Answer for: What is unacceptable to you in public?
#8 Discussing abortion.
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20 Comments
As in, whether or not to have one. Never appropriate.
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Did you by any chance see the movie Juno?
Yes. I cried a lot.
Why not?
Have any of you sat next to an incubator for 3 months, praying and holding a tiny little hand, only to watch the baby die anyway? After that, wouldn't it make you cry, to listen to people casually discuss whether or not to kill their baby? Do you get it now?
Lots of different bad things happen to lots of different people - That doesn't mean that I can't or shouldn't talk about any of them.
But doing so with a lack of sensitivity to the feelings of your audience is both ineffective and makes you seem like an asshole.
How in the world is somebody supposed to be aware of every bad thing that every person within earshot has experienced?
We're not talking about discussing "every bad thing that every person within earshot has experienced". We're talking about publicly discussing abortion, which can be a particularly painful subject for some people. Yes, there are probably other issues that should be handled with care when you don't know them well enough (I think there's a topic about that?), but that's irrelevant to this thread. I think that notscarlet is saying that the subject of abortion is such that it is best to be close enough to your audience to be able to assure that your message will be well received and not cause undue emotional distress.
great, now i want my superhero power to be the ability to detect every bad thing that every person within earshot has experienced. but i am an asshole, so there you go.
@phlydwg:
Should reporters not cover stories about rape then, lest it unduly dig up old, painful memories for other rape victims? What about murder? Kidnapping? Layoffs?
What IS safe to talk about?
Everything and anything -- just be considerate of the audience. For example, if I heard that Skirrrrti's dog had just died rescuing you from a frozen lake, I wouldn't bump topic 10900 for a long, long time.
You know, you may be right. I've always gotten a bit angry when people say that philosophy should be handled with care, because I think that what they really mean is that they favor censorship and only an elite group of people are truly qualified to discuss philosophy.
Maybe political correctness is overrated. But another argument for not discussing abortion (and other 'sensitive' topics) publicly is that critical thought is more likely to happen on an individual level. Public 'discussion' usually ends up to be more like public proselytizing by those with the strongest opinions and the loudest voices. In my experience, I've found that the larger the group, the less productive the discussion. At a certain point it becomes a shouting match or an article-linking match -- people become more concerned with winning the argument than finding a logical solution to the problem.
You're absolutely right. In fact, abortion shouldn't be discussed at all, because it's wrong.
Says who?
Even if you disagree with abortion itself, isn't it going a bit overboard to say that people shouldn't even be allowed to talk about it?
@ vbacmama
Let us put aside the whole "right or wrong" facet of abortion for the moment, along with allowing morality to enter into it (might be tough, but go with it), and let me ask you a hypothetical question.
Say your daughter wants an abortion. Given that abortions DO exist and that someone with their heart set on getting an abortion would scare be deterred by legality, would you rather have it performed by:
a) a trained medical professional, with proper sterilization techniques, equipment, and access to further care should something go wrong.
b) herself or someone else (she may or may not know them), in the bathroom or an alley, with a coat hanger or other object
c) herself, by means of self-destruction (i.e., chain smoking or binge drinking) to induce miscarriage
d) not done at all, where the child may (or may not) be undernourised, poorly cared for, and/or ultimately removed from her care and placed in a foster care system where they may (or may not) be undernourised, poorly cared for, and/or abused
e) none of the above and she snuffs herself (extreme and fanciful, but in a society where abortion would be punished, it could happen)
You're doing it wrong. You're supposed to post a picture with every answer you post.
@ chromigula
Hmmm... Well, your question does raise some interesting thoughts. I was being a little flippant when I answered that one, I'm hypoglycemic, and it was lunch time. Sorry. As to your supposition, I know that my daughters would never want an abortion if they were pregnant out of wed-lock. I happen to be very involved in pregnancy and birth, and they are very well experiencially educated on what it is. So your choices were somewhat limited in their scope of possibility. I guess I'd have to go with d. Keep in mind, though that this is my daughter you're hypothetically talking about, and don't imagine for a second that I'd allow her, or any of my clients, to go undernourished, nor any child to be abused by anyone. Thanks for the question though.
http://www.grupthink.com/answer/34371
http://www.grupthink.com/answer/115577
http://www.grupthink.com/answer/34371
http://www.grupthink.com/topic/11067