This will be my last reply today. I have many tasks left undone that I must accomplish before nightfall. I'll answer folks some more tomorrow if there are more posts quoting me and if I have the time. Thanks to all who have discussed this very important topic with me.
The Stonker said:
Well, what I read from his post is that we should all be good little kids and be virgins until we can get babies.
"From
her post," please. I am female.
What you may read from my post, as it is what I have stated, is that if we choose to share sex with our partner then we should make that choice it in full awareness of the possible consequences and ready to take responsibility for what might come about as a direct consequence of our actions. So we should be
adults, not "good little kids."
The Stonker said:
The thing is that people have something called freedom and I don't believe that a fetus has freedom or any rights at all.
They're just a pile of tissue. That's all. With no mind, with no identity
What does freedom mean to you? Does a newborn infant have freedom? Does a two-year-old?
The way I see it, freedom isn't usually a matter of black and white. There are varying factors that make us more or less free. Knowledge is one of those - to the extent that we have imperfect knowledge, we have imperfect freedom. The more we choose to learn about the world, the more we approach true freedom.
Human beings develop and grow. It's our nature to do so. We eventually become far more than one might have imagined, looking at our humble origins in the womb. But without that first step we never would have taken any others. So if you take away that life, you remove all possibility of freedom. Is that really what you want? (The unborn child will never have a chance to be truly free if they are deprived of life: a life that you wouldn't choose to take away from a very young child who had already been born, even though they are, as yet, only a little freer than the unborn.)
Kelethor said:
Right, but if the person in question has taken steps to ensure that they DONT get pregnant, and they do because of a failed contraceptive, is that still there fault?
When you say "ensure," it depends what you mean. You may mean "to make sure," but as we've already established that's impossible (I mean in the sense of full certainty). You may mean "take all the steps one reasonably can, given that it's not possible to be completely sure." In that case, I feel sorry for them, but it's still their decision to share sex - no one else's decision.
I mean, we might like the reality to be different (in terms of being able to have sex without the possibility of children), but wanting it to be different doesn't make it so. We need to deal with reality as we find it. And if parents don't have responsibility for the existence of children, who does?
(Would makers of contraceptive technology be willing to "guarantee" their products by setting up care centres for any children conceived as a result of failed contraceptives? I'm not seeing them make a profit. I'm also seeing lots of people who just didn't take proper care with their contraceptives trying to fob off their kids! But this is just mental whimsy - don't mind me. I don't see any company ever doing this, for half a dozen reasons that spring easily into any mind that considers this for even a few seconds.)
Kelethor said:
EDIT: Have you Considered giving the baby up for adoption? I understand that there is a lot of horror stories about foster homes, but I know all too well that there are plenty of loving people who simply cannot have a baby, when it is all they want in the world.
Yes - giving the child up for adoption (to a reliable agency or foster parents one knows one can trust) is included as a possible way of fulfilling their responsibility to the child. Though I do rather find myself caught in a similar bind re. the certainty, don't I? I mean, one couldn't be totally sure the foster parents or the agency would be good.
After giving this some minutes of reflection, I think the crucial distinction is this. If a person comes into existence as a direct result of one's actions, it's wrong to make the person suffer the consequences of one's own actions by killing the person. But that doesn't mean that by accepting one's duty towards the child and allowing the child to live that one gains total control over the child's life. Whether one looks after the child oneself, or relinquishes that duty to another guardian, there are always going to be aspects of life that one cannot foresee. But at least the child would have a chance to find that out for himself or herself: to make their own life.
