[Jennifer]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

7) The idea that males have an 'obligation' towards unwanted children is hideously hideously wrong, and is rooted in a fairly anti-life conception of duty ethics. The right for a woman to have an abortion, and the right for a man to disassociate completely from a pregnancy before the child is born without having to support the child in any way both stem from the same underlying principle, and if you support one without the other then you are a hypocrite.

8) I dont understand why people oppose abortion as a means of contraception, designer babies (eg picking sex/hair colour/etc), the selling of organs ("I'll donate you a kidney if you pay me £10000") or cosmetic surgery for non-medical reasons ("I'd like a nicer jawline"). Even among people who believe these things should be legal, there tends to be some deep-rooted unease towards them and it strikes me as baseless.

9) There is no real justification for limiting the rights of either children or the 'mentally ill'. Invent all the rationalisations you like, but you wont be able to find a consistent reason that amounts to anything more than 'because I say so'.

10) Incest taboos are completely irrational, and no, I dont give a shit about evolutionary psychology. If you want to have sex with your cousin and marry her afterwards, go ahead.

Bizarrely, I only disagree with your 'padding out' ones:

7) I don't really have an opinion on whether or not fathers should have to pay for their children, but I can't say I agree with your statement about abortions and fathers washing their hands of their children are based on the same underlying principle. What underlying principle?

8) Abortion as a means of contraception is not ideal because of the emotional effect it has on the mother. Unless you want to brainwash women into being able to kill their child-to-be, having an abortion for many women will be traumatic, and it is irresponsible to advertise abortion as a means of contraception. I also suspect it is more expensive 'per go' than condoms. Unless, of course, (and I suspect this is the case?) you mean just in the case where other methods have failed, and the mother wants abortion as a final resort. I support the right of the mother to get rid of the bundles of cells in her womb if she wants to do that, especially in cases where the life of the mother is in danger if she doesn't abort it. I personally don't think I could get an abortion. Knowing that you've killed what would have been your child must be terrible. But having said that, if I found myself in that position, and it was the choice of have the child, or not have my life 'ruined', I'm not sure what I'd do. I suspect I'd find a childless couple to adopt the baby. It's very easy for someone to say 'just have an abortion' or equally 'just have the child and look after it rather than kill it' if they aren't in the situation of having their offspring growing in their womb. As someone who can never be in that situation, I suspect you'd find it very hard to understand. But if there are women out there for emotion reasons couldn't bring themselves to abort their baby, you can't just tell them to stop being so emotional and sentimental, because having a child is in its nature such an emotional thing.

On the other hand, if you're talking just from the point of view of other people trying to tell a woman that she shouldn't be allowed to abort her baby, they should mind their own fricking business.

9) I think children and mentally ill people don't know what's best for them, and that mentally sound adults have a responsibility to take care of them. But then, I don't believe in 'rights' anyway. I only believe in resonsibilities. e.g. people don't have a right to be fed, but in this society, if we have the resources to feed a starving person, we have a responsibility to do that. It all depends on how you view society and 'right and wrong' as concepts, and suspect our views are so different we couldn't have a meaningful discussion aobut this anyway.

10) I also don't see why it should be taboo, but it shouldn't be advertised as 'perfectly fine and no different from a marriage to someone not related to you' because people should be aware that if there is a genetic condition in the family (which they may not be aware of, it can be passed down for generations recessively and the first thing you know about it is when someone is born with some condition or other) there is a greater chance (obviously) of a child being born with this condition if the parents are cousins because you're more likely to find the two recessive genes in two people if they are related then if they're not.

Also, as an aside, I obviously know more about these matters than you or anyone here, becuse as someone who was educated at Oxford, I have a broader knowledge due to my association with people studying these and other fields in greater depth than any of you will have done. However, I am prepared to explain to any of you why you're wrong if you like. I promise not to patronise you, because after all, it's not your fault that you were born less intelligent than me.