Take away our right to vote next?Follow

Ahh, this tired old chestnut again.

Kindly answer the following questions, referring only to the way ONLY a pregnancy and childbirth and childrearing will DIRECTLY impact you, as a male:

Will you, yourself, experience morning sickness? Not sympathetic morning sickness, but TRUE morning sickness, complete with scent sensitivities that can induce nausea at any given time of day.

Is there any possibility that the aforementioned morning sickness will be so severe it can keep you from performing your job and/or schoolwork, either by affecting your attendance or rendering you useless when you are present?

Will you experience three months where all your body wants to do is sleep, rendering you a zombie for the duration of the second trimester and again, potentially impacting your work and/or education?

Will your friends, family, neighbors, employers, coworkers, or fellow students all begin to treat you differently because of the pregnancy?

Will you have to run to the bathroom every 15 minutes because the baby is using your bladder as a trampoline?

Do you run the risk of being harassed and possibly injured by protesters outside a Planned Parenthood clinic if you so much as walk through the doors for information about your options?

Will you be denied a job opportunity because pending childbirth will mean you will have to take a chunk of time off work?

Will you experience...
...Stretch marks you have to slather in a fortune of Vitamin E lotion?
...Hemmorhoids so bad you have to sit on a doughnut-shaped thingy?
...Heartburn so bad you chomp on Rolaids like candy?
...backaches so bad it feels like your backache has a backache?
...the agony of a baby dancing the lambada on your sciatic nerve?

Will your belly become public domain so that any passing stranger will feel completely justified in walking up to you and touching the bulge?

Is there any chance you will be hospitalized for an abrupted placenta which places you in danger of death and forces you on bedrest for up to three or more months, again impacting your attendance and performance at work and/or school and possibly costing you your job or putting you on academic probation?

Will your blood pressure shoot up in a condition known as pre-eclampsia, again threatening your life when pre-eclampsia becomes eclampsia, complete with seizures?

Will gestational diabetes put you in danger of having an overlarge baby, requiring you to have the baby via C-section?

Will you be put on bedrest for up to three months to avoid pre-term labor, again impacting employment or academic performance?

Will you, yourself, actually have to experience the pain of childbirth?

Will you have to experience the pain of a Cesarian section, which is ultimately a euphemism for MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY.

Do you run the risk of hemmorhaging and possibly bleeding to death as a result of either of the above processes?

Will you, yourself, have to experience a protracted hospital stay due to complications of any of the above processes?

Will you experience days, or even weeks, of postpartum bleeding requiring you to wear a maxi-pad approximately the size of a diaper?

Will you have to experience breastfeeding, with all its attendant complications in a culture that doesn't make much of an effort to support breastfeeding, including...
...your nipples get chafed and sore?
...your blouses get stained when the milk lets down before you actually manage to get a kid attached to the nipple?
...you have to hide in tbe bathroom to pump like it's something shameful?
...you get glares from old biddies if you have the audacity to breastfeed in public?
...you get a yeast infection in your nipples and the baby's mouth, meaning that it feels as though the baby is sucking ground glass through your nipples, and screaming in pain all the while its doing it, making breastfeeding not only painful but emotionally draining?

If you give the kid up for adoption, will you then have to explain to every casual acquaintance and coworker who knew you were pregnant and now sees you don't have a baby what your emotional and personal choice was?

Will you have to deal with the fact that your body will NEVER be the same again, not only in looks, but in function?

Will the way you are regarded by every friend, relative, neighbor, casual acquaintance, fellow student, coworker and employer be forever altered regardless of whether or not you kept the baby, because of whichever choice you made?

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. THIS is why men don't get an equal vote in the decision. THEY DON'T HAVE TO F'UCKING GO THROUGH IT. They can be on the fringes of it, and if they're nice guys, they might have a financial obligation they actually attempt to meet, but ultimately, after the sperm donation is made, any guy can skip out and refuse to experience ANY of the pregnancy, child-birth, or child-rearing complications. It's our bodies that are discomfitted, our health that is placed in danger, our lives that are at stake, both mortally and materially. Even if you give the baby up for adoption, the effects of pregnancy can significantly impact your life for months or years to come, especially as regards your health and employment situation.

So unless and until you, as a male, can take the burden of these effects from the woman and bear them yourself, consider yourself BLESSED if the woman in question is generous enough to give you a minority vote in the decision of whether or not to experience the pregnancy. The financial obligation of child support has NOTHING on the impact actually experiencing a pregnancy can have upon a woman's life, regardless of whether or not she keeps the baby.



Edited, Jul 4th 2006 at 2:24pm EDT by Ambrya

You do realize you don't have to quote a whole long post if you don't actually plan to respond to any of the points in it, right?

Here I thought you'd given up stalking me, Praetorian. I admit, you've been doing well for a while about not following me around from thread to thread not for the purpose of actually contributing anything to the thread, but just for the purpose of flinging more of your hysterical diatribes at me. Now, however, you're falling back into your old ways again.

None of what you said counters the truth of what I said (or really has all that much to do with anything we are discussing here--way to be irrelevent!) It's a woman's decision because a woman has to go through it and deal with the consequences of it in a way that a man simply never can.

As for my personal sentiments as regards my own life, you have no idea what they are, and frankly couldn't be more wrong. I've said before that Ambrya 2.0 is in the "planning" stages (not conceived yet, but heading in that direction if all goes well.) I've also made it very clear a number of times that the career I am soon to embark upon is going to be providing medical care for pregnant women and deliverying babies. Do you think EITHER of these points would be true if I didn't have a VERY strong appreciation for the wonder and joy of pregnancy and childbirth? I WANT to be pregnant and experience the whole ride--that's why I've overcome a very strong reservation about contributing to the burgeoning population crisis enough to have a child of my own instead of just adopting. I WANT to share in the joy of other pregnant women and provide them with comfort, support and encouragement, which is why I have chosen to become a midwife.

I didn't say it's not without its rewards. But neither is it without its risks and consequences, almost ALL of which fall upon the woman to bear ultimately. And those risks and complications being upon the woman's shoulders are the reason that women are ultimately the ones who should rightfully decide the abortion question, not men.

You missed the point, Molish. The question of why the decision of whether or not to abort doesn't fall equally into the man's hands was raised. The laundry-list of pregnancy-related problems is the reason why. You say "don't have kids" well, that's kinda the point--my post is why women should be the ones to make the bulk of that call rather than men getting an equal vote in the question.

In a word ...

Meh, the fact still stands. I get tired of hearing that sob story.

A real man will be with you through that 1000%, the whole way. Ever heard of sympathy pains? Having to work twice as hard for two more now that you might not be able to? 3/4 of what you posted statistically won't happen to a woman during her pregnancy. I statistically won't get run over by a car if I carefully cross the street. Do that mean it won't happen? Of course not, but it's highly unlikely. I can go toe to toe with your whole sob story crap you posted.

A REAL man will do it all in stride and provide everything you may ever need to help you through that stage in your life.

Whatever you go through, a real man will make damn sure he keeps you as happy, healthy, and alive as possible.


You can't do it without me. That is my DNA in there too. You felt I was a valid choice when you slept with me. 50%-50% straight.

Edited, Jul 4th 2006 at 3:34pm EDT by Molish

And if every man who knocked up a woman, or even most of them, were "real" men, then it wouldn't be a problem to give them more of a voice. But the fact is, there aren't that many "real" men out there, and even if there were, there are still parts of this burden that they cannot shoulder for us, or help make better for us, so ultimately, the decision rightfully belongs in the hands of the person most impacted by the outcome, and until men start becoming pregnant, that's going to be the woman.

Someone sounds a little /butthurt over the male population. Why don't you get yourself a nice slinky ***** and some hemorrhoid cream to go with it? Stop generalizing men and deal with whatever past fck up you committed and move on.

Ahhh, Moral majority werkin for j00!

Nice to see you support the majority suppression of the minority. However, it's ultimately WRONG. Using myself as an example (how YOU doin'?), it's a life from created from my own DNA sequence and yours. It is 50% me and 50% you. I don't give a crap how it came to this world, a whole is only the sum of it's parts. MY parts and your parts. I don't give a damn what you have to go through, you knew those consequences when you agreed to sleep with me and have unprotected sex (I know your down with some polish sausage). YOU KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN. The consequences of your actions are what you reap. Just because you didn't consider these consequences, doesn't mean I don't get a say in what happens to my unborn child.

Now, if it seriously endangers your life, then I full support the "your choice" thing. My fiancée wants (if it should come to that) her child to live, and sacrifice herself. Course, I'll do my damnest to not let that happen. Think about it, how could I face the child that killed my love of 7 years every day?

If you got problems with the way things work, take it up with the big golden bearded man upstairs. He's the one who dictated how this process of reproduction works.

Still waiting on those documented facts of yours.



Feisty!

Edited, Jul 4th 2006 at 9:12pm EDT by PraetorianX

Someone has let their ****** go to their head. Not that I disagree with you, Ambrya, but you come off as so militant that I can't help but imagine your lesbian affairs. That goes for the rest of you dames, too.

I was sitting in my apartment last night and the brother upstairs is yelling at his baby-momma about how he doesn't give a fuck 'bout that kid and isn't afraid to go to jail and will crack her fucking face open. So she moves out, and later on, his other baby-momma stops by and proceeds to yell at his door, mostly inquiring as to the whereabouts of her child-support check. I know he's there, because I've been snooping, but he ain't answering that door. Maybe an hour after baby-momma numero dos exits, his girlfriend shows up, and I hear them making more babies.

Now somebody needs to take the initiative in this situation, and get to destroying some potential life every-now-and-again. Clearly these women cannot be trusted to do so, because they're blinded by the appeal of having some twenty year-old kid who works third shift at Walmart father their kids. I think it's clear he'd rather be pimpin' in the city, and what-not, and that the kids are just a hinderance to that plan o' action.

I'd like to see some sort of neighborhood vote deciding when and whom we abort.

Much ado about nothing, perhaps, but at least I finished that last beer and can get to sleep now. Happy Fourth of July, everybody.

I thought proper feminism was all about enjoying sex with men and not feeling bad about it, like Sex and the City and all that crap. Isn't that post-modern feminism?

Because hardcore "we don't need men they are all pigs" attitude, is not feminism. It's hate. The point is not to be able to liv without each other. What would be the ******* point. The point is to respect each other as equals. We like sex, you like sex. You need us for babies, and so do we. You're a pain in the ***, and so are we.

So fuck all that "men are pigs" attitude, that's just good old emo-miserabilism. It's the equivalent of "all women are ************** Dumb-*** one-size-fits-all catchphrases for people who are too retarded to deal with the complexities of real life.

OK, so let me get this straight. According to you, since I am a man and cannot "fully" experience childbirth - nor will I ever - I have no right to feel I should have a say in an abortion. You, being a woman, never having to face a court order to pay child support, feel that you are somehow above your own you-don’t-experience-it-so-stfu attitude, going so far as to trivialize a man's contribution to rearing a child by saying something as callous as "ahh, this tired old chestnut again?" How can you tell me I shouldn’t have an opinion about something because I will never experience it, yet feel righteous enough to make such a bold statement when YOU will never experience our side of the fence?

And, guess what? Maybe if you would get off your high horse you would actually see that raising a child affects both the man and the woman. You focus on the first 9 months of the kids development, and that’s it. How noble.

Since you believe that you "can never know" what someone else goes through, let me give you a taste of a man's world. The same society that oppresses women does the same thing to men - just differently. The major one is making sure your family (or children) are financially stable, and if you happen to lose your job or fall on hard times you are labeled a loser. This is a much bigger deal to men than it is to woman, because society STRESSES the fact that it is the man who is to keep the family afloat financially, and if the family fails it is his fault. So what do you do to keep your family afloat? You work six days a week. You work 70 hours a week. You work in conditions that are VERY hazardous to your health. You do anything you can to make sure your kids have a good life.

For twenty years, my father worked in the HVAC world - in fact, he worked three jobs in the same industry at once. He worked on ladders 200 feet in the air. He lugged 500 lb pieces of equipment up several flights of stairs with only one other guy - because there were no elevators and no other ways of getting the equipment on the roof. He breathed in asbestos, which puts you at HIGH risk for several fatal lung diseases. He regularly was covered in oil - which is carcinogenic. He ALWAYS had cuts and bruises from the job. He would work in extreme temperatures, and in the hot ones (over 120 degrees F) he would constantly be dehydrated. He did this so his kids could go to college.

And his father did the same exact work for fifty years, and now has severe medical problems due to the nature of the work.

And his father's father did the same work.

They did this work - this VERY dangerous, VERY physically demanding work - for DECADES (not just 9 months) so their children could have good lives. Who the fuck are you to complain of stretch marks and pain when men like my father have been permanently scarred by cuts, burns over decades? Who are you to complain of possible medical ailments when guys like my father were exposed to highly toxic chemicals all to make money for their family? One of my father's friends died of asbestos poisoning trying to feed his family. Would you be willing to tell this guy, a guy that literally gave his life in an attempt to better his family, that his opinion shouldn’t matter when it came to having children?

And you don’t just have to do physical labor either. A good friend of mine is SO worried that he is going to be let go from his company that he works 70+ hour weeks. He never takes a day off. He doesn’t go a half an hour without checking his email in fear he will miss something from work. He is worried that if he loses his job he will not be able to provide for his sick child. I think he will succumb to a heart attack before he turns 45. Are you going to tell him that his efforts amount to a pile of shit by telling him his opinion does not matter in having a child that has already been conceived?

And these four men are typical fathers. For centuries, men have worked in hot, dirty, loud, demeaning, tiresome, draining, and dangerous jobs just to support their family - and they do it for decades of their life. And usually, they die younger than they should due to their working environment (ever wonder why men die at a younger age than women?).

So yes, men should have a say in if a fetus they helped to germinate develops into a child or not.

The above was the long answer. The short answer is the one you supplied: if you cant experience it (and you cant, society doesn’t place the financial burden on you as it does on a man), stfu. You have no right to discredit the financial aspect of raising (or having) a child from a father's perspective.