The Abortion and Vaccination Thread

[Cheetah]

On the other end of the spectrum, anyone who says, "we don't use birth control, we just get abortions" is a bit horrifying.

It is a tough issue.

No one says that!

Who says that!?

There can't possibly be anyone saying that??

 

[hobbsyoyo]

No one says that!

Who says that!?

There can't possibly be anyone saying that??

As I said before, we are debating third trimester abortions as if they are a central plank of the Democratic agenda only because the Republicans are playing games with the truth. It's a complete misdirection of the abortion argument akin to the 'death panels' argument made against the ACA. The Republicans are masters of propaganda.

 

[MaryKB]

Republicans don't care about babies, all talk you see from them about abortion is purely about trying to control women. If you really wanted to reduce abortions and be pro-life, you'd be in favor of things such as:

- granting free healthcare, so a woman doesn't have to worry about how just delivering her child is going to ruin her financially
- providing free post-secondary education, so a woman doesn't have to worry how she's going to afford a baby and continue her education
- making sure women have proper and real maternity leave, so she doesn't have to worry about her career ending
- giving support for food and childcare, so she doesn't have to fear her child will stave

And many other things, but you won't see Republicans going for these, because they really don't care about babies, and especially about women. No, Republicans don't want women going to college, because they don't want us replacing men in powerful jobs. They want us to have to give up our careers, they want women to be forced to rely on men for security and basically be domestic slaves.

I've said before, and I know it's still true, how if men could get pregnant you'd be able to get free drive-thru abortions at gas stations.

And I hate when I see men saying "It's your fault for getting pregnant," because no, it's not. All unwanted pregnancies are men's fault, for quite a few reasons.

- Women's access to contraception is limited, I need a prescription to take birth control. Other forms of birth control I can use can be very unsafe and invasive, and hormonal birth control has many side effects
- Men's hormonal birth control has been developed, but it's prohibited because of side effects, because those risks should only be for women
- Men can impregnate a woman at any time, you should be responsible for controlling your seed
- Men have easy access to safe, cheap, and simple to use birth control, but don't like it because it might have a nominal effect on your pleasure
- Men lie to women, pretending to use birth control but then removing it half way through

So you've got women who have to do all the work, and have to face all the responsibility, and men take all the benefit. PIV intercourse is mostly for men, there's usually nothing in it for women, most women (myself included) don't feel pleasure that way. So a man could easily make himself more than 99% unlikely to get a woman pregnant, but he won't take such a responsibility because his minute of personal pleasure is more important to him than her body and life being severely affected. And then you have men trying to enshrine in law to make things even harder for women.

As men, you shouldn't even have any say in abortion issues, this really should be entirely up to women. You really can barely be more misogynist than being against women's reproductive rights.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Parental leave should include paternal and same-sex significant other leave as well. If a woman has a partner who can take leave in addition to her own, that provides even more flexibility in raising the kid while maintaining a career.

 

[MaryKB]

Parental leave should include paternal and same-sex significant other leave as well. If a woman has a partner who can take leave in addition to her own, that provides even more flexibility in raising the kid while maintaining a career.

Oh absolutely. I don't believe paternal leave or same-sex partner leave should be as long as maternal leave, because as a father or woman spouse you don't have physical recovery needs like you do as a mother. Part of patriarchal sexism is how women are expected to do all of child raising and should by default quit work to take care of a baby, just socially expected. And that's why you see men ridiculed for being stay at home dads, because he's doing "women's work."

I'm glad at least my company offers something reasonable, I can take sixteen weeks off at full pay, and I can take up to another six months at eighty percent. I also have six weeks of vacation time I could use, so really I could have as much as twenty two weeks off without losing any of my salary, which I feel is fair. And if my husband worked for the same company, he could take six weeks off with full pay, which to me seems fair for a non-mother parent. But that's only because my company is generous and strives to be a place attracting women employees, but I know everyone doesn't have opportunities like I do.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I think the leave should be just as long for the other partner and transferable to the mother. I don't doubt that childbirth is harder on the mother. I just think that we should have a completely equal society in the sense that the mother's needs should be fully met but we should also extend that same benefit to the other partner and allow them to pool the time off. So if you gave 3 months to both parents (6 total), they could split that time between them however they want - be it 5 months for the mom and 1 for the dad or whatever.

Oh and the state should pay for this out of taxes. Borrowing from retirement funds is asinine and I do not think this is a cost that should be imposed directly on businesses.

 

[Kaitzilla]

No one says that!

Who says that!?

There can't possibly be anyone saying that??

It was a fictional character in a movie who said it.

I've never heard it said in real life.

 

[MaryKB]

I think the leave should be just as long for the other partner and transferable to the mother. I don't doubt that childbirth is harder on the mother. I just think that we should have a completely equal society in the sense that the mother's needs should be fully met but we should also extend that same benefit to the other partner and allow them to pool the time off. So if you gave 3 months to both parents (6 total), they could split that time between them however they want - be it 5 months for the mom and 1 for the dad or whatever.

Oh and the state should pay for this out of taxes. Borrowing from retirement funds is asinine and I do not think this is a cost that should be imposed directly on businesses.

I love equality and believe time off should be equal .. but only if burdens are equal. Think about taxes for example, do you feel both a person with a one million dollar income and a person with a one thousand dollar income should both pay $100 in tax? I'm sorry I'm just trying to compare, because equality isn't about both having the same time off. I agree both should have equal time off for caring for the baby, but mothers should get extra time off for her physical recovery. A father or same-sex partner doesn't have any strain on his or her body from pregnancy and delivery, and so no matter what situations aren't equal and I don't agree you can treat both exactly the same.

 

[Cheetah]

so really I could have as much as twenty two weeks off without losing any of my salary, which I feel is fair.

Twenty two weeks don't sound like a lot...

Parental leave in Norway is up to twelve months, of which the mother can spend twelve weeks during pregnancy, the first six weeks after birth is reserved for the mother (though the father has the right to take two extra weeks off to support her), and currently a third of the time is reserved for the father (though that's a politically debated issue, as families lose part of the parental leave time if their life situation doesn't allow for that).

Of course it's also possible to work part time and thus extend the parental leave, if that works better for the family situation.

We're also doing experiments with giving out free birth control to women between 20 and 25 years old, and the results have been a halving of abortion numbers. I'd hope we can soon stop having them as experiments and start doing it regularly. When any US Republican starts advocating for something similar, I'll listen to what he or she has to say on abortion.

And since I felt like sharing the Norway status:

Abortion has been a real hot political issue here recently, as the right-wing coalition government decided to seek parliamentary support from the conservative faction of our Christian Democrats. The price: Limiting the possibility of «twin-reductions». We'll see how far that goes...

PS:

As men, you shouldn't even have any say in abortion issues, this really should be entirely up to women.

That doesn't feel quite right. As a friend, son, brother and boyfriend, I can't just sit by while others are trying to hurt people I care about...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

@MaryKB
I mean I'd be fine with single mothers getting leave equivalent to the full allotment for a two person household as well. Giving a couple the ability to transfer time between them gives maximum flexibility in that some families will decide that for their own personal situation, the partner should take the bulk of the time off. At the same time, many will decide the mother should have the bulk of the time off or all of it. This mechanism allows the parents to choose.

And if you are saying that 3 months is not long enough of a baseline, I'd agree with that too. I just don't see the need to discriminate; let's instead go all-in on tackling the problem. Let's pick a baseline leave time that is ample and then effectively double it by letting couples decide how to split it between them while giving single mothers the full double allotment.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

What you described seems more to reflect on the sorry state of American health care - and long-term care- than on US abortion policy.

The tie in to abortion policy is that they were told with a very high probability of accuracy late in the pregnancy what was going to happen. Would a late term abortion have been 'justified' in that case? The day the child was born they got confirmation and their fate was sealed...for the rest of their lives. Who really gets to sit in judgement over them? Admiring their 'noble sacrifice' is the same sitting in judgement that calling them murderers if they had opted for abortion would be. I oppose both. They did what they did, and they didn't do what they didn't do, but there is absolutely NOTHING that qualifies me to judge them, either way.

 

[MaryKB]

Twenty two weeks don't sound like a lot...

PS:
That doesn't feel quite right. As a friend, son, brother and boyfriend, I can't just sit by while others are trying to hurt people I care about...

I believe your country and mine have very different types of economies, and I don't feel you can really compare them exactly. And I could take more time off if I want, just at 80% pay, if I feel I need that. But honestly with my job if I take a year off, I probably wouldn't even be able to go back because things change so rapidly I'd be like starting over from scratch and I wouldn't know what's going on. I'm really happy your country does have such a generous program, I just am afraid it wouldn't work here the same way.

Oh and I'm sorry, I didn't mean you can't speak up in defense, I mean about having real policy making control, if I'm making sense? I don't feel men should be able to decide on how laws will work which only affect women.

And if you are saying that 3 months is not long enough of a baseline, I'd agree with that too. I just don't see the need to discriminate; let's instead go all-in on tackling the problem. Let's pick a baseline leave time that is ample and then effectively double it by letting couples decide how to split it between them while giving single mothers the full double allotment.

I guess a big part of me still just doesn't trust men enough, I immediately start imaging a husband saying "You're going to take care of the baby, and I'm going to use all the time off for a vacation." I'm afraid I just really can't agree with letting couples decide how to split their time, because I'm fully convinced that's really letting the man decide (like how you see conservative men "letting" their wives decide how to vote), and not what's in best interest for most mothers. I do totally agree with you about giving both parents time off, I just feel you need to have specific enshrined protection for mothers, and who do need extra time for our bodies.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Fair enough

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I believe your country and mine have very different types of economies, and I don't feel you can really compare them exactly. And I could take more time off if I want, just at 80% pay, if I feel I need that. But honestly with my job if I take a year off, I probably wouldn't even be able to go back because things change so rapidly I'd be like starting over from scratch and I wouldn't know what's going on. I'm really happy your country does have such a generous program, I just am afraid it wouldn't work here the same way.

I want to address this part, because it relies on a commonly held "given" that isn't necessarily real. You actually don't have to fall behind just because you take time off. Obviously you would, if you approach the time off as "here's this new baby and I am going to think about nothing else for the next year," or as "because I have this new baby I am getting this great vacation opportunity and even though I'm not thinking just baby baby baby 24/7 I'm certainly not going to think about anything related to work." That actually feeds into the arguments against allowing childbirth leave. The reality is that the company and the employee can easily come up with ways to maintain contact and currency of knowledge throughout a leave if they cooperate in doing so.

This is just one of many areas where the baseline assumption that the company/employee relationship is by nature immutably adversarial works its way into situations where it is detrimental to the outcome for both the employee and the company. Of course in the world of faceless, irresponsible corporate ownership the assumption may be valid in many cases, but it doesn't have to be and its validity should always be checked in any particular situation.

 

[Traitorfish]

Oh and the state should pay for this out of taxes. Borrowing from retirement funds is asinine and I do not think this is a cost that should be imposed directly on businesses.

I might quibble on that last point, because if we assume that parental leave is paid at the employee's usual salary, or at a fixed proportion of the employee's usual salary, then we end up with public funds being used to subsidise upper middle-class salaries while other workers remained mired in poverty. It seems more just for the state to cover minimum wage, and then oblige employers to make up any difference.

 

[MaryKB]

I might quibble on that last point, because if we assume that parental leave is paid at the employee's usual salary, or at a fixed proportion of the employee's usual salary, then we end up with public funds being used to subsidise upper middle-class salaries while other workers remained mired in poverty. It seems more just for the state to cover minimum wage, and then oblige employers to make up any difference.

Oooooh I love your idea, and that's going to help minimum wage workers because employers aren't going to be directly affected.

 

[metalhead]

The problem with all of this is that the point of viability has been a shifting target. At some point we will know how to artificially gestate humans, pushing back what counts as viable all the way to the moment of conception so long as neonatal care is available. Our technology has already pushed the window back by weeks.

Well if we get to the point that humans no longer gestate in a live woman's womb, we won't have to worry about the bodily autonomy of women any more as it pertains to pregnancy. That changes the whole equation.

But I think the overall point worth keeping in mind is we are talking about extremely rare, marginal cases here. The vast majority of abortions are early term. The vast majority of those which aren't are done because of either risk to the mother or a non-viable fetus (or both).

So any attempt to legislate against this is almost certainly an attempt to limit reproductive rights more generally. I think given the rarity of the scenario we're talking about, the only thing that makes sense is to leave it up to women and their doctors.

A woman in consultation with a trained medical professional is going to make the best decision under what are going to be unique, complicated circumstances. Not just the best practical one, but the right moral one too.

Contrary to what conservatives seem to think, pregnant women don't take lightly the idea of terminating a pregnancy. Doctors don't take lightly the idea of aborting what may be a healthy, viable fetus. Conservatives have this warped belief that women are just walking willy-nilly into doctors offices 8 months pregnant, and doctors will happily terminate the pregnancy on demand. It's sick, and it manages to wrap up gross misogyny and mistrust of educated professionals in one disgusting belief.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

As a 'for what it's worth' anecdote, when I was twenty one I was looking at being a father of three. My wife and I, for all our best laid plans to replicate ourselves and not contribute to population growth, were staring down the barrel of twins that we really couldn't afford in place of the 'hey another kid will be cheap since we already have the carseat, and crib, and etc etc etc' plan that we thought we had made.

Being still young and only a couple years into a marriage that was founded predominantly on sexual attraction various improvements to planning were considered, lest we wind up raising an army. We arrived at me getting a vasectomy right about the time the twins were born, figuring that the healing processes would coincide and minimize loss of sexual opportunities.

So off we go, IN IDAHO, to get this voluntary surgery. In order to get this done we (yes, we) were required to attend three counseling sessions, where among other things my wife was directly asked if she thought it was fair, given the high divorce rates, that if our marriage ended I would be unable to father children with some future wife. There were some very stupid questions directed at me also, but that was the moment where the 'counselor' hit the limiter and was informed that since my wife was extremely pregnant she would not be beating him to a pulp as I would normally expect, but if she even nodded her head or offered a blink of approval he wasn't leaving the room alive. Fortunately she was satisfied with profuse apologies and making him outright beg for her to follow me out of the room rather than leading the way and risking I would shut the door behind her.

All three 'counselors' were devout Mormons who prominently displayed pictures of their families that could have passed for graduation pictures from smaller schools. Mostly I just made fun of the whole process, because that's how I deal with stuff, and my wife laughed through the whole thing since she usually found me to be hilarious, but I could certainly see how it would have been a horrible experience for most people. The idea that women have to be subjected to something like that on a regular basis sets my teeth on edge.

 

[Lexicus]

Sort of. He does want people to stop having children, I've just remembered. (I'm not sure how it fits into the above, but I thought it worth mentioning)

I think people can decide whether they want to have children or not, really.

If there was a solution that preserved the bodily autonomy of both the mother and the fetus, even if you think the mother is of far greater value, wouldn't that be preferable?

I'm super down for artificial wombs

 

[Manfred Belheim]

- Men lie to women, pretending to use birth control but then removing it half way through.

That's some magic trick!