teleen_fiction | This Guy's Pretty Cool

I'm sorry that you had a difficult time conceiving and am very happy that you were able to have a child.

That said, a fetus is not a life. It just isn't. Until it takes a breath outside the mother's body, it is a parasite living off of her.

The rights of the born outweigh the rights of the unborn, 100% of the time. I have no objection to you feeling differently PERSONALLY. However, the law MUST reflect that the woman's body and rights come first, otherwise women are nothing more than chattel, broodmares at the whim of the state.

I am not a broodmare and will fight to keep every other woman from becoming one as well. Again, this comes down to the right of the individual to CHOOSE what is best for them WITHOUT outside interference FROM ANYONE. NO ONE has a right to tell a woman that she MUST carry a pregnancy to terms UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. EVER.

I agree with you on a woman's right to choose - but what I'm also trying to say is: a woman has the right choose to stop a man putting his penis up her vagina if he is not involved in pregnancy prevention in the first place (it is as parasitic as the pregnancy I'd say) - we will not agree on the fetus/parasite issue - a woman's right / responsibility starts before the pregnancy and that is what I think I'm challenging

and yes, contraception fails and rape is separate from that of course and we agree on that, please don't think I don't and every case is individual

a woman's right / responsibility starts before the pregnancy and that is what I think I'm challenging

Bullshit. I can't think of anything more coherent than that right at this moment, so I'm just going to say that that's complete and utter bullshit.

It puts the responsibility for the pregnancy ENTIRELY on the woman, says that it's her responsibility for 'allowing' the man to put his penis in her vagina and generally plays into the thousands of years of misogyny that have caused women to be systematically oppressed and kept as chattel.

If men and women are TRULY equal, the responsibility for the pregnancy is not all on the woman for 'allowing' sex. It takes to to fucking tango (pun definitely intended). It also treats a woman's sexuality as something different than a man's.

I'm thinking very hard about how to articulate this, because I want to be absolutely certain I say exactly what I mean here:

If men and women are equal, then a woman has as much of a right to have as much sex as she wants, WHENEVER she wants, with WHOMEVER she wants, always. If her body belongs to her, then it BELONGS TO HER, with no qualifications, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Am I saying that it's okay to use abortion as a form of birth control? You bet. HER BODY, HER CHOICE. Personally, I would find abortion to be a lot more unpleasant than pretty much every other method out there, but again, HER BODY, HER CHOICE.

I have to say that your comments made me truly angry because they are both sexist and misogynistic, whether you realize it or not. Again, saying, a woman has the right choose to stop a man putting his penis up her vagina is shaming a woman's right to her sexuality, is essentially saying, "Well, if she didn't want to live with the consequences, she should have kept her legs closed."

That sort of attitude isn't cool to me because it says that a woman's body is only hers until she happens to be host to a POSSIBLE life. And that's all a fetus is - a potential life. It isn't alive until it takes a breath. Normal, healthy, full term pregnancies end in stillbirths every day.

And women who are raped die in childbirth after being forced to carry a child they never wanted to term every day.

But leaving rape out of the equation, (which I'm going to do for one simple reason: "Abortion is only okay if the father is an asshole?" ~Doug Stanhope) if a woman doesn't want to be pregnant, she shouldn't have to be regardless of how she came to be that way.

Again, either I'm a person or a broodmare and heaven help ANYONE who tries to make me into a broodmare. If our species were in danger of extinction and I was one of 100 women left on Earth, maybe, just MAYBE I'd VOLUNTEER to have a child to continue the species, but at this moment, my body is mine to do with as I please.

FTR, I'd like to have a kid, but on MY TERMS AND MINE ALONE. No one else gets to decide what's best for me and my body. Ever.

no, it's not only a woman's responsibility to think contraception, I never said that (or didn't think I had)...

but if you value your body as much as you tell me you do, wouldn't you therefore reserve the right not to actually let a guy have unprotected sex with that body if he's not interested in thinking/talking contraception (or even more importantly sexually transmitted diseases) and consider the consequences of his actions - that is equalising it I'd say and the point I tried to get across and maybe didn't very well

If you want to have sex with that person without protection and then have that abortion as contraception - that is your choice as you say (not one I'd agree with but I think we're both aware that we won't agree on everything here such as the fetus issue)

Okay, I sort of see where you're coming from now, but again, it still comes down to her body, her choice.

Even if a fetus is a 'life', the woman was there first and her life should always have priority over the one that could be.

I don't have sex without protection, but we're not talking about me - we're talking about thousands of women who are forced to give birth every day, who are indeed forced to RISK THEIR LIVES to bring children into the world that they don't want.

Their reasons for not wanting to carry the child are completely unimportant to this discussion - either a person owns their own body, or they don't. Period.

as you say, her body, her choice... I just think that in some cases the choice can be made before conception takes place - I know that does not apply to all cases and that there are injustices happening which needs dealing with and I'm becoming more aware of quite a few of them

I meant the 'you' generic, not you as a person

I know that does not apply to all cases and that there are injustices happening which needs dealing with and I'm becoming more aware of quite a few of them

Same here, which is why I've become so black and white on this issue. In a perfect world, there would be no unplanned pregnancies, but so long as there are, the woman's rights must be the top priority.

I meant the 'you' generic, not you as a person

My mistake - I apologize.

I think black and white / one versus another is excluding middle ground - as an example: I'm a born again Christian... now, quite a few people reading that will automatically assume that therefore I must be against gay people or people who do not share the moral belief system that underpins my faith and that I therefore hate them. That is of course fed by the rather vocal 'Christians' that peddle 'God hates' - not my experience but it's the one that gets the press.

I'm more complicated that that and so are my relationships - I love that I can follow your blog and learn about your work place and the issues it raises etc, in the same way that I follow another person (a gay black man) whose issues I don't always understand but which are teaching me.

Yes, I believe the moral teachings of my faith apply to me but for me that is underpinned by 'God is love'. That means that any relationship I develop (even online) is underpinned by love and value of the other person and that that value supersedes the fact that, as the other person does not change my faith and/or moral values, does not live by them. I'd not expect them to... they don't share the values.

I hope that makes sense.

and don't worry, English is a complicated (in German I could differentiate)

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