A woman and her husband's difficult decision

[mcarans]

Here's a woman talking about her and her husband's difficult decision to have an abortion:

The hardest decision of my life: to end a pregnancy because I had no paid leave
"I lived with my husband-to-be in a one room apartment in rural Vermont... At the time, my husband was earning less than a living wage at a grocery store. His job was stable, but ... he did not have paid family leave...After scrutinizing our finances, my husband and I decided that our situation did not embody the climate of confidence we agreed was necessary for us to be parents. And so we made the hardest decision of my life: to end the pregnancy...

Lawmakers in the state of Vermont, where I live, have been working to pass paid family leave legislation since a previous bill was vetoed by the Republican governor, Phil Scott, in 2018. Last week, he vetoed the bill’s latest iteration...

Our inability to afford the pregnancy was not only due to an absence of paid family leave, it also hinged on the absence of many other foundational support systems currently lacking for most Americans, including universal childcare and healthcare and a living minimum wage."

Thoughts?

 

[HTacianas]

Here's a woman talking about her and her husband's difficult decision to have an abortion:

The hardest decision of my life: to end a pregnancy because I had no paid leave
"I lived with my husband-to-be in a one room apartment in rural Vermont... At the time, my husband was earning less than a living wage at a grocery store. His job was stable, but ... he did not have paid family leave...After scrutinizing our finances, my husband and I decided that our situation did not embody the climate of confidence we agreed was necessary for us to be parents. And so we made the hardest decision of my life: to end the pregnancy...

Lawmakers in the state of Vermont, where I live, have been working to pass paid family leave legislation since a previous bill was vetoed by the Republican governor, Phil Scott, in 2018. Last week, he vetoed the bill’s latest iteration...

Our inability to afford the pregnancy was not only due to an absence of paid family leave, it also hinged on the absence of many other foundational support systems currently lacking for most Americans, including universal childcare and healthcare and a living minimum wage."

Thoughts?

I saw some guy on TV the other night says he knows what causes that.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Here's a woman talking about her and her husband's difficult decision to have an abortion:

The hardest decision of my life: to end a pregnancy because I had no paid leave
"I lived with my husband-to-be in a one room apartment in rural Vermont... At the time, my husband was earning less than a living wage at a grocery store. His job was stable, but ... he did not have paid family leave...After scrutinizing our finances, my husband and I decided that our situation did not embody the climate of confidence we agreed was necessary for us to be parents. And so we made the hardest decision of my life: to end the pregnancy...

Lawmakers in the state of Vermont, where I live, have been working to pass paid family leave legislation since a previous bill was vetoed by the Republican governor, Phil Scott, in 2018. Last week, he vetoed the bill’s latest iteration...

Our inability to afford the pregnancy was not only due to an absence of paid family leave, it also hinged on the absence of many other foundational support systems currently lacking for most Americans, including universal childcare and healthcare and a living minimum wage."

Thoughts?

How many generations will it take before humanity goes extinct because others think the same way? How many generations of humanity managed somehow without universal childcare and any sort of minimum wage? I'm a bit cynical of this as any sort of a 'good' reason. Oh well. Mine is just another troglodyte's opinion. One who was not raised with universal childcare so I don't think approved thoughts.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Here's a woman talking about her and her husband's difficult decision to have an abortion:

The hardest decision of my life: to end a pregnancy because I had no paid leave
"I lived with my husband-to-be in a one room apartment in rural Vermont... At the time, my husband was earning less than a living wage at a grocery store. His job was stable, but ... he did not have paid family leave...After scrutinizing our finances, my husband and I decided that our situation did not embody the climate of confidence we agreed was necessary for us to be parents. And so we made the hardest decision of my life: to end the pregnancy...

Lawmakers in the state of Vermont, where I live, have been working to pass paid family leave legislation since a previous bill was vetoed by the Republican governor, Phil Scott, in 2018. Last week, he vetoed the bill’s latest iteration...

Our inability to afford the pregnancy was not only due to an absence of paid family leave, it also hinged on the absence of many other foundational support systems currently lacking for most Americans, including universal childcare and healthcare and a living minimum wage."

Thoughts?

Blaming the government for an abortion sounds absurd to me.

 

[mcarans]

How many generations will it take before humanity goes extinct because others think the same way? How many generations of humanity managed somehow without universal childcare and any sort of minimum wage? I'm a bit cynical of this as any sort of a 'good' reason. Oh well. Mine is just another troglodyte's opinion. One who was not raised with universal childcare so I don't think approved thoughts.

There are plenty of other ways humanity is going to make itself extinct long before the kind of thinking in the article does it. For example in the last 150 years, half the world's topsoil has gone. When the other half goes, it won't be possible to do agriculture. Yet humanity is largely indifferent to this kind of existential threat. But I digress.

If universal healthcare etc. could save just one child's life, would you push for it?

 

[chevyontheriver]

If universal healthcare etc. could save just one child's life, would you push for it?

If giving up electricity could abate global warming by 0.1 degree, would you push for it?

 

[mcarans]

If giving up electricity could abate global warming by 0.1 degree, would you push for it?

That won't help with the topsoil erosion I mentioned. It's a separate and probably more immediately serious problem than climate change that will lead to massive famines and the end of civilisation as we know it. I'm not sure that there's any solution for it. Basically population will be radically reduced by our choice and/or by famine. But interesting and depressing though this is, it's irrelevant to the OP.

Giving up electricity altogether is a much bigger sacrifice than paying a few percent more tax and not having to pay health insurance so the comparison you have doesn't work.

However a contribution I make regarding climate change is that I do not have a car, cycle to work and haven't been on a holiday by plane for years. What direct contribution do you make towards reducing the number of abortions?

 

[chevyontheriver]

Giving up electricity altogether is a much bigger sacrifice than paying a few percent more tax and not having to pay health insurance so the comparison you have doesn't work.

You have reduced it down to a cost/benefit analysis and you are unwilling to sacrifice electricity to avoid a 0.1 degree mitigation in global warming because it would cost you too dearly. There is a cost/benefit analysis to almost everything, and some good things have very high costs for not very high benefits. So they don't get done. You seemed to want me to agree to try to force universal childcare on everyone to avoid one abortion. But at what real price? It isn't even known what all of the social costs would be for such a thing. The social costs could result in more abortions for all anyone knows.

 

[mcarans]

You have reduced it down to a cost/benefit analysis and you are unwilling to sacrifice electricity to avoid a 0.1 degree mitigation in global warming because it would cost you too dearly. There is a cost/benefit analysis to almost everything, and some good things have very high costs for not very high benefits. So they don't get done. You seemed to want me to agree to try to force universal childcare on everyone to avoid one abortion. But at what real price? It isn't even known what all of the social costs would be for such a thing. The social costs could result in more abortions for all anyone knows.

The costs are known for the social programmes because other countries have already implemented them. Regarding my contribution to reducing the number of abortions, I pay very high taxes here in Denmark and these ensure that the poorest have access to childcare and healthcare as well as paid maternity leave (9 months) and paternity leave (3 months). It's about priorities. You either focus on families as Denmark does or on the rich as the US does.

 

[chevyontheriver]

The costs are known for the social programmes because other countries have already implemented them. Regarding my contribution to reducing the number of abortions, I pay very high taxes here in Denmark and these ensure that the poorest have access to childcare and healthcare as well as paid maternity leave (9 months) and paternity leave (3 months). It's about priorities. You either focus on families as Denmark does or on the rich as the US does.

Slam the USA, which, by the way, brought the most liberal abortion policies to the world. We have abortion so we don't have to do things like take care of poor people. It's part of the rich eating the poor strategy. We can even solve global warming by aborting more people, if our Democrats are to be believed.

 

[mcarans]

Slam the USA, which, by the way, brought the most liberal abortion policies to the world. We have abortion so we don't have to do things like take care of poor people. It's part of the rich eating the poor strategy. We can even solve global warming by aborting more people, if our Democrats are to be believed.

The rich eating the poor is where the rich control government policy so that ever more of the nation's wealth ends up in their hands. Most Democrats and Republicans serve their corporate masters and issues like abortion and gay marriage are just a smokescreen to distract the attention of social liberals and social conservatives from the wealth grabbing going on behind the scenes.

 

[chevyontheriver]

The rich eating the poor is where the rich control government policy so that ever more of the nation's wealth ends up in their hands. Most Democrats and Republicans serve their corporate masters and issues like abortion and gay marriage are just a smokescreen to distract the attention of social liberals and social conservatives from the wealth grabbing going on behind the scenes.

In the same sort of way the death camps in Germany were a side issue to Hitler's plans to take over Europe. Never mind those distractions. They only distract your attention from other more important things.

 

[Archivist]

How many generations will it take before humanity goes extinct because others think the same way? How many generations of humanity managed somehow without universal childcare and any sort of minimum wage? I'm a bit cynical of this as any sort of a 'good' reason. Oh well. Mine is just another troglodyte's opinion. One who was not raised with universal childcare so I don't think approved thoughts.

The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.616 billion in 2018. Absent a very severe pandemic we aren't going to go extinct anytime soon.

 

[SPF]

Here's a woman talking about her and her husband's difficult decision to have an abortion:

The hardest decision of my life: to end a pregnancy because I had no paid leave
"I lived with my husband-to-be in a one room apartment in rural Vermont... At the time, my husband was earning less than a living wage at a grocery store. His job was stable, but ... he did not have paid family leave...After scrutinizing our finances, my husband and I decided that our situation did not embody the climate of confidence we agreed was necessary for us to be parents. And so we made the hardest decision of my life: to end the pregnancy...

Lawmakers in the state of Vermont, where I live, have been working to pass paid family leave legislation since a previous bill was vetoed by the Republican governor, Phil Scott, in 2018. Last week, he vetoed the bill’s latest iteration...

Our inability to afford the pregnancy was not only due to an absence of paid family leave, it also hinged on the absence of many other foundational support systems currently lacking for most Americans, including universal childcare and healthcare and a living minimum wage."

Thoughts?

My initial gut response to this story is that I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised when people without the hope of Christ and the faith in the promises of Scripture make the choice to kill another human for their benefit.

But as Christians, we know better. We can have faith and rely on Christ to provide for us even when the math tells us something doesn't make sense.

 

[mcarans]

My initial gut response to this story is that I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised when people without the hope of Christ and the faith in the promises of Scripture make the choice to kill another human for their benefit.

But as Christians, we know better. We can have faith and rely on Christ to provide for us even when the math tells us something doesn't make sense.

Do we really know better? The Christian Conquistadors used smash the heads of infants in the Americas against rocks. Babies and children are often direct or collateral damage in the wars Christians have engaged in.

It's far easier to ignore the logs in our eyes and point out the failings of others as if to do so will somehow distract God from our own sins.

 

[chevyontheriver]

The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.616 billion in 2018. Absent a very severe pandemic we aren't going to go extinct anytime soon.

If everyone aborts if they don't have universal childcare maybe we could go into a demographic spiral.

 

[SPF]

Do we really know better?

We should. Certainly. From a Christian understanding of the world, it's actually really quite simple.

1. All human beings are created in the Image of God and possess inherent moral worth and value.
2. A new human being comes into existence at fertilization.

With just those two premises, it isn't hard to draw the logical conclusion that the 98.5% of abortions, which are performed for non life threatening, convenience reasons are immoral.

 

[Archivist]

If everyone aborts if they don't have universal childcare maybe we could go into a demographic spiral.

First, some countries do have universal childcare so not everyone would be aborting for that reason. Second, I don't think that everyone in places that don't have such childcare are going to abort.

 

[Archivist]

We should. Certainly. From a Christian understanding of the world, it's actually really quite simple.

1. All human beings are created in the Image of God and possess inherent moral worth and value.
2. A new human being comes into existence at fertilization.

With just those two premises, it isn't hard to draw the logical conclusion that the 98.5% of abortions, which are performed for non life threatening, convenience reasons are immoral.

Except Christians don't agree that "a new human being comes into existence at fertilization." Some place it at other points in development ranging from quickening to first breath. You are, of course, free to your opinion, but it is just that, nothing more.

 

[SPF]

Except Christians don't agree that "a new human being comes into existence at fertilization." Some place it at other points in development ranging from quickening to first breath. You are, of course, free to your opinion, but it is just that, nothing more.

And you're free to your own opinion, but if it's other than a new human being comes into existence at fertilization, you're wrong.

Thankfully, this is a question that has been answered objectively by science. I can quote for you all the resource material that I've done ad-naseum before, but I know you've seen it. Although since it doesn't seem to have sunk in yet, it might be helpful for you!

“The life cycle of mammals begins when a sperm enters an egg.” Okada et al., A role for the elongator complex in zygotic paternal genome demethylation, NATURE 463:554 (Jan. 28, 2010)

“Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.”Signorelli et al., Kinases, phosphatases and proteases during sperm capacitation, CELL TISSUE RES. 349(3):765 (Mar. 20, 2012)

“Fertilization – the fusion of gametes to produce a new organism – is the culmination of a multitude of intricately regulated cellular processes.” Marcello et al., Fertilization, ADV. EXP. BIOL. 757:321 (2013)

“In that fraction of a second when the chromosomes form pairs, the sex of the new child will be determined, hereditary characteristics received from each parent will be set, and a new life will have begun.” Kaluger, G., and Kaluger, M., Human Development: The Span of Life, page 28-29, The C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis, 1974