Since there is a good chance my comment will get deleted, below is the comment I wrote over at “Alas, a blog” in response to a recent post. Yes, I forgot to spell check it ๐
posted by Soulhuntre,
March 9th, 2006 at 11:38 amI see how raising children is treated as some kind of weird hobby, where it’s fine if you want to do it, but don’t ask the rest of us to support you.
There are two perspectives on this statement I want to mention.The first is that if one believes (and I do) that a woman has the right to abort her pregnancy without havign to justify the reason then you have now made the decision to carry that child a literal choice. If, as a business owner, someone decides than that a employee choosing an extended absence (pregnancy leave) is no useful tot he firm then you should be able to dismiss them.
If you believe that pregnancy is not really choice, and that taking time off to have a child is morally different than takign that time off to do anything else then you have introduced problems into the moral argument of absolute abortion choice.
The second point is that looking down on women who have children and raise them is ALSO a feminist phenominon. We see blog entry after blog entry by women lookign down on stay at home mothers as either victims of internalized patriarchy or lacking in feminist drive. Not to mention implying they might just be lazy and ignorant.
Comments
One response to “Alas, a comment…”
Firing employees is not exactly the same as deciding upon having an abortion, however, the example is pertinent to a discussion of autonomy that values free will and social responsibility.
Employers are permitted to fire an employee for the simple reason of higher than expected retention costs, in addition to the many other reasons that prompt what is often defended as good or conscientious supervisory management authority, and is rarely blessed with the guilt of having to worry about how the employee will survive. He seeks his own best interest in making that decision, and perhaps, the advantage of the cost savings that will increase corporate earnings. In view of the numerous pension reductions of late, being abandoned by the corporate family of which many employees have spent years is a legitimate source of grief to employees.
In contrast, there is little history to accompany an abortion, and future costs may be a consideration; however, future burdens of child care, an absent father, the source of pregnancy as violently created, etc. are among the many decisions that typically form the basis for such a decision, and they are rarely as easy for women as the decision to fire or layoff even an employee of long standing, and one who may be wanted.
It is difficult for men to appreciate the decision to have an abortion since there are few similarities in any of the decision making that men make, and any that are made occur outside of the male body, not within it. For this reason alone, the decision should be one made by women, not men. Unless put up for adoption or aborted, a child is a life long attachment of women, and men if they remain close by. Mothers rarely abandon children they create as men are prone to do.
If the decision is related to men, it might be one more associated with whether or not a man should commit suicide since that involves the taking of a life, though one with a personal history. Heretofore, many men have funded abortions even before Roe vs Wade to rid themselves and the woman they got pregnant of the problem of having to care for, and support an unwanted child. For that reason, alone, the decision is one inconsistent with male autonomy or determination. Males may help to create it, but they often do not want it, and have no intention of caring for it. If men could accept that social responsibility they would either use birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancy or choose to become the fathers they might be. The history of fatherhood, nor potential fatherhood is evidence of the fact of whether men qualify as decision makers of female reproduction, especially with the statistics of the number of children born as mistakes.