Redux: Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

Right, but I wasn't missing that point at all.

Wiki citation? I was going off the numbers in this article: Neurologic and Developmental Disability at Six Years of Age after Extremely Preterm Birth.

Which under the article I was citing would be mild disability (34%), or would be in the range of normal function - deviated less than 1SD from the mean IQ (20%). The criteria and probability I cited (22%) were for severe disability.

The article your blog appears to be based on is this one: Neurocognitive abilities in young adults with very low birth weight.

Except the study I cited only examines children delivered up to 25 weeks and 6 days. One of the reasons I selected it, it's an accurate snapshot (within the realms of sample accuracy) of the lightly outcomes of a baby delivered around the limit of viability.

Agreed.

And I'm just pointing out the demonstrable, observable, consequences of that decision, and questioning whether or not that was as ethically or morally clear as you seemed to think it was.

So now you're jumping on that bandwagon and trolling as well?

I implied no such thing, Wynn and Light Gigantic predictably infered it (really, it was obvious what their response would be even before I had finished composing the post). That doesn't make them right.

We're not talking about eugenics, that's the wrong horse to mount. We're not talking about defects that are present before delivery, but rather, defects that are inflicted on what would have been an otherwise healthy fetus had it been allowed to proceed to full gestation. Defects that are imposed by the decision to remove the fetus from the womb and 'preserve' its life. My point was, among other things that the most likely outcome of our decision to 'preserve' the fetus's life, is first death, and second varying degrees of disability. I am simply asking if that tradeoff is worth it to sooth our conscience?

I'm just asking if not killing is actually any more ethical than killing, given the probable outcomes of the decision not to kill.

To some extent, that was part of the broader picture I was trying to illuminate. It doesn't matter where you draw the line, there's an element of arbitrariness to it. It doesn't matter which course of action you choose, there's a moral grey area involved.

It's not fair to remove the mothers right to choose.
It's not fair to deny the fetus a chance at a full and healthy life, and yet that's the most likely outcome of preterm delivery at 24 weeks, the very thing that anti abortionists seek to prevent happening, but that's okay, because they saved a life, right?

The viability argument doesn't do away with the core question, it merely shifts it. The only way (with current technology at least) to improve the outlook of the fetus is for further gestation and development to occur. This of course leads us right back to the original question. If, for example, the risk of disability as a result of deliberately falls to some arbitrarily small number by 30 weeks, we're faced with the original question reframed when considering the fate of a fetus between 24 and 30 weeks.

Do we force the mother to incubate the unwanted child for those six weeks so we can then remove it and give it its best chance at a normal life?
Or do we abort a fetus that had an at least 50% chance of surviving to adulthood, albeit with varying degrees of disability?

In short, I have yet to find a rational answer to your question that negates the question it purports to solve.

No, really? Gosh, I must be in the wrong thread... >_>

Look... I raised the point of selecting a random number, and the potential outcomes of it (10% normal life, 90% some degree of debilitation) to illustrate the meaning behind the statistics. You objected to that on the grounds that there was no choice between that and certain death, so I re-phrased it in terms of a terminal illness to address that. I then took the analogy further to illustrate the questionable outcomes. From where I sit, what right have we to force an outcome on a fetus that we would not choose for ourselves.

So, again:
So, you're facing certain death from a terminal illness, and you've chosen treatment over death?
Here's a coin. Heads the treatment kills you, tales it doesn't.
If you survive the coin toss, here's a ten sided dice.
Roll it:
On a result of 1 or 2, we'll leave you in a wheel-chair, or highly dependent on your caregivers, and with an IQ 3 or more SD below the mean.
On a result of 3,4, or 5, we'll leave you with reasonable independence, but not completely independent, and an IQ 2-3 SD below the mean.
6,7,8 we'll leave you with some mild disability, and an IQ 1-2 SD below the mean.
9,10 You'll have your current quality of life.

I don't propose that we should, or that it would ever be practical. This suggestion is beside the point being made.

None of this is even remotely implied by anything I have said, so I will not be entertaining any further questions along this line. Remember, what I'm questioning is whether forcing a disability upon someone is actually morally superior to killing them.

If someone king hits an otherwise healthy 12 year old and leaves the 12 year old fully depenedent on their parents for the rest of their life, should we go easy on them because they didn't kill the 12 year old?

This is your strawman and has nothing to do with what I have actually said, as such, I will not be addressing it further, other than to restate that I was simply questioning the moral superiority of not killing over killing based on the consequences of not killing.

As am I, in fact, I happen to think that NICU units especially deserve more funding.

So, those with the ability to institute change for the benefit of those who do not have that same ability should instead remain silent? I shouldn't voice my opinion to protect the rights of my daughter?

 

Bells,

Yes. Why take it personally? People have all kinds of bizarre opinions. Sometimes they are even offensive to normal moral standards. If somebody thinks it's somehow acceptable to deliberately kill a mother for the sake of an unborn child, that's a view with serious ethical problems, but it's still just another opinion. That kind of stuff can be refuted by reasoned argument. There's no need to get personal.

Clearly, the idea of stuffing a newborn baby back into the uterus is absurd and bears no relation to anything that happens in real life. But I believe you already pointed that out.

There's no requirement that you respond to trolls. And if you need to respond, why not link back to your initial response.

I must say that in topics such as this it is very easy to accuse each other of trolling. It's harder to establish that the supposed troll is only out to get an angry reaction and does not truly believe what he is posting. Nevertheless, you could always ask another moderator to review the discussion if you think a ban for trolling is warranted.

This is poor behaviour and possibly trolling. Deliberate lying is actually against the rules. Nevertheless, misrepresentations and straw men are very common on sciforums, as I'm sure you're aware. In a heated discussion about abortion, you can almost guarantee that some of that will go on. Is it really such a surprise?

One option might be simply to deny patently silly misrepresentations of your position, without getting all flustered about it.

The original blowjob comment, I believe, was this:

While the blowjob reference was fairly crude, the general advice is probably right. Trolls post to provoke an emotional reaction - anger, disgust, whatever. If you give them that reaction, you're feeding the trolls. It's what they want. To put it crudely, they get off on it. Hence the blowjob reference.

To read this comment as suggesting that you, personally, should give somebody a blowjob, rather than as general advice about feeding trolls, is stretching things, I think.

That might well be harrassment. It might have gone too far there. At best, it was ill-judged. I'm not sure it deserves an immediate and permanent ban.

I'm suggesting that everybody in this thread could be a bit less emotional about the matter of abortion. If things are getting inappropriately personal, maybe backing off for a while might be a good move.

My impression is that it is easy to gather together posts after the fact and claim that they amount to a concerted campaign of personal harassment. But that might not always be the intent. It could be that originally the poster just wanted to make his or her point in a forceful way, or to present an argument many times in the hopes of convincing somebody or converting somebody.

If you trawl through posts on a heated topic looking for dirt, you'll most likely be able to find some. There will be breaches of the site rules, inappropriate comments etc. We're not an academic conference. Discussions tend to get heated here, particularly on topics such as abortion. People lose control of themselves. But that doesn't always mean they're out to get you personally.

Meh.

Every pro-lifer accuses pro-choicers of wanting to murder babies. What do you expect? Really.

I don't think that's exactly what happened here, but I could, as ever, be wrong.

Nobody is asking you to accept being sexually harrassed. I'm just not convinced that that is what has happened here.

I do recognise, however, that the perception of the victim is of paramount important in cases of sexual harrassment.

What punishment do you think would be appropriate for the trangressions in this thread? Who should be punished, and in what way?

 

And?

And so if the degree and likelyhood of disability are dependent on the gestation period then of course a study which uses birthweight as its criteria is going to come to differing conclusions than a study that uses gestational age as entry criteria, which in turn negates your suggestion that things might not be that bad.

And, once again, I find myself pointing out for the fourth or fifth time, I'm not suggesting aborting the crippled. We're not talking about pre-existing afflictions here, we're talking about afflictions that only come about as a result of our decision to 'save' a li

Good for you.

Ad-hominems? I was merely restating something to you that I had stated already twice before you posted - as far as I'm concerned dragging eugenics into the argument is a strawman hypothesis, repeating the claim after it has been addressed as such is trolling, or bordering on it.

In your opinion at any rate - the only thing I have done is consider quality of life.

I'm not talking about killing the crippled though, you are.

This bears little, if any, relation to anything I have actually had to say. I'm not talking about killing cripples, you are.

And yet it is precisely this kind of scenario that leads to things like DNRs.

Once again. I'm not talking about killing disabled people, you are. Nor am I talking about killing them en utero, that is entirely your synthesis. Everything I have discussed has been post partum.

Once again, I find myself restating context.

You asked "Where else could we make the cut off then? At what chance of disability would you make the cut off?"
I replied by pointing out that any such consideration simply shifts the debate, it does not resolve it. The point I wa smaking that should the chance of disability fall to some acceptable level at 30 weeks, what do we do about abortions between 24 and 30 weeks? Do we kill the fetus, or do we force the mother to carry it to 30 weeks? Or are you saying that you would see the law phrased in terms of 24-30 weeks?

You're missing the point I'm making. If the law only allows extraction after 30 weeks based on considerations of viability and quality of life, extraction at 24 weeks isn't an option either.

I think you might be surprised at how many people wouldn't. Personally, I'd be surprised if it made it past trials.

That's the current approach, yes, do everything you can to save a life regardless of the quality of life as a result of it being saved. Again, I redirect you to the groundswell towards the right to be left to die.

You asked me how I intend to ask a fetus, and I replied that I don't.

People can, and do choose for others all the time. They choose every time they choose to respect a DNR. They choose every time they choose to unplug a relative.

This is a non-sequiter. The only person talking about killing crippled people is you.

No, but it might be an ethical consequence of a position I'm not actually taking.

You've gotten the wrong end of the stick from what I meant, but that may be partially my fault.

In my jurisidction we have criminal assault, and aggravated assault. The difference is in the outcome. If I punch someone and they get a black eye, I will be charged with criminal assault. If I King-hit someone and leave them permanently disabled to that extent, becaus eof the severity of the injury, and the severity of the impact of the injury, I would likely be looking at a minimum of aggravated assault. The point I was (somewhat poorly) trying to make, was should we do away the charge of criminal assault and treat that scenario the same as a black-eye just because the assailant didn't kill the victim? Of course not.

 

Indeed.

This is a noble goal but it seems unattainable. We have to have a backup plan.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Could someone please enlighten me?

If these people are so dense and immature that they can't restrain themselves after being banned for a month--and we can make that "banned for a month twice" if we want, since we make the rules--then do we really need them? It's like having a dog you love--except that after two years of trying you can't get him to stop peeing on the carpet. Sometimes you have two less-than-ideal choices. You have to pick one. That's what it means to be in charge!

If this happened in Linguistics, I would allow the thread to continue only if it contributed in some other way to the enlightenment of the members. And this does happen frequently. I even allow "entertain" to substitute for "enlighten."

How has this thread enlightened anyone? Or does everyone who's participating find it entertaining? If so, you must be the same people who keep TV shows like "Survivor" and "Say Yes to the Dress" on the air.

 

Statistically, the vast majority of "problem pregnancies" which are allowed to result in live birth end up being entirely the responsibility of the mother. Therefore it's the mother whose voice should be heard.

Men always talk big during the first trimester. Then they start to vanish.

At some point we also have to take into account the impact of our decisions on civilization. It's clear from our nation's Petri dish for the study of single-parent homes (i.e., the Afro-American ghettos in our larger cities, in which a large portion of the men are in prison due to drug laws used as a tool of racism, making it 7 times more likely for a black user to be imprisoned than a white one) that children who grow up without a father-figure have an almost insurmountable handicap and are very unlikely to grow up to be responsible citizens. The boys join gangs (finding a substitute father-figure) and the girls have babies when they're 15 because, as one was quoted saying, "This way I know there's at least one person in the world who loves me."

So unfortunately, yes: your voice must be edited out of the sound track. You're welcome to influence the dyamics of your own family, but please don't make American society even worse by increasing the number of fatherless children whose most likely future resembles a bad Dickens novel.

Problem pregnancies are overwhelmingly a women's issue, so as a matter of public policy women should make the decisions.

At the very least, their voices should be heard. Since the USA is a phallocracy like most of the world, their voices are muted.

If we elect Green Party candidate Jill Stein to be our next president, then we can talk about this some more. Are you going to vote for her, as the next step in women's long, slow march to equality?

EDIT: Oh sorry, I forgot whom I was talking to. You live in a country that is probably way ahead of us in women's rights. Your larger neighbor even had a female PM, causing Australian English to be gifted with the wonderful term "First Bloke" for the spouse of a female national leader.

If you've never been to the USA you probably can't imagine how bad women have it here. "Nikita" and "NCIS" are just TV shows.

 

Tiassa:

If that's true, why do you persist in flogging the dead horse? If there really are no answers on offer, point out that the other side has no answers (which I think you've now done several times), then call it quits.

Obviously, failing to answer the main question you've put ("Conceding personhood at fertilization, what happens to a woman's human rights under LACP?") does show disrespect, or perhaps that your respondents have no reasonable answer available.

We have no rules about posters having to answer questions or show appropriate respect though (except as regards personal insults etc.). Intellectual dishonesty is not on our list of bannable behaviour. Maybe you'd argue that it should be. I'm not sure how we could hope to police any such rule.

I've read most of this thread. I've seen the back and forth.

I'm not sure why you imagine I don't want to see something. I'm pro-choice. I disagree with the pro-life positions being argued here. I agree with your position, as far as I can make it out. (We may have some minor disagreements at the boundaries, but compared to the gulf between us and the pro-lifers any such disagreements are likely to be trivial.)

No, I don't disagree, although I do note that you're somewhat partial to dismissing moral arguments that you disagree with by labelling them as irrelevant "aesthetic" considerations rather than as valid moral positions.

What you seem to be saying is that I'm somehow biased when it comes to this topic. But how? Am I secretly pro-life but in the closet? A wolf in sheep's clothing pretending to be pro-choice? Or what?

I just don't think that a discussion like this should be shut down because you as a moderator happen to disagree with and be frustrated by some of the other posters taking part.

What are you suggesting?

Isn't sunlight the best disinfectant (to quote one of our colleagues)?

I'm aware of that. Even where I live there is constant pressure from some quarters to wind back the availability of abortion. And we have our share of protesters, too. Luckily, here they do not generally have easy access to guns and bombs.

The question is whether this particular debate should be fought out freely in the open forums, or whether one side should be censured for daring to disagree and to express views you'd rather not listen to.

If you'd like my opinions on any matter of women's rights, please ask me and I'll tell you straight up. I'm fairly sure we'll agree on most of them.

 

On the contrary, it's important not to respond to them. They live for attention. If they don't get it they will suffocate and die.

The more-or-less standard internet definition of "trolling" does not care whether the alleged troll believes that his statement is true. What matters is whether it is:

• off topic
• repeated without responding to responses from others after the initial posting
• stated in an insulting or otherwise inflammatory way
• or in violation of the particular website's rules.

I would hope that all the moderators understand this. Otherwise, how can we do our jobs?

That's a tall order. I'd say that 75% of the population of the USA is emotional about this issue. We're happy if they just don't get into fistfights in public.

Uh, "paramount"? Whatever happened to the "reasonable person" test? There actually are women who claim they're being harrassed if all you do is take a second look at an attractive dress and then say, "nice dress."

It would serve them right to simply lock the thread.

If it comes up again, THEN start applying the rules more consistently from the start. To moderators as well as all other participants!

Thank you! As I'm now at an age at which I have a 3% probability of dying in any given year, I have to face end-of-life issues. DNR orders are routinely ignored in the USA. My mother had a no-tube-feeding order and the so-called "nursing home" tube-fed her anyway, because that way they were able to charge her estate for two more weeks of "caring" for the vegetable that was once her body.

As heroic measures continue to be invented that make it possible to keep the most vapid corpses breathing, we have to develop attitudes toward "saving lives" that are appropriate for the post-industrial era. That includes people in their last six months of life (during which they pay 50% of their total lifetime medical bills) as well as the nine months before they become "persons" in the more rational (i.e. less religious) societies.

 

Ah geez, I don't know, James. Why would a woman who nearly died of cancer take being told that if a woman is sick, she's just not worth that much, personally? Can you think of a reason why that may be offensive to some? Just off the top of your head? Go on, have a think about it.

We once banned 2 people for their opinion that raping children should be legal. You think saying that it should be acceptable to kill a woman to get her child out of her is an opinion that is just that, "meh" an opinion?

How about when you refute it with reason and the comments become even more extreme and offensive? How about when you express disgust for this "opinion" that murdering sick women may be acceptable (because when you kill someone, it's usually deemed murder), you are told that you may as well offer blowjobs to the men participating in this thread? You don't think that's personal? Is it acceptable?

And did you see what the response to that was?

Well of course, I was asking for it by actually providing a response with studies and real life cases. How absolutely abhorrent of me. Lesson learned.

Righttt....

I take it you have not yet read the ongoing discussion in the back room about what exactly was happening in this thread?

Well if trolling and lying are expected and shrugged off, why bother with any rules of this site at all? What's the point?

I have done that for over dozens of posts. At what point is it acceptable to get "flustered" when the lying and misrepresentation continues?

Let me see if I have this straight. "Advice" that equates to telling me that I may as well suck the cocks of the men in this thread instead of responding and denying the misrepresentation and the lies, was generally correct?

Way to take a stand against sexual harassment, James. No, really. Telling me that my being sexually harassed was correct and there was nothing wrong with it because the message behind it was correct. Amazing.

Unbelievable.

Telling me to give someone a blowjob would be better than responding is now advice. Yep. Just wow..

Well of course you don't. You think the underlying message behind telling me to give the men in this thread a blowjob was correct.

It's because of attitudes like this that this site has such a big issue with sexual harassment. Read other forums and the women who have left here for this exact same reason. This is just another notch on this site's bedpost for failing to once again, address the issue. I shouldn't be surprised. It's an ongoing thing here.

A word of advice, for future reference, both here and outside of this forum. When a person complains about sexual harassment, you don't tell them that the underlying message behind that sexually charged comment that constituted the harassment was correct.

You have made your opinion very clear. You can stop making excuses for them now.

Oh no, I now realise that I was wrong to expect better.

Ya think?

When you tell me that the underlying message behind being told that I may as well offer blowjobs is correct, you don't think you are asking me to accept being sexually harassed? I mean, you can't even tell that being told something like that is sexual harassment. You can't even tell this is not acceptable.

You lay out the groundwork for excusing it and then you ask me what I think the punishment should be? Wow..

Just wow..

You want my honest opinion? This is pathetic and inexcusable. But hey, I should just be a good little girl and shut up and mind my place.

We're done.

 

If I had just joined SciForums and read that, I might make the observation that the moderator of that particular subforum might, therefore, not be doing a good job.

This sounds like a discussion better suited to the Linguistics subforum. Send them my way.

I don't feel that obligation. It's just not my territory so I'm only stomping into it in my Miss Piggy slippers instead of my motorcycle boots.

Dude, you're the U.S. Marshall in this territory. Clean it up according to your own standards. Surely you of all people at one point must have reminded us all that "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permisson."

And this is where the Linguistics moderator changes into his motorcycle boots. The deliberate killing of a viable fetus is not legally defined as murder in many states. Abortion of a fetus is not legally defined as murder in any of them, including, as far as I know, the few that have done their best to outlaw abortion.

But that's not a scientific discussion so hosting it on SciForums is hardly part of our charter. If it's more trouble than it's worth, AND it has virtually nothing to do with science, then dump the damn thing! How much of our time are we going to waste on this crap?

There must be just as many websites devoted to this topic, which welcome non-scientific comments, as there are websites devoted to evolution denialism. Why do we feel that we are obliged to host it here???

Again, please send those trolls to the Linguistics subforum. There's no universal Merriam-Webster/OED standard definition of "terrorism," but the various definitions that exist, from the FBI's to mine, are close enough to not start fistfights. And none of them agree with that one!

Words really are important.

And when are we going to fix that? As I've pointed out before, it's no stretch to identify it as the most insidious type of trolling: "to halt or divert the forward motion of a discussion by injecting material that is off-topic, distracting, inflammatory, known to the contributor to be untrue, or already challenged by another member without the challenge being acknowledged and/or rebutted."

The same way we police all the other rules. If a moderator notices it, or it is brought to their attention, they can take the appropriate action. But indeed we need to update the rules to note that since this type of trolling is both deliberate and insidious, we'll start the perpetrator at a much higher level on the ban cycle: doing it twice, no matter how long the interval, results in a permaban. That would have solved our problem with S.A.M. and her "I'll just wait 3 months and nobody will remember that I was shot down for saying this before" tactic more efficiently.

And if the moderator misses it, the intellectually dishonest member gets a free pass. Duh?

This is an easy trap to fall into. I find it very difficult to respect arguments based on the Bronze Age "wisdom" of religion.

There's been more than enough trolling (repetition of statements without moving the argument forward) to simply delete 95% of the posts. That alone would improve the quality of the discourse. Disagreement is not grounds for locking a thread, but frustration with the lack of forward motion is. However, rather than locking it Tiassa might take my suggestion and clean it up. I wouldn't be surprised if almost every post is eventually followed by at least ten others that are exact duplicates except for wording.

Benjamin Cardozo (1870-1938), the first Jewish justice on the U.S. Supreme Court (1932-1938). He is considered a major influence on the evolution of U.S. law. And it's "sunshine."

A friend of mine changed careers and got a law degree. Being Jewish and named Benjamin, he legally changed his name to Benjamin Cardozo in honor of his spiritual ancestor. He did not see the internet coming. Nobody can find him!

[EDIT: I quoted the wrong justice, it was Louis Brandeis who made the statement about sunshine. He was on the court 1916-1939. His parents were of Jewish ancestry but after emigrating from Bohemia to the USA they became rather secular, so Brandeis is not generally identified as the first Jewish Supreme Court justice.]

Until recently it was commonly asserted that Australia was taking the same historical path as the USA, merely fifty years behind us. Today it seems like you've sprung out ahead.

 

But that's not my position, abortion/viability/adoption is a compromise that, superficially at least seems to address the concerns of both parties, it's one I am willing to accept if it can be made to work properly. Being made to work properly neccessarily includes dealing with the dynamics you're describing.

I personally believe that women should be free to make their own reproductive choices as a matter of conscience and education, even if I personally should happen to disagree with it.

In an ideal world yes, and in this same ideal world, contraception would be freely available to women to take up as desired, and all women should be sufficiently educated to fully and completely understand the potential consequences of that decision. Sadly, we do not live in that ideal world.

Agreed, however, my daughter, at age 6 is not in a position to speak out to protect her rights, and so I, as an (essentially) white male living in the American pallocratic hegemony am forced to speak out so that her right to make the decision for herself, regardless of my personal opinion of that decision, is protected.

The alternative, leaving the decision to 50+ year old, mostly white males who still think that you can't get pregnant from genuine rape, global warming is a lie, and that the earth was created in 6 days 6,000 years ago is untenable.

Consider: If white males like me had remained silent on women's rights to vote, or blacks rights to use the same bathroom as whites, how different would the world be?

If I was a US citizen, I would at least seriously consider it. Whether or not I actually voted for her would depend on your Green parties policies and whether or not I agreed with them - remember, I spend 37.5 hours a week being paid to protect the environment.

Helen Clark, current administrator of the United Nations Development Programme was the 37th PM of New Zealand and was in office from 1999 - 2008, and as I understand it, is being considered for Secretary General. She was the second female PM NZ had had at that point, the previous being Jenny Shipley. Our current Parliment has 39 female MPs out of a total of 120, at least one transgender MP, and a number of openly gay MP's (both male and female). I voted for Helen Clark, but not Jenny Shipley because I dislike National party policies.

New Zealand Abortion Law requires that abortions after 12 weeks be performed in a hospital, and must be approved by two doctors, one of which must be a gynaecologist or obstetrician. Counselling is available but not compulsory and the law is silent on the personhood of the unborn. Abortions can be obtained between 12 and 20 weeks to save the life of the woman, preserve the physical or mental health of the woman, and in case of foetal impairment. There are other factors which can be considered as well (eg, rape, I think Incest), however, they're not neccessarily automatically grounds for an abortion - but, for example, the damage to the mental health of a woman carrying a rape-baby full term would probably be grounds for an abortion if requested. Some of these are grounds for abortion even after 20 weeks. There are no parental notification restrictions on access under the age of 16.

In addition to that I, or my wife, can get 120 condoms on perscription (costs us $5) through our GP.

Kiwis were the first to give women the right to vote, compared to the situation in the US I feel positively privileged, I still, however, feel compelled to lend my voice to those calling for the right for women to determine their own reproductive destinies. And that's kind of the point I'm making. Tiassa, and myself, for example are essentially arguing "Hey, knuckleheads, listen to the women and let them make their own choices" in an environement where their voices are muted, and you're suggesting we should remain silent?

I think I have a fairly good idea based on what I have observed, there and elsewhere in the American Pallocratic Hegemony.

 

I don't know if you realize it or not, however, even this has consequences that limit a womans future reproductive choices - the general medical advice is that you shouldn't have more than three C-sections (based on the weakening effects it has on the uterine wall, risk of uterine rupturing, so on and so forth) and that you shouldn't have a natural deliver after having a c-section. I'd question the ability of a fetus to survive induction at 24 weeks, given that it's used as a method of abortion in the second trimester, but I don't have any statistics at my fingertips and lack the time for google.

 

Bells,

I was worried that you'd react this way.

It is a pity that this thread was allowed to continue as long as it did. It probably should have been closed once it became clear that the participants were incapable of or unwilling to discuss the topic without resort to personal insults and other forms of harassment. Alternatively/additionally, the offending posters should have been officially warned and/or banned.

I was not around while all this was developing. I am unfortunately left to pick up the pieces.

I have been careful not to excuse or try to justify unacceptable behaviour directed towards you. My concern is that lightgigantic's punishment is too severe under the circumstances.

At the risk of further putting you off side, I need to respond to a few of the points you've made.

I'm not sure what particular comment you're referring to here. I am aware of the "blowjob" comments. I am aware of the "hysterical" label. But this 'sick woman isn't worth much' is a new one that I don't recall seeing in the thread. Could you link me to it, please? Clearly, that is incredibly insensitive and offensive.

You're dropping all the context from the discussion now. You know that the discussion was about a controversial issue.

And I don't think you're really interested at this point in what I think is or is not acceptable in terms of the thread topic.

I've already said what I think about the blowjob thing. EF clearly didn't think about who he was addressing when he made that comment. LG was extremely stupid in following up on it after you replied to the initial comment. I don't think LG's permanent ban as a result of that and his use of the term "hysterical" is justified.

I said nothing about you "asking for it".

I've read all the relevant threads, in the public and moderators forums.

Trolling is to be expected in threads like this. Some people are immature and/or have no personal experience of the issues involved. Both lying and trolling are breaches of the site rules. Such breaches could have been dealt with early on by moderators who were present at the time. Instead, the thread was allowed to remain open and nobody was censured.

Read what I've said. Don't put words in my mouth. I've explained my point clearly, both in this and in at least two other threads.

What you "equated" the advice to is not quite the same as the advice that was actually given. I understand why you took it the way you did, though.

The original comment, in my opinion, was borderline harassment. The follow-up from LG was certainly harassment because it referenced you personally. The initial comment was inappropriate given its addressee (you). The follow-up was ban-worthy.

Let me be clear: I have not at any time said this behaviour was "correct" or that there was "nothing wrong with it".

Unbelievable that I might view things differently from you? Obviously, you're close to this and I'm viewing from a distance. Is it so surprising that my perception is different from yours?

Are you going to start accusing me of supporting or encouraging sexual harassment? (Or have you already started?)

I can't explain myself any better than I have the previous four or five times.

There's the problem right there. You're looking for an "underlying message". I'm looking at what was actually written. You have presumed certain intentions and motives on the parts of the posters. They may or may not have been present at the time. Since I can't know that, I can only go on what was actually written. It would be unfair to impute an "underlying message" to the relevant posts without more evidence.

I don't think we have a big problem with sexual harassment here. It's something that comes up from time to time, just like racism or homophobia.

The original message was "Don't feed the trolls". I think that's generally good advice.

Unfortunately, that "blowjob" reference was tacked on at the end, and that was the part that was inappropriate.

You're failing to separate the advice I mentioned (don't feed the trolls) from the inappropriate sexual reference.

I don't think I've made excuses for anybody.

What would be my motivation in condoning any form of sexual harassment on this forum? Am I an evil misogynist myself? Do I secretly enjoy watching women being harassed? Is that what you think?

At one stage in my life I was a contact person for giving out advice to students about sexual harassment issues. You presume I am new to the principles of sexual harassment. I assure you that I am not, and that I have some experience in dealing with such matters.

Come on. Let's not pretend. You know and I know that it's standard in any discussion about abortion for pro-lifers to label pro-choicers as baby killers. For the rabid pro-lifer, the pro-choicer condones the murder of innocent unborn babies whose lives should be sacrosanct from the instant of conception.

If you enter this kind of discussion taking a pro-choice position, it's almost guaranteed that if things get heated you'll at some point be accused of wanting to murder babies.

If you think differently, then you're naive about internet discussion forums. I think you know better than that. Sure, it's fine to be outraged when somebody accuses you of wanting to kill babies. But don't claim that you didn't see it coming.

In the mediation of sexual harassment issues, it is commonplace to ask what kind of outcome the victim hopes to gain from the process. For example, you might like an apology from the perpetrators. Given the context here, you might like a lengthy ban.

As a matter of fact, it seems that you already have part of the outcome you want: the permanent banning of one of the perpetrators. But I'm only assuming that this is satisfactory to you. I also don't want to assume that this is sufficient. Hence I ask the question.

Obviously I have never told you to shut up or to mind your place.

I'm sorry that you seem to want to impute to me "underlying" motives that I do not have. I do not think it is fair that you are trying to paint things as though I somehow approve or condone what happened here.

I hope that a few days away from the forum will give you a chance to think things over and get a bit of distance between yourself and recent events.