Bafflement
What is the morality behind forcing a girl or woman to carry to term an anencephalic foetus that will die within days of birth?
Doctors have told the girl that her four-month foetus will not live more than a few days beyond birth. She is in the care of Ireland’s health service which has issued an order stopping her from going to Britain…Miss D was informed last month that her foetus has anencephaly, a condition which means that a large part of the brain and skull is missing. Babies with anencephaly live a maximum of just three days after birth.
What is the principle at work here? I don’t understand it. I don’t even begin to understand it. Ireland’s health service wants this teenager to carry the foetus for another five months so that she can give birth to it the usual painful way and then watch it die? Because…what? God is punishing her and we mustn’t interfere with God’s punishments? But then there wouldn’t be such a thing as Ireland’s health service at all. No, I don’t begin to understand it. It just looks like stark sadism and cruelty.
No excuse for it. This is the sort of issue that leaves my friends with faith shuffling their feet, clearly preferring not to have to think their way around it.
“Pro-choice groups are due to gather outside the Four Courts today to demonstrate their support for the 17-year-old at the centre of the abortion case. Two groups, Choice Ireland and the Alliance for Choice, say decision to prevent Miss D travelling abroad for an abortion is a denial of basic human rights. A spokeswoman said: “Miss D is another case of several that have gone before and will come again that highlight the flaws in Irish abortion law. Without legislation to deal with this issue, yet more Irish women in difficult situations will have to be dragged through the courts.”
However:
The Pro-Life Campaign, meanwhile, has welcomed the appointment of a senior counsel to represent the interests of the unborn in the High Court today. Dr Ruth Cullen of the group said: “There are precedents for appointing advocates for the unborn in court cases. It is only proper that respect for the dignity and value of the unborn child be taken into consideration. “The Pro-Life Campaign does not believe an abortion is in the best interests of either the mother or the unborn baby.” Yesterday’s decision to appoint a senior counsel to represent the interests of the unborn child means the Attorney General will have two teams of lawyers at today’s hearing: one representing the unborn and the other representing the Attorney General in his independent role as a constitutional officer. Another pro-choice group, Doctors for Choice, called for Miss D to be allowed to have a safe and legal abortion in Ireland. The group claimed that there was support from Irish obstetricians for this course of action. “In 2002, two of the masters of the Dublin maternity hospitals acknowledged that they would prefer to see termination of pregnancy offered in Ireland, to women who are affected by fatal foetal anomaly, “the group said in a statement. “It is time to end the political hypocrisy surrounding . . . abortion and women’s health care in this country. We call on the leaders of all political parties to respond to our statement that Miss D be offered a termination of pregnancy in Ireland.”
The High Court Abortion controversy is set to turn into an election battle-ground for voters in the next coming weeks. The election will be held on the 24th May 2007. Gott sei Dank!
Oh christ alfucking mighty – the interests of the unborn child, the dignity and value of the unborn child – what’s so fucking dignified about being born with most of your brain and skull missing, only to die three days later? And what about the dignity and value of the girl? What about her lack of desire to have an infant gestating inside her when she knows it is solely with the end of dying shortly after she expels it? What about the girl’s possible desire to spare the future infant the indignity of developing into something like a baby but with no brain? What makes these horrible loathsome intrusive people so damn sure that their concern is more important than hers? What, what, what?
God I hate right to lifers.
Marie-Therese, do you remember where you got that quote about the Pro-Life campaign? I looked via Google news and didn’t find it – found a brief item in the Belfast Telegraph but nothing quoting all that guff. I’d like to put it in News.
“Prelate says it is up to the courts, not the Church, to make the laws…
The Catholic Primate of Ireland has said that there is “no such thing” as a right to abortion, as the courts grapple with the lastest abortion crisis involving a 17-year-old pregnant girl whose foetus is suffering from a brain abnormality.
In an exclusive interview with an Irish newspaper, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said the courts, and not the Church hierarchy, will decide Irish abortion laws.
He described the latest abortion controversy as a sad case, but said the teenage girl’s unborn foetus baby is “a human person with rights”.
I read in today’s paper that the Attorney General instructed senior counsel James Connolly to represent the unborn baby, whose rights to life is enshrined in the Constitution. It is apparently not the first time since the infamous X case in 1992 that the Attorney General has stepped in to represent the legal rights of the unborn foetus.
Sure – the girl’s foetus is a human person with rights, and two week old embryos with no nervous system are human persons with rights; but the girl they want to force to bear a doomed baby has no rights. Naturally.
And a foetus with human rights of course wants to be made to gestate for nine months and then die instead of dying after four months of gestation because…because…it will get so much reading done during that extra five months?
God I hate this stuff. I hate these bastards. They make me feel violent.
Well, if you really want to know the ‘principle’ activating these ‘pro-life’ inhumane Daleks, you can read stuff like this from the US conference of Catholic bishops. Make sure you have a sick bucket ready:
“Do you remember where you got that quote about the Pro-Life campaign? I looked via Google news and didn’t find it – found a brief item in the Belfast Telegraph but nothing quoting all that guff. I’d like to put it in News.”
OB:
I got the quote from: http://www.ultimatedisposal.com Dearbhail McDonald and O’Loughlin of the Irish Independent are doing daily write – ups on Abortion controversy.
Unison.ie / Irish Independent – Irish and World News, Breaking …One has to subscribe to that paper.
See also yesterday’s views on above site for more information pertaining to this diabolical issue.
Yeah, I condone what you have already said. It is absolutely deplorable.
Unfortunately, though, to say, it is nothing new to us in holy Ireland.
As far as the church is concerned, this girl (and any pregnant woman) isn’t a person at all–she’s a Holy Uterus who has one purpose and one purpose only.
OB,”See: Abortion in Ireland
From Wikipedia”.
Abortion in Ireland – Historical Perspective and current campaigning
In Ireland abortion continues to be illegal and women are forced to travel elsewhere. Since the late 1980’s.
However, a series of struggles have succeeded in forcing the Irish state to drop its ban on abortion information and abandon its attempt at stopping women travelling to Britain for abortions.
See also SPUC!
And I was thinking that there was a shortage of human rights. Now I find out that one is endowed with human rights even though one is brainless. The right to become larger before the inevitable unconscious death is one that sanctimonious people fight for. How nice.
We need in Ireland another abortion referendum. We must have clarity on abortion. The law is apparently not absolute when it says that abortion is illegal. On the contrary it is legal under particular circumstances. However we here in Ireland have adopted a Pontius Pilate approach and let England do our dirty work.
Politicians are terrified to tackle it because hot potatoes do not come any hotter. Do take note that the abortion controversy only became known when the Dail stepped down last week from Dail OIREACHTAS business, due to the forthcoming election on the 24th May.
Very strategically timed indeed? That is the government for you as the fella says!
GOOD NIGHT ALL!
That catholic quote above reminds me of those priests who used to steal and baptise jewish babies. Is that in The God Delusion? I read it somewhere recently anywhere.
After a lot of thinking, I’ve come up with a reasoned response to these fine people:
AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Boy, thanks for that excerpt, Nicholas; sick bucket is right.
Actually, something good may come of this if this case helps to shift Irish public opinion.
Re: Advocates.
I think any in-court advocate for an anencephalic fetus, in order to accurately and properly represent “respect for the dignity and value of the unborn child,” ought to be required to undergo a complete radical prefrontal lobotomy in order to prepare him or her to argue the case. It’s a simple and logical requirement. The Catholics run lots of law schools: They can ask for volunteers.
If they require a volunteer to perform the surgery, I suggest we ask Miss D if she would like to do it, and offer her a rusty can opener. If she demurs, I’ll gladly take over on her behalf. If a rusty can opener isn’t available, perhaps a sharp-ish rock…
Yeah. This kind of nonsense inspires rage in me as well.
If this isnt a case for abortion nothing ever could be,although Ireland has grown up a lot in the last few years this is barbaric!
What an appalling story, a truly evil restriction on human rights. What on earth gives the state, any state, the right to interfere in a person’s medical treatment? What concept of the common good means that teenage women must bear dead children? The law in question is clearly immoral and can be justly ignored.
Oh, and by the way, please can you all stop this criticism of the Catholic church. That’s terrorism!
Andy B: “That catholic quote above reminds me of those priests who used to steal and baptise jewish babies. Is that in The God Delusion? I read it somewhere recently anywhere.”
I don’t remember it in the God Delusion, but the man Hitchens details ‘Mother’ Theresa’s minions doing similar things to Muslims and Hindus. Apparently faith means nothing if you have holy water.
I think it’s pretty clear that women have been very conscientious (mostly by insinct) about their babies/fetuses for millenia, and that doctors have also been (by training) for centuries. Why do people think that the government needs to be involved? It’s not as though we have a bunch of murderous mothers and doctors on our hands.
I always find abortion, religion, and morality more generally to be the Republic’s blind spot. With the abortion thing it seems to be a combination of the smug middle classes knowing they can always go to England, combined with this wierd sense that being seen to be a good Catholic is the done thing, so people who’ve lived with their partners for years get married in white in a church, yet aunts gossip about people who don’t get married in a church.
Ophelia
you’re horrified. I’m appalled. And a very brave 17 year old will hopefully with the assistance of the courts tell the Taliban minded Health Service Executive where to go. For the poor girl involved its a tragedy at two levels, first she was looking forward to the birth of the baby (she found out about the problems on a scan on her 17th Birthday) then people who are supposed to be caring for her are attempting to force her to spend another 5 months carrying to term a brainless child with no hope of life. As the girl herself said yesterday “Its my body, I should be allowed do what I want with it”.
Dermot
The term “Pastoral Care” seems euphemistic here (as it does when used by the religious anti voluntary-euthanasia lobby).
It’s supposedly a “wide range of supportive and helping acts.” But it reads more like the torturer who hugs his victim to allow the victim to suffer the illusion of empathy, thus weakening them, before recommencing torture. Self-righteous b@stards.
Most time I think we just have to be patient and reason religion into the septic tank of history where it has ever belonged.
And then, I read something like that. And then I’m sickened to the core. The militant atheist takes hold and I think we don’t bother reasoning with religion. Just burn down every church, temple, etc. But then the reasonable part returns with the question, why stoop to their level?
As ‘Miss D’ is still a minor, don’t we have a double case of child abuse by the Irish authorities? Killing a child after three days of sentience and the torture the mother will go through.
Another but of the Abrahamic god showing his love. Only on a small scale this time – not as spectacular as Darfur, Auschwitz or a countless number of other examples.
Mike
“Just burn down every church, temple, etc.”
Nah, they’re works of art. It’s the f@ckers that infest them that are the problem.
“The baptism of the child assures the parents of the child’s eternal happiness, and the provision of Christian burial of the deceased infant gives witness to the Church’s unconditional respect for human life and the recognition that in the face of every human being is an encounter with God”.
“Go deo” happiness = baptism = christian burial= a safe place in Heaven = where the blessed baby will see and enjoy God forever. Amen.
For the record, the Jewish boy that the Papists kidnapped was Edgardo Mortara. Because someone claimed they had baptized him, you see. At the time, some terrorists actually dared to say they thought it questionable.
The ‘pastoral care’ wasn’t offered to Mina Welby, whose husband had asked his doctors not to prolong a life that had become a burden to him.
Re: Mina Welby. Non capisco l’italiano
SONO LÀ UNA VERSIONE DI TRADUZIONE?
That’s an interesting story, about the Jewish boy!
Allegedly kidnapping babies and sending them off to be illegally adopted in America was purportedly a lucrative business in the past with the religious in Ireland. The Sisters of Charity who ran the now notorious Magdalen Laundries did not have to go too far in search of their fine wares. As they were home produced on their own premises. Come into the parlour said the spider to the fly
Mr Welby’s funeral (in English).
Marie-Therese,
I’m pretty sure the name you mention is not that of the 17-year-old. (Not that I know her actual name, which the judge has directed is not to be published.)
As to the timing, if the Irish Times has the story right, the ultrasound scan which brought her the bad news was done on April 23rd. Prior to that she had intended having the baby. So it’s not at all likely that any aspect of this was staged.
Can someone tell me what exactly is an ‘unborn child’? Is that something like an ‘ungrown-up adult’ or an ‘unbuilt house’, i.e. a contradiction in terms?
Either it’s born and it’s a child, or it isn’t and it’s a foetus. It seems to me that this is the basic issue in the abortion debate. Once you accept it’s a child, i.e. a person, then it’s hard to find any reason to allow abortion, even in cases of rape, because it would involve killing an innocent person (the ‘child’) for the benefit of another person, which is clearly immoral.
If on the other hand you believe that people start at birth (my position) then there is very little argument against abortion on demand because the only actual person involved is the woman, who should have the right to do what she wishes with her own body.
However, in the present case, you could make a case for abortion anyway on the ground that the ‘child’ is incurably ill and fated to die early and painfully. The situation equates to a person on life support whose position is deemed hopeless. To refuse an abortion in this case looks like the most extreme dogmatism.
Unborn child – oh, that’s pure anti-abortion rhetoric. They’ve been doing that for years, decades, and (of course) it’s worked. They always always always refer to the entity inside the woman’s abdomen as a child. I used to ask rhetorically why they didn’t refer to it as a senior citizen.
I think some people really do believe there’s a little person in there, thinking, singing little tunes, dreaming about life on the outside. Talk of foetal development cuts no ice with them.
Of all the debates I have joined or followed on B&W, this is probably the hardest to comment on, as all that I can manage is a gutteral growl of visceral loathing and contempt. Which ain’t exactly debate, but what other response is appropriate?
Two of my best work-buddies are (kinda nominal) catholics and I mentioned it over coffee. The response suprised me (although given that one of them is newly pregnant maybe it shouldn’t have). ‘Sick, evil bastards’ was about the mildest response.
I note from the report on the B&W main page that the Irish police have indicated that they ‘would not and could not stop the girl without a court order.’ Am I being optimistic in seeing common humanity sickened by vicious dogma, even among those the church calls its own?
Harry said:
“Once you accept it’s a child, i.e. a person, then it’s hard to find any reason to allow abortion, even in cases of rape, because it would involve killing an innocent person (the ‘child’) for the benefit of another person, which is clearly immoral.”
J.J. Thomson dealt with this issue about 30 years ago in her “A Defense of Abortion”, and she makes a very good case there for the position that abortion need not be morally impermissible even if we assume the fetus to be a person (with all corresponding rights) from the moment of conception. Her argument is based on the claim that, even if the fetus has a “right to life” just like any other person, this right itself does not entail the right to others’ assistance in doing whatever is needed to maintain that life.
I may not have made Thomson’s point entirely clear in my post above (I tend to do this).
So here’s an analogy:
Let’s say you’re going to die if you don’t have one of my kidneys transplanted into your body, and let’s say I’m the only person in the whole world that’s compatible. Clearly you have a right to life, since you’re a person, but it in no way follows that you have a right to my kidney, or that I’d be murdering you if I decided not to provide you with my kidney.
If we think of abortion as a cessation of life-sustaining assistance, we should reach the same conclusion.
“‘Sick, evil bastards’ was about the mildest response.”
Good.
It really is foul, any way you look at it. They don’t even seem to be considering the obvious likelihood that the girl herself is very concerned with the dignity of the foetus, and doesn’t think being born mostly brainless only to die almost at once would enchance that dignity; or the equally obvious likelihood that she cares about that foetus a great deal more than the Irish Health Service Executive or the Vatican does.
The use of unborn child to describe a feotus is hardly anti abortion rhetoric O.B.have you seen those recent sonogram pictures of 5 month old unborn children sucking thumbs ect?
tea:
I understand the J.J.Thompson argument. I’m not sure I wholly subscribe to it however. My reasoning is this. It is based on the lack of a legal duty to care for the dependent other. Now this is certainly true of a stranger. Thus, whatever the moral position might be, I clearly have no legal obligation to give someone else my kidney because that person has no legal claim on me. The position of my own young child is entirely different, however. I clearly have a legal (not just moral) obligation to feed, clothe and protect my child, and can be prosecuted if I fail to do so.
Once we accept that the foetus is a child, then surely we would also have to accept that its mother has the same legal obligation of care and protection that she would have after its birth.
Hence I still feel we have to stick to the issue of whether the foetus is a child as the key issue.
http://www.ultimatedisposal.com Today’s viewa have a few up to date articles on the abortion case.
Sorry, Kevin, about the confusion caused. I commented too soon without having fully read details of the case. I realise now that she was up in Court on a different matter. I have at the best of times the propensity to jump the gun. A psychologist, two days ago told me that my inability to listen to people has been instrumental in my downfall in life. She is so right, suffice it to say!
Latest update on abortion case at: http://www.ultimatedisposal.com
Well the HSE have backed down. Score one for sanity.
Thanks for the tip Marie-Therese.
From the story on B&W mainpage; the lawyer for the HSE pronounced ‘that the HSE made its initial decision to try to stop Miss D travelling without the luxury of time or a battery of lawyers giving advice.’
Speechless.
Actually, OB, I don’t think we can score one for sanity. We can score one for “This case is clearly going to mobilize the country against these fucking stupid repressive absolutist anti-abortion statutes, so we’ve been asked by the fanatics who like those repressive absolutist statutes to back off before it makes them look any more fanatical, immoral and repressive.”
Or at least, that’s my take on it. I have a keen ear for the sound of self-serving back-pedaling. Or perhaps it’s just cynicism.
Hopefully one day there will be a mid position reached between the use abortion as a form of contraception zealots and this sort of insanity!or am I just dreaming?
“Score one for sanity.”
Not yet. It seems the District Court followed the line taken by the HSE prior to its U-turn. So the case is back in the High Court.
BTW there isn’t any great public outcry, although there probably will be if the High Court upholds the District Court ruling. Some lawyers believe that a termination is already permitted by Irish law in a case such as this, so it’s not even clear that Miss D needs to travel. This blog is worth a look if you’re interested in the legal background.
Incidentally, since my comments upthread may seem a bit daft, they were in response to comments which have since been deleted by OB at the commenter’s request. And if they still seem daft my excuse is that this is a pretty daft situation.
Oh, gawd.
“The judge said that granting the order would amount to a failure to protect the rights of the unborn and would therefore be unlawful and improper.”
Thanks for the links, Kevin. And sorry about the comments left behind! I thought of deleting that part of your comment but was in a rush so didn’t (it takes longer to delete part of a post than to drop the whole thing).
what nobody’s mentioned is that there’s an approximately 1 in 8700 risk of the mother dying in chidbirth, versus an approximately 1 in a million risk of the mother dying if the abortion’s during the first 8 weeks (and 1 in 140,000-odd for any stage during pregnancy).
Not only is this absolutely sickening and disgusting, it’s also potentially dangerous for the young woman in question.
If Miss D dies, could her parents sue the Irish state for manslaughter or for wilfully contributing towards her death?
Hmm. I think it’s sort of well-known that childbirth is much riskier than abortion – but you’re right that that doesn’t get mentioned much. I suppose that’s partly because feminists got so tired of the ‘baking cookies’ libel.
But the bishops are right out front about it. “it is clear that before “viability” it is never permitted to terminate the gestation of an anencephalic child as the means of avoiding psychological or physical risks to the mother.”
Can’t abort merely because of risks to the mother – that would never do.
“Baking cookies” libel?
Forgive my ignorance, but I’ve not heard that one before. Pray tell, what is it?
“Hopefully one day there will be a mid position reached between the use abortion as a form of contraception zealots and this sort of insanity!or am I just dreaming?” (richard)
Richard, nobody ‘uses abortion as a form of contraception’. This is a straw man used by anti-choicers to stigmatize women. Given that you have to get the permission of two doctors before you’re even considered for an abortion, it would be impossible to ‘use’ it like this anyway.
In the work place, women must do man’s work like a man, and for man’s pay and prequisites. Consequently, they are compelled to regard private life, and especially marriage, homemaking, and family, as lesser goods, to be pursued only by those lesser women who can aspire to no higher than “baking cookies.” Pray, tell me, does this make sense?
Should have read “a woman'” also, requisites,- prerequisites, whichever?
It makes perfect sense, Marie-Therese, and is the background of the specific reference I had in mind. tom p, it’s something H. Clinton said during the 1992 presidential campaign in answer to some fool question about her activities: she said something along the lines of ‘I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies but’ etc – which was seized on by family values types and resentful ‘stay at home mothers’ as a sign of her blah blah blah. The whole thing had a certain notoriety here.
“Court rules travel would violate rights of unborn.
A DISTRICT judge refused at the weekend to grant an order allowing the 17-year-old girl at the centre of the latest abortion”. Full story @ http://www.ultimatedisposal.com.
Incidentally, the name of site derives from wording that was on documentation pertaining to Industrial Schools. Not pleasant words at all.
RE: Starbucks,
“Get off the cross, we need the wood”.
For the R.I.R.B. rogue robbing wretched degenerates’ cauldron!
Thanks Marie-Therese & OB, it makes perfect sense now. I’ve never heard that slur referred to thus, it’s a nice shorthand
But like much shorthand, too cryptic if you don’t happen to know the reference. I’ve never heard it referred to that way either, it was a spur of the moment coinage. Perhaps nice but also perhaps impractical!
Would any of you like to attempt to inject a smitham of doubt into this blogger from Alberta? Politely, if possible; I think he is a well-meaning young man led astray by the catholics’ distaste for women who aren’t (simultaneously)virgins, married, and mothers.
Nicholas,
It seems unlikely that doubt is ever entertained by that young man.
Abortion isnt being used as contraception Lucy why is the U.K. facing an average age of 55 years old then?you know as well as I do that two doctors will virtualy always sign of on nearly every first trimester abortion!I just think abortion is over used.I know there are a lot of factors in the average age thing but over use of abortion does not help.
Richard: What on earth gives you any basis for concluding that the low birth rate (and hence aging population) in the U.K. is the result of abortion used as contraception instead of, well, you know, CONTRACEPTION used as contraception?!?! Seriously, I want to know. Where did you get that idea? Do you have any figures to back it up?
Regardless of what those figures are, I absolutely guarantee you that every woman in the world who has the choice (and remember, many women don’t even get that choice) would prefer to use the Pill or a condom to having her uterus scraped in a physically and emotionally traumatic medical procedure. Unfortunately, contraception is not 100% reliable, and neither is human judgment.
Further, it is monumentally arrogant and abusive to declare that the punishment for a failure of birth control OR judgment should be 9 months of pregnancy followed by labour (which together are far more physically and emotionally traumatic, and medically risky, than abortion). Further, the resulting unwanted child is also rather a grave consequence to impose, both on the mother and on society. An unwanted child will either be raised by someone who didn’t want it in the first place – always a recipe for producing a happy, well-adjusted, contributing member of society – or be transferred to someone else’s care at state expense, if someone can be found at all (which can be difficult for children with medical problems, or simply dark skin).
“I just think abortion is over-used.” You have never and will never personally be afflicted with an unwanted pregnancy, Richard, so it’s hard to see why your unvarnished opinion – untainted by any argument – should carry any weight on this matter.
Richard, I’d like to ask you to make a serious effort to imagine what it would be like to be a woman with an unwanted pregnancy BEFORE you share any further opinions on what such a woman should choose to do about it – or worse, how the government should limit her choice of what she can do about it. You seem to be thinking in abstract statistics (aging population, falling birth rates) and forgetting that behind those numbers are real people – human beings with needs, interests, and rights.
Of course, forgetting that women are human beings is a rather common failing, especially in this debate…
Well said, G, as usual.
I’ve always said that if men were the ones who got pregnant, abortion clinics would be as common as barbershops.
I dont think abortion is the only thing to impact our birth rate G.but it is not helping!and as for me having no understanding my daughter was a teen mother(we helped her to bring up the child)I think abortion is very over used,I would much rather see single mothers being alowed to enter into arangements with pre screened for adoption childless couples who were prepared to pay the young woman to carry the baby to full term,I know this would lead to baby auctions but it would at least be an alternative!
I am not sugesting it would end abortion but ideas like it could at least limit it.
Richard, you entirely miss the point. Of course abortion doesn’t HELP the birth rate. But that doesn’t make those abortions frivolous or unnecessary. The reasons why a woman might choose abortion are virtually never frivolous and unnecessary, and to pretend that helping the birth rate is a good reason in and of itself to limit abortion is to trivialize both the actual choices of actual women and the rights of women to make those choices for themselves.
Look at it this way: To say that the UK birthrate is even RELEVANT to any given individual woman’s choice whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is to say that the following is a good argument: “I know you have no desire to have a child, or even be pregnant, let alone carry an unwanted child to term. But you should just suck it up, because our nation’s economy needs every child.” I suggest you go ahead and say that to some woman facing an unwanted pregnancy – but don’t do it if she’s near any sharp implements, because no truly just court would convict her for the harm she would inflict upon you for saying that.
This is why I suggested really trying to put yourself in the point of view of real individual women instead of thinking about statistics.
While your specific policy suggestion avoids the criticism of state-enforce pregnancy, I’m not sure state-encouraged pregnancy (for women who do not actually want a given child) is that much better. I guess the best way to point out the problem is to ask a simple question: What is so bloody sacred about pregnancy? If a given woman chooses not to carry a given pregnancy to term, it isn’t as if another woman somewhere in the world isn’t going to go ahead and have a baby – or more likely, several women are having babies for every abortion.
There seems to be a lurking class/race issue at stake in this concern over falling population: That is, the worry isn’t really falling population in the broad sense, the worry is that the wrong people are having babies. In a world where there are already so many people starving – and a world where global warming is likely to make cropland harder to keep productive – I don’t buy that reasoning. If the world population is going to peak at some 11 billion people (which as I recall is the current guesstimate), I fail to see any problem at all in falling birthrates.
Worried about economic hardship caused by an aging population? Loosen up immigration laws and let some of those billions into your economy. Don’t like that choice? Ask yourself why. And ask the question in a hard, critical fashion. I have never heard any answer to that question that didn’t boil down to some form of racism: Sure, if we let more people into our economy then we won’t suffer the economic problems forecast (forecast by economists, who are not scientists, and who ALWAYS have axes to grind, but let’s assume their predictions are accurate for the moment). But then we’d be letting more of THEM into OUR country.
Bullshit. If you actually let them in (instead of ghettoizing them as France has done, and the UK to a lesser extent), THEM becomes US in short order – unless you consider skin tone a serious obstacle to genuine citizenship.
Your more suggested baby-transfer-arranging is not only unnecessary in this broader sense, it is also delusional in practice: For any real impact, it requires many, many more couples who are eager to adopt and wealthy enough to bid for it than there actually are. Generally, the people with disposable incomes who want children are rather obsessed with having their own children – and throw gobs of money at fertility clinics to that end. While I personally think they would all be better people if they decided to adopt, I cannot really fault them for wanting to pass on their genes – that being sort of a very, very, very basic drive for every organism, no matter how big-brained.
I work every day with foster children, many of whom end up being raised by their grandparents. Their grandparents are noble and loving people for doing stepping in and taking over for their own children when they can’t handle parenthood – but that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing grandparents should be so burdened. The only reason they are so burdened is that pregnancy is treated as something sacred instead of the most ordinary and eminently repeatable (and repeated) biological event in all of space and time.
Let go the sacredness of pregnancy. Pregnancy is a great blessing if one is actively seeking it, but it is the DESIRE FOR CHILDREN that makes pregnancy sacred and special, not the mere facts of copulation leading to gestation. In the absence of that desire, pregnancy is rather the opposite of a blessing, and lacks any real basis for being treated as a matter of great importance.
So it doesnt matter if european peoples birth rate drops below replacment?how about huge tax breaks for grand parents who are prepared to raise children?yes you are right to some extent that I am worried about the wrong people having children but you imply that it is race at the bottom of my fears,Its not a fear that african christian families are having to many children it is the fear that Europe is becomming moslem!what is so sacred about pregnancy? look into your childs eyes you will see! finaly I would have no problem with solving the problem with mass imigration but there is a guettoization problem with one particular group that do not seem to want to enter the main stream so I would exclude a certain religious group.
Richard – that “look into your child’s eyes” stuff is all about the emotions that are (and ought to be!) inspired by wanted and loved children. Can you not consider how or why the emotions of a poor woman, especially a teenaged girl, might be different when she discovers an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy? It is OUR attitudes and perspectives that create the feelings of sacredness, worthiness, importance, etc., not anything intrinsic to the mere fact of pregnancy.
These are very personal matters. You cannot confuse your own personal reactions with the personal reactions of others. And you certainly cannot take your own feelings to be good guides to universal moral truths and public policy! That way madness lies.
I will quite agree that more ought to be done to support grandparents who take in their grandchildren. But that entirely misses my point: I said that taking in the grandkids was a good thing for grandparents to do, and that they are good people for doing it. But that doesn’t mean that it’s good that they are put in a position to do it. It would be a great and noble thing to save a heart attack victim by applying CPR, but that doesn’t mean a heart attack is a blessed event! And, to continue the metaphor, not every heart attack victim is so fortunate as to have someone standing by who knows CPR, just as not every young poor woman saddled with an unwanted pregnancy has grandparents able and willing to take in the child.
And I think you are simply wrong to blame ghettoization on those who are ghettoized. To say that some people “refuse to integrate” is blaming the victim. Policy decisions in the UK, France and Germany have actively encouraged division instead of integration: Even if the first generation of any given immigrant group isn’t very keen on integration, their children will be if given the freedom, opportunities, and encouragement to integrate. Hell, many second generation immigrants integrate very effectively in spite of obstacles placed in their way. But policies that deliberately seek to “preserve culture” by doing things like letting Muslims run their own “faith schools” guarantees that there will be more division and less integration.
The cure for that is to start enacting policies that encourage integration and discourage division. Encouraging Europeans to breed more won’t do a damned thing to solve any of the real problems of changing demographics you cite.
30 times more moslem women now wear the veil in U.K.than 20 years ago so are they even trying to intergrate? there is only one group in this country that has not intergrated whether its with the white population or intrestingly enough relations are even worse between moslems and west indians(probably this is because black people tend to be more overtly christian than whites)G blame the victim? that would be the Frenchman whos city or car was torched!how can you say that encouraging europeans to have more children wont help? at present moslem families are having 3 times as many as non moslems.
G. I do read your posts(and quite enjoy them)I just give you what the man on the proverbial Clapham omnibus would think of what you write.I did point out that every ethnic and racial group that has come to the U.K.exept one are fully part of the mainstream,I am just tired of excuses like yours as to why, I dont care any more why!that was very cruel of you to add that last paragraph you Know I was sitting here planing my o.k. to trash what you dont own response!
I like you am not a particular fan of faih schools but I should point out that in the U.K. we have Jewish,Hindu,Sikh,Catholic and prodestant faith schools and none of these groups have failed to intergrate,at some point G.you have to say that the blame lies with the imigrant group in question!the irony of this is that second generation moslems are segregating themselves far more than their parents ever did how do you answer that?
Richard: “every ethnic and racial group that has come to the U.K.exept one are fully part of the mainstream”
Apparently you are referring here to Muslims. Allow me to point out that Islam is a religion — not an ethnicity or a race. Although it’s true that most religious believers identify very early in life with the religion of their parents, with little or no critical thought given to that identity, I think it’s important to keep in mind that for adults, religion is a choice — not a genetic identity. Muslims come from scores of different countries, and their ethnicities vary greatly.
G.I sometimes wonder if you might over think things!I doubt you would feel quite the same way if your continent was being overun by people who bring their children up to believe the holocaust is a myth!let me see if I have this right moslems come to the U.K. after being here a while they demand faith schools like the jews and catholics have, the goverment agrees to this demand on the grounds of fairness so it all our fault?P I was aware that moslems come in all forms!
G. also on the subject is it realy the job of goverments to bring about intigration(dooms it to failier)I am thinking for example of the U.S.busing experiance.
Actually, Richard, there plenty of people in this country being brought up to believe the Holocaust was a myth. They’re white supremacists – and while I wouldn’t say they’re overrunning my country, the ever-expanding failure of our public education system and economy keeps swelling their numbers.
The people who actually ARE overrunning the country are the Christian Dominionists/ Reconstructionists, whose ideas and ideals have taken over the core of one of our two major parties. While they aren’t all Holocaust deniers, virtually all the “Christian nation” types are anti-Semitic to some degree. And many of them are outright Holocaust deniers – most notably their hero, Christian Reconstruction movement founder and bankroller Rousas Rushdoony. (Rushdoony is dead now, but it’s interesting that he was the guru and mentor of Howard Ahmanson, the rich guy who writes the checks for the anti-evolution Discovery Institute, amongst other radical right wing causes.)
Also, your horrible school busing analogy fails for two reasons. First, I’ve read several rigorous studies which show that busing was in fact very effective, both in flattening radical inequities in school district funding and in undermining racism in the children in districts which were forcibly integrated. For you to use the failure of school busing to support any point, it would have to be a failure – and in terms of what it set out to accomplish, busing was actually a pretty successful social policy. No, school busing didn’t single-handedly put an end to racism in America – but it was never intended to. The important thing is that it actually helped rather than harmed, which leads to the other reason your analogy utterly fails.
Second, there is a HUGE and OBVIOUS difference between government policies intended specifically to encourage integration (such as school busing) and public policies which have both the intention and the concrete, demonstrable effect of encouraging segregation. Giving Muslims their own religious schools actively and powerfully encourages segregation – and leads directly to problems you cite such as children being brought up to believe the Holocaust is a myth. You don’t have to believe that it’s the government’s job to bring about integration to think that the government is doing something stupid when it actively encourages segregation.
And why isn’t social, religious and ethnic integration – or at least mutual tolerance in a civil society – a good goal for a government to pursue? How can it not be? The opposite of integration is not merely segregation, it is disintegration – as several European nations are discovering. You rightly see that this is a problem, but you vastly oversimplify the problem – and utterly fail to get to a point where you can possibly ever see any solutions – if you simply blame the problem on those damned Muslims.
Also, you bring up the clamoring of immigrants for more faith schools, but again miss the rather obvious conclusion. Funding faith schools FOR ANY FAITH encourages segregation and cultural division. The UK was faced with a choice somewhere along the line: (A) Spend more government money on more schools where children are taught that they are different, special, superior, and otherwise given an education that encourages cultural/religious divisions (while simultaneously discouraging critical thought, as religious education always does and must). Or (B), stop government funding of religious schools altogether. Again and again when faced with this choice (and similar integration/segregation-influencing choices), the UK (and other European countries) have made the wrong choices.
Interestingly, you keep pointing out evidence that they made the wrong choice and missing the conclusions that follow naturally from that evidence. I mean, COME ON! How can you talk about the next generation being brought up to deny the Holocaust and not think that maybe faith schools for Muslims is a bad idea? And isn’t funding faith schools a government policy? This is where the logical connection between specific government policies and these difficulties with Muslims which so worry you come from, Richard. To ignore this reasoning takes a great deal of effort. To ignore this reasoning and go on to say that the REAL problem is that “they” breed too much and “we” don’t breed enough (which is where this conversation went wildly off-topic, you’ll remember) is just right wing talk radio Kool-Aid-swallowing madness. It stinks to high heaven of sheer bigotry. I find it so baffling to frame the problem in this way that I can see no possible source for it but fear of people who are different that borders on paranoia. If we sensible Europeans just bred more, we wouldn’t be overrun by those crazy Muslim immigrants? That’s the essence of your position, and as both a view of the problem and proposed solution, it’s just plain incoherent.
n fact, your view seems so nuts on the face of it that I kept expecting you to add something to what you’ve been saying that would show me you really mean something else entirely. But I’ve quite given up on that now. You really do think that it’s “us” (Europeans) versus “them” (Muslim immigrants) in a breeding competition, and the good guys are losing. And you think that this captures the essence of Europe’s immigration problems, and thus that non-immigrant Europeans having more children is an important part of the solution – which means that too many women in the UK are having abortions (the wrong women, non-immigrant women), because the good guys need those babies.
Baldly stated, this position is clearly bonkers. If you can’t see that, nothing I say could possibly ever convince you and I need to stop wasting my time.
In short, the issue is not breeding but education (and all that follows from education). Forget breeding; focus on good, universal, secular, reason-based, non-sectarian, equal education. It’s a much, much better place to start, for countless reasons – it’s a gift, rather than coercive; it does not involve forcing or urging women to breed; it furnishes people with skills and potentials from which they can choose a variety of paths in life; it is a common ground on which people can meet as opposed to glaring at each other over barricades; it is an inherent good as well as an instrumental one; it is vital to democracry and citizenship; etc etc etc.
Take a look at people who don’t have access to education, and notice how wolfishly ravenous for it they are, how they leap on any scrap of it with a passion that makes the throat close up. Look, even (I say sort of shamefacedly, but actually I’m not shamefaced, except I am, but really, I’m not) at Oprah Winfrey’s academy for girls in South Africa.
Forget breeding; go with education.
G.I think it was a little unecesary of you to call me a bigot just because you disagree with me!It might be nice if U.K. goverments did not fund faith schools but the political reality in this country is as follows,the labour movement christian wing makes up more than half the party even the labour left has its own christian wing,the tory party has huge ties to the church of england and the liberal party is not much diferant its not going to happen in other words.and anyway why end it just because one group are causing problems.G. I cant believe you think busing was a sucses what were the busing riots about? people rightly objected to having to get their children up at 6.00 in the morning to have them bused into the guetto across town,the only reason it settled down was because the most contentious routes were dropped.G. how moslem would europe have to become for you to worry about it?remember like you guys we have top class nukes as well!along with the intercontinental balisic misiles to deliver multiple war heads.
Forget moslems for a moment isnt it worying in its own right that european people are not replacing themselves? I mean we all worry about the black rhino dying out what about ourselves!
G.When the demographics of a society change drasticly you almost always have conflict look at Fiji or northen Ierland
Richard, I once was convinced that you were a troll, but now I’m sure that you’re genuine because you’re so consistently annoying. G has been taking his valuable time to educate you in some of the most fundamental aspects of sociology, and how do you thank him? By claiming that he was calling you a bigot just because he disagrees with you!
The reference to nuclear weapons is beyond obscene.
To compare Homo Sapiens to a particular endangered subspecies displays remarkable ignorance.
I hope you have something to say in your defence, Richard, or please just go away.
Richard, I’m not wasting any more time trying to persuade you of anything. But I will try to get you to see one last thing, probably to no avail.
I want to point out that I did not *accuse* you of bigotry. I restated your position – a position which you actually hold, and which you didn’t try to deny you actually hold or in any way repudiate. That position, which reduces complex immigration political issues to the essence of Europeans not breeding enough and immigrants breeding too much, simply is a bigoted position. I don’t have to make any interpretation or extrapolation or accusation here – it’s just an observation. Everyone can see that but you, apparently.
Even so, I did not say that this idea smells of bigotry in order to insult you for holding it: Rather the opposite. I hoped that if I pointed out why the things you were saying seemed to be completely bigoted, you might back away from what you were saying and offer some explanation that would mitigate the appearance of bigotry. Go back and re-read. I was very careful to say that the things you were saying seemed to be rooted in bigotry and sounded completely nuts – which is different from saying that you are bigoted or nuts, because it leaves you the option of defending or elaborating what you’ve said to show why it really isn’t bigoted and crazy. But instead, your response was to declare “How dare you call me a bigot!” and spout more bigoted rhetoric.
If you could see why I think your position is bigoted (and everyone else still reading agrees, apparently), you would *still* have two legitimate choices for how to respond to that criticism. (1) You could explain how you actually don’t hold this position, or otherwise given some reason for me to think that I misunderstood you or missed the complexity of your position. But you have offered nothing to explain or reject or modify your claims in any way, so you clearly have not taken that path. (2) Or you could actually defend the substance of this position in some way that shows how it isn’t just based in pure bigotry, that there’s more to it. You could provide reasons and evidence and counterarguments. But again, you’ve done nothing along those lines. You’ve just repeated the position in different ways, and added more overheated and unsubstantiated rhetoric to it at every repetition.
I didn’t accuse you of being a bigot, Richard. I pointed out how everything you say makes you look like a bigot, and still left you every opportunity to demonstrate that you aren’t. And you failed to do so. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve had all the chances you’re going to get.
P. sorry but how would you take stinks to high heaven of sheer bigotory?why is it obscene to wory about moslem states having the bomb you dont wory about Iran or Pakistan? If the E.U.ends up with a moslem majority it would be a huge moslem state with nukes!I also think you are being a touch condesending G.does spend valuable time discusing isues with me not educating me,I value his comments on there merit but because I still disagree that makes me dumb is that what you mean?
G. look at my position this way ,I fear Islam probably to much rather like your fear of right wing christians its inflated although I think my fears are at least rational!
Lets just agree to blame the jews?
Richard: “G. how moslem would europe have to become for you to worry about it?remember like you guys we have top class nukes as well!along with the intercontinental balisic misiles to deliver multiple war heads.”
I realize from your further comments that I misunderstood your meaning here, and I withdraw my comment on it. But I stand by the rest of what I said.
you seem to make a habit of doing that P.just for the record the reason I feel so stongly about this is that I have an absoloute believe in the system of liberal democracy that exist in the west,every day it seems that we alow people into this country that not only dont share these values but hold them in contempt!I am sick of it.
Richard, you are, by a good distance, the most inarticulate person whose writing I ever read. It’s no wonder that you’re misunderstood at times.
And as for “a touch condesending”? It wasn’t inadvertent. If G is responding to your bigoted musings on the dire state of Xtian Euros vis-a-vis the dreaded Muslims, then he is educating you. If he has a plumbing problem, I hope you get the chance to feel superior to him when you advise him on the issue.
How could you not absorb OB’s clear points about education? That’s the kernel here. I suggest that you re-read what G and OB had to say. They were trying to educate you (and maybe others like you).
More condesending P!
It is also quite supprising how quickly someone of your vast intellect resorts to insults P.
Richard, you’re mistaken on two points. My intellect is not vast. I just happen to be bi-lingual. And I’m not “condesending” toward people like you, I’m condescending. Oh yeah, and I can spell in three languages (that’s if you count Ukrainian and Russian as two languages).
I am impressed.
P. anyone who spells that well must have a vast intellect?
Richard, learning languages is really just about absorbing a large amount of data — systematizing it and memorizing it. It’s definitely not easy, but neither does it require a “vast intellect.” Believe me. I’m acquainted with more than a few polyglots who are a bit dim.
I will say, though, in my benefit, that I have a pretty good Murkan accent. Much better than Kissinger’s.
Miss D has returned to Ireland following her termination, a traumatic medically induced labour that lasted over the course of five days in a british clinic.
“It [the induced labour] was very emotional but I have got closure now.
I am now thinking about Shambo’s plight?