Personhood

[asterroc]

As if there weren't enough silly people going about thinking that their babies fetuses were full-fledged humans, there's now count-down tickers you can put on your blog that count how "old" it is and in what stage of development. You'd think that a ticker with milemarkers such as "my spine is growing," "my lungs are mature," and "my brain is growing fast," would not convince people of the humanity of feti, but ...

Our hand-drawn pregnancy tickers are ideal for modern parents to share the progress of their pregnancy.

Comments

[sammka.livejournal.com]

I don't see how taking an interest in the course of your pregnancy is really equatable with thinking that abortion should be illegal... if I were pregnant I'd sure be interested in which stage of development my child-to-be was in.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

It's not the "taking an interest in the course of development" that gets to me. It's the use of the first person. Anthropomorphizing embryos (through the end of the 8th week) / fetuses (9th week and after) in this manner and others (making the killing of a pregnant woman legally equivalent to killing two people) leads people to consider them "unborn children" rather than "a collection of cells," which have very different moral loadings.

FYI, I fall squarely on the choice end of the abortion/choice spectrum, but I'm not sure where my opinion on the personhood of an embryo/fetus lies. Regardless of how human it is, I think my own personal choice to abort or not would depend upon the circumstances of its conception (such as rape vs. failure of birth control, though since I believe in multiple methods an accidental pregnancy is highly unlikely), as well as my own financial situation.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

I don't know about you, but I anthropomorphize my rabbit, and yet I'm perfectly okay with her not having the same rights as humans. I can't imagine not anthropomorphizing something as human-looking as an embryo, especially considering that if left to its own devices it's going to turn into a person.

I'm squarely on the side of choice but I don't feel that opinion rests on any denigration of embryos, and more on my respect for people's bodies. If we can't force people to donate their organs even after their death, I simply don't see why women need to donate the use of their bodies for nine months of their lives if a proto-human takes root there. Because I have some moral regard for embryos (especially as the term progresses and they resemble babies more and more, to the point where "a collection of cells" becomes a patently ridiculous description), I think abortion is a horrible, sad thing, but admit that sometimes it's a horrible, sad necessity. I get the impression that most women who have had abortions feel the same way.

This is just a sort of sensitive topic for me because I've read too much silly sci-fi to be comfortable with dehumanizing entities for political purposes, and I like to err on the side of believing that living beings (like animals) have moral value (hence my vegetarianism). I think it's straightforward that, say, undifferentiated cells of a blastula have no present status as a sentient being, but at the same time if our society cares enough about cattle to make laws requiring humane slaughter, why can't we have laws making it a crime [albeit one more minor than homicide] to wilfully kill a fetus outside of a medical context?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Hm. Thought-provoking comments.

I think the reason I want to dehumanize fetuses is partially to get others to support my political view, and partially to justify my own opinions. I do feel it's morally better to be an organic, locally-grown, vegan, but I don't feel so strongly enough to become one myself. But I am slowly introducing small modifications to my shopping habits that make a difference in the long run, such as I only buy organic or free range eggs except when I need to make hardboiled eggs (the shells are too tough to peel well from the healthy birds). I've been consistently buying orgnaic baby carrots for a year now, and just the last time I bought apple cider I compared two brands and picked the closer address (Maine, unfortunately).

It's easier for me to do things I find wrong if I can justify them somehow, or ignore the parts that I find wrong. While eating shrimp I try not to think of how many lives I took. I don't even know the ecological dangers of shrimp farming and I am resisting Wikipedia-ing them. I cannot pick a live lobster, but I'll eat one cooked if I didn't see the tanks on my way in to the restuarant. :-P

[marquiswildbill.livejournal.com]

I think that the baby tickers are cute. I had a countdown one when Tatiana was cooking, I would have loved a developmental one too.
I talked to Tatiana like she was a person while she was inutero. Granted before we knew her sex she was daddy's little mass of cells.
I do have a major problem with laws that allow for a defendant to be charged with two counts of a crime comitted against a pregnant woman though. Harsher sentences, yes. I mean assaulting a pregnant woman is just plain fucked up. Hell if you're unarmed you may become the victim pretty quickly.
By the way, redundant BC can fail. An ex of mine got pregnant using the pill perfectly (we both had alarms set to tell her when to take her pill and I would always call her to remind her just in case), and using condoms as backup.
Based on the published efficacy statistics and how long we were together, I am one of the 600 or so most fertile men on earth. My sister had a friend in college who got pregnant under similar circumstances TWICE. If we ever were in a room together she would get pregnant.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do know redundant birth control can fail. I know my statistics. ;) But it's less likely than when using just a single form. In fact, I can tell you precisely how much less likely, as I just taught percents today and my birth control pills come with this nice and handy chart.

In one year of using condoms only, perfectly, 3% of women get pregnant, or typically 14%. One year of the Pill only they say 0.5% w/ perfect use and imperfect isn't listed. I'll make up 2% for my next stage of math. Assume the two are independent. To get pregnant using both methods, BOTH would have to fail. With perfect use, that would be 3%*0.5%=0.03*0.005=0.00015=0.015% chance of both methods failing. With typical use, 14%*2%=0.14*0.02=0.0028=0.28%, or just over 1 in 400. The chances of accidental pregnancy go from tiny to insignificant which makes me really shocked it happened to you.

I'm risk-adverse which is what led me to want to have the backup. Additionally, I'm intermittently on antibiotics for a skin condition, and they can decrease the effectiveness of birth control pills, so maybe I feel the condom's the backup for the pill? Yeah I know it's not perfect, but after getting out of college I realized how lucky I was that I didn't get pregnant with my first boyfriend. Withdrawal has a 4% pregnancy rate ideally, but 19% typically. Each year I had an 81% chance of NOT getting pregnant, so after two years of dating we had a 65.61% chance of NOT getting pregnant, or 34% chance that we would. I knew better, but I was sexually naive.

As a side note, I hope you find the humor in this statistical thought that crossed my mind. I wonder what percentage of people are pathological liars? If that percent's higher than the chance of you and your ex- having two forms of birth control fail simultaneously, then Occam's Razor says you were probably fibbing. Either that or you were nymphos, as the statistics don't account for frequency of sex. ;)

[marquiswildbill.livejournal.com]

Actually very frequent sex reduces the chances of pregnancy. I think the sperm don't have time to reproduce or something. I know they tell couples trying to concieve to resist the (logical) thinking that they should just be screwing non-stop.
Before the pregnancy happened it used to be a joke between my friends and I wondering if there were any little Billys out there. Now I wait for an army that looks like me to rise up.