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Christ, it's a hypothetical. You can change it to 27 weeks and five days if that makes you feel better.

When making a decision about potentially killing babies for your desire to have children, you should operate under the assumption that 90% will die, and not morally convince yourself that well maybe you'll get lucky. You have to have decided that it is worth killing nine babies to get your one, there is no way around this exceedingly rare, even if, lucky you, you get it on your second try, you still had to convince yourself thta it was worth it, that's why i operate under the assumption that only the tenth baby will be successful, it can only be morally justifiable if you can justify killing the nine knowingly.

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That doesn't make sense then. We should make up an irrational statistic when trying to make a rational decision?

Most children born after 25 weeks will survive, that's a known fact. So why should we not consider that? Or pose it as an option? It seems stupid to basically say that abortion is now the only option when the baby could just as easily be delivered prematurely.

Every pregnancy is potentially disastrous, I can stand proof to that.

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Holly.
Mama to Hunter Kai

:D

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

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Actually, considering the fact that I clarified later on, it does. Originally I meant it in the way you are describing, then I changed what I meant. Reading the thread is always useful dear.

:D

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I read the thread. I'm just addressing your first question because the second question is silly, as the only situations I can imagine in which that would be possible only exist in fairy tales.

However, should there be a fairy tale happening in the real world, I would say that if you have to miscarry nine babies in order to have one baby, it's more responsible to just adopt. There are too many kids out there lacking parents for people to go through nine miscarriages for one biological spawn.

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Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

As for your view regarding adoption, I have a similar mindset, though my childhood nanny had three miscarriages before her child, so my views are mixed.

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

But then again, I've never really believed in morals and ethics so I don't really have a place in this discussion in the first place.

Post edited at 11:36 am on July 19, 2008 by hithere

Really though, I disagree there especially. People who have trouble reproducing should not reproduce, they should just age and die and adopt. This way they aren't continuing their blood line, they aren't discouraging healthy reproductive capabilities of society. Beyond that, nature is no so simple as "THE MORE YOU REPRODUCE THE BETTER", reproducing for the sake of reproducing, and validating reproduction as a justification for killing is an oversimplification of the reality of what's going on.

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

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I'm not sure you're familiar with moral hypotheticals or not, exceedingly rare. If you'd read the thread, you'd know that I use such a hypothetical because if you are a wanting mother with a 90% miscarriage rate, you are morally obliged to assume the worst, which is what my hypothetical does. It's hardly a fairy tale, if she's going to make the attempt she has to be able to morally justify killing 9 out of 10.

As for your view regarding adoption, I have a similar mindset, though my childhood nanny had three miscarriages before her child, so my views are mixed.

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I am familiar with moral, or some call them ethical, hypotheticals. I think that they are stupid. Life doesn't work in that way; therefore, it is pointless to paint a situation like the ones moral and ethical hypotheticals paint.

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Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

exceedinglyrare, life certainly does work that way though, if you have a 90% chance of having a miscarriage, to go through with the attempts, you ethically need to be prepared for the meanest situation (that of nine kids dying before you get one). Of course, realistically, with a 90% chance of miscarriage, it's quite possible that you'll have thirty miscarriages before having one successful birth, but since it's also possible that you'll have a successful birth on your first try, I like to keep things simple (for fairness of extremes).

If you want to argue that it's fine and dandy to just justify the attempted births with "Well it could happen this time!" then that's a fair argument, I disagree with it wholeheartedly but at least it's not as gay as derailing my topic on a discussion of hypothetical merit.

Post edited at 12:20 pm on July 20, 2008 by medjai

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

Post edited at 1:28 pm on July 20, 2008 by medjai

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

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I don't "want" anything in this discussion, I have a full understanding of statistics, and I'm saying that to ethically have children the mother has to consider the fact that her miscarriage rate is 90%. She can't just say "well maybe i'll get it on the first try!" that's not a justification, and it's EXTREMELY unlikely, 10% likely in fact.

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10% is pretty damn likely, all things considered. And, again, even if she doesn't have a baby on the first try, statistics still don't work in such a way that she would continue miscarrying until the tenth try, at least not on this planet.

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Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

I mean you seriously call that likely wtf?

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

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I'm not familiar with 10% being "likely" in life or death situations. I know that if I was jumping out of a plane I sure as fuck would not think I had a good chance of survival if they said the parachute failed 90% of the time.

I mean you seriously call that likely wtf?

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Look at it this way: it's a 1 in 10 chance. That's more likely than winning the lottery. It's more likely than getting struck by lightning, being in a plane crash, or scoring a date with [attractive celebrity of your choice]. Comparatively speaking, a 1 in 10 chance is pretty damn likely.

Anyway, to compromise (because I am tired, my head is spinning and I'm supposed to be working right now), I'd say that for my own personal life (and looking at it being a 10% chance of viability instead of "you must have nine dead babies in order to get one living baby" because that's just silly), I'd probably try once or twice and if there was no success, then because of time constraints, I'd just go for adoption. I can't, however, really tell other women that they should follow my ideas of what I, personally, would do, as I never feel that imposing your morals on someone else is a good idea (and before you say, "But abortion...!" I'll point out that I'm pro-choice).

Truce?

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Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

These are lives being taken, theoretically. I mean if you had ten kids and you all went skydiving and the guy is like "These chutes fail 90% of the time" would you still let your kids jump saying, "Well we have better odds than we would winning the lotto!""

No, you wouldn't, because even if the success rate was 95%, it's unlikely that you'd have your kids jump, because it's life and death. I find it hard to understand how, if someone believes a fetus to be just as valuable as a child, they'd be willing to put them in the same situation.

As for your logic, I know someone that did that, and on her third attempt, she had the baby. I'm not saying I'm actually against that by any means, I'm just providing the argument because I want to know how, if fetus's are as valuable as children, women can justify killing them as long as it's "to start a family" even though there are other options available.

I'll accept your compromise though because we've been arguing this waaay too long and neither of us is going to fold.

Post edited at 10:44 am on July 21, 2008 by medjai

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service