A political and sociophilosophical quandry.
I'm gonna discuss the most clichéd, hotly debated and - oddly enough - still one of the most unstable political minefields of a topic this side of the Middle East, and has held this distinction since the 1960s.
That's right, I'm taking a stance on abortion.
As Norwegian legislation stands today, the abortion laws are fairly clear: A timeframe of 12 weeks for self-determined abortion. Between 12 and 18 weeks, you have to apply for an abortion, and a bunch of other people - probably medical attorneys - decides if your case is valid. Past 18 weeks? No dice.
Now, there seems to be political forces that are campaigning for an expansion of the self-determination period up to 16-18th week of pregnancy and a removal of the apparatus that pass judgment on the "special" cases in what I call (for the purpose of the debate) the grey area. Which is fair enough in and of itself. The anti-abortion stance will regularly draw on arguments that seems like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel. According to them, if the legislations opens the abortion window further, in particular the window for self-determined abortion, combined with the rapid advances in fetus diagnostics, we will end up in a Gattaca-like society where genetic purity becomes so important that any genetic deviation will be looked at as a disease, or will breed a whole new system of class where people are judged by the potential coded into their DNA.
Am I missing out on something, or do people actually think that pregnant women are going to run en masse towards abortion clinics and do away with their babies if the gene machine says the kid might grow up with a slight lisp and overbite? If so, I need someone to tell these people that they have failed common sense. The issue at hand lies in the word choice. The reason why we even consider abortions in the first place has to do with something so simple as human nature - and this is where it's going to get a little rocky, so bear with me here. Like the genes that say whether or not we have Down's Syndrome or are particularly receptible to ALS or arthritis or whatever, the genes usually have one prime directive hard-coded in the DNA: The genes must go on. Simple, yet effective. But we happen to have some manner of perception, and most nations aren't pre-Ceaucescu Romania - women don't get themselves pregnant and abort for kicks.
Any woman who has gone through pregnancy will most likely testify that no hospital has forced them to test for anything they haven't asked to be tested for, because doctors are by and large as professional as people come. And people who want to have their babies are getting increasingly prepared for it. It's our instinct. But pregnancies happen occasionally when unprepared. And when you find out, you tend to give it some thought. You assess your environment and think things like: "Are we ready to bring a child into this?" "Can we give the child a good upbringing?" "Do we trust ourselves with the responsibility of parenthood?" So I'd say most people know what they're up against when they decide to get pregnant, or to keep the baby. Regardless, the point is that most people who decide to procreate have a tendency of figuring it out perfectly well on their own.
So the inevitable conclusion is that the anti-abortion crowd seems to mollycoddle prospective parents because they see them as vulnerable and ignorant. One out of two, at least - no one is as vulnerable as first-time parents. But even yours truly, someone who is scared witless at the mere thought of parenthood, feels the underestimation of the intelligence of first-time parents to be among the gravest of insults. This error of judgment is probably the root of a misconception on behalf of the anti-abortionists that equates the inherent susceptibility to believe any advice on parenting that looks halfway convincing (a trait rooted in the aforementioned vulnerability) with the ignorance often attributed to first-time parents that buy into all the "revolutionary new techniques for optimally raising your children", something that reminds me of race-supremacy propaganda. Personally, if I ever got into a situation where I had to abandon everything to be a decent father to a child, I'd go with the one thing that I actually can trust in such situations - my instinct.
Back to the issue at hand: People who oppose self-determined abortion tend to bring out the "right to life"-rhetoric we have all heard in various forms, shapes and sizes over the years. Being a self-declared utilitarianist, I'd say the consequences of such a decision are not isolated to the fetus in and of itself. What about the mother? The psychological pressure that follows the realisation that you are bringing a child into the world you cannot care for yourself is a scenario I would like to avoid having to wish upon an enemy. We are instinctively connected to the children we bring into the world, and that's something no one would contest, barring the seriously mentally disturbed. If you have seen (or better yet read) Trainspotting, you most likely remember that a heroin-addicted mother loses her child in cot death due to neglect. Is there more mercy in than as opposed to an abortion? What would little Dawn think, given a chance to see and understand what was happening to her?
No matter what your dystopian speculations tell you, there is little to no chance of our gene pool being distilled. People still have the freedom of choice, and we still have to procreate, and bring our race forward in one way or another. And considering there are still four-five billion people too many for this planet, perhaps we could take a step back and think: "Perhaps the nicest thing to do would be to spare these kids from living in the shadows of the bad choices humanity has made over the years." There seems to be few limits to the potential for asshattery in human beings.
...and John Hughes died yesterday. What's with this summer and dying childhood heroes?
That's right, I'm taking a stance on abortion.
As Norwegian legislation stands today, the abortion laws are fairly clear: A timeframe of 12 weeks for self-determined abortion. Between 12 and 18 weeks, you have to apply for an abortion, and a bunch of other people - probably medical attorneys - decides if your case is valid. Past 18 weeks? No dice.
Now, there seems to be political forces that are campaigning for an expansion of the self-determination period up to 16-18th week of pregnancy and a removal of the apparatus that pass judgment on the "special" cases in what I call (for the purpose of the debate) the grey area. Which is fair enough in and of itself. The anti-abortion stance will regularly draw on arguments that seems like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel. According to them, if the legislations opens the abortion window further, in particular the window for self-determined abortion, combined with the rapid advances in fetus diagnostics, we will end up in a Gattaca-like society where genetic purity becomes so important that any genetic deviation will be looked at as a disease, or will breed a whole new system of class where people are judged by the potential coded into their DNA.
Am I missing out on something, or do people actually think that pregnant women are going to run en masse towards abortion clinics and do away with their babies if the gene machine says the kid might grow up with a slight lisp and overbite? If so, I need someone to tell these people that they have failed common sense. The issue at hand lies in the word choice. The reason why we even consider abortions in the first place has to do with something so simple as human nature - and this is where it's going to get a little rocky, so bear with me here. Like the genes that say whether or not we have Down's Syndrome or are particularly receptible to ALS or arthritis or whatever, the genes usually have one prime directive hard-coded in the DNA: The genes must go on. Simple, yet effective. But we happen to have some manner of perception, and most nations aren't pre-Ceaucescu Romania - women don't get themselves pregnant and abort for kicks.
Any woman who has gone through pregnancy will most likely testify that no hospital has forced them to test for anything they haven't asked to be tested for, because doctors are by and large as professional as people come. And people who want to have their babies are getting increasingly prepared for it. It's our instinct. But pregnancies happen occasionally when unprepared. And when you find out, you tend to give it some thought. You assess your environment and think things like: "Are we ready to bring a child into this?" "Can we give the child a good upbringing?" "Do we trust ourselves with the responsibility of parenthood?" So I'd say most people know what they're up against when they decide to get pregnant, or to keep the baby. Regardless, the point is that most people who decide to procreate have a tendency of figuring it out perfectly well on their own.
So the inevitable conclusion is that the anti-abortion crowd seems to mollycoddle prospective parents because they see them as vulnerable and ignorant. One out of two, at least - no one is as vulnerable as first-time parents. But even yours truly, someone who is scared witless at the mere thought of parenthood, feels the underestimation of the intelligence of first-time parents to be among the gravest of insults. This error of judgment is probably the root of a misconception on behalf of the anti-abortionists that equates the inherent susceptibility to believe any advice on parenting that looks halfway convincing (a trait rooted in the aforementioned vulnerability) with the ignorance often attributed to first-time parents that buy into all the "revolutionary new techniques for optimally raising your children", something that reminds me of race-supremacy propaganda. Personally, if I ever got into a situation where I had to abandon everything to be a decent father to a child, I'd go with the one thing that I actually can trust in such situations - my instinct.
Back to the issue at hand: People who oppose self-determined abortion tend to bring out the "right to life"-rhetoric we have all heard in various forms, shapes and sizes over the years. Being a self-declared utilitarianist, I'd say the consequences of such a decision are not isolated to the fetus in and of itself. What about the mother? The psychological pressure that follows the realisation that you are bringing a child into the world you cannot care for yourself is a scenario I would like to avoid having to wish upon an enemy. We are instinctively connected to the children we bring into the world, and that's something no one would contest, barring the seriously mentally disturbed. If you have seen (or better yet read) Trainspotting, you most likely remember that a heroin-addicted mother loses her child in cot death due to neglect. Is there more mercy in than as opposed to an abortion? What would little Dawn think, given a chance to see and understand what was happening to her?
No matter what your dystopian speculations tell you, there is little to no chance of our gene pool being distilled. People still have the freedom of choice, and we still have to procreate, and bring our race forward in one way or another. And considering there are still four-five billion people too many for this planet, perhaps we could take a step back and think: "Perhaps the nicest thing to do would be to spare these kids from living in the shadows of the bad choices humanity has made over the years." There seems to be few limits to the potential for asshattery in human beings.
...and John Hughes died yesterday. What's with this summer and dying childhood heroes?