...argh, the stupid!

[kyrielle]

I advocate the right of a woman to breast-feed her baby almost anywhere and anywhen she needs to and is comfortable doing so.

That sentence didn't used to contain the word almost. Yes, I'm shy, and I would be uncomfortable breast-feeding on a bench in the mall, but anyone who is comfortable with it should be able to, IMO. If the baby is hungry, the baby is hungry. (Me, I'd use a bottle if in the mall - or perhaps retire to my car if I needed to breast-feed - or something.) The always has appeared because no, I don't think it's reasonable to breast-feed while in a moving vehicle, especially while driving it.

1) Distracted driver.
2) Not-properly-secured baby.
3) Baby in target zone for steering column and/or air bag in an accident.
4) HELLO DANGER DANGER DON'T RISK THE BABY YOU IDIOT.

Seriously, pull over and park and you can feed in your stopped car all you want. But not. While. Driving. Not while riding, either - that would get rid of 1 and part or all of 3 (depending on where the mommy was sitting, when a passenger, the air bag might still be a risk), but the baby is still not properly secured. Your arms are not going to be sufficient to hang on in an accident. And your baby deserves better than to be risked that way.

I'm so glad that nothing bad did happen to that baby.

Comments

[kyrielle]

Point. Even when I phrase it as the woman's right to breast-feed, I am really thinking of the infant's right to eat. (Otherwise, one assumes the woman could be "breast-feeding" another adult and it would still be a right, but that's not a scenario I think anyone is thinking of in that regard. I hope!)

I do think that women should have a right to have an abortion, in the sense that they should have a right to have access to any medical procedure (pregnancy can have fairly substantial health impacts, after all). Note "have access" - I don't think a woman has any right to have her abortion funded by anyone else. But if she has a doctor willing to perform the abortion, and the funds required for it, then I think the doctor has a right to provide, and the woman to purchase, that medical procedure. (Just as you should have the right to purchase any medical procedures relevant to you; there are some problems that I can't be treated for because I don't have the relevant physical attributes, but it in no way removes another's right to be treated for the condition if they experience it.)

That said, I do agree there's an imbalance (a father can be forced to support a child, a mother cannot; that's wrong), but I don't think removal of the abortion option is the way to equalize it. I'm not sure what is, however, or how to balance it in that case.

And I adore that manager at the Pizza Hut. That's a beautiful response.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I'm not suggesting we remove the abortion option; I'm suggesting we remove the abortion right as something that stands on its own. E.g., consider your right to have a lawyer provided for you at your expense. There is no such right in the Constitution and it's disingenuous to claim that it's there. However, as a consequence of much broader Constitutional rights — namely, the rights to the due process of law and the right to be represented by counsel — we understand the right to have a lawyer provided at taxpayer expense as an emergent right.

Likewise, abortion is not innate to the Constitution. It emerges from something much larger. That thing it emerges from cannot be a women's–rights issue. It has to be a human rights issue and it has to be equally applicable to men as to women.

I think we should also talk about what we as a society mean by "life." Imagine that a pregnant woman is driving to the Planned Parenthood clinic to get an abortion. On the way there she's struck by a drunk driver, causing her to miscarry. The drunk driver can be charged with manslaughter for terminating the pregnancy — but the woman driving to the Planned Parenthood clinic to terminate the pregnancy is exercising her right to choose and is beyond the law.

That's how messed up our understanding of life is. A fetus is a living being with limited human rights when we feel that it should (the drunk driver causes a miscarriage); a fetus is a piece of unwanted biological tissue that may be surgically excised without comment when we feel that it should (the planned abortion).

I don't see that as being any kind of rational basis upon which we can make consistent, intelligent laws.

[kyrielle]

Agreed. (I'd argue a manslaughter charge is warranted in the third trimester, but then abortion is generally not supported then either. If it's human enough to be beyond abortion, it's human enough to count for manslaughter.)

I think the problem is that if the child is wanted, it seems like a person to the parents much sooner than if it's not. Obviously that's subjective and you can't create laws based on that - but there's a very real loss in that case that feels like losing a person. Something "ought" to be done about it (I speak here, not legally or factually, but emotionally)...but how do you legislate for whether a child is wanted or not? Good grief, that makes no sense. But I think it's why the law is so bizarre around these two points.