"Motherhood is not a Default Setting"

[lkb0714]

Originally Posted by DewDropInn

Every doctor I've known consults with her/his patients and they reach decisions on medical care based on a number of things. I've never come across a doctor who makes her decision based only on what she, the doctor, wants.

So the woman in the article lied?

I am sure there are large numbers of doctors you, or I, or any other person hasn't met. The fact that ANY doctor would put the health of a fetus that would never have been carried to birth over his/her patient, is insane and indicative of a problem that needs to be addressed.

[DewDropInn]

Originally Posted by lkb0714

So the woman in the article lied?

I am sure there are large numbers of doctors you, or I, or any other person hasn't met. The fact that ANY doctor would put the health of a fetus that would never have been carried to birth over his/her patient, is insane and indicative of a problem that needs to be addressed.

Sorry, I thought you were posing a hypothetical question.

In this particular case we have only one side of the story. I'd like to hear the doctor's side before I go hanging him from his thumbs. And in a non-biased news story. This article was an op-ed.

[brightdoglover]

Originally Posted by pearly6

BUT, given no choices, motherhood is likely to be the consequence of having sex or being raped.

Not likely. Whatever the stats are for a pregnancy in a given completed sexual encounter (taking into account that every person exists in varying degrees of fertility, if any). It's not likely. It's built in as a distinct possibility.

We are designed to have children as much as we are designed to defecate, grow hair on our heads (and lose it) and prefer some tastes in food over others. When people say women are designed to have kids, I tend to think this means more, "Women's proper destiny and place in life is to have kids," which is a very different statement.

Guess I was in the wrong line when that default feeling was handed out, despite my plumbing.

[uptown_urbanist]

Originally Posted by brightdoglover

Not likely. Whatever the stats are for a pregnancy in a given completed sexual encounter (taking into account that every person exists in varying degrees of fertility, if any). It's not likely. It's built in as a distinct possibility.

We are designed to have children as much as we are designed to defecate, grow hair on our heads (and lose it) and prefer some tastes in food over others. When people say women are designed to have kids, I tend to think this means more, "Women's proper destiny and place in life is to have kids," which is a very different statement.

Guess I was in the wrong line when that default feeling was handed out, despite my plumbing.

But that's YOUR interpretation. I was one of the posters who said (think I may have used those exact words) that "women are designed to have kids," and I can assure you, I most definitely do NOT think that it's women's "destiny and place in life is to have kids." If I meant that, I'd say that. Those are, as you note, two distinctly different assertions. Humans are not just their biology. We can control our biology and our destiny. But the fact remains that, biologically speaking, women are physically designed to have children. That's the biological default. That does not mean it has to the be the cultural default, although realistically, it also makes sense to acknowledge that many -- although certainly not all -- men and women will have children. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with choosing not to, either. (and very strongly believe that it's essential for our society to make it possible for women to control that choice.)

And who said anything about default "feeling"? I don't think it's the default feeling for women to "feel" they want kids.

Not exactly the same thing, but I've a vegetarian. I believe humans are designed, or have evolved, to eat meat. But I don't. My biology is not my destiny.

[lkb0714]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

But that's YOUR interpretation. I was one of the posters who said (think I may have used those exact words) that "women are designed to have kids," and I can assure you, I most definitely do NOT think that it's women's "destiny and place in life is to have kids." If I meant that, I'd say that. Those are, as you note, two distinctly different assertions. Humans are not just their biology. We can control our biology and our destiny. But the fact remains that, biologically speaking, women are physically designed to have children. That's the biological default. That does not mean it has to the be the cultural default, although realistically, it also makes sense to acknowledge that many -- although certainly not all -- men and women will have children. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with choosing not to, either. (and very strongly believe that it's essential for our society to make it possible for women to control that choice.)

And who said anything about default "feeling"? I don't think it's the default feeling for women to "feel" they want kids.

Not exactly the same thing, but I've a vegetarian. I believe humans are designed, or have evolved, to eat meat. But I don't. My biology is not my destiny.

And please stop stating your opinion as fact.

Pregnancy is no more a biological default than STDs are. It implies biology has a purpose it does not. No female mammal, (aside from the marsupials) human or otherwise spends the majority of their lives pregnant. To be the default that would have to be the case. The only accepted meaning of default biologically, is typically used in proteins to denote that state in which they are usually found.

WOMEN ARE NOT USUALLY PREGNANT.

So the only biological default would be that women are CAPABLE of reproducing or becoming pregnant. But that is a world of difference from saying that the BIOLOGICAL default of human females IS PREGNANCY.