More Attacks on Women's Right to Choose

To some degree, women do select the qualities thjey want in a baby. If a woman goes to a sperm bank, she reads the descriptions of the donors and decides from that who will be the father.
 
And yet it already happens in the two largest countries in the world. It's just right now the only 'dream characteristic' that can reliably be tested for is sex (and the absence of certain genetic diseases). Do you honestly think that if there was a way to test other characteristics of the baby that would determine their likely success in life then people would not use it as a factor when making an abortion decision?
You seem to be opposed to the idea. Can you explain your objections?
 
You seem to be opposed to the idea. Can you explain your objections?

Actually I'm not. I do have a few reservations, but overall I am cautiously optimistic about the time when we can improve our species through selectively determining the characteristics of our offspring.

I guess that's why I don't like this being dressed up as a 'women's rights' issue. I think there needs to be a sensible discussion of eugenics before it becomes a big issue, not once the horse has already bolted. As soon as you play the pro-choice card on the issue, it instantly stops being a sensible discussion and suddenly becomes crazy man-hating feminists against religious right-wing nutters instead.
 
Actually I'm not. I do have a few reservations, but overall I am cautiously optimistic about the time when we can improve our species through selectively determining the characteristics of our offspring.

I guess that's why I don't like this being dressed up as a 'women's rights' issue. I think there needs to be a sensible discussion of eugenics before it becomes a big issue, not once the horse has already bolted. As soon as you play the pro-choice card on the issue, it instantly stops being a sensible discussion and suddenly becomes crazy man-hating feminists against religious right-wing nutters instead.
You're trying to discuss spoons in a room full of knives. Spoons are lovely, but we are bleeding from the knives. We need to fix the knife problem.
 
Did you know that over 800,000 abortions are performed in the US alone each year?
 
Did you know that over 800,000 abortions are performed in the US alone each year?

Did you know that that's the lowest it's ever been?

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/...Centers-for-Disease-Control-finds.html?pg=all

We're facing a breakthrough. More teens choosing to go through with unwanted pregnancy (ratio of abortions vs live births) as well as fewer unwanted pregnancies overall. I guess we can thank both the pro-life and pro-choice camps for this.

Although, read this article, and you might stop being pro-life once and for all.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/10/how-i-lost-faith-in-the-pro-life-movement.html

Not anti-abortion, but pro-life.
 
Actually I'm not. I do have a few reservations, but overall I am cautiously optimistic about the time when we can improve our species through selectively determining the characteristics of our offspring.

I guess that's why I don't like this being dressed up as a 'women's rights' issue. I think there needs to be a sensible discussion of eugenics before it becomes a big issue, not once the horse has already bolted. As soon as you play the pro-choice card on the issue, it instantly stops being a sensible discussion and suddenly becomes crazy man-hating feminists against religious right-wing nutters instead.


This hits the nail on the head. When you use the "NRA Stonewall" technique, no matter what issue you use it on, you smother the discussion of real, complex issues that won't be solved with a simple "No, not an inch."

This issue this thread introduces is, first, a discussion of whether there should be any limits to designer babies--by anyone involved. The "women's choice" hardliners just lose support by playing this card on everything, including issues like this that just aren't that simple. Perhaps they should learn something from the Republicans' stirling efforts to win the Hispanic vote by playing the hardline card on immigration issues, another line of complex issues, so often and strongly.
 
How many zits were squeezed?

Did you know that over 800,000 abortions are performed in the US alone each year?

In my opinion that has about as much importance to the general public. No law can make a woman a mother. No law should make a child come into this world armed only with an unwilling mother.

A nation should not use motherhood as a weapon in their zeal to stop sex when and where they can.
 
Actually I'm not. I do have a few reservations, but overall I am cautiously optimistic about the time when we can improve our species through selectively determining the characteristics of our offspring.

I guess that's why I don't like this being dressed up as a 'women's rights' issue. I think there needs to be a sensible discussion of eugenics before it becomes a big issue, not once the horse has already bolted. As soon as you play the pro-choice card on the issue, it instantly stops being a sensible discussion and suddenly becomes crazy man-hating feminists against religious right-wing nutters instead.

This is entirely a women's rights issue. Certain legislators are seeking to curtail a woman's absolute right to choose an abortion and, although I am not a man-hating feminist, I am opposed to that.

It has nothing to do with Eugenics, except very marginally, because the same legislators seek to curtail a woman's right to an abortion when it is because of the race of the fetus. Actually, Eugenics can hardly even be called a science because it is still so primitive. If and when medical professionals are able to manipulate chromosomes in the womb or in vitro, it might be an ssue, but not until then.
 
Typical box tunnel vision. Of course this particular aspect of it is about eugenics and baby designing. That's specifically what the proposed legislation is about. But of course it should be voted down because of the apparent intent behind it. That doesn't toss out the real issue it's specifically about--which you missed and then "chicken little" misheadlined.
 
Typical box tunnel vision. Of course this particular aspect of it is about eugenics and baby designing. That's specifically what the proposed legislation is about. But of course it should be voted down because of the apparent intent behind it. That doesn't toss out the real issue it's specifically about--which you missed and then "chicken little" misheadlined.

You might call it "tunnel vision" but I call it focusing on the main issue. Do you honestly believe the legislator in question has any motive other than placing another obstacle in the way of a woman who wants an abortion?
 
You might call it "tunnel vision" but I call it focusing on the main issue. Do you honestly believe the legislator in question has any motive other than placing another obstacle in the way of a woman who wants an abortion?

Irrelevant to the point. And I responded to that at least three times already--from my very first posting on it. Not going to play your selective vision games anymore on this, Box.
 
Typical box tunnel vision. Of course this particular aspect of it is about eugenics and baby designing. That's specifically what the proposed legislation is about. But of course it should be voted down because of the apparent intent behind it. That doesn't toss out the real issue it's specifically about--which you missed and then "chicken little" misheadlined.
hey, you want to buy a bridge? Nice one, hardly been used. How about a watch? It fell off the back of a truck, brand new.
:rolleyes:
There have been over 1500 anti-choice bills and measures introduced nationwide since 2010. 350 this year, according to a pro-life[sic] site that I found.
 
There have been over 1500 anti-choice bills and measures introduced nationwide since 2010. 350 this year, according to a pro-life[sic] site that I found.

How many passed? And how many that passed stood the court text? Let's use a number that isn't purposeful sensationalizing. If you want reasonable people in your corner, you need to make some effort to be reasonable. (I don't expect you to understand that, of course.)
 
Nice sidestepping. However, your assertion that this nice Republican anti-choice DOM lady only wants to address eugenics (which doesn't even exist yet) needs some defense.

But really-- I am very reasonable. If you don't want to have an abortion, I will defend to the death your right to keep that baby. :)
 
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Did you know that over 800,000 abortions are performed in the US alone each year?

Not bad in a population of 311 million of whom 155 million are female.
Quite what this has to do with the question is something others can address.
 
If we are going to talk eugenics, really-- what characteristics do you think would be beneficial to choose for?

Because I'm hollering about choice issues in this thread, I was thinking:
If we could give our daughters a once, or twice-a-year fertile cycle, that would be enormously beneficial for society, the population, and women's health. There's a pretty strong consensus that breast cancer is tied to the "estrogen/progesterone tide" as my OB put it. Women who are pregnant a lot and who breat feed a lot are less likely to develop breast cancer. Plus a much longer window of time between ovulations means far fewer accidental pregnancies.

That would be a good one.

(I don't really want to know which things people think are a goddamn foolish choice, I bet we can all guess at the general tenor of those opinions)
 
If we are going to talk eugenics, really-- what characteristics do you think would be beneficial to choose for?

Because I'm hollering about choice issues in this thread, I was thinking:
If we could give our daughters a once, or twice-a-year fertile cycle, that would be enormously beneficial for society, the population, and women's health.

Twice a year and you'd wipe out the population in a remarkably short time.
Even if there were no problems of food, etc., you only have to look at a Giant Panda as a species that's run itself into a cul-de-sac.
 
Twice a year and you'd wipe out the population in a remarkably short time.
Even if there were no problems of food, etc., you only have to look at a Giant Panda as a species that's run itself into a cul-de-sac.
I'm not sure I'm following you, my dear.
 
You might call it "tunnel vision" but I call it focusing on the main issue. Do you honestly believe the legislator in question has any motive other than placing another obstacle in the way of a woman who wants an abortion?

This line of reasoning makes no real sense. So you're basically saying its absolutely fine for people to have serious reservations about allowing parents to selectively terminate pregnancies based on physical characteristics as long as they're not a nasty republican?
 
This line of reasoning makes no real sense. So you're basically saying its absolutely fine for people to have serious reservations about allowing parents to selectively terminate pregnancies based on physical characteristics as long as they're not a nasty republican?
Republicans don't have doubts. They have convictions.

Similar to your conviction that American political party platforms do not inform political measures generated by American politicians.

gop_rape_advisory3.gif
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101
You might call it "tunnel vision" but I call it focusing on the main issue. Do you honestly believe the legislator in question has any motive other than placing another obstacle in the way of a woman who wants an abortion?


This line of reasoning makes no real sense. So you're basically saying its absolutely fine for people to have serious reservations about allowing parents to selectively terminate pregnancies based on physical characteristics as long as they're not a nasty republican?

How on Earth can anybody get anything politically partisan out of this thread? :confused: I'm saying the legislator who is the subject of the OP is trying to make abortions more difficult. That's all I'm saying. She is couching her statements in terms of race and gender selection, but her true motive is to prevent as many abortions as she can.

I know a lt has been said about eugenics, but that has nothing to do with anything. If and when this "science" becomes advanced to manipulate a fetus in the womb, that might be a time to worry, but that is still far off, and may never come to pass.

As I have said many times, a woman has an absolute right to terminate a pregnancy, and her reasons are valid, as long as they are valid to her.
 
I know a lt has been said about eugenics, but that has nothing to do with anything. If and when this "science" becomes advanced to manipulate a fetus in the womb, that might be a time to worry, but that is still far off, and may never come to pass.

Wow . . . you've posted a whole lot of boneheaded statements, Box, but that ranks right near the top. :D

And I laughed at the suggestion of the rest of the paragraph. Science has been capable of much of this for decades. Although it comes before the "fetus in the womb" business (and thus isn't connected with the "abortion until you get the order you placed" issue), my wife, the at-that-time nurse, and all of her nurse friends were prearranging the sex they wanted their baby to be forty years ago. Being traditionalists and liberal leaning, we decided we wanted a boy first and a girl second, three years apart, and to stop there. My wife said there were medical ways to stand a great chance of that happening. We had a boy and three years later almost to the day we had a girl--and that was that. But again, this was by using science at the front end, not aborting until we got what we wanted.

Abortion, by the way, isn't riskless to the mother, especially done repeatedly. And, no, not every woman capable of conceiving is smart enough to know it all--and most certainly the designer baby shopper isn't, I don't think. And I can guarantee that there are folks in nearly every woman's life who have a stake in how she risks her life. No woman is an island.
 
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LOL Pilot. You and a few other people here-- it's like you see a sign reading "Nice puppydog" on a pen housing a snorting, pawing, bull. And you believe the sign because it's a sign.

No problem. Enjoy petting the nice puppydog. Me, I can smell the stench of bullshit.
 
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