this auld wan that's up the duff (1 Viewer)

[jane]

That's just absurd.

How is it absurd?

 

[broken arm]

has this turned into a scrap?

....only read first and last pages

 

[La La]

oh god i have a pounding headache.

i'm off to the inside of a gee to see how things are progressing there.

 

[MDR]

of course she did. you can't just simplify it to that though.. oh well, you've had sex, now you're pregnant and now you have to have the baby. that's ridiculous. it's like saying, you've just set your finger on fire, you'll have to let it burn right off (kinda).

I'm not saying she has to have the baby, just that she shouldn't have it aborted without the father's consent.

 

[MDR]

How is it absurd?

It's absurd to say that if a father wants to assert his rights he should adopt a child rather than express a view on the life of his own children.

 

[F. Fred Palakon]

not particularly - your implication is that a father might be unaffected by such a loss

Ah right. I don't mean to imply that I think he would be completely unaffected, I guess, just that I think the effect would probably be less traumatic than a tangible human loss. Maybe not tho. I don't know.

 

[MDR]

there is no law that states a woman ultimately has the final say so neither should there be a law that states the man has the final say.

As things stand in law the woman has the final say as there is no provision for the father's consent.

 

[krystal]

I'm not saying she has to have the baby, just that she shouldn't have it aborted without the father's consent.

yes, fine. But it's your soution to what happens next that is at issue. At least I have an issue with it. She can't have an abortion but what she can have is an unwanted pregnancy which has to go to full term instead. Yay! Fun times ahead!

So quite apart from men having no rights in this matter, women are actually the ones who end up getting NOTHING they want.

 

[MDR]

Ah right. I don't mean to imply that I think he would be completely unaffected, I guess, just that I think the effect would probably be less traumatic than a tangible human loss. Maybe not tho. I don't know.

For some people, men and women, it would be akin to a miscarriage, which is the death of an orgnaism that not everyone would consider a child, but which nevertheless brings about all the grief of losing a child.

 

[MDR]

yes, fine. But it's your soution to what happens next that is at issue. At least I have an issue with it. She can't have an abortion but what she can have is an unwanted pregnancy which has to go to full term instead. Yay! Fun times ahead!

So quite apart from men having no rights in this matter, women are actually the ones who end up getting NOTHING they want.

How do you feel about the man's position in the other scenario?

 

[jane]

It's absurd to say that if a father wants to assert his rights he should adopt a child rather than express a view on the life of his own children.

But why, then, would he put a woman through such trauma if not for the reason that he is absolutely and totally committed to becoming a parent himself, with or without a partner?

Because if it's only about being against abortion, then he's gonna have a rude awakening. Every night. About fifty times for the first two years. And also, maybe next time, he shouldn't sleep with a lady who isn't ready to have kids?

If it's about the kids, and about wanting kids of his own, he can hire a surrogate mother (with her consent) or adopt a child which, by the way, would still be his own, despite not possessing his genetic material.

 

[pete]

If it's about the kids, and about wanting kids of his own, he can hire a surrogate mother (with her consent) or adopt a child

Ah here now it's not that simple - it's not like popping down to Tesco.

There is no legislation (is that a dirty word?) dealing with surrogacy in Ireland, and there are no fertility clinics offering it as a service.

And apart from a two year waiting list for an adoption assessment, there's some heavy restrictions on who's allowed:

Who May Adopt?
The following persons are eligible to adopt:-

a) a married couple living together; this is the only circumstance where the law permits the adoption of a child by more than one person:

b) a married person alone; in this circumstance the spouse's consent to adopt must be obtained, unless they are living apart and are separated under (i) a court decree or (ii) deed of separation or (iii) the spouse has deserted the prospective adopter or (iv) conduct on the part of the spouse results in the prospective adopter, with just cause, leaving the spouse and living apart;

c) the mother, father or a relative of the child (relative meaning a grandparent, brother, sister, uncle or aunt of the child and/or the spouse of any such person, the relationship to the child being traced through the mother or the father);

d) a widow or widower.

A sole applicant who does not come within the classes of persons defined under (c) and (d) above may only adopt where the Board is satisfied that, in the particular circumstances of the case, it is desirable to grant an order. It is not possible for two unmarried persons to adopt jointly.

edit: Fostering was thrown in as an option for men who want babbys, but if anything the requirements are even more stringent than those for adoption. the pay is better though.

Age of child Payment per week
Under 12 years 305 euro per child per week
Over 12 years 332 euro per child per week

 

[krystal]

so did we break thumped with the unprecedented levels of oestregen and testosterone?

 

[pete]

so did we break thumped with the unprecedented levels of oestregen and testosterone?

no, just my heart.

 

[spiritualtramp]

For some people, men and women, it would be akin to a miscarriage, which is the death of an orgnaism that not everyone would consider a child, but which nevertheless brings about all the grief of losing a child.

This is very true. An old friend of mine was in the position of getting a bird preggers, she didn't want it but he did.

He wasn't an anti-abortion nut or into religion and he hadn't even thought about fatherhood before but when the situation happened he viewed the lump of cells in her womb as his child. When she told him she was up the duff he then realised he would have really liked to be a Da. She had an abortion and he was really, really upset about it. He grieved. It was nothing to do with wanting to control his birds body or sexism, he simply wanted his child to be born.

The bloke wanting the child and the woman not wanting it situation is rare. I'd be more concerned that there are a lot of men out there that couldn't give a damn about the child that they fathered and the woman is left with the kid. If Ro is in favour of males having decisions over the child in the womb I'm sure he also feels that when a child is born the father has to take parental responsibilty very seriously. So I agree with where he is coming from, in that he believes fathers should get involved.

 

[quasiquasi]

Yikes...I worked out some sort of response during the day, but now I'm too drunk to do it justice. Maybe I'll say something reasonable tomorrow...

 

[RSJ]

I saw a bit of this thread yesterday, but decided to leave it until i came in on overtime to read it. Reading this thread has earned me e18.25. Nice one thumped!

In an unrelated point, i think ye both agree, just that at different points different parties haven't been the best at putting forward their points and there has been amounts of hysteria. I agree with Ro that men should have some say, and i agree with Jane that women should have more say. Obviously this is an unworkable situation since there's two parties and one having more say means they have a veto, but giving a man a veto is ridiculous - Ro, do you think pregnancy is just going on the dry for nine months with a little extra weight round the front for the last few weeks?

It's a bit shit (for yer man) that a woman might have an abortion when yer man wants the kid, but with abortion there are no winners - anyone i know that's had one has had long lasting emotional (and sometimes physical) repercussions. But the fact of the matter is an unplanned/unwanted (50% or otherwise) pregnancy is a shit situation all round, and if a couple in a relationship can come to an agreement that both of them are reasonably happy with, that's mega. Ideally they could both have a say, but when the reality of the man having the veto (which, yes ro, you argued for consistenly for several pages) is a woman going through the long trauma of pregnancy (which lasts longer than a simple nine months when you consider the emotional repurcussions of bringing a child to term then giving it up), you have an unfair and unequal situation that goes far beyond "well, the sex was consentual".

 

[jane]

I saw a bit of this thread yesterday, but decided to leave it until i came in on overtime to read it. Reading this thread has earned me e18.25. Nice one thumped!

In an unrelated point, i think ye both agree, just that at different points different parties haven't been the best at putting forward their points and there has been amounts of hysteria. I agree with Ro that men should have some say, and i agree with Jane that women should have more say. Obviously this is an unworkable situation since there's two parties and one having more say means they have a veto, but giving a man a veto is ridiculous - Ro, do you think pregnancy is just going on the dry for nine months with a little extra weight round the front for the last few weeks?

It's a bit shit (for yer man) that a woman might have an abortion when yer man wants the kid, but with abortion there are no winners - anyone i know that's had one has had long lasting emotional (and sometimes physical) repercussions. But the fact of the matter is an unplanned/unwanted (50% or otherwise) pregnancy is a shit situation all round, and if a couple in a relationship can come to an agreement that both of them are reasonably happy with, that's mega. Ideally they could both have a say, but when the reality of the man having the veto (which, yes ro, you argued for consistenly for several pages) is a woman going through the long trauma of pregnancy (which lasts longer than a simple nine months when you consider the emotional repurcussions of bringing a child to term then giving it up), you have an unfair and unequal situation that goes far beyond "well, the sex was consentual".

No one said a man should have no say. My argument is that every relationship is different, and therefore you can't legislate for this sort of thing.

Sure, you can legislate for different things once a child is born, but look how well that system works? My arguments in favour of legalised abortion do not imply that I think the situation of father's rights are flawless. There are lots of problems there, too, and yes, they should be dealt with. Men should not just be encouraged to be involved, they should be helped in every way to be fully-committed parents -- and that isn't entirely unrelated to abortion, but we can't deal with the issues under the exact same heading. Human relationships and the issue of childbearing and child-rearing are far too complex to be dealt with by legal means. I don't know anyone who wouldn't include her partner in the decision, and if she wouldn't, she'd either have a good reason for it, or the witholding of information would be a sign that there were real problems with the relationship. But you can't pass a law that punishes all women (because even the existence of the law sends a strong message to all women about their autonomy) just because you see potential for the existing system to be 'abused'. You have to legislate for realities, and not fears that women (or foreigners, or doley scum, or whatever) may be able to get one over on the system if you don't do something to prevent it.

The great thing about being pro-choice, and I mean really pro-choice (and I won't apologise for the fact that in order to be pro-choice, you can't say, "I am pro-choice but I don't think the woman should have as much legal say as a man") is the incredible feeling of lightness that comes with divesting yourself of the responsibility for other people's morality. Sure, you can make parallels with drugs, with drunks in bars, with whatever you like, but they are different issues altogether, and you don't even have to have the same position on all of them! I know! It's crazy. Like, I believe abortion should be free and legal and without apology or exception, but I believe all drugs should remain illegal! You know why? Because drugs and wombs are not the same thing. But really, you wouldn't believe the sense of utter relief that comes from just going, "Someone else's body, not my business."

Another thing, though, is that I hope that the 'hysteria' comment was not directed at the women who were passionately arguing for our legal rights. It's easy for a man to talk about wombs with a sense of dispassionate distance, but see, we have wombs. If a bunch of women were sitting aroudn saying we wanted legal veto power over your mickeys, you'd get upset, too. If I got 'hysterical', then fine. That's because it's an issue that constantly shocks me, that in a context -- like Thumped -- where people claim to be on the left, where people claim to be enlightened and thinking, when it comes to women's issues, first of all, you want to steamroll all over women's voices with some sort of false pragmatism and 'commonsense' approach, and second of all, it saddens me that so many people are still under the thumb of the church disinformation about abortion. Funny, too, since abortion really only became an issue not very long ago. Until pretty recently, it was just normal. In fact, the Romans rendered abortaficient and contraceptive plants EXCINCT so into their family planning were they. Damn Romans. Didn't leave anything for us!

You know what, though? Not all women are scarred from it. In fact, many women are relieved. The reason people become emotionally scarred from it is down to the individual, but what doesn't help is that there is a sense of shame attached to it, that if you are going to do this, you'd better be ashamed of it for the rest of your life. For some people, this is true. For friends who have had abortions, some of them said they never wanted to have another one. One had a kid on her own because she just couldn't go through another one. Another got pregnant again and decided to keep it, but the pregnancy was ectopic, and carrying it to term would have killed them both, so the abortion really did scar her, not because it was an abortion, but because she lost a child she really wanted. I could give you a hundred stories of people I know, and each one is different. And because of that, no law can -- or should -- cover them all.

Yup, it'd be a bit shit if a woman had an abortion but the man wanted the baby, but just because it's shit either way doesn't mean we should resort to the age-old strategy of giving the rights to the man by default. What Ro proposes is actually worse than what we currently have. And I don't think he ever told us what the penalty for a woman would be, should she defy her male keeper? Would she be tried for murder? That would mean that men who did consent to abortion would, by default, be given legal power for murder. Is it a property crime? That would mean that children would be defined as property, and not as human beings.

People's opinions about abortion may very much take into account their beliefs about babies but the fact is, as a legal issue, abortion laws are not about babies. Now, what with all the accusations that I'm hysterical and all, it seems that no one wants to look at the real difference between the legal issue and the personal one, and the fact that on this whole thread, I tried to talk about it at least six or seven times. But no one wanted to. People preferred to accuse me of being a man-hater, of calling everyone a misogynist, and all sorts of other caricatures reserved for occasions when people want to shout down a woman who is actually making sense, or is trying to re-frame the argument.

The laws about women's bodies are sexist. There is misogyny in society. I hate sexism and misogyny, but it does not follow that I hate men because sexism and misogyny are not just 'things' that are somehow 'perpetrated' by men. But I tried to bring up some of the theoretical underpinnings and got shouted down with 'oh, come off it, I'm not affected by history or social theory -- my opinions are my own!', as if that's even possible. Men are not the enemy. Sexism is the enemy. And sexism hurts everyone: men, women, and everyone in between.

It is disheartening to see that people can't debate abortion at all without accusing feminists and pro-choice people of hysteria and man-hating, rather than looking for ways to engage with the fact that we have a very different stake in our bodies than men do. We seem to see it as different issues. Ro sees it as legalised murder. I see it as a blob of cells. Snaky pointed out that no one is ever going to agree when human life begins -- that is too much to ask science to do. Science can't settle legal battles, which is precisely why the issue of abortion needs to be removed from the legislative realm. In an ideal world, both partners would negotiate. But until we are willing to discuss the very deep and theoretical and ideological underpinnings of these various beliefs, we'll get nowhere. And no one rose to that challenge, not on this thread, nor in 'real life'.

In an ideal world, no one would fuck each other before discussing their respective views on unwanted pregnancy. But you can't legislate for these 'ideal worlds' and hope human behaviour will follow. It's never worked, and it never will. So take it out of the legislative realm, and it can be dealt with. That's all. And I will be extremely passionate about this cause -- call it hysteria if you like -- until it has been won.

 

[Dr Winston Umbogo]

have you people gone to bed yet?

 

[jane]

have you people gone to bed yet?

I'm afraid to go to bed because that's where pregnancies happen.