Sirona

Are you attempting to draw attention to my age to make me less credible? Does me being young make my stance less important? I suppose you have more experience in being a woman and therefore you can judge me. Go and read my posts again without the cloud of judgement. I was making a comment on the legality of the issue and the need for it to be consistent. In the past, men have had complete monopoly of most matters concerning women; we couldn't vote, own property or work after marriage less than 150 years ago. Suddenly we want the right to make decisions concerning our body and we're unreasonable? That seems somewhat hypocritical to me.

I couldn't agree more, Charon. What inherently perturbs me about the responses to this topic is, as you put it so eloquently, that is negatively judging the morality of women. Earlier I mentioned my reluctance to delve into this topic because from my experience, arguments involving women's rights to their body become about controlling her sexuality through the judgement of her scruples. A few of you were alarmed by my stance that I do not see the relevance of having one or five abortions. As far as I am concerned, a woman either has the rights to her body, or she doesn't; saying that a woman is entitled to one abortion but not three or five just means that her rights are not absolute and as Charon pointed out, can be taken away. I also feel saddened that the 'loose morals' of women seeking multiple abortions (how dare she be so unlucky?) has drawn more attention than the inability to support a child. Do I have the right to accuse those of you in return for needing to 'get more empathy' because you have ignored the plight of the child who is born into the world disadvantaged? The impact it will have not just on the child but on society if that child were to become youth at-risk? Women seeking equal rights does not mean men will have less rights; this is not a gender war but a firm stance for equal opportunities and moral standing within the same society. You know what else I find exhausting of late? The term 'feminist' used in a derisive manner. I hardly think that wanting the freedom over my own body and the ability to make choices without negative judgement on what will affect me socially, mentally, emotionally and economically makes me a militant feminist. I think this should be our basic right since it is a right men have without interference of the public sphere.

Then you grossly misinterpreted. What about the psychological impact of having a child you cannot provide or care for? One that you did not? I am not denying that a woman will not feel guilt and a range of other emotions, but that does not necessarily mean she made the wrong choice. It is not a choice you have to make. Whether you believe a woman is unethical for carrying it out or not is irrelevant because the status quo here is that it is not. My participation in this thread is done, because I have stated what I truly believe and I am quite frankly deeply hurt with the misogyny I see on this forum. I will admit that it's not as blatant as I have seen on other conversation boards and the majority of men truly do treat women with equal moral standing, but the reality is that the inequality exists, subconscious or not.

Perhaps so, but it does not change the fact that there is nothing which suggests that a woman has the right to x amount of early term terminations. Your emotional stance on it is not relevant in terms of the legality. You are entitled to your opinion, but I am satisfied with the law in my state. Whether you can visualise the scenario whereby a woman may need multiple terminations is irrelevant to my point.

I stand by my original post; if a woman wants an early term termination then it's because she does not want to be a mother and cannot. I would consider a psychological impact on her health as a valid reason and so does the state of NSW. Obviously it is going to be an emotional decision and impact the individual, but that does not mean they made the wrong choice or that they should only be able to make that choice once. If a woman is unlucky enough to fall pregnant five times, despite not wanting children, then according to the law (not just my opinion) she has the right to seek an early term termination. My point was, if a woman has a valid reason which will impact her health as well as social and economic reasons, then in my state this is perfectly legal; there are no clauses about how many times you can have the procedure performed.

Something I absolutely abhor is when society (not just men) make negative assumptions on a woman's character because she is open about sex. Why does a woman's pleasure need to make her somewhat irresponsible, reckless, self destructive or immoral? Why even use that as your example? It seems to me, at least, that all you were trying to do is draw a connection between 'loose moraled' women and abortion. Perhaps you didn't do it intentionally, but that would alarm me even further because it would mean that it is subconscious. Does it matter? Both are very valid reasons.

I do not understand how not liking condoms is correlated with abortion. There are many forms of contraception available for women and I very much doubt a large proportion of women opt for an abortion because it was 'inconvenient' to use protection. Also, from what I understand, condoms are less pleasurable for men than women, so if this is in fact true and not a ploy to portray women who seek abortion as immoral, it seems fairly odd. Contraception is very effective if used correctly, however, it is not a hundred percent accurate and certainly easier emotionally and financially than just 'getting abortions' as you seem to be suggesting. I cannot fathom that many women at all would opt for abortion because they find contraception inconvenient; it is much more likely that the contraception failed, which happens, although not likely. Furthermore, let's just assume that the reason was true; it does not change my stance. I believe a woman either has the right to an abortion or not. I know in some countries it is circumstancial, but I do not see it as immoral or wrong, therefore, I do not see the difference between having none, one or five. Although, I would be concerned if she was having unprotected intercourse with men she did not know well due to the risk of STDs. Surely potentially spreading STDs has a greater impact on society and health than abortions in a country where it is legal and the practices are safe. If you knowingly spread STDs, then you're harming another person, however, a fetus is not a human person. Edit: Get out of my head, iNOW. You beat me to it.

I have an enormous amount of respect for you because from what I have observed, it is more important for you to speak your mind than to be accepted and at the risk of becoming unpopular. I can understand the fear of being ostracised from a group where you feel comfortable, however, I don't believe it should override one's ability to be sincere. I'm not innocent of it myself, but I recognise the importance of conflicting perspectives to learning and understanding. People get offended too easily and this is a fundamental flaw of mine too and perhaps this is partially influenced by increasing political correctness (I do not actually know, I am merely speculating). However, I do believe that militant political correctness inhibits one's freedom to a certain degree and encourages a culture of holding back our true opinions in fear of being cast out socially or made to feel ignorant and/or insensitive. I do believe personal inference is needed because there are times that speaking your mind can be factless and rude. There certainly is a medium ground.

If women are to be socially, politically and economically equal to men then they need to have the right over their own body and since the foetus is apart of the woman's body, this includes the right to decide whether she wants to be a mother or not. If they do not have this choice, then they cannot have the same moral standing as men.

If you're the only person there and you do not know how to perform CPR, then it's much better to just try rather than do nothing because they will die otherwise. Someone who has just had a cardiac arrest for example has the best chance of survival if you perform CPR immediately, rather than waiting for someone qualified. Obviously you would not perform compressions if they are breathing, but if they're not, you can't do much more damage. However, unless you have a Duty of Care or you're a doctor, you are not obligated (In Australia anyway) to help someone. These days CPR training is actually extremely basic and you do not even have to perform mouth-to-mouth; just press down fast and deep in the middle of the chest. Consent is needed in Australia to administer first aid, however, if the person is unconscious then the law will imply consent and it's very unlikely you will be sued if you do what is reasonable to save their life. I am sure the law would be similar in your country.

Exactly. I take CPR training and First Aid each year as a requirement of my job and in all first aid situations, you need to assess the risk to your personal safety first and foremost. Even when you take a flight, the emergency procedure requires you to put your own mask on first before assisting others.

Although I like the concept of the Golden Mean and appreciate Aristotle's great contribution to of virtue ethics, I believe his teachings are too simplistic on their own to form a 'world view'. The most important of Aristotle's teachings, I believe, is that virtues are learned by practice, but I interpret this in the modern world as meaning: societies perception of what is virtuous evolves over time, rather than individual practice. However, what is the 'mean'? How do we define it (more importantly, is it universal?) We know in the modern world that one's personality depends largely on genetics and environment (in the early stages), therefore, the idea that the rule of averages can always guide us is not consistent. The Golden Mean cannot guide us in specific situations; it's one thing to say that being too generous or too greedy is unvirtuous, but how can you apply this to a specific situation?

Careful now, you don't want to start a gender war.

So you are suggesting that a woman's rights should be temporarily suspended then?

Your logic is not consistent with my personal experience working with adolescents and research. Could you first clarify your statement for discussion including possible studies or literature? I particularly do not understand why you think that young children can 'cope with any questions'. It seems, at least to me that you view adolescence as a time of crisis rather than a continuity of exploration; making sense of your environment and your place in it. Even as adults we continue to ask questions and make new discoveries, even about ourselves. 'Coping' as you put it is complex because it is not just governed by age, but by genes and environment. A person could have a crisis at any age.

Men have sought to control women throughout history and attempted to disguise their actions by diverting from the truth; they fear losing what they believe is theirs. I fail to see how this is an different, you could approach it from an ethical perspective and argue that it is wrong by labeling it as murder or what have you. However, as a woman, I perceive it as a threat to my own freedom. If you want to make it about ethics and not control, then let me ask you: what about my right to lead the life that I choose? What if I believe that my purpose is more than biological?

Exactly. I think the fundamental misconception the OP has is that morality is simply Universal; I support that it's both Universal and relative. I believe there is little correlation between ethics and religion and it's best to seperate them to examine human nature. Ethics evolves with culture over time as humans adapt to survive.

I avoid thinking in terms of 'good' and 'evil' because if you don't identify with religion, the concepts are too black and white; the complexity of human nature cannot be defined in such simplistic terms.

Surely you realise, despite your personal political view, climate change is an issue which concerns everyone; we should not be divided with our concern for the planet if we are to have any future at all.

Oh, I was scared of giant squid too! Except I knew they lived in the ocean. The misconception about squid I had is that they liked to wrap around my ankles and looked suspiciously like seaweed. Maybe that's why my parents liked to take me to secluded beaches, to save themselves the embarrassment of a hysterical child running out of the water shaking her leg in horror. *Sigh*

This is actually rather embarrassing but I used to think there were sharks in the deep end of the olympic swimming pool and that's why I wasn't allowed to go that far. I'd swim half way down the pool and begin to panic, trying to swim as fast as I could back to the shallow end. I thought they hid at the bottom of the pool, along the black lane markings.

Phi and Charon have made excellent points which closely mirrors my own perspective of romantic relationships. This is largely a very personal question and one which is going to draw a wide range of answers because it depends significantly on cultural background, religion, age and personal philosophy on love; some people are romantics and others are pragmatic. My own belief is mostly practical; I believe marriage is largely about cooperation and companionship. I know from experience that it is better to act with logic than emotion when it comes to relationships and having common goals is more important than common interests. Infidelity is a very complex issue and controversial. I could forgive a partner who made an error in judgement, but I could not forgive dishonesty because trust is much more important to me than monogamy. I also think infidelity is bad for society unless there is complete transparency for everyone involved. Many people could potentially be hurt and therefore I believe it's important to discuss monogamy openly if it becomes a problem. It seems you are interested in quantifying things and my only suggestion if you're afraid of divorce is to have a look at statistics. Based on collected data, there are several factors which seem to influence a couple's livelihood of divorce such as age, occupation, education, income, divorced parents and health (smoker or not). Also, data seems to suggest that if you have divorced previously, your chances of getting divorced again are higher. Do not let the statistics deter you, however, because I believe if you want to make a marriage work, then you have control over it to some degree. I think personally it's important to alleviate these feelings of fear, doubt, jealously and insecurity. I believe you owe the person you love trust and confidence until they give you reason beyond doubt that they are not worthy of it. My general approach to any relationship, platonic and romantic is to believe the best in that person because cynicism and constant doubt just hurts both involved and can lead to resentment.

I completely agree with you and alternative therapy is particularly harmful when practitioners attempt to sell their services and products in a scientifically plausible way by using terminology and examples which could possibly be misinterpreted by someone who doesn't have a background in biology or chemistry. However, in the case of mental disorders such as depression and anxiety, it's difficult to draw a comparison. For example, most people would know (at least, I sincerely hope so) that your chances of survival are much more likely to seek an Oncologist rather than a natropath if you have cancer. However, seeking psychotherapy over antidepressants is more ambiguous because in this case, the effectiveness of either in treating depression and anxiety is questionable. It's not harsh; I genuinely believe we should not blur the lines of what science is. However, it is not in the same category as astrology because psychology is a vigorous discipline and has value whereas astrology does not. This was my point earlier about people assuming that something has more or less value depending on whether it's scientific or not and it leads frauds, religious zealots and quacks to make their practices and ideologies sound scientifically plausible to gain reputation.

I just wanted him to be proud of me. When I say that psychology is not a science, I believe you are misunderstanding my point. I do strongly support that psychology and sociology have value in our society and I am in no means undermining psychologists work as being inferior to a physicist, chemist or biologist. I'm merely pointing out that the studies are not scientific because people's thoughts and behaviours are complex and experiments cannot be falsifiable. However, I do not doubt it's usefulness and effectiveness for some individuals and as someone who has studied psychology, I know that it is vigorous. Think about other disciplines like economics for example, economists analyse data, research history and trends and conduct studies but it's not scientific. Education is invaluable to society and attempts to be scientific to improve pedagogy and learning, but it's not science. I think it's important to keep the term 'science' consistent because there is a lot of harmful pseudoscience out there which is just completely wrong and ineffective. By labeling anything as scientific because some attempt at testing has been undertaken undermines the work of hard science.

I am not saying that people won't benefit from psychodynamic therapy, I am merely saying that it's effectiveness in treating psychological disorders is unable to be tested accurately. Certainly talking to someone, receiving support and learning constructive ways to deal with problems would not hurt and it could be beneficial to some. I certainly do not think it's harmful like other pseudosciences like naturopathy for example, but whether it's actually beneficial is unable to be effectively tested.