Do you think it is necessary to have good analytical and critical thinking skills be a feminist?

[QuentinSummers]

Lots of current "feminist" thinking seems not feminist at all and I wondered if it's because people are not abe to apply critical thinking skills to arguments like "Any choice a woman makes is a feminist choice".
Wondered what you all thought?

By the way I'm not arguing per se against abortion there, only that such a choice has to be morally circumscribed.

Because otherwise, what is the criteria for deciding who comes in to the world and who doesn't? Would you abort Downs babies? Gay babies?

what is the criteria for deciding who comes in to the world and who doesn't?

The criterion is that the woman gestating the baby decides whether she wants to do this. That's it. No one comes into this world (or ought to) except by a woman freely undertaking to gestate and birth him or her.

"Because otherwise, what is the criteria for deciding who comes in to the world and who doesn't?"

The will of the woman carrying the child. Nobody else has any rights in the matter at all.

By the way I'm not arguing per se against abortion there,

... only that you totally do.

What do you mean by "morally circumscribed"?

"Decided by people other than the person who gestates", I would assume.

Yet you come here and complain that feminists aren't doing feminism right. .

The will of the woman carrying the child. Nobody else has any rights in the matter at all.

So if that woman had got pregnant by a black man and didn't want to give birth to a mixed race baby that would be absolutely fine? There would be no moral problem with that AT ALL?

For me, yes. A huge problem. But pro choice means pro choice. Even if I find the choice reprehensible.

So if that woman had got pregnant by a black man and didn't want to give birth to a mixed race baby that would be absolutely fine? There would be no moral problem with that AT ALL?

Are you seriously suggesting that a woman who is so racist that she would abort a baby solely because it would be mixed race, would ever consent to sex with a black man? Seriously?

At least be honest and describe a situation where a white rape victim wants to abort the pregnancy that is the result of her rape by a black man.

Listen, I don't have any patience for you. You are trying to derail threads on here by claiming that feminism isn't focusing on the "important" problems.

But as soon as someone points at the central problem, you start to derail with idiotic arguments.

... wait a moment, refusing to have sex with a man because he is black would be racist, so ... in your perfect world, should men be legally able to rape women who refuse to have sex with them for morally wrong reasons?

Are you seriously suggesting that a woman who is so racist that she would abort a baby solely because it would be mixed race, would ever consent to sex with a black man? Seriously?

Yes, of course. There's every kind of nutjob you can imagine out there.

Or okay, suppose she doesn't want an ugly baby? Or she doesn't want an unintelligent baby? Or she only wants a blonde baby?

You could selectively breed learning disabilities out of existence could you not? How's that as an idea?

What I have a problem is not women having abortions, but the idea that abortion has NO possible moral implications at all on the basis of the liberal concept of 'choice'.

There is no such thing as an amoral choice.

... wait a moment, refusing to have sex with a man because he is black would be racist, so ... in your perfect world, should men be legally able to rape women who refuse to have sex with them for morally wrong reasons?

I'm not dignifying that with a response.

Women don't know if their baby is going to be ugly/blonde/stupid before birth. So how would they decide to abort for those reasons?

How is it moral to force a woman to have a baby she does not want?

"You could selectively breed learning disabilities out of existence could you not? How's that as an idea? "

We're talking about abortion being a choice, not compulsory.

I'm not dignifying that with a response.

Good. I might have to throw up from your response, and I have just eaten.

Maybe she doesn't think the man she's had sex with is up to scratch genetically. Maybe he has a history of mental illness or cancer - or whatever.

Furthermore, in the future there will be ways of determining these things.

This is a silly little story, but it makes you think.

jezebel.com/5174084/how-do-i-tell-my-fiance-hes-too-ugly-to-father-my-children

Designer babies and selective breeding could be the future.

We're talking about abortion being a choice, not compulsory.

Alright, but suppose someone chooses not to have a Down syndrome baby? And then lots more women do?

That's eugenics, no matter how you dress it up.

Odfod. Such a huge derail.

We're talking about abortion being a choice, not compulsory.

Exactly. "Selective breeding" is a thing that males in patriarchy do with their control over women's reproduction.

Forced sterilization of poor women, women of colour, and disabled women are a thing that patriarchy just loves.

Forced sterilization of poor women, women of colour, and disabled women are a thing that patriarchy just loves.

That may well be so. Changes my point not one jot.

It is not eugenics to not have a DS baby because DS is not passed on through reproduction so you can't breed it out. It's a random genetic mutation either in one of the parents gametes or during formation of the embryo.

Fair point Quentin. What about Williams Syndrome or Marfans syndrome or anything else that's chromosomal?

Alright, but suppose someone chooses not to have a Down syndrome baby? And then lots more women do?

So what then?

What horrible dystopic world would result from some women exercising their right to choose to not have a Down syndrome baby, and some women exercising their right to choose to have a Down syndrome baby?

The power to control female reproduction only ever leads to dystopias if it is given to males.

German neonazis have already proposed a ban on abortions for German women in order to "outbreed" immigrants. That is what happens if you remove the reproductive choice from the women whose body is concerned.

Or okay, suppose she doesn't want an ugly baby? Or she doesn't want an unintelligent baby? Or she only wants a blonde baby?

I find it telling when anti-abortion people pose these kinds of hypotheticals - the underlying assumption is always that women are moral idiots who will abort on a whim for the most capricious and shallow of reasons - just like the floozies we are! They also tend to make these kinds of arguments WRT to late-term abortion, implying that if it is available then hordes of women will suddenly decide at six-months pregnant that actually they might like to have that abortion after all, because this third trimester thing is a drag.

In doing this they betray that they don't think that women have the moral capacity to be entrusted with deciding what to do with our own bodies and the potential children they can create, when actually, we do, and we demonstrate this not only by regularly deciding to carry dangerous pregnancies to term, but also by prioritising our own wellbeing in deciding, for our own usually very sound reasons, not to carry a pregnancy to term. The decision that one's own life and happiness needn't be subordinate to a potential life is a moral choice - it's one that recognises human female lives as valuable in themselves.

No human being has the right to live off the body of another without that person's permission. In the case of embryos and foetuses, they are not even persons yet. I assign more moral value to the pregnant woman than to the embryo or foetus that lives entirely off her body, therefore she is the highest moral arbiter of the 'rightness' of abortion.

What about Williams Syndrome or Marfans syndrome or anything else that's chromosomal?

What about it?
What if all people who have those syndromes in their family decided to not get pregnant, or impregnate someone, in the first place?

Would that be bad and evil and eugenics, too? Should they be executed for deciding not to have children, or forcibly impregnated, or ... what, exactly?

What are you ready to do to prevent the horrible dystopia in which those syndromes do not exist anymore?

The power to control female reproduction only ever leads to dystopias if it is given to males.

Fine. then make a case for a female dictated moral discussion surrounding abortion. It doesn't have to involve men. Reject men completely and come up with your own moral criteria if you like. But it's no good arguing for some some sort of reproductive consumer culture in which the dictation of who comes into the world is predicated on nothing but choice. Abortion should be a weighty decisions based on ethical principles - not just I don't want my baby coz x.

If you don't want men decide what that criteria should be then come up with your own. But 'I am a women and therefore whatever involves my body takes place beyond categories of right and wrong' is inadequate, frankly.