The kidney argument is a good one, and honestly one I had never considered before I first saw it in the Narrative Matrix post a day or two ago.
To continue the analogy, if the person who needed your kidneys--or mine or whoever's--ended up dying, that would be bad. But it would also be bad to force somebody to basically be joined at the hip to someone else for nine months. Assuming that at some point before birth a fetus grows a brain that gives it the ability to think--changing it from simple "life" to "intelligent life"--then past that point, there is no "good solution", and IMHO it then becomes a question of which solution is less bad, of who matters more. Ideally, there would be no unwanted pregnancies in this world and nobody would ever have to make such a decision.
I wanted to respond to the statement about motherhood being more worthwhile than your career according to the guy on Twitter, so I stopped reading to comment on that too:
In addition to it being unreasonable to ask anybody to give up their livelihood in order to raise a child (and yes, it's worth asking why men are never encouraged to do so--I do happen to have an uncle in San Diego who raised the children full-time while their mother worked, but I think that was more a case of "She was working at the time and he was between jobs, so it just made sense" than anybody pressuring him to do so), I'm a man who understands something that evidently lots of other men do not, and I hope that doesn't sound like bragging. But I understand that being a parent is hard, and being pregnant is even harder.
I know I'm not cut out to be a parent, because I don't believe I could strike that perfect balance between not being too strict and not spoiling the kid rotten. I don't think I'm patient enough to respond to a child making a lot of noise or doing something else to get on my nerves without overreacting. I think that if I consistently missed getting a full night's sleep and was woken up again and again during the night because the baby needed something, I'd be a complete wreck. There are probably a bunch of other things I'd need to do or at least do half of that I haven't thought of, but yeah, it would be really hard work. Even if I had no career to give up, I wouldn't look forward to it. And I'm betting that of those people who do think it's worth it and that the joy of having a child makes up for all of it, they'll still acknowledge that yes, taking care of a baby and later a child can often be frustrating.
And all of that is before I even think about what it would be like to carry a baby to term for nine months before all of that hard work starts. Do I like the idea of throwing up in the morning? Of carrying the extra weight and not being able to move around as well as I used to? Of giving up booze and caffeine and anything else I'm accustomed to ingesting that would be bad for the fetus? Of cramps? What about the pain of actual labor, and having to endure that somehow for dozens of hours?
I don't know how anybody who's pregnant gets through it without losing their minds. I highly doubt I could do it. And so I will never tell anybody else they are *obligated* to do this thing that I'm sure would be too much for me.
agreed that no one should have the authority to force anyone else to go beyond what the person is willing to do or capable of doing. it reminds me of the argument that "i worked harder, overcame discrimination, and succeeded. so can you. so affirmative action is unnecessary or it's reverse discrimination."
100%. While it's natural for people to think "I did it, so anybody can do it" or "I couldn't do it, so I shouldn't expect anybody else to" the way I said above...even if I *could* handle something (whether that's being the first person sans uterus to carry a baby to term or climbing Mount Everest or whatever the case may be) then I realize that others can't.
Ideally, everybody would realize it. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Something that comes easy to me might be extremely difficult for somebody else, and vice versa.
If you and "Simple Bear Necessities" aren't the same person, you probably get along very well. Because, for one thing, you both use non-sequiturs; nothing I said in that comment was remotely conspiracy theory-ish. It was about abortion and about parenting. Read.
The kidney argument is a good one, and honestly one I had never considered before I first saw it in the Narrative Matrix post a day or two ago.
To continue the analogy, if the person who needed your kidneys--or mine or whoever's--ended up dying, that would be bad. But it would also be bad to force somebody to basically be joined at the hip to someone else for nine months. Assuming that at some point before birth a fetus grows a brain that gives it the ability to think--changing it from simple "life" to "intelligent life"--then past that point, there is no "good solution", and IMHO it then becomes a question of which solution is less bad, of who matters more. Ideally, there would be no unwanted pregnancies in this world and nobody would ever have to make such a decision.
I wanted to respond to the statement about motherhood being more worthwhile than your career according to the guy on Twitter, so I stopped reading to comment on that too:
In addition to it being unreasonable to ask anybody to give up their livelihood in order to raise a child (and yes, it's worth asking why men are never encouraged to do so--I do happen to have an uncle in San Diego who raised the children full-time while their mother worked, but I think that was more a case of "She was working at the time and he was between jobs, so it just made sense" than anybody pressuring him to do so), I'm a man who understands something that evidently lots of other men do not, and I hope that doesn't sound like bragging. But I understand that being a parent is hard, and being pregnant is even harder.
I know I'm not cut out to be a parent, because I don't believe I could strike that perfect balance between not being too strict and not spoiling the kid rotten. I don't think I'm patient enough to respond to a child making a lot of noise or doing something else to get on my nerves without overreacting. I think that if I consistently missed getting a full night's sleep and was woken up again and again during the night because the baby needed something, I'd be a complete wreck. There are probably a bunch of other things I'd need to do or at least do half of that I haven't thought of, but yeah, it would be really hard work. Even if I had no career to give up, I wouldn't look forward to it. And I'm betting that of those people who do think it's worth it and that the joy of having a child makes up for all of it, they'll still acknowledge that yes, taking care of a baby and later a child can often be frustrating.
And all of that is before I even think about what it would be like to carry a baby to term for nine months before all of that hard work starts. Do I like the idea of throwing up in the morning? Of carrying the extra weight and not being able to move around as well as I used to? Of giving up booze and caffeine and anything else I'm accustomed to ingesting that would be bad for the fetus? Of cramps? What about the pain of actual labor, and having to endure that somehow for dozens of hours?
I don't know how anybody who's pregnant gets through it without losing their minds. I highly doubt I could do it. And so I will never tell anybody else they are *obligated* to do this thing that I'm sure would be too much for me.
And now I will read thoughts 6-10...
agreed that no one should have the authority to force anyone else to go beyond what the person is willing to do or capable of doing. it reminds me of the argument that "i worked harder, overcame discrimination, and succeeded. so can you. so affirmative action is unnecessary or it's reverse discrimination."
100%. While it's natural for people to think "I did it, so anybody can do it" or "I couldn't do it, so I shouldn't expect anybody else to" the way I said above...even if I *could* handle something (whether that's being the first person sans uterus to carry a baby to term or climbing Mount Everest or whatever the case may be) then I realize that others can't.
Ideally, everybody would realize it. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Something that comes easy to me might be extremely difficult for somebody else, and vice versa.
Yeah well, not everyone is a tin-foil hat conspiracy nut like you are.
If you and "Simple Bear Necessities" aren't the same person, you probably get along very well. Because, for one thing, you both use non-sequiturs; nothing I said in that comment was remotely conspiracy theory-ish. It was about abortion and about parenting. Read.
they could very well be paid to sabotage and espionage, LOL.
it didn't take much for you liberal idiot to lose your thin facade, eh? LOL