Oddbean new post about login | logout It's surprising that you are on Nostr yet are in favor of state control over reproduction at the expense of both the women who must bear the pregnancies, with a higher risk of personal death and complications, and at the expense of the children born to such horrendous circumstances. Everybody has a right to life but nobody has the right to use someone else's body without consent. Are you in favor of the state forcing the donation of blood? Forcing the donation of extra kidneys? Should we have a national registry of eligible blood types to draft people into the service of saving a fellow human in need despite the greater risk of death or infection to the donor? Or should risking our personal lives be voluntary if we understand and are able to handle the consequences? What about contraceptives? Should we ban them? If it's murder to abort a fertilized egg, is it also murder to prevent fertilization that would otherwise occur? In countries and states where abortion is illegal, doctors are scared to perform life saving abortions for fear of being prosecuted. This leads to adult women dying unnecessarily. Women who suffer natural miscarriages are also prosecuted and imprisoned where abortion is illegal when they're already suffering from the miscarriage itself. Get the state out of our personal lives. Having children, going through 9 months of pregnancy and giving birth at a higher risk to ones personal health, is a very personal decision that should be up to the people directly involved and not bureaucrats.
Should the state be involved in murder? State control of reproduction? Who ever said that? The state isn't forcing anyone to have sex. I advocate that the nation I live in, enforce the right to life. Women need not "bear a pregnancy" if they aren't having sex by their own volition. It's not a personal decision to make a value assessment of the life the child COULD have. That's a ridiculous statement. Your entire supposition is deplorable. Trying to save face by saying I support nation states involvement in people personal lives is distracting from your argument by being so plainly dishonest. Yes. I support any entity who would advocate for children conceived to have their lives protected. The same way I support any entity to defend the lives of other people or bring justice to those who have been wronged. I don't care of it's the state. We need more people, not less. You're a sick malthusian useful idiot. I won't apologize.
No it's not murder to prevent conception. Abortion pills should be banned, not birth control, abstention and condoms.
Well at least we agree that contraceptives are okay, there are those who would imprison both of us for having such an opinion though.
An unborn child does have a right to life and they are entitled to the womb of the mother who made a choice to have sex. If they don't want a child, they can't simply not have sex. Pretty simple.
Until the system is fixed so that people even in extreme poverty both know how (and are able) to build up their ability to afford access to contraceptives through their own efforts, impossible with FIAT currencies debasing savings and wages, forced birth is nothing but a punishment of further impoverishment for those who cannot afford contraceptives and choose to have sex anyway. Because having sex is not optional for any creature in the Animal Kingdom including Humanity, it's genetically built into us to do it regardless of anything else. Forced birth almost always happens to women who would never be approved to be foster parents or adoptive parents due to lack of a safe environment or resources. Are you in favor of mandatory state taxation to care for the children born to people who cannot care for them but are forced to carry them to term? What about state taxes going to fund the burials of women who don't survive birth but would've survived abortion? Do you prefer homeless or abused children instead of state funding? I have seen what the world does to homeless children, it is not pretty. They are often enslaved, crippled, and abused. Raising humans is not cheap, and it is a punishment to both the woman and the child to force the child to be raised in abusive environments or to be homeless. That is immoral. It is also immoral to force people under penalty of prison to pay to support children nobody wants.
Bro... Condoms are dirt cheap. Abstention is free. Try again.
Are you REALLY arguing for abstinence as a solution? Really? Also, condoms aren't foolproof.
Are you really arguing that not having sex is a not a solution to not getting pregnant?
There is nothing more simultaneously ineffective and effective at prevention pregnancy than abstinence. Abstinence as an action in the moment is the most effective method of contraception, this is not something anyone argues with. But abstinence as a policy for long term birth control is the least effective way of preventing pregnancy. People want to have sex, full stop. All humans are biologically driven to breath, drink water, eat food, and have sex to reproduce. People are recommended not to eat unhealthy, yet the physical drive to eat that is taken advantage of by all the processed foods give us a society with pandemic levels of obesity and diabetes. Similarly recommending people to just not have sex, is not effective at preventing it. The data indicates that abstinence only education causes more unwanted pregnancies and abortions than it prevents.
So your desire to have sex is more important than the life of an unborn human. That's your argument. It falls flat on its face.
My desire? Dude, we live in a world where people are going to have sex whether we think they should or not. Do we want to condemn both those ignorant people and their conceived child to a miserable life? Stop making this about me "wanting to have sex" my sexual practices are irrelevant to this argument. I do have sex but my partner and I luckily are not in poverty and utilize contraceptives, unlike a significant number of people around the world. At the end of the day, this is another thing Bitcoin fixes. Because FIAT is why the majority of the world remains in poverty and unable to support themselves or their potential offspring, so they don't practice safe sex as much and they have abortions more. When everyone has a stable financial foundation, and access to knowledge on effective contraceptions, unwanted pregnancies and abortions will both reduce significantly. That's our mutual goal as a society, to reduce suffering caused by unwanted pregnancies and subsequent abortions. I'm pro reduced suffering, I'm not pro abortion except where it can reduce suffering. Ultimately Bitcoin is the solution again, which is why it's my focus overall.
We loved on a world where people didn't have sex of they didn't want to get pregnant and if they did nearly 100% of people made do less than 100 years ago. But now it's impossible for us animals to suppress our desires. We're nothing but smart monekys with no personal responsibility for our actions. Makes sense when you look at the world in a way that makes that little sense.
youre a neoliberal regurgitation machine.
Nope. Just someone who believes in reducing suffering in the world we live in based on the data we have available.
You don't reduce suffering by ending life. Malthusian bullshit.
Was going to comment, but @OceanSlim you were spot on...completely agree with you. Not much more I could add. Bravo!
I am not a subscriber to Malthusian population theory, the earth has more than enough resources to support many more people than we have today if we use the resources wisely which the FIAT system prevents. You seem to associate with me with beliefs I do not hold, this is a failure on your part to have an honest argument. I do not believe that anyone has the right to use someone else's body without their consent. I do not care if the person needs the other person's body to survive, they cannot use it without consent. Just as I do not subscribe to the belief that forced organ donation or forced blood transfusions are good even if they would reduce death overall. Removing or not providing consent can sometimes result in death, as it does in the cases of abortion or a lack of available organ donors, but that does not supercede the importance of consent in our dealings with each other. I do not care if the person dependant is created through the actions of the other person who's body is needed to survive, because no action gives automatic consent to the future usage of their body by another person against their will. You seem to believe that forcing children to be born to someone who does not want them and cannot support them is preferable to not being born at all. It is not. Unwanted children are at much higher risks of every type of abuse, physical, mental, emotional, sexual. Unwanted children are at a much higher risk of being human trafficked. I would rather not be born than to be born into those sets of circumstances. You speak on a subject without compassion for those involved, and crusade on behalf of those who cannot give their opinion otherwise. You advocate non-consensual forced usage of another person's body against their will. That is slavery. You sir, are in favor of slavery.
Not ending their life is "forcing them to be born". Life is in fact preferable to death. nostr:nevent1qqs06t2qwws7rae6zglmj350t7qkrwn4j54tftqf4tuxhyclg8jw7kgpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgtczyzmul4rjl7grgs0vdn24hdgxl96yyydxu689y5jagfz9z6da5ql45qcyqqqqqqg0dwydw
Since you have openly said you do not care about the individuals involved or their extenuating circumstances, let me know when you decide to adopt abandoned sexually abused children who you forced to be born to drug addicted parents who didn't want them and sold their children to pedophiles. BTW not only do they have intense trauma that will take a lifetime to recover from, they also need to be given drugs to wean them off their pre-birth derived addictions while they likely will keep lifelong mental disabilities related to their early developmental environment. There are many of them in the foster care system right now waiting for you. I personally know people who have done exactly that, and they are incredible individuals for doing so. It is easy to decide someone else's decisions for them based on supposedly higher moral grounds when you yourself have no consequences for forcing them to do so. I do not agree with you that forcing people to be born into a miserable abuse filled suffering life is preferable to just not being born. Your viewpoint makes me nauseous, shame on you.
Again, no one is forcing them to have sex.
Biologically there are 4 things people are driven to do with enough drive to have created 8,000,000,000 people alive today. 1: Breath 2: Drink water 3: Eat food 4: Reproduce Good luck telling people all they have to do is not do what their hormones are driving them to do. Abstinence only education works so well to prevent teen pregnancies doesn't it? I suppose we should prevent people who have obesity from getting help too, it's their fault they're fat after all because all they had to do was not eat! You do not live in the real world.
Your claim is people are too dumb to make responsibe decisions. I think more highly of human beings. Humans are accountable for their actions. Making a stupid decision does not mean you are devoid of consequences.
Humans, when given the opportunities and education to know the best courses of action to avoid consequences of their actions, are generally reasonable and responsible people. I do think highly of well informed people with resources at their fingertips, but that is not the state of the world today. Most people are deliberately kept in the dark with abstinence only education being the dominant education on sex given to hormone filled teenagers in conservative controlled countries such as much of the United States. There are also groups that fight contraceptive access and that discourage condom use, these are mostly religious groups who view pregnancy as divine punishment for women that shouldn't be avoided. I think we agree more than disagree here. Expand access to contraceptives and expand education on safe sex practices, rather than just telling people "no sex! sex bad!" as is basically currently the case, and unwanted pregnancies and abortions would naturally plummet. That's what we all want, less unwanted pregnancies and less abortions. Just because I'm pro-choice doesn't mean I'm not also pro-life, but I believe consent of the woman and a desire and ability to care for the child in a safe environment free from abuse should be what every child born should expect. Children should be born only to people that want them and can effectively care for them, they should not be forced to be born to someone who doesn't love them and is likely to abuse or neglect them.
Your arguments are immoral, tired and weak. I will not apologize to weak malthusian useful idiots. In fact, my rhetoric isn't harsh enough if anything. nostr:nevent1qqstqnnrrfffmz6vnmw3hxn60jg3g3lrrspvxwxvxk5l3hgwc9v95vgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsyg9hel289lusx3q7cmx4tw6sd7t5ggg6de5w2ff96sjy295mmgpltgpsgqqqqqqslr08kn
Only those who cannot sustain meaningful communication resort to insults. I did not insult you in any way, yet you insult me and my character. Insulting a person only shows immaturity and a lack of arguments. If you learn how to be respectful in your communications it will get you farther in your goals of changing minds to your point of view.
I've refuted all of your arguments. Then I insulted you for making stupid ones.
The very act of insulting causes you to lose the argument.
It is literally the state's sole purpose to protect the life and liberty of one from being ripped away by another. A child in a womb has rights and deserves future liberty protection. The US has millions of no questions asked dropoff locations. Every fire station, police station, hospital, and many nonprofits. Otherwise, let's just be anarchists if they cannot even serve this basic function.
Who is trying to control reproduction? I am not aware of any state in the union that has passed a law banning reproduction, lol. Quite the opposite in fact.
The radicalized religious are, and they're doing it one step at a time by banning abortion in some states. Preventing doctors from providing care that they are the most qualified and informed to be able to effectively provide, through prohibitions on abortion, is a way of controlling reproduction and preventing adequate care of the women involved. It doesn't take much effort to find news articles of people dying due to lack of access to abortion. Or people being imprisoned after a miscarriage that was prosecuted as an illegal abortion. That is not a world I want to live in.
What state? Banning abortion has nothing to do with banning reproduction. It is literally 100% the opposite.
I never said they're banning reproduction.
My bad, you said state control of reproduction. Name me one state that has passed a law since the ending of Roe controlling when a man and a woman can reproduce? Just one, please. Not the mythological 'reproductive rights' that the left uses, but an actual law that says here is when the state allows XYZ adult to reproduce or not. it's a BS made up argument the Dems use and you have bought it hook line and sinker. Brutal for you. Sorry you fell for it so they could raise money.
Reproductive rights refer to more than just abortion, there are groups advocating for the prohibition of contraceptives as well. As for current states. When a government threatens doctors with prison time over providing abortions they deem necessary for the care of their patients, that the state has no business policing, then the state controls reproductive rights at the expense of the consent of those directly involved. We do not currently have a state that tells people they're not allowed to have children, but many countries have in the 20th century committed forced sterilization of "undesirables" including the United States. Allowing state control over ANY aspect of reproduction is a slippery slope that is difficult to climb out of. Be careful what you wish for.
Glad we agree no states have reproductive control laws. Thanks for being honest. Abortion has absolutely nothing to do with reproductive rights or issues. Not one bit, never has. Sterilization? Lol, ok. What does that have to do with abortion in 2024? It is hard to keep up with all your leaps and bounds of the goal post. Abortion is about murder, plain and simple. The question is the same as always, when does it become murder, and where do we draw the line. Conception? 6 weeks? Heartbeat? Birth? Of course the state should have a say in protecting a human's life and liberty. That is literally the only thing they exist for. What a silly argument.
I've never been dishonest, I don't appreciate the implication that you expected I wouldn't be. I fail to see how historically factual government enforcement of sterilization for the explicit intent to prevent reproduction is irrelevant to this discussion. History doesn't necessarily repeat itself but it often rhymes. Abortion is not about murder at all and has everything to do with reproductive rights, it is you who is dishonest to try to paint it as you are in terms that are black and white.
Except it has nothing to do with reproductive rights. Never has been, never will be. A woman is free to fuck any adult guy she wants to impregnate herself and have a child. No laws exist otherwise, not have been seriously proposed. You fell for their BS, nothing more, nothing less. Oh well, move on. I really don't care if I hurt your feelings, literally not one bit. It isn't about healthcare, reproductive rights, or any other nonsense. It is about whether or not you are murdering a child. It's fantastic though that you and others like you don't want to admit it. Comical to a degree. I get it, I wouldn't feel good about murdering a helpless baby either. Bummer for you to have to defend that. What's next, elderly? Disabled? Yikes.
You seem to be really worked up over this, you clearly do not speak with reason but with emotion. You did not hurt my feelings at all. You appeal to emotional "murdering a helpless baby" strawman arguments to support your view. Learn to argue your point effectively instead of resorting to baseless arguments and ad hominem personal attacks. Keep pushing for the right to enslave women to only be worth what their wombs can create. That they do not own their bodies and can be forced to carry to term against their will. Your position is shameful and you should be ashamed.
Emotional? Lol, nah. Not at all. You said "I don't appreciate being called dishonest". Hahaha. Yes, I clearly hurt your feelings. I am the one just telling the facts and talking about where the line should be for murder or not. But onto the women, I suppose they shouldn't have had sex then, huh? Almost as if there is consequences, weird. What a concept. That's like keeping your Bitcoin on FTX, getting wrecked, and then asking for a bailout. Nah, fuck off. Rape accounts for virtually no abortions per year. But hey, I am reasonable, I am ok with early abortions abortions from rape. But let's be real, the chance of a woman ovulating while being raped is virtually non existent. It happens, yes. So I will concede this to them as long as it is done early. Personal attacks? What in the literal hell are you talking about?? I didn't attack you on any way. If you would like to move on, we can discuss removing women's right to vote next if you want?
Wow, so you just really don't like women. Sad.
Huh? Still spouting nonsense, huh? Unless they become eligible for selective service, it isn't even a question. They shouldn't be allowed to vote for war Hawks who will send me, or my son to war. My wife agrees with me on this and abortion, does she hate women also? Lol. Tell you what, let's also get back to the days of landowners only being allowed to vote as well as a civics test.
Selective service is an affront to a free society and nobody male or female should be required to go fight in a war that they do not support or believe in. So you support a system where women are subservient to men and cannot vote, where they do not have autonomy over her own bodies, and where only rich landowners get to decide the rules for everyone. I suppose you want to allow slavery again too, reintroduce mandatory religious attendance, and you likely support capital punishment. Is that right?
I agree, nobody should be drafted. however, men can be and have. women cannot.who says women don't have bodily autonomy? Not me. I said they shouldn't be able to murder a child, that has nothing to do with their body. They should not get the right to vote me or my son into battle. Correct. Did I say rich landowners should make the rules for everyone?? I said vote, not make the rules. And I never said rich people. I realize you are likely a a renter now, but there is nothing stopping you from buying land. You can buy a whole search of land in Michigan urban areas for dirt cheap, like 1k. same with Nevada, AZ, IN, and most of the south. Slavery? uh, no. I am not religious, and believe in freedkm and liberty so I have no idea what in the hell you are talking about on attending religious services? Just spouting more nonsense?
I apologize for my less collected final paragraph from my last message. Other than your views being similar to those following religious ideologies, there's nothing directly tying what you said to religion. I was assuming but am glad you are not religious. I obviously do not agree that abortions are murder, abortions are induced miscarriages and even if not induced somewhere between 10 - 40% of pregnancies naturally miscarry. There are significant problems with making abortion illegal, including that women who miscarry naturally sometimes get prosecuted for a crime they did not commit when they are already suffering a loss that's just made worse by the legal system. There are also higher risks involved with birth than with abortion, with more women dying in childbirth than through abortion. Doctor's and their patients should be allowed to have final say on this not only due to that general risk, but it would also avoid cases we see where the pregnancy has a high likelihood of becoming life threatening if not terminated early but the doctor's are too afraid of legal prosecution to proceed with necessary treatment to save the woman. Fetuses are not babies, not while they threaten the life and well being of the women carrying them. Women with true bodily autonomy should not be compelled to risk their lives and well being to bring to term a fetus they do not want or are not equipped to care for just because they had sex. This is not good for the woman or the child born to a home with no love for them. Until we advance technologically enough to support fetuses outside the womb (and advance economically enough to support them to adulthood without putting undo burden on anyone through more taxes that pay for the support of children without willing parents), then removing consent unfortunately leads to the death of the fetus. Consent for sex does not equal consent to maintain life threatening pregnancy. But I know you disagree on this, so let's agree to disagree. Also, even though we disagree so far (and you rudely keep calling my responses nonsense when they are not, with the exception of the last paragraph in my previous message), you have my respect for engaging on a touchy subject for as long as we have. In response to the land/voting issue: Voting is what ultimately makes the rules, so if only those who own land can vote then only those who own land can make the rules. Now just because I do not agree that ONLY those who own land should vote, doesn't mean I disagree on your principle view that only those who are invested in the jurisdiction should be able to vote on its policies. I actually agree with you partially. Personally I like the idea that you only get a vote once you live in a jurisdiction for a period of let's say 5 years, you get another vote if you purchase and live on that land as well for that 5 years. So after 5 years renters invested their time, while owners invested both their time and money (which is just preserved time). After maybe 10 more years each would get another vote or 2 based on these criteria and then after maybe another 20 years another. This would allow those less invested due to financial circumstances a chance to vote based on their time invested alone which I think is fair. It also provides a decent amount of time lag before changes of law could occur due to high levels of immigration, providing some level of legal stability to current citizens whose voting power would also increase as the new residents gain voting power. This is another reason I like Blockchain tech, because only those who actually invest time and effort to run nodes get to influence the direction of the network by participating in the consensus of network updates. Users don't get to vote, they just to benefit from the network as it is. Back to the draft, seems we overall agree. However the selective service was started by Congress in 1940, it was not voted on by the public, only 1 representative was female and she did vote yea although it would've passed without her vote anyway. I don't understand your position or justification to remove women from being able to vote in their representative government based on an act that was passed by almost entirely men that applied to only men, and that the public has no say in. Regardless I'm glad we agree that it is an atrocious act that essentially legalized randomized slavery into war and it should be repealed.
Gotcha. Yes, we clearly will not agree on murder or not. That's fine. The selective service will never be repealed, and if so, there needs to be one of 2 options: either women get included, or they lose their right to vote. I personally would rather see it removed, but that ain't gonna happen. There have been dozens and dozens of different congresses, each could have done it. Of course the people didn't vote, this isn't a democracy. Democracies are for France and little children. I would absolutely compromise on living in an area for XX time instead of land owner.
This is one of the key problems in society today. Zero accountability for shitty decisions. I agree the state shouldn't get involved, and that means that taxes should not go towards funding abortion clinics either.
> Everybody has a right to life but nobody has the right to use someone else's body without consent. God, or some would say "nature", decided to allow a child to use a woman's body. It is in the nature of being a woman that you may become host for an offspring. That's just the way it is. Just because you don't like it is not justification for murdering your offspring. "Without consent"? Women know they might get pregnant when they engage in sex. Wouldn't engaging in sex voluntarily, without some kind of non-abortive contraception, be tantamount to implicit consent to get pregnant? If it is true that abortion is murder, then we have a society full of women that are murderers, which is sociopathic. That's not good for women, or society! If a woman can do that kind of violence to her own innocent offspring, which should be the most tender of relationships, how can we ever expect to reduce or eliminate the violence of the State, and society in general?
also i don't think any of this implies supporting government anything it's just facts and the Law of God the government is actually part of the problem that this can exist at all, otherwise fathers and mothers would govern their children and make them marry and do the right thing to go forth and multiply
Ah the "Law of God" huh? Which God? Let me guess, the god of Abraham right? Cool, people should definitely obey the supposed words of an invisible unproven deity worshipped thousands of years ago by desert nomads. Religious texts, written by humans thousands of years ago, are infallible and should be obeyed. We should probably respect those who speak on the behalf of said God right? No wonder you support forced birth. After all, it's God's will that women should be punished with pregnancy for sex after Eve's sin of eating the fruit so why should they be allowed to choose not to go through with God's punishment if they have sex? It's God's will that women be subservient to men and be silent, maybe the Muslims have it right in turning their women into silent walking pieces of black cloth. Slavery and rape are a-okay to God, might as well legalize those as well (so long as you make sure to pay your rape victim's father to purchase his property that you tarnished). Let's stone people for wearing mixed cloth, eating shellfish, or for simply loving someone the desert nomads speaking for God didn't approve. Don't forget if you beat your slave within an inch of their life merciful God has instructed you to let them rest a whole 3 days before you put them back to work! You literally make me sick. You do not believe in evidence based reasoning of the real world, you believe vile things and claim the moral high ground when you absolutely do not have it. Ridiculous. Your beliefs are shameful and you should be ashamed.
From your very emotional response, I take it you’ve been involved in an abortion? If so, God loves us regardless of our failings. Even Walter Block’s concept of evictionism states that you can abort a baby but not kill it. If someone is drugged and put in your car. You find them while driving over a bridge. You can’t just kick them out into the river. You need to do your best to find them a safe location. That’s not only just but simply being a decent human. Yes, it causes extreme inconvenience at times. https://reason.com/podcast/2019/12/20/libertarianism-and-abortion-a-debate/ Libertarians for life: https://l4l.org/
No, just that I'm tired of religious views being used as justification to enforce harmful policies on other people. My experience with abortion is irrelevant but even so you are incorrect. People I know have been involved in the abortions of people they know, but I myself have not been. Making abortion illegal factually does more harm than good. Forcing children to be born to parents who don't want them greatly increases their likelihood of abuse and neglect by said parents. It increases the burden on the foster care system, it increases homeless children and parents due to a lack of sufficient resources, it increases child sex trafficking, it increases death among women who die in childbirth that would've survived an abortion of high risk pregnancies, it increases the risk that victims of natural miscarriages, or victims of miscarriages caused by domestic abuse (like my own mother who suffered many miscarriages as a result of said abuse from my father), will be prosecuted by the legal system. It just makes society worse. If pro-life people would align with pro-choice people in their efforts to expand safe sex education and access to contraceptives, than unwanted pregnancies and abortions would plummet. Instead many anti-abortion people also advocate for abstinence only education and against contraceptives which is completely ineffective at preventing teen sex and pregnancies and causes them to increase not decrease.
I like the airplane analogy - you have every right to evict someone from your airplane, but not at 30,000 feet