>> SO MANY problems would be solved if there were the resources to make any option for an unplanned pregnancy - parenting, adoption, abortion, whatever - genuinely safe for the pregnant person. <<
Absolutely. The problem is that the resources exist, but the people who control them choose not to solve these problems by putting the resources there. Society considers it more important for a few people to have far more than they need, than to ensure that everyone has at least their basic needs met.
One of the things that makes Terramagne a better place is a higher tendency to fill in the bottom layers before moving up. T-America still has houses for unplanned pregnant women who don't have a safe place to stay, and they've generally evolved beyond the "bad girl" houses of the past -- most of them are run by women who came out of that situation themselves. In employment that means keeping entry-level jobs available, supporting self-employment, and ensuring that jobs with expensive licensing requirements have some kind of buffer for broke people to apply. In health care it means things like community clinics, street nurses, and a lot of gathering places such as parks or malls having a first aid station.
There's also a general tendency to offer things on a sliding scale of prices. Some stuff is available free, and in particular, there are charities that pick up the slack where paid options are out of reach and/or the government's proof-of-need requirements leave people unserved. So for example, the soup kitchen at the People of Jesus Nondenominational Church and Interfaith Center is primarily used by homeless and poor people, but anyone can stop by. It's also used by starving artists and college students during a short month, or people recently laid off who need to stretch their budget. And that makes it feel less like mooching to be ashamed of, and more like a safety net to be proud of. This inclines more people to give back, later, when they're in a better place.
>> SO MANY options would be better if our society actually TOOK CARE of kids. <<
Yes, that's true. Most of the problems people have are anthropogenic. I think there is a special place in hell for the assholes who do everything they can to force birth -- and then absolutely nothing to care for the resulting children. They block birth control and abortion, then tell women "You shouldn't have kids you can't afford." >_<
>> I used to think that the invention of a practical uterine replicator would help resolve the moralizing arguments; not anymore, though it would be a cool piece of tech. <<
It would solve the problem of women who can't carry a wanted pregnancy because it is medically dangerous for the mother. It would not solve the problem of finding out halfway through a pregnancy that the fetus is not actually viable. It would solve the problem of women who don't want to be pregnant but have no specific desire to end the offspring. It would not solve the problem of rape survivors who want to pour the rapist's DNA down a medical waste drain.
The gravest responsibility that adults have is the choice of whether and how and with whom to reproduce. They must be free to choose to do so, and free to choose NOT to do so, with the partner(s) of their preference. Burgling someone else's reproductive process is completely unacceptable.
I have a bunch of poems about this in Polychrome Heroics, but one of my favorites is about how men suddenly wanted to protect the rights of pregnant people after they could be knocked up unwillingly. Oh, NOW they care! >_< Assholes.
>> Now I want to shake people and tell them they are all barking up the wrong tree anyway, because our society is so massively abusive to women, people it thinks are women, and children that that becomes the underlying cause of flares of these other problems that might otherwise be rare. <<
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dancing_serpent
Re: Problematic Link
Date: 2016-05-13 05:42 am (UTC)Absolutely. The problem is that the resources exist, but the people who control them choose not to solve these problems by putting the resources there. Society considers it more important for a few people to have far more than they need, than to ensure that everyone has at least their basic needs met.
One of the things that makes Terramagne a better place is a higher tendency to fill in the bottom layers before moving up. T-America still has houses for unplanned pregnant women who don't have a safe place to stay, and they've generally evolved beyond the "bad girl" houses of the past -- most of them are run by women who came out of that situation themselves. In employment that means keeping entry-level jobs available, supporting self-employment, and ensuring that jobs with expensive licensing requirements have some kind of buffer for broke people to apply. In health care it means things like community clinics, street nurses, and a lot of gathering places such as parks or malls having a first aid station.
There's also a general tendency to offer things on a sliding scale of prices. Some stuff is available free, and in particular, there are charities that pick up the slack where paid options are out of reach and/or the government's proof-of-need requirements leave people unserved. So for example, the soup kitchen at the People of Jesus Nondenominational Church and Interfaith Center is primarily used by homeless and poor people, but anyone can stop by. It's also used by starving artists and college students during a short month, or people recently laid off who need to stretch their budget. And that makes it feel less like mooching to be ashamed of, and more like a safety net to be proud of. This inclines more people to give back, later, when they're in a better place.
>> SO MANY options would be better if our society actually TOOK CARE of kids. <<
Yes, that's true. Most of the problems people have are anthropogenic. I think there is a special place in hell for the assholes who do everything they can to force birth -- and then absolutely nothing to care for the resulting children. They block birth control and abortion, then tell women "You shouldn't have kids you can't afford." >_<
>> I used to think that the invention of a practical uterine replicator would help resolve the moralizing arguments; not anymore, though it would be a cool piece of tech. <<
It would solve the problem of women who can't carry a wanted pregnancy because it is medically dangerous for the mother. It would not solve the problem of finding out halfway through a pregnancy that the fetus is not actually viable. It would solve the problem of women who don't want to be pregnant but have no specific desire to end the offspring. It would not solve the problem of rape survivors who want to pour the rapist's DNA down a medical waste drain.
The gravest responsibility that adults have is the choice of whether and how and with whom to reproduce. They must be free to choose to do so, and free to choose NOT to do so, with the partner(s) of their preference. Burgling someone else's reproductive process is completely unacceptable.
I have a bunch of poems about this in Polychrome Heroics, but one of my favorites is about how men suddenly wanted to protect the rights of pregnant people after they could be knocked up unwillingly. Oh, NOW they care! >_< Assholes.
>> Now I want to shake people and tell them they are all barking up the wrong tree anyway, because our society is so massively abusive to women, people it thinks are women, and children that that becomes the underlying cause of flares of these other problems that might otherwise be rare. <<
Yep.