a minor part of their lives as human beings?
I work in a near-all-male environment, and this is something I do not generalize about: the guys spend a good deal of their time fixating on their sex lives, sex organs, and their ability to get and maintain erections, etc. Some of them even name these parts of their bodies as if it were a separate entity! I have never met or even heard of any woman who has ever done this. It's like ... well, it's like the entire focus of a guy's sense of self-justification and identity lies between his legs. I'm sorry, I really can't put it any better than that. I suspect strongly that this same (to me, odd if not perverse) genital focus is a good deal of what drives the chasm of opinion on subjects like abortion, etc.
I freely admit that this probably does not apply to all men, but given the preponderance of drugs as well as ads targeting the male sex drive, and having read thru various male-oriented publications all of which seem fixated on the subject in just about everything in them, and listened for years to male conversations and concerns (not necessarily expressed vulgarly) I have to say that's the overwhelming impression I (and other women) are left with. Why is this so important a part of a man's persona, instead of just an incidental portion of his identity, as it seems to be with most women?
44 - Dave Nalle
I think it's because our sex organs are external and therefore vulnerable in a way which womens are not, plus they awkward and sensitive and that constantly reminds us they are there and need to be tended to. They also do have a history of malfunctioning, and that leads to a certain amount of concern for many who feel inadequate in other ways and therefore live in fear that they will lose sexual function as well.
Dave