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Abortion in communism - unecessary?
Got this idea while reading another thread.
Could abortion be abolished (defunct i mean, no illegalized) in a society with full support to child care,and where children would not be as dependent on family like in communism?
I am talking about abortions due to unwanted pregnancy, not like rape, predicted birth defects, etc.
Last edited by Black Sheep; 16th December 2010 at 11:57.
I want to ask this question too, but with the added assumption that there will be some new surgical method that will result in a painless and 100% safe childbirth.
One issue is that the woman might not agree to go through the period of pregnancy in the first place. She should always have the right to do that.
Well, some Women still don't want to actually go through with giving birth. So I don't see a need for abortions to be abolished.
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Instead of abolished which would make it illegal do you mean defunct and unnecessary through no one choosing it?
either way the answer is no
Defunct i mean.
The question's largely irrelevant though. Even if it concievably becomes unnecessary that doesn't really change anything. Tere are, for example, a number of diseases which no longer exist and it is therefore unnecessary to undergo treatment for them; we don't have any legislature, however, banning us from undergoing treatment for these diseases if you see what I mean.
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Some women want a child, but decide they are unable to have one when accidentally pregnant, due to their financial, family, and career situation. These women may well choose to have an abortion but find no desire (and hence, no need) for an abortion in a communist society.
But many more women do not a want a child at that time (or ever) for reasons independent of their social/financial/family circumstances. The idea just doesn't appeal to them, or they would only want a child later in life. For these women, communism provides absolutely no reason for them to continue their pregnancies, hence abortion remains necessary.
You seem to only consider the social consequences of raising a child and limit your consideration of having an abortion as a means to escape those consequences. It is not. Abortion is primarily about preventing the traumatic bodily damage one endures during pregnancy and childbirth (what would be disfiguring torture if done to a man). This is evident from the fact that adoption is always an option, so really the point is always to avoid pregnancy and childbirth - not child rearing since this can be done without having an abortion.
No one who doesn't want a child should be expected, let alone forced, to endure that sort of trauma and personal violation (which is what it is to someone who does not want to continue a pregnancy) entailed by carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. No amount of community support can change this one bit.
I think that in a communist society that various forms of birth control would be easily available and that "sex education" would be greatly improved. Those two things would minimize the number of abortions greatly since the number of undesired pregnancies would be greatly reduced.
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Wow, is childbirth that bad?
And I suppose if in the future we made some type of machine which could carry the foetus until it was ready and then society in general could communally look after it then it would become pretty unnecessary, though not completely abolished, but I doubt that's going to happen any time soon
also:
erm...yes? Or did you think people started screaming during it just for a laugh?
Perhaps the anaesthetic of familiarity has dulled you somewhat, but pregnancy involves significant physiological changes - it's a process that has been been through the ages-old hammer-blows of natural selection to be as reliable as possible in delivering a baby. It's not a process designed (hell it's not designed at all, that's the scary part!) with the well-being of the mother-to-be in mind.
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But women still go through it and survive. It is painfull but people still live through it. I think saying it is a traumatic experience may be too far.
The spiritual atom bomb which the revolutionary people possess is a far more powerful and useful weapon than the physical atom bomb. - Lin Biao
Our code of morals is our revolution. What saves our revolution, what helps our revolution, what protects our revolution is right, is very right and very honourable and very noble and very beautiful, because our revolution means justice
- Dr. George Habash, founder of the PFLP.
you seem to think that trauma is defined as 'something which kills you'... it isn't.
childbirth certainly can kill you, though, and most women who have been through it will tell you that it's the most intense pain they've ever experienced in their lives.
No I don't. I mean survive in a more general sense, go on with their lives. Although changed from birth, they continue with social life.
Trauma is not intense pain. Trauma is more psychological, thought it can involve physiological. Being mugged, randomly attacked, raped, being in a hold up etc can be traumic. I dislocated my ankle earlier in the year, and I felt the most intense pain, but it was not traumatic.
I know it is the most intense pain someone can feel (and men ofcourse will not feel this pain). However saying it is traumatic makes it sound like women fall over in the fetal position after given birth. Alot of woman who give birth go on to do it again.
The spiritual atom bomb which the revolutionary people possess is a far more powerful and useful weapon than the physical atom bomb. - Lin Biao
Our code of morals is our revolution. What saves our revolution, what helps our revolution, what protects our revolution is right, is very right and very honourable and very noble and very beautiful, because our revolution means justice
- Dr. George Habash, founder of the PFLP.
So, being raped is traumatic, but, presumably having sex, when you want to have sex with a loving partner, is not traumatic, right?
Likewise being mugged is traumatic, but, presumably, giving a friend in hard times some money out of affection for him or her is not traumatic?
Do you see the psychologically relevant difference between the traumatic version and non-traumatic version of basically the same action? In the traumatic version, the victim does something they don't want to do under duress or force - and in the non-traumatic version they do it not only willingly but as a celebration of their affection for another.
That "Alot of woman who give birth go on to do it again." is like saying "A lot of women who have sex go on to do it again, so how traumatic can rape possibly be?"
So does it not occur to you that the subjective experience of pregnancy and childbirth for a woman who greatly desires a baby, who does it deliberately as an emotionally self-fulfilling act - would be radically different from the profoundly traumatic experience of being compelled to carry a fetus to term and give birth to it against your will and desires? It is the later case that we're talking about because women with normal fetuses and normal pregnancies obviously don't have abortions if they fall into the former case.
I can't imagine a more profound personal violation than having one's whole body hijacked, having to actually feel it move in you, undergoing major changes in fat distribution to the point of actually ripping your skin apart (stretch marks), hormone levels with physical and psychological consequences (all of which are experienced as adverse and mutilating to an unwilling host, not celebrated as with happy expected mothers) for nine months by another entity and then being forced to endure extreme pain on its behalf - left with permanently disfiguring scars and a changed body type and running a substantial risk of long term urogenital dysfunction (yes that something rarely discussed but true).
I see that as a form of intimate violence comparable to rape, but more extreme.
Yes. It's the worst pain I've ever experienced, not to mention the strain pregnancy and birth put on my body.
If there are complications with the birth then it can be very traumatic. Mine was pretty straightforward but it was by no means an enjoyable experience.
There should always be the option of abortion. Also, just a though, but if we kept all the fetuses that would have been aborted, we might end up with more children than the community can deal with.
"Her development, her freedom, her independence must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children unless she wants them; by refusing to become a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc. ... by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation. Only that, and not the ballot, will set woman free, will make her a force hitherto unknown in the world, a force for real love, for peace, for harmony; a force of divine fire, of life-giving; a creator of free men and women."~ Emma Goldman
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The physical pain of giving birth, and the physical and other inconveniences associated with pregnancy, are obviously very real. But for the women who make a conscious decision to bring a child into this world all the same, all those pains are worth it.
A point worth making: more and more we're seeing the Malthusian 'overpopulation' lobby adopt pro-abortion stances, even cynically using the language of feminism, in order to pursue their politics. Children are presented as parasites, women in the poor countries are told that they shouldn't have kids, more people are said to mean more problems, etc.
But this goes completely against the socialist position in favour of abortion services: the freedom for women to choose -- to choose for themselves whether they should not have children or whether they should have children.
Lenin had precisely this objection to the reactionary birth control activists of his day. He argued that, yes, communists demand "the unconditional annulment of all laws against abortions or against the distribution of medical literature on contraceptive measures" and that there must be "Freedom for medical propaganda and the protection of the elementary democratic rights of citizens, men and women". (http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...913/jun/29.htm)
However, Lenin argued in the same article, this does not for a single moment mean that any sympathy should be given to Malthusianism. In fact, socialists need to "conduct the most ruthless struggle against attempts to impose that reactionary and cowardly theory [of neo-Malthusianism] on the most progressive and strongest class in modern society, the class that is the best prepared for great changes", he said.
Unfortunately, there is at least one person in this thread (that is TC -- good to see her posting again nevertheless), who has previously argued in favour of Malthusian politics. But in our opposition to anti-abortion politics, it would be a mistake to give support to the misanthropes who happen to use arguments in favour of birth control for their own backward ends.
It depends, if the person was a misognistic and generally an insensitive asshole then I would assume that the same logic applies to both sentances apply the same logic.
However I have never expressed opinions that you could make an assumption that I am an insensitive asshole.
If someone like a patriarchal religious fanatic said "sex is a traumatic thing for women" my repsonse with retrospect to how my sentances could be interpreted in this thread would be "while sex can be traumatic in some cases, like rape, pressured, embarrasing experiences, regret, alot of women who do have sex go on to do it again without trauma".
But anyway reading back I realise that you never said "childbirth is traumatic" and I will address below.
Reading back I see that I made an assumption from your statement "let alone forced, to endure that sort of trauma and personal violation " and Noxion's comment.
In my mind I merged them togeher. Noxion is talking about the universal experience of child birth, you were talking about someone being forced to carry out a full term of pregancy against their wishes. Which made me for some reason think that both you and Noxion were stating that childbirth is trauma, maybe Noxion is, I am not sure.
I wasn't creating a single narrative if that is what you are implying, rather I was challenging the construction of one.
Excactly, and I know all this. But wouldn't you be offended if after giving birth someone came up to you and said "you poor thing!"? If I did that to alot of mothers I know I would get a slap in the head for patronising women.
The spiritual atom bomb which the revolutionary people possess is a far more powerful and useful weapon than the physical atom bomb. - Lin Biao
Our code of morals is our revolution. What saves our revolution, what helps our revolution, what protects our revolution is right, is very right and very honourable and very noble and very beautiful, because our revolution means justice
- Dr. George Habash, founder of the PFLP.
I am very (and I repeat: VERY) weary of any efforts done by western groups to institute family planning policies in the poorest corners of the world; all too often, you get many (such as the billionaire ted turner and Bill Gates) who are of the neo-malthusian cloth, who want to use abortion as a tool and means to control the world's poor people and the number of people of color, rather than institute it as an issue of reproductive rights.
Therefore, I tend to be very careful of any pro-abortion groups in the west taking adventures into the poorer parts of the world.
On a random note, abortion was illegal in many communist countries, including Romania, and Albania
