And yet more from that “Family Scholars” thread: Marty, attempting to explain why he feels compassion for straight, married, infertile couples who want children – but not same-sex couples or single women – writes:
A married man and a married woman ““ one of whom is physically disabled and unable to bear children ““ probably bear the same ethical burden as any other person considering IVF. But they earn much more compassion from society because a) one is physically broken, and b) they ARE still a mother and father ““ an exact (albeit genetically imperfect) model of the family union that created each of us.
My first reaction is, “compassion” is not a zero-sum game. Certainly, we can have compassion for a op-sex couple unable to bear children; but that doesn’t mean that we can’t also have compassion for a single woman, or a same-sex couple. (Just because Marty feels no compassion for same-sex couples doesn’t oblige me, or the rest of society, to follow his lead.)
I also have some problems with the implications of “compassion” when talking about “broken” people (and I’m not happy with the word “broken,” either). Making “compassion” the primary reason society allows infertile couples to seek alternatives seems warped, in a “Jerry’s kids” sort of way. Suppose that an infertile, hetero, married couple wanted to have children, not because they love and value children, but as a status symbol, or to preserve an inheritance? I’d have a hard time feeling “compassion” for such a couple, but I don’t think that should take away their legal rights to have children.
I think that allowing people – rather than the government, and rather than circumstances such as being physically infertile or being part of a same-sex couple – to decide for themselves when, and if, to have children is a cornerstone of human freedom and dignity. Since increasing human freedom and dignity is a good thing, insofar as reasonably possible D.C. technology should be available to all families that need it.
Of course, it’s harder to make an argument that human dignity should only belong to heterosexuals, and never to homosexuals. Which is why few SSM opponents will endorse my reasoning.
“b) they ARE still a mother and father ““ an exact (albeit genetically imperfect) model of the family union that created each of us.”
Except if they aren’t pregnant/haven’t given birth they *aren’t* a mother or a father. And whose family model is being represented here? Oh right, white middle class/upper class families. Of course they get more compassion!
:)
Not to mention the odd reaction that people get who *aren’t* “broken” but choose to, say, adopt a child rather than have one biologically. Some of the comments made to mimi smartypants would make your jaw drop! (I dug around to find the rant I had in mind, but I just have to get back to work! work! :)
“b) they ARE still a mother and father ““ an exact (albeit genetically imperfect) model of the family union that created each of us.”?
Is that why it’s so much easier for waxwork dummies to adopt?
Wait, was that thread about D.C. or IVF? While I’m not agitating to ban IVF, which could be said to be a form of medicine, I do think D.C. should be illegal for everyone, including married couples, just as fornication and adultery should be. Legally, children should be the union of a man and a woman that are legally married, and D.C. and adultery (even with the approval of the husband) should be illegal. Of course, it is much easier to police against D.C. because they advertise their services and can easily be shut down. Policing against adultery requires of course the efforts of the parties themselves, but at least if they break this law they will have to be very discreet about it, and their breaking it won’t get any blessing. Everyone will continue to know that it is ghastly and absolutely immoral and they won’t consider doing it themselves.
What does it mean to say: “insofar as reasonably possible D.C. technology should be available to all families that need it”?
Does that mean that insurance companies should be required to cover it? That the government should subsidize it for those who can’t afford it?
Because the current status quo is that it’s available for those who have the money to make it happen — which is relatively cheap if you need sperm, quite expensive if you need eggs. That makes me uncomfortable, but I’m not willing to go so far as to say that people are entitled to it; I’m only willing to say that I don’t want the government saying that you (some or all people) can’t have it.
I think there are a lot of plausible ethical positions here; I’m wondering which one you’re advocating.
He lost me at ‘broken’.
I would suspect that most gay and lesbian couples (its all anecdotal, i have no solid evidence) do not use or need IVF to have children. If they don’t adopt, most would use donor insemination or surrogacy.He’d have a hard time making that illegal without some major changes to laws that affect straight people too (private agreements/contracts) and without sounding completely bigotted.
Good god, why not just tack on the belief that you should feel more compassion for white couples unable to conceive over black couples?
yo, Mr. Moral
I do think D.C. should be illegal for everyone, including married couples, just as fornication and adultery should be.
really? you think fornication should be illegal for everyone, including married couples? ummm… i think you should try checking the definition of fornication sometime….
sheesh, gimme a break, I made a run-on sentence. Fornication and adultery should be illegal, and of course, fornication means neither is married, adultery means at least one is married (though they both commit adultery if only one is married). D.C. should be considered fornication if both donor and receiver are unmarried, and adultery if either or both is married. The only thing that should be legal is legally married couples joining their egg and sperm.
The compassion issue, btw, is simply a matter of the difference between medicine to help cure a health problem, and technology to circumvent health, to fix what isn’t broken. Being a man or a woman, or being unmarried, are NOT health problems. Sheesh.
Sheesh. It’s 2005.
Adults can f@ck who they want.
Sheesh.
Spoken from a position of drunken power. Marriage will come to be understood again as the only way to create equality that is healthy and in harmony with nature, and the only way to maintain life’s meaning. The alternative leads to a dead world of technology without meaning or life.
I will see Mr. Moral and raise him that I think married couples should have picture windows on their bedrooms so that we can make sure that they are only having sex in the state-mandated positions and only during the fertile week of the woman’s cycle to make sure that it is only for procreation and not for pleasure.
Why do I get the feeling that “equality that is healthy and in harmony with nature” for Mr. Moral does not look like my idea of it does? Could it be his web site, eggs and spam, er, eggs and sperm, which has such gems as:
“And, though adultery needn’t be prosecuted in order for marriage to grant procreation rights, I do think it should be, along with fornication,“.
Shades of A Handmaid’s Tale, anyone?
Yeah, the “broken” thing is creepy, particularly when sympathy for infertility is being called “compassion” in the “Jerry’s kids” way Amp points out. While we’re at it, “genetically imperfect” seems to imply that people end up “broken” because of their genes only, and “unbroken” people are by default, um, “perfect?”
Mr. Moral proclaims: Spoken from a position of drunken power.
Amanda, have you been tippling while typing again? shame!
Marriage will come to be understood again as the only way to create equality that is healthy and in harmony with nature, and the only way to maintain life’s meaning.
understood again? like it used to be in the good old days? when was that again exactly?
The alternative leads to a dead world of technology without meaning or life.
hey Morals Boy, you see that little statement in italics above the Leave a Comment field? you see where it says “treat other posters as if you respect them.? well, as if your insulting comment to Amanda wasn’t enough, let me just say that as an non-married individual who’s been in a loving (& happily fornicating) relationship of over ten years, i take grave offense at your bullshit dismissal of everyone not subscribing to your worldview.
i’d say more, but Mr. Ampersand would probably ban me (& be justified in doing so, considering that my anger is in direct proportion to your arrogance). in short, speak for yourself. if your life is lacking meaning because you haven’t tied the knot yet, that’s your own damn problem.
I’ve always thought adultery should be illegal…
Adultery is illegal. It’s just not an enforced law. If you want stringent enforcement of adultery laws, you’re inviting the police into the bedrooms of every married couple in th country.
No, adultery is legal in some states, not in others.
Hands up, everybody who stayed a virgin until marriage.
You may think that now, but once this stuff become more common, and your kids and grandkids are friends with children conceived through DC, you’ll think it’s just fine. Perhaps 20 years ago, if told that many people would interact textually across computer screens, never seeing each other’s faces, as we’re doing now, you would say that that would create a dead technological world devoid of sociality or meaning, but, if you ever would have felt that, you’ve adapted just fine to the new norms, and your life is just as meaningful for all that.
Of course, perhaps in the future, your kids and their DC and non-DC conceived friends will be talking about how some new technology (augmentation of consciousness-producing parts of the brain with cybernetics? Gestation of fetuses in artificial wombs?) will show people are drunk on power and are threatening to create a world of dead technology devoid of meaning.
Relax; everything may not be right with the world, but humans collectively having an existential crisis by their seperation from the natural order isn’t a threat.
Amanda, don’t be silly. This is a serious discussion. Married people can have sex, they can have children together. Unmarried people are not allowed to, their sex would be illegal. There is no police force, no picture window, just respect for law, and respect for each other. Fornication is disrespectful.
>If you want stringent enforcement of adultery laws, you’re inviting the police into the bedrooms of every married couple in th country.
If you want stringent enforcement of ANY law, you would be inviting the police to follow everyone around 24/7. Even murder – society deems it better to let murder happen once in a while rather than follow us around or lock everyone in seperate rooms so we can’t strangle each other. (Or predict murders, like in Minority Report) Yes, we prosecute murder vigourously, but the point is to prevent crime, not just punish it. Isn’t that the point? The prevention of adultery is much more important than the punishment. We have decided to just rely on everyone understanding that it is wrong – and the only way for government to say something is wrong and shouldn’t be done is to make it illegal. Otherwise, it’s just sort of offering an opinion, and saying you have a right to do it anyway. You don’t have a right a right to commit adultery.
“Yes, we prosecute murder vigourously, but the point is to prevent crime, not just punish it. Isn’t that the point? The prevention of adultery is much more important than the punishment. ”
The obvious answer is to abolish legal marriage as we know it. No marriage contract = no adultery.
Johnny Moral, here’s the problem with your argument, fundemenatally.
Fornication is NOT immoral. You say that marriage “creates equality” and I resoundingly disagree. For me, something to be immoral has to intentionally cause harm (oh boy, there’s got to be a better way to say that) and two consenting adults having sex doesn’t cause harm to anyone.
I am “cohabatating” (and breaking the law while I do it, I might add. So much for respect for the law). I also have no intention of changing this model, as I don’t want marriage, and I don’t want children. I believe I should have the right as an individual to do that, and I don’t see sex as related to either of those.
So, you can think of sex outside of some religiously sponsered hetero-monogmous ceremony as “bad” all you want. But, you have no recourse to tell us that it is. I think the denial of human sexuality is “bad” but I’m not going to force and/or coerce you to believe otherwise.
Q grrl: The obvious answer is to abolish legal marriage as we know it. No marriage contract = no adultery.
I just want to point out that this works the other way too – no adultery, = no marriage. Marriage, fornication, and adultery all lean on each other for their own meaning.
“Marriage, fornication, and adultery all lean on each other for their own meaning. ”
Yeah, it’s called patriarchy.
Men came up with that name :)
I’m not married and have been in an intimate relationship with the same person over the course of eight years–and I’m happy. Very happy, in fact, and he’s happy, too. And we’ll continue to be happy for as long as we can, possibly as soon as tonight if we’re not too tired.
Why do you hate happiness, Mr. Moral?
Fornication is disrespectful only if it’s that sort of night, Mr. Moral.
ah, i see, you thread jumped… fornication is disrespectful because it treats people as means and doesn’t think about the rest of their life. People should have sex only if they truly want to join with that person for life and, if they are, then they should prove it first by making that commitment in the form of public marriage. Because sex DOES publicly join people together for life all the time.
Women don’t realize this anymore because women do not make a commitment when they have sex, though they still may feel bound by the decision to have sex in ways they don’t predict before hand.
I try to only pubicly join with other people. Ya’ know, being a woman and all and being of weaker or lesser morals. Which is what you’re going for here, right?
I mean, you’re not gonna shoot back at me that I’m misinterpreting your “committment” comment.
I love it when men tell me what’ s good for my body and my life.
Treating women like wombs on wheels isn’t disrepectful?
>I mean, you’re not gonna shoot back at me that I’m misinterpreting your “committment”? comment.
That referred to abortion. Women aren’t committed to anything by the act of fornication (though again, they may not realize in advance how they will feel, and will indeed FEEL a commitment.) Men are committed to that decision and whatever comes from it. I don’t understand why women feel they are incapable of making a firm commitment at the time of sexual intercourse, or are unable to restrain themselves from having sex, but that is what abortion laws seem to imply.
I don’t, and no one should, treat women like wombs. Please don’t go overboard with your contemptuousness for rationality.
-People should have sex only if they truly want to join with that person for life and, if they are, then they should prove it first by making that commitment in the form of public marriage.-
Why? What if I just want to have a lovely one-night stand that means I get some exercise and a lovely endorphin rush?
– Because sex DOES publicly join people together for life all the time.
How? How am I publically joining with someone because I have sex with him (her)? Am I also publicaly joined when I kiss someone? Should I be embarassed to be having sex with someone outside of marriage?
-Women don’t realize this anymore because women do not make a commitment when they have sex, though they still may feel bound by the decision to have sex in ways they don’t predict before hand
WOMEN anymore ?!? Last time I checked, men have sex too, so the commitment should be two-fold. This is implying that women can’t choose to have sex, only get coerced
-I don’t understand why women feel they are incapable of making a firm commitment at the time of sexual intercourse, or are unable to restrain themselves from having sex, but that is what abortion laws seem to imply. –
I’m not incapable of making a firm commitment, I choose not to with my big, beautiful brain. I have one, see how that works? I can restrain myself from having sex, I choose not to. YAY, democracy works yet again. Abortion laws seem to imply to me that not all women want to have children, or want to have children at appropriate times. Wow, I bet that’s a shocker.
Mr. Moral’s pet theories can’t even pass the even the low, low standards of proof that most wingnuts have. Clearly most people screw outside of marriage, for pleasure, don’t see it as a magical union of the inferior woman and the superior man and all this weird-ass shit and yet here life goes on just fine.
Hey Johnny, what about people who are unable to concieve? Can they have sex outside of marriage? After all, no kids, no societal involvement, right? Or is it something intrinsic to the sex act that makes it “publicly join people together for life all the time.”? In that case, are we talking penetrative sex, or anything that gives sexual pleasure?
Did Amp go on vacation or something? He’s usually quicker about trolls.
maybe it’s Ampersand in disguise & this is all a fiendish test?
Mythago, I have been on vacation, actually!
Johnny, this is an over-the-top attack on another poster, which is against the rules. (And no, it’s not okay for you to do it just because other people do it too.)
If you want to keep posting here, don’t post attacks like that.
I don’t like the way your odd views are taking over and divirting other threads (such as the s.o. discrimination/sex discrimination thread), so that nothing but your views (and people’s disagreement with them) gets discussed. Also, you’ve now posted over thirty times on my blog, without my ever editing or deleting any of your posts, so you’ve had a more than fair chance to state your views.
I’m not going to totally ban you right now, but I am going to ask you to confine your comments from now on to this thread here – the thread in which my initial post was a response to you. Please don’t respond on any other threads. (If you want to respond to this post of mine, do it on that thread, not on this one.)
Antigone> What if I just want to have a lovely one-night stand that means I get some exercise and a lovely endorphin rush?
Maybe you could do that some other way? If you have sex, you might create a person, and also, even if everything works out the way you intend, you de-sensitize people to the specialness of sex and warp the culture toward commercialism and death and all that…
>>- Because sex DOES publicly join people together for life all the time.
>How? How am I publically joining with someone because I have sex with him (her)?
When people are born, the father and mother are publicly identified. Their sex act of nine months ago becomes public. That happens all the time (not every time, all the time)
>Am I also publicaly joined when I kiss someone?
of course not. Only sex does this (and sex is short for sexual intercourse)
>Should I be embarassed to be having sex with someone outside of marriage?
Yes, it should be kept secret, it should not be open and notorious.
>WOMEN anymore ?!? Last time I checked, men have sex too, so the commitment should be two-fold. This is implying that women can’t choose to have sex, only get coerced
Only women have the evil luxury of sex not being a commitment. For men, it might mean 25 years of support payments, enforced by police officers and jail. For women, it means endorphins and excersize.
>I’m not incapable of making a firm commitment, I choose not to with my big, beautiful brain. I have one, see how that works? I can restrain myself from having sex, I choose not to. YAY, democracy works yet again.
For who?
>Abortion laws seem to imply to me that not all women want to have children, or want to have children at appropriate times. Wow, I bet that’s a shocker.
Hey, same with men. The choice to reproduce should be mutual and consensual, no matter what sex you are or how much coercive physical power you have over the other person.
Amanda: I never said anythng about women being inferior. It is disrepctful to suggest that I do, or that I think women are wombs on wheels, and to call me a wingnut. My “pet theories” make sense if you would care to actually meet them head on and not just ignore them and toss insults at me. And I know most people screw outside of marriage now, its become moral.
>Hey Johnny, what about people who are unable to concieve? Can they have sex outside of marriage? After all, no kids, no societal involvement, right? Or is it something intrinsic to the sex act that makes it “publicly join people together for life all the time.”? In that case, are we talking penetrative sex, or anything that gives sexual pleasure?
yes, there is something intrinsic to sex (full name: sexual intercourse, so no, we aren’t talking sodomy or masterbation) that makes it publicly join people together for life all the time: It might create a person that is the public joining of the people that had sex.
People that think they are infertile are surprised by pregnancy all the time, though perhaps most people who have reason to believe they are infertile indeed never start a pregnancy. But there’s no legal catagory for those people, they aren’t allowed to fornicate. Because they might not be infertile, and because they would contribute to coarsening of the culture which would rub off on people who were not infertile.
Amp – I just figured out what you meant, but as I’ve already posted on this thread, I’ll just respond here one more time, if you don’t mind. I think I should be able to join in discussions which I have something to add, and I stay on topic, I do not divert from the thread. What happens is someone tries to extrapolate the point I make to some wild conclusion so as to attack that imagined conclusion, and then I have to defend or explain and off on a tangent we go. As people come to learn my positions on things, I think they won’t bother to go off on tangential attacks and we can stick to the subject. I am not disrespectful, but I felt someone had overreacted and totally misrepresented my views. I thought my choice of how to respond was appropriate, but I’ll keep in mind that “wingnuts” are held to higher standards here. That’s fine, it’s your blog. I don’t think I’d ban someone at my blog though, unless they were just posting crap to drown out discussion. I’m not drowning out discussion though, I really have a strong opion on D.C. and if it should be legal or not and I want to take part our society’s discussion about that, wherever that discussion lives in the blogosphere.
Only women have the evil luxury of sex not being a commitment. For men, it might mean 25 years of support payments, enforced by police officers and jail. For women, it means endorphins and excersize.
And here’s the sad consequence of abstinence-only sex education in the US school system. Meet my dear friend, the condom.
Come to think of it, isn’t it women who get pregnant? I’d have thought they’d have reason to be concerned about that.
Amps right, this has gotten off-topic: My opinion on DC.
Homosexual couples should be able to get DC if they want it. Why deny them the right to have children? Studies have not shown that there is any significant detriment to children if they’re parents are of the same gender. The only thing that is significangtly different in children raised by homosexual couples is the off-spring are slightly less genderfied. I’m not sure why that’s a bad thing, actually.
So, if they want the kid (for whatever reason) and they have the money, let them. They will have a loving family, and why deny that?
>Why deny them the right to have children?
First of all, no one is denied a right to marry and attempt to procreate. But there is no “right to have children”, only a right not to be sterilized and a right to marry and then have sex. If there was a right to procreate, then infertility would be grounds for divorce, and as Ampersand pointed out here, it isn’t.
And the right to procreate, as found in Skinner, wasn’t a right to have your partner procreate with someone else’s donor sperm. You aren’t procreating in that case. With D.C., only one of the partners is procreating, along with some other anonymous person.
The sort of right you are talking about – a right to parent some kid (and any DSS worker would laugh at such a claim, parenting is a privilege as far as they are concerned) – would be satisfied by adoption, and D.C. wouldn’t need to come into play at all.
And as to the right not to be sterilized established in Skinner- i would argue that a public school steering children into homosexuality is unconstitutional because it effectively sterilizes you, or at the very least, forces you to have children with someone who is not the person you love, not your life partner, not the other person who will be the child’s proximity-parent.
First, I’m afraid I’m not sure what you’re referencing with Skinner. The only thing I’m aware that he did was the work with operant condtioning. Perhaps a link, if you’d be so kind?
Perhaps when I said “to have kids” I was being unclear: to raise kids in a healthy, stable envirnment. I’m not speaking of procreation; procreating and parenting are two different things.
I also am not familiar with the acronym DSS.
No one can be “forced into homosexuality”.
JohnnyMorals proclaims: And as to the right not to be sterilized established in Skinner- i would argue that a public school steering children into homosexuality is unconstitutional because it effectively sterilizes you, or at the very least, forces you to have children with someone who is not the person you love, not your life partner, not the other person who will be the child’s proximity-parent
i’ve got some nontraditional families for you to meet (actually i probably wouldn’t want to introduce them to you, but that’s another matter). homosexuals (and other folk) are more than capable of loving their lover, loving the person they have a child with, forming life partnerships with more than one person, & offering a child many parents in close proximity.
unconstitutional? oh, right…. the Homosexual Sterility Amendment of 1937. how could i forget?
hi Antigone,
I also am not familiar with the acronym DSS.
i believe Mr. Morals was referring to the Department of Social Services.
It was just a matter of time before the FRA thing came out. *sigh* One has marvel at the logical and philosophical contortions one must go through to argue for male dominance under the guise of equal rights.
yes, there is something intrinsic to sex (full name: sexual intercourse, so no, we aren’t talking sodomy or masterbation) that makes it publicly join people together for life all the time: It might create a person that is the public joining of the people that had sex.
Yay for sodomy then! I guess you’re OK with that. After all, no chance of having children, no encouraging non sterile people to have sex.
Let’s have a public sodomy campaign. Oral sex has less of a chance of spreading AIDS, mutual masturbation has even less, and cybersex has a zero percent chance.
People that think they are infertile are surprised by pregnancy all the time, though perhaps most people who have reason to believe they are infertile indeed never start a pregnancy. But there’s no legal catagory for those people, they aren’t allowed to fornicate. Because they might not be infertile, and because they would contribute to coarsening of the culture which would rub off on people who were not infertile.
Actualy, there are 100% effective methods of sterilization. As for it “rubbing off”, you seem to have the idea that people aren’t responsible fot thier actions. Me, I treat humans like adults, because otherwise you end up assuming that you know better, which is essentialy treating people as a means to your end. Johnny, it’s immoral to treat adult human beings like children.