Comments on: UK Court To Female Cancer Patient: Male Autonomy Is Sacred, Bitch!

By: brandonfullerton

brandonfullerton — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 23:38:21 +0000

I hope that none of you who are putting him down are pro-choice. I think that it is great that a male finally has a choice in the reproductive cycle. There have been several cases of a man wanted a woman to keep his kid and her going and getting an abortion, this is just the other side of the coin. I think everyone here needs to get off of their man hating high horse and look it as just another person who made the choice to not be a parent.
Oh, and those of you who are saying that he made his choice when he fertilized the egg MUST be pro-lifers. I know you would not support abortion or even the morning after pill when the woman “made the choice” to become a parent when she had sex.
You want to talk patriarchal society? Women have all of the options. Women have almost all of the birth control options, and none of them require covering up your most sensitive sexual organs with plastic.
Ther are affirmative action laws in the United States so that women have a step up in the hiring process. If a woman screams rape on a man then he is guilty until proven innocent; the same goes in sexual harassment. Women want to compete with men for the same jobs and yet still want gentile treatment that their mothers received such as open doors for them and pulling chairs out for them. If you ask me I think that the patriarchal society you talk about is actually the opposite. All I see here are just a bunch of whiney self-righteous hypocrites.

By: CaseK

CaseK — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 08:33:32 +0000

Soi-disant? Really? I missed that part. I would have made me feel better.

By: Kat

Kat — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:57:32 +0000

Arianna, I’d heard of the Yorkie adverts but it wasn’t until yesterday that I saw my first actual bar with “NOT FOR GIRLS” emblazoned on it. Being a woman and not a girl, I thought I might try one, but I decided I’d rather throw them on the ground and stomp on them for a bit.

By: Pony

Pony — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 21:21:37 +0000

Somewhat of a tangent: why did the woman have her ovaries removed?

Did she have cancer, or was it a prophylactic oopherectomy?

If she had cancer there is no guarantee she will not still have ovarian cancer and in fact is at much higher risk for this than another woman, because ovarian cancer is NOT limited to the ovaries but can occur in the surrounding tissue after oopherectomy.

If she had a prophylactic oopherectomy, would it have been possible to have had a child first?

If father is forced into this, not wanting the child, and there is a possibility that the mother may still have ovarian cancer and die in 17 months or so, is this still a good idea?

By: kidA

kidA — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 01:12:13 +0000

One thing that we may have overlooked is that, in order for unimplanted embryos to have any chance of coming to term, additional action is required. When the couple agreed to create them, they *both* knew that the embryos would not become newborns nine months later. As such, they also knew that they had not done what normal mammalian conception does: create an embryo that will gestate unless interrupted either by unfortunate natural events or by intentional cessation.

Rather, they had effectively delayed the moment of conception until they chose to implant the embryos. If they had chosen instead to produce this delay by not performing coitus, we would not be debating this at all, as the woman would be presently unable to provide her [slightly more than] half of the embryo. The issue only exists because the woman is, quite understandably, desperate to reclaim her fertility.

Since the woman in this example cannot conceive naturally now, it is certain that the man is playing the inappropriately controlling patriarchal role. However, the same is untrue of the court making this decision. The choice to implant the embryo is the moment at which it becomes possible that a child will be the result. As such, it is also the time at which consent should be required. Indeed, based on above comments, it seems the couple must have made an agreement to that effect, and neither of them apparently made any waiver of the right to turn back, as it were. The court in this case is merely enforcing a knowingly-entered contract.

Of course, considering the woman’s condition, the man is being a jerk. The woman obviously wanted to have the option of having children, and is now robbed of that due to a dissolved marriage — whoever is at fault, though considering his present actions, we may be able to guess.

Nevertheless, I will not presume that many would agree that a divorcee should be able to compel her ex-husband to come over to her place and “put out” just so she could have a child; neither would the reverse be appropriate.

Should the guy allow the implantation? Certainly.

Should he be compelled by law so to do? Absolutely not.

By: Tapetum

Tapetum — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 21:07:00 +0000

In this particular instance, I think the law (in the UK) has it right. Doesn’t stop me from thinking the guy is an ass. There are many, many things one can do in this world to make yourself an ass that are perfectly legal. Doesn’t mean they should be illegal, just means people should take a good look at themselves now and again and try not to be fartfaces.

By: Angus

Angus — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 17:06:09 +0000

Twisty writes: “what this guy is doing is, heâ€™s claiming personal sovereignty, and that the court says he should get it, and that if a woman were to try the same thing, she wouldnâ€™t get it. ”

Actually, the European court did uncover one case where the roles were reversed — a New Jersey case where the woman wanted the embryos destroyed and her former husband wanted to preserve them for future use with another partner. That court ruled for the woman.

There are four countries in Europe, by the way, where the law gives women greater rights than men in the disposition of their un-implanted embryos. Those four are Austria, Estonia, Italy, and Spain.

In Spain, in case the above list didn’t make patriarchy’s stake in this kind of policy clear enough, the man can revoke consent after fertilization only if he is married to the woman and living with her.

By: Mandos

Mandos — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:52:30 +0000

Suffering from an epidemic of loose, lazy, and inconsistent thought, of course!

By: deborahL

deborahL — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:49:44 +0000

Yes, every chat room, list, faculty lounge, and blog has its own dedicated Mandos. Too much time on their hands and not enough productive thought to keep them busy elsewhere. Ignoring the important points of any argument and picking at the tiny threads that accidentally escape from the seams. Where oh where would we be without these so-helpful nigglers?

By: Twisty

Twisty — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 15:23:53 +0000

Oh dear. I forgot to enclose the first paragraph of my response in #39 in sarcasm tags.

And quit splitting hairs! The world jolly well is homogenous when it comes to human rights. It is strongly united in a patriarchal ideology that oppresses women, and as such is all apples, all the time.

To Sasha, who is bummed about Mandos: Mandos is our gadfly/scapegoat. In this case, he called me on an apparent minor rhetorical inconsistency, which, although pointing out said apparent minor rhetorical inconsistency serves only to obfuscate the spirit of the post and drag the discourse down a tangential alley, is nevertheless a legitimate observation.

One is certainly free to ignore him. I encourage it!