Hard News: Medical Matters
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oh shit, i have dyslexia,
well i'll have to rephrase
yes, your right to chose to do something to your body might or might not violate your bodies autonomy, if i chose to donate a kidney, i am violating my bodies autonomy. that's what i mean by logic, perhaps you ill chose your words, but if we're talking about anatomy and we're talking about violating, then yes abortion is a violation of your natural anotomical and your bodies aunomatic processes.
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Please let's not give mark any more jollies.
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Mark, don't you have a Men's Movement retreat to attend? You know, where you go into the woods and beat each other with birch twigs in a spirit circle, and complain about how The Feminists are destroying your Phallic Aura?
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Please let's not give mark any more jollies.
Sadly, right now "troll" is just winning out over "Loss of microsatellite diversity in overexploited New Zealand snapper".
I think the autonomy bullshit might have put the snapper ahead, though.
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because as far as i understand the word autonomy and your body's autonomy and your bodily autonomy,
if your body had any autonomy, you'd just let it do it's thing, -
but back to my point, why is it considered so treasonous and or offensive to suggest that males have any say over the outcome of a pregancy?
why does that leave me open to accusations of trolling, sexism and embarrassment?
because it's election year,
and you imagine things are gonna change.
for the better. -
Between this, revoking the parole system, and attempting to remove MMP, I'm really starting to worry about the next few years.
I could totally see myself on top of a barricade in 2015.
(Hyperbole? Moi?) -
if your body had any autonomy, you'd just let it do it's thing
Which is precisely the point. If women have bodily autonomy, you let them do their thing. If you're interfering in choices over their body, you are quite clearly interfering with their bodily autonomy.
p.s. dozens of posts that say very little, and are long on rhetoric is known on the internet as trolling. This forum sustains argument, but it doesn't generally like (in my experience) posts that are more heat than light.
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hey, it wasn't me started the sexist jibes. I just started the trollfest as a response to what i consider a relevant argument being classified as trolling,
we could argue about bodily autonomy, but again it belies the point.
I find it interesting on this level
there is the autonomy of the mind, that which can control the processes of the body, ie getting a doctor to inject certain poisons into your body to maintain control of your body, this autonomy of the bodybut I'd classify that as autonomy of the self or of the individual,
then there's the autonomy of the body, despite your best wishes,
the reflexive and natural reaction.and my argument on that level mainly dealt with lucy, referring to the autonomy of her body as her right to defy it's natural processes which i see as confusingly worded.
i'll try another example, again tenuous,
if i have sexual intercourse using a condom, and my partner takes the contents of that condom and uses it to impregnate herself,
then where is the consideration for the autonomy of my DNA?
why is the balance so heavily weighted?
i mean, surely that fact that a High Court judge has ruled that the abortion law is being used more liberally than Parliament intended.
is something of an indication that perhaps this autonomy of the body over the rights of child and sperm donor are an issue that can't simply being addressed by labeling someone with an issue a troll? -
how many times on this thread did anyone mention the rights of the unborn child?
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The law in New Zealand sounds like it needs changing dramatically! Given the disregard for the law built upon New Zealand's jealous guarding of their path of least resistance it is only likely that the law regarding unborn babies is only going to benefit those that demand they have the right to terminate.
Unfortunately for New Zealand the appearance of a fight will be staged and the victor will be seen as right regardless of how incredibly insane the final outcome.
If you think one 30 year old law is madness in today's climate how will the redraft look in another 30 years?
Why not institute laws that work. Laws that do not regard the way people feel or the rights they think they are losing, but one that works on the basis of what is right and what is wrong?
Because nothing I see here has much of what is right associated with it...
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I am unsure as to whether I am feeding the trolls or advancing any debate, but my two cents. :-)
With the whole keeping the baby / not keeping the baby child rearing discussion choice comes up a lot, but at certain points the men involved get a distinct lack of choice.
I think that when abortion is a viable option and the parents are not in a committed relationship, the father should get a legal option to express an opinion on what happens and their responsibilities there after. I.E. a statutory declaration that they do not want the child, would prefer an abortion, and if the mother still wishes to continue they waive any guardianship rights and are absolved of any financial burdens.
As an aside I believe that if a mother sues for sole custody and guardianship, then they should not then be able to claim child support. This is one of the problems with the current system. If you pay for your child’s upbringing you should also have a say.
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i'll try another example, again tenuous...[continues]
Exactly.
how many times on this thread did anyone mention the rights of the unborn child?
I think that is because most people here think that the rights of a conscious sentient being trump those of a small bundle of cells. This is what a fetus is for the first few months, unless you're one of the "every sperm is sacred" believers, in which case a fertilised egg and unborn child are synonymous.
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You know, where you go into the woods and beat each other with birch twigs in a spirit circle, and complain about how The Feminists are destroying your Phallic Aura?
I might be wrong, but aren't you thinking of the freemasons?
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no george, there have been cases of stolen sperm, this is a real phenomena, why simply blank it out?
and no, nothing like every sperm is sacred, I'm for pretty much exactly as socrates above:
"I think that when abortion is a viable option and the parents are not in a committed relationship, the father should get a legal option to express an opinion on what happens and their responsibilities there after. I.E. a statutory declaration that they do not want the child, would prefer an abortion, and if the mother still wishes to continue they waive any guardianship rights and are absolved of any financial burdens."
simply feel checks and balances are required. I don't feel that alienating males from the childrearing process and alienating them from discussion for or against based on gender is a positive solution.
to a longstanding argument. -
mainly i just want to know how it feels to be robbery
I'd noticed.
When you tolerate one, others follow...
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o come on rodgered, i'm done, it's not like i work in the abortion industry or am seeking abortion funding, just had some time to kill before work...
and kiwis are good sports, i pledge not to do it again.... seriously. respect to lucy for making a good case. -
Oh please no Andrew Hubbard lets not call in the philosophers to decide where to draw fuzzy lines that don't exist in nature. Here is how it should work and how it managed to work during the debates here in the UK where informed sense prevailed (Yay!):
The scientists/medics do their bit and hurry up publication of a very nice, statistically sound piece of research that shows no improvement in survival rates for infants born prior to 24 weeks (current abortion time limit) despite what the 'pro-life' lobby were bleating. It was in the BMJ iirc.
Then you organise various scientific/medical bigwigs to lobby the MPs, only you don't call it lobbying, you call them information or briefing sessions or some such. This immunises all MPs but the religiously committed and the challenge to roll us back towards the middle ages is seen off.
No philosophers needed thankyou very much.
When lines such as this where there are no lines in nature (and there are many more than most people realise) you bring in all the data you do have, decide on your desired outcome (like harm reduction, least worst etc) and consulting with (but not being bound by) the ethicists you have you elected representitives decide ensuring they are as fully informed as possible. Against their wills if necessary.
Everything else leads either to nothing being done or to violence. You have to have the debate in full light of day with as much info as possible aired because this cuts the rug out from anyone inclined to get seriously antsy if the result goes against their dearest held beliefs. Abortion doctors get shot in the US because the politicians are too scared to stand up for what is demonstrably true. So they get things like Just Say No sex ed. Sex ed without the Ed if you want Uncle Sam to fund your sex ed. They are not immune to the evidence that it not only doesn't work, it is harmful as iirc 16 States now refuse Federal funding of sex ed so they can do it sort of better but they lack national leadership in this.
So put the philosophers back in the box, this is not a knotty, difficult problem. It is perfectly solveable using Science, known ethics, reason and informed common sense. We should encourage MPs to go there and support them when they do.
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With the whole keeping the baby / not keeping the baby child rearing discussion choice comes up a lot, but at certain points the men involved get a distinct lack of choice.
Welcome to the world of people with ovaries until the twentieth century.
The reason why I get so impatient with this kind of false equivalence is that there is a very tiny group of affluent women who currently have reproductive rights. Historically, this is a pretty small window, and it's been a really long struggle for *any* women to achieve autonomy, and rights, and personhood. And the movement for female personhood has been so intimately tied to reproductive rights, in a way that it has not, and seems unlikely to be, tied to male personhood. This is about us functioning as people in society, not whether or not we should be Your Very Special Baby Incubators, FFS. The small percentage of men who get forced to pay child support against their will? Well, OK, perhaps that's an injustice. But could we maybe work on this whole 'women are people' thing a bit more before calling it game over? Because... yeah. We don't seem to have sorted that one out yet.
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The minute men have to decide whether or not to support another life inside their own bodies, with the accompanying discomfort and medical risks, then I'd be the first to stand up for their rights to choose.
If the hepatic vein of the father is diverted to the caecum, and the waste matter of the father is diverted with a temporary colostemy, I understand it's possible (in theory) for a man's body to carry an embryo transferred from the mother, though I don't think this has actually been done. Don't ask me, I don't have a whole degree in anything, only parts of degrees in things.
If this proceedure is perfected, I'm guessing men who wish to see their unborn children carried to term would... shut up.
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Dyan - that's simply a fatuous argument, not unlike much of the 1970s feminist rhetoric.
Danielle - I couldn't agree more that women should be more highly valued and indeed autonomous, and so too all human life.
The debate should be played out once these values are in place by giving real support to the children and their parents. So that all can enjoy a dignified and enriching life.
Working for families has achieved this, for some. There was a mass exodus of muns from my old office, keen to be stay at home muns once that was introduce.
If programmes like this are expanded and suitable supports put in place we wiould be in a better position to have this debate. -
I'm not sure why that's a 'fatuous argument', Shep. If there are so many men clamouring to have these foetuses carried to term and delivered, let our wondrous scientific community sort it out! Then we can stop arguing and those dudes can have at it. Let the new era of seahorse-type-reproduction begin!
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Danielle - exactly.
I'm not sure how many wombs the men here possess, but I'm guessing not many, if any.
It is a great misfortune that men are unable to become pregnant, and the spilt second they can, and not a moment sooner, I will be fascinated to know their positions on abortion, legally speaking. When that magnificent day dawns, I will be most interested in the "rights of the Father" regarding a life form that can't survive outside the body of a human.
When I had an abortion 18 months ago, I didn't mind the process leading up to the termination; it helped clarify for me that I was making the right decision.
I found it helpful to have a "stand-down" period during which I was able to become more firm in my position.
It certainly wasn't an easy thing to do, and I needed the delay to make sure.
Making abortion available on demand, with perhaps at least one mandatory chat with a counsellor, seems like a sensible way forward.If there really is going to be some sort of debate about abortion law in New Zealand, I do hope the other 17,000-odd women who had terminations in the year 2007 alone, will chime in.
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Thanks, Danyl, for the Bassett / Campbell link. A well worthwhile read. (Campbell that is - not Bassett).
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Here's stats NZ on the subject.
I find 36% are not first abortions interesting.
The constant rate at which the numbers track ever higher suggests another health or life style issue needs to be addressed.
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