Here is the thing -- labor seldom is over in an hour; it can go on for MUCH longer. We are fortunate that science has now provided this opportunity for men to physically share this experience.
I dare them to do so before they intrude their stupid politics to exert control over womens' bodies. This should apply not only to men before passing legislation on abortion, but also legislation relating to all aspects of birth control. Shame on conservatives, especially those who would inflict pregnancy on girls rather than women.
Dog, Unfortunately your suggestion is off the mark. While men don't have to experience labor pains, that's not the issue about which they, or nearly anyone seeking an abortion, are talking about.
ReplyDeleteThe issue is on the one hand, you're ending a life needlessly (in their eyes), and no amount of pain is worth more than a life (and we're not talking about purposeful torture here, no, we're talking about the pain mother's have endured for eons to allow the species to continue (pain our mothers and every other female mammal has endured). Shall we stop enduring that pain? This "simulation", other than seeking some amount of vengeance on men, is a specious pursuit, imho.
On the pro-choice side, the argument has never been about pain (or not very damned much), nor should it be. The argument has been about someone have the choice over a number of things, the physical changes, yes, the pain of labor but obviously that can be avoided/mitigated, but far more importantly than those two points are the points of allowing someone to chose when they want to have a child, rather than having it thrust upon them (or compelling them to chose abstinence not just for them but for their spouse), and most importantly, deciding for themselves if they have the financial capacity to support a child (or children). It is ironic in the extreme that on the one hand the anti-choice crowd complains about abortion and on the other hand they complain that the poor should stop having children (out of wedlock or in) to avoid being poor. It's certainly true that unwed mothers are a large percentage of the poor and being one makes you far more likely to wind up poor.
So to those hypocrites I say, you want them to stop having kids out of wedlock, rather than playing Polly-Anna and pretending that telling them to stop being sexually active as a young adult is anything like a solution, rather than that, give them the tools to avoid pregnancy, especially and including birth control. Make that available and your problem with abortion will become FAR less an issue. Stop now trying to ban IUD's, something which prevents pregnancy BEFORE conception. Because it makes it look like you're issue ISN'T with abortion, it's with women in general, it makes it look like you don't CARE about the child, but you care to tell the mother to stop having sex because you don't like her having sex. IUD's should be the FIRST thing you bring up, they prevent pregnancy, they prevent conception, they prevent abortion. And the thing is, if you're against that and FOR making people suffer pain, well then, DG is right in that part, you should have to go through this simulator, not to show you what women go through, but rather to show you what you want to FORCE them to suffer through rather than allowing them a reasonable alternative. And by the way, it not only LOOKS like you don't care about the child, it's pretty damned clear you don't care.
DG, perhaps your next post should be asking why conservatives oppose IUD's given they prevent conception, and thus, abortion or even the supposed "killing" of what those puritans consider a life
Per both your comment and our subsequent conversation, upon further thought I disagree.
DeleteAs was stated by the two men in the second video, and as has been stated by many of the most prominent legislators, "women exaggerate, women exaggerate all the time".
The legislators to whom I refer are the same pro-rape legislators who have tried to redefine rape as only forcible or violent rape -- eliminating statutory rape of children, and the rape of drugged victims, as rape, and also in many instances disqualifying incestuous rape as rape.
These are the same legislators who are trying to remove rape or the life of the mother as legitimate justifications for abortion as well.
This is not by any stretch of the imagination torture. Torture is involuntary, not voluntary. The safe word in the video to stop any pain or discomfort is epidural.
Torture is not under the control of the recipient as to location, duration and intensity and torture has a very different purpose from understanding an intense experience that is the culmination of a series of experiences that these legislators appear not to fully understand.
Rather, I think it would be productive to add another video from this series on simulating pregnancy rather than just labor.
This is a proposal that we require more education and enlightenment from our legislators, on a par with those who voluntarily try living on food stamps instead of using their per diems for a set period of time.
I would argue rather that every legislator who votes on poverty legislation should be trying to live on poverty wages, and to eat using nutrition assistance.
If they don't want to have their empathy 'enhanced' (an adjective I am lifting from 'enhanced interrogation' here for contrast) by opting to educate themselves more personally on the issues they vote on, then they should opt out of voting. No one is holding a gun to their heads; they do not have to vote.