User:WaitingforGodot/personhood revisited

Nov 8, 2011 - a Mississippi bill to define a fetus as a person failed, fairly spectacularly. Women in Mississippi will retain their legal right to control who uses their bodies for at least another election cycle.

Society has consistently recognized a woman's moral and ethical right to make choices about the path her life takes if done in reasonable time frames, even though it means another life will be terminated. It might feel cold to be so blunt about it, but we terminate lives all the time. Because under rational scruitny, the rights of one living being superceed the rights of another. The rights of the farmer superceed teh rights of the cow; the rights of a woman superceed the rights of her early term fetus. The path of a born person with thoughts and fears, responisblities and worries, memories and dreams, take priority over a being that is inescapable of such things... has the "potential" at best, for such thing. It is moral and rational to allow a woman a limited time frame to say "I'm simply not ready".

But there are a handful of people who do not agree with society's views of this. For these people, the moment a woman becomes pregnant, she must put her own views, values, ideas and dreams aside for other people's views. For these people, she is not allowed to pray to her god for guidance -- they have already guided. For these people, she is not allowed to discuss with the father and use his views and opinions in her decision, for his views do not matter, either. For these moralizing people, no circumstance in life could be as critical as the act of bringing an unwanted child into the world. Not minor health concerns, nor potential impacts on her body; certinaly not the superficial issues of money or caregiving; even less the fundimentally selfish issues of career, relationship problems, or simple "want". For these absolutists, the baby is fully equal to the walking womb that supports him.

What is surprizing, though, is how determined these few are, even in the face of overwhelming disagreement on this matter. Throughout the world, the vast majority of people believe that for women to be equal in society, they must be able to choose when to have children - if at all.

Ah, dear Hamlet, there's the rub. "For women to be equal..."

If push comes to shove, a reasonable, valid argument can be had that the issues here are not about life and termination of that life, nor of protecting the unborn, nor of "personhood" - for each of those ring hollow when picked apart. We do not offer health care to poor women so the life they are carrying (especially when they want that life) will be healthy. We do not worry about the millions of born children who's health and quality of life is beyond the pale - if they are poor, they deserve it. We do not give born children "rights" to live when "living" mearly means a 10 dollar vaccination that the new US health plan would cover, that these same moralists generally don't want to pay for.

No, what this is about, at least the issue of first term abortions, is control.

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(this lower shit is crap, let's start over above) (my writing process on display. write 1000 pages of crap and see if anything good can be distilled)

Some people hate abortions. They hate the laws that allow abortions. They hate the freedom that lets a woman, on her own, with no other guidance choose how her body will be used, and by whom.

But those freedoms exist, despite the fact that they are "obscene". The right to unlimited control of your body for a limited time while pregnant is as enshrined in our moral conscious as anything can by. Society has consistently rejected the idea that a woman should be forced to carry a child to term, as long as she makes the decision to terminate, early in her pregnancy.

But some people hate abortions.

And these people don't care what society thinks about a woman's right to reasonable control of events in her life, because they do not care about her. Actually, that's not quite true. They do care about her, long enough to control her.

Some people hate abortions.

They look at a world only and see only their views reinforced by what is out there.