Should pregnant women be allowed total control over their bodies? Where do the unborn child's rights come into it?

ZOMBIEEEEEEEEE

RTFT PEOPLE!

A 9 month old foetus IS a baby though. At least imo.

A foetus is growing towards personhood from the moment of conception, but I wouldn't describe a month-old foetus as a baby. That feels like a later stage.

(I'm pro choice)

Sorry

Just to drive the message home

ZOMBIE THREAD

ZOMBIE THREAD

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I feel that when a woman decides to get pregnant, or makes the decision to continue a pregnancy, within that is an element of responsibility to do what is best for the developing baby, at least to a point. Something like not having a glass of wine seems, to me, to be a reasonable thing to do in light of that responsibility.

Of course there is a limit, and no woman should be expected, for example, to be at overt risk of harm due to the responsibility they have chosen, but minor things I feel are to be expected.

Thank you Skidoodly and SGB, I now see better what you mean. I find that I could not, by choice, drink, take drugs (even legal ones if the label says not recommended for pregnant/BF women), bungee jump.. while pregnant but this indeed is a personal preference I would not really want legislation on the subject either.

In the case of my life or the one of my baby, I really hope I will never have to make that choice (by that I do not mean that I wish someone would make the choice for me but that I hope I will never be in a situation where I have to face that choice).

Parasites thats all babies are, only reason why a man could not be implanted and carry one is because there is no where in a man that is a safe attachment point, we have a empty pouch for the thing to attach to and drain blood from.

I think all this rights for the unborn crap comes from the American religious fruit cakes who are every bit as mad as Al-Qaeda and should never be allowed any power of law anywhere.

I wonder how many crazy American religious women kill themselves after having a miscarriage or a still birth convinced they have don't something wrong and murdered a little person

minipie i cannot comment on pregnancy that is forced on a woman as i have no experience of it and i would not want to patronise or insult anyone who has, by presuming to know how they should feel or behave.

my comments were strictly in relation to both my pregnancies and how i felt about them, not in anyway how i think any other woman should behave whilst pregnant.

neither of my pregnancies were planned but i do still believe that i made a choice to become pregnant when i had unprotected sex so therefore i assumed total responsibilty for sustaining that life for the first 9 months.

i also agree with the posters that say an unborn baby cannot be granted the same rights as a born person. if that were the case pregnancy rates would plummet.

Skidoodly: Bang on. Whiile it's fine for a PG woman to decide for herself to give things up or do certain things because she has decided that the risk to the foetus is unacceptable is one thing, for it to be the law that women must do or not do certain things for the benefit of a foetus is very different. It's got to be perfectly legal for pregnant women to drink three litres of vodka a day and go bungee jumping if they choose to because to say that it's not legal is to take away pregnant women's right to be human beings.

gori

the difference between an individual feeling responsibility for the baby they're carrying and granting rights to a gestating foetus is massive.

In your example you decided to quit smoking when you found out you were pregnant. I did the same.

If the embryos we were carrying had rights of the kind under discussion that would not have been a choice, and further, either of us could potentially have been prosecuted for smoking before we knew we were pregnant.

A foetus is wholly dependent for its existence on the body of a woman. Because of that dependence, you can't grant that foetus rights without significantly reducing the rights of the woman. You can't grant it personhood without treating the woman as less than a full person.

Say you want to give a foetus the same right to life as a born person: that right is in direct conflict with the right to life of the woman carrying it. If she were to develop a condition that necessitated a termination of the pregnancy as part of life-saving treatment, either you have to prioritise her right to life, or that of the foetus.

No way am I happy for being pregnant to mean that in a medical emergency it would be acceptable to choose the foetus over me.

gorionine

"By Ryoko Fri 23-Apr-10 18:39:25 "IMO it's my body and until it comes out it has about as much right to anything as a man's sperm."
I understand that as " I can do what I want during my pregnancy because as long as the baby is "in" it has no right"

By Ryoko Thu 29-Apr-10 13:02:17 "I wouldn't which is why I didn't, best to avoid any risk of miscarriage no matter how small if you can help it IMO."
Which maked me thing you do actually feel very respnsable for a baby you are carrying.

I find these two posts contradict each other, did I misunderstand them?"

Whats contradictory about it? I want the baby to come out fine and healthy but IMO until it's out it has no rights it's inside me I have the rights not the baby.

it has about as much rights over and above the mothers wishes as a egg does over a hen.

OK I do think it's reasonable for a couple to discuss the possible risks to a planned pregnancy and agree on how to manage them, at least up to a point - but the woman is still the one entitled to make a final decision. If, for instance, the bloke is firmly in the 'no unnecessary medication while PG' corner, that still doesn't give him the right to say that she shouldn't take medication for SPD or serious emesis or any other painful or debilitating PG related condition, it's still her body.

Booyhoo - I'm inclined to agree with you in relation to women who choose to become pregnant - but what about women who didn't choose to become pregnant (accident/rape/
whatever)? Women who are seeking abortions presumably didn't deliberately choose to become pregnant.

this is my opinion and my opinion only wrt to how i feel about the two times i have been pregnant. it is not how i think others should feel about it.

i consider it my choice to become pregnant. a choice i made with my partner. in making that decision we both accepted responsibility for the well-being of the life that we chose to create. as a woman a i accept that i will be the one responsible for providing a safe and healthy existence for the first 9 months and thereafter will share the responsibilty with OH. i feel that i have a responsibilty to make balanced decisions regarding the health of my baby. it is recomended that pregnant women do not handle cat litter for example, however as OH works away i am the only person here to do it so i made the decision to do so and took extra precautions whilst pregnant to reduce the risk involved. i dont drink very often but chose not to drink at all whilst pregnant because i felt it reduced the risk to the best of my capability.

i agree that a woman should have free choice in the decisions she makes about her body, but i also believe that a baby is a joint decision between two people and that if one person has concerns then it should be discussed and not ignored as in "my body, my choice"

"You can feel resposibility for the foetus you are carrying without thinking it should have rights." how? (am genuinly asking),to me the "limit" between the two is not really clear.

When I found out I was pregnant with DD1, I stopped smoking on the spot because even if my daily amount of cigarettes was not "atrocious" the thought that it might arm the baby I was carrying was far superior in importance to me than anything else so by feeling responsable for her to be healthy I sort of gave her the right to a few month in my tummy totally smoke free. Maybe it does not make sense to link "right " and "responsability" but I find it hard to dissociate the 2 myself.

""What a lot of people forget is that a PG woman can be utterly obedient and submissive to every bit of bullying 'advice' she recieves (to the point of desperately trying to fulfill contradictory instructions) and still give birth to a baby with disabilities, or miscarry. Some pregnancies are not viable, end of, and there are many conditions which result in a greater or lesser degree of SN which are to do with genetics not behaviour."

I totally agree with you, we cannot totally cut risk at all for something to go wrong in pregnancy. But I cannot help thinking that if I had given birth to a baby with problems linked to smocking in pregnancy I would feel guilty for the rest of my life but if the same problems had happened when I was not smoking I could live with it better and put it one fate rather than a consequence of something I have done but maybe it is another topic altogether.

I don't see any grey areas, to be honest, its an emotive subject but IMO its fairly black and white. When a foetus is attached to and inside my body, using my blood, my food, my oxygen, my everything, it is a part of me and has no rights that could possibly supercede my own. When it leaves my body, breathes on its own, consumes its own nutrients, can live without me, it is a person in its own right and has the same rights as any other person.

You can have any opinion you like about the choices I might make when pregnant, but if you try and tell me what to do........

What a lot of people forget is that a PG woman can be utterly obedient and submissive to every bit of bullying 'advice' she recieves (to the point of desperately trying to fulfill contradictory instructions) and still give birth to a baby with disabilities, or miscarry. Some pregnancies are not viable, end of, and there are many conditions which result in a greater or lesser degree of SN which are to do with genetics not behaviour.
But I don't see much support for gene-screening programmes and the exhortation for people who are carriers of haemophilia/Huntingdons/muscular dystrophy/[insert hereditary problem of your choice] to be sterilised, or even couples only being 'allowed' to get PG with donor eggs/sperm if one partner in a couple is a carrier.
THis is all about controlling women and reducing them to less-than-human status, worthless in their own right and with no purpose other than to be incubators (despite the fact that many women don't want children, some women are not fertile, and those women who do want and have children only spend a small percentage of their adult lives TTC and being PG).

You can feel resposibility for the foetus you are carrying without thinking it should have rights.

Very interesting thread, so many little suject that give food for thoughts.

WRT to drinking during pregnancy I view it the same way as smoking (with or without pregnancy.) If you ask someone to plese not smoke near your child for example, you do not expect them to say "it is my body I do what I want", you expect them to maybe go outside and smoke or to refrain smocking for a bit because the smoke could "damage" or exacerbate an existing condition (asthma...) Or maybe you can go outside yourself. In the case of a pregancy, the baby cannot "go outside" when daddy is smoking in the same room or mummy is having a glass of Chardonnay so I do think it is up to the parents (both of them) to make sure the unborn baby's environnement is healthy and adequate.

I cannot comment much on abortion other than I would not be able to go through one but would not allow myself to make judgement. though at the 39 weeks abortion Xenia, I did not know that, in which circumstances do they allow it?

Reading the thread I think I was pretty lucky in all my pregnancies because I have refused the Dawn syndrome test each and every time and was never made to feel bad about it.

Also only gave birth with realy nice midwies arround (to the exeption of one but I think we misunderstood each other a lot, due to may lack of knowledge of the language at the time).

For DS3 I was preped for emergency cesarian in the middle of it (did not need one eventually) and I admit I did not question it because at the time and in the heat of things, the only thing that mattered to me was my baby, not the fact that I had not wanted one ideally.

By Ryoko Fri 23-Apr-10 18:39:25 "IMO it's my body and until it comes out it has about as much right to anything as a man's sperm."
I understand that as " I can do what I want during my pregnancy because as long as the baby is "in" it has no right"

By Ryoko Thu 29-Apr-10 13:02:17 "I wouldn't which is why I didn't, best to avoid any risk of miscarriage no matter how small if you can help it IMO."
Which maked me thing you do actually feel very respnsable for a baby you are carrying.

I find these two posts contradict each other, did I misunderstand them?

Actually, the points raised here about pregnancy should be connected to childbirth too.
The amount of unneccessary torture birthing women have had to put up with over the years in hospitals: from drips, to being tied to the bed with fetal monitoring, to episiotomy, to pubic-shaving, from being told she has to "hurry up" or she'll have to have a c-section, just to be told if she complained that "it's the baby that counts" makes me so .
Of course a healthy baby is important, no-one is disputing that, least of all the mother. But a safe, female-oriented birthing environment where the woman is treated like a human being whose wishes are listened to is also important. If not more important.

I had two home births because just the thought of being under the thumb of patriarchy while I was birthing my babies made me feel queasy. Give me the pain any day over that.

"If they cared about the affect on the foetus of parental lifestyle, they'd also be trying to control men who were having sex with fertile women, so they'd have the best sperm possible.

This is just about controlling women, bottom line."

So true, Dittany. Lots of factors affect sperm quality, even taking a hot bath or jacuzzi. ALso, as men age, their sperm quality declines, so perhaps we should put an age limit on men who want to reproduce- about the same age as the menopause, lest their dodgy, ageing sperm enters the gene pool.

But the test is risky and can cause miscarriage why would you risk it just to know early if it has it or not when you want to keep it no matter what?.

I wouldn't which is why I didn't, best to avoid any risk of miscarriage no matter how small if you can help it IMO.