Reproductive Ethics

[fractalfeline]

So I thought I'd try my hand at making another juicy thread that gets people all riled up.

It would seem that a lot of thought and debate is put into reproductive ethics. Everything from abortion, to contraception, to masturbation, to gay rights, to eugenics... Anyone have any idea why this is?

What are "responsible" sexual habits? What are "irresponsible" sexual habits? Moral/immoral? At the core, what principles guide YOUR particular set of reproductive ethics?

Pro-choice or pro-life? Pro contraception or anti-contraception? What defines the boundaries of a sexual relationship between two entities? Gender? Age? Species? (meant to be tongue-in-cheek there but you'd be surprised how many people can justify a bestial relationship online :hahano

With the advent of modern genetics, cloning, and the like, what are your thoughts about gene therapy? Is it ok for a clinic to select certain embryos? What happens to the "defective" embryos? What about sperm banks? Is it ok for a woman to go to a sperm bank and "select" a sperm? What defines one gene as "superior" and another gene as "defective"?

This is halfway meant to be a survey and half discussion, but feel free to take it in any direction, by all means

 

[phazzedout]

"The condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip it on, you dance the night away with a stranger, and then you throw it away - the condom, that is, not the stranger." Marla (Fight Club 1999)

You are with a stranger be a good person and wear a helmet before preparing for battle. It does not work 100 percent of the time but better than going to the field of battle without any head gear. It's raining bullets out there!

I am a huge supporter on contraceptives, I recall of a friend who was ignorant about contraceptives. He thought that they did not work and everyone ends up pregnant. When I told him that I have been having sexual relations with my girlfriend for two years with little or no usage of a helmet he didn't understand.

I see it unethical to not teach sexual education, and I mean real sex ed. When I see some states funding only Abstinence I yell out to my television, "Weren't these (sic)ing (sic)ots young once, these teens are like dogs, and will jump on the chance for sexual relief." With that being said, if a teen believes that a girl can not get pregnant if you lay your seed on her while she is on the cowgirl position because of gravity, what do you think will happen.

I am pro-life to an extent. I think social economic class should be looked at. If someone can support a child and has no excuse then I believe it to be unethical. When someone does not have any money to raise a child, or knowingly has a spouse who might molest the child, this might be a good time to abort.

Rape victims have every right to abort, the laws of the land should not extend to this person.

Of course the laws say that everyone is entitled to their privacy, but then this really boils down to the mainstream religion of Christianity stating that it is murder.

There is no point to cloning, really. I support the research, for I am also interested too, but it seems that once the DNA is done, the clone (whether old or young) will die as well.

Genetic manipulation will be good to an extent. One thing we need to do though is really do some 20-50 years of research before we truly start releasing this. We can probably figure out why. One argument against it though is that in the wrong hands this could be used for bad. (e.g. if Hitler had this power, every born German would be genetically mutated to have blond hair and blue eyes.)

 

[kefka_asylum]

my helmet is made of +10 adamantium
it is a gnarly great helm with abrasive spikes


didnt anyone forget the psychological factors of the reproductive conscious?

humans have choice
and they have instinct
they are both intelligent
and driven by lust

what we can think of as death is only a beginning of other life forms
sacrificing your last energy for a billion new stars


it is natural to want to procreate
and it is human to avoid consequences and responsiblity

 

[phazzedout]

@kefka_asylum Lol it is natural to want to procreate or at least feel good! But most humans would rather not have a kid during their teen years. I can agree to that so why not let the girls go on birth control. Some states simply do not allow this and have to call their parents for this. Sometimes I don't get this world.

 

[xav0989]

The problem is that legally, you are not allowed to procreate, or have sex, under the age of 16 (or 14, depending on where you leave). Laws would be a bit stupid if they allowed teens younger than that to get the pill or any other contraceptive. Also, the pill pretty much messes up your hormonal system, so you need to know what you are doing. But I do agree that the fact that they call the parents is pretty weird. I personally don't necessarily want my parents to know what I am doing at parties.

 

[phazzedout]

The problem is that legally, you are not allowed to procreate, or have sex, under the age of 16 (or 14, depending on where you leave). Laws would be a bit stupid if they allowed teens younger than that to get the pill or any other contraceptive. Also, the pill pretty much messes up your hormonal system, so you need to know what you are doing. But I do agree that the fact that they call the parents is pretty weird. I personally don't necessarily want my parents to know what I am doing at parties.

Well you have to consider that even if it is illegal, you can not ignore that they will still have sex. Also it may be illegal but it is not enforced. So now imagine if people at the age of 17 can not get birth control, ta-da you have a whole bunch of unwanted babies. I don't know about you but I wouldn't want to be born in a world with no one to love me. The pill is not that bad, I would suggest using the NuvaRing or Mirena though. They work fine and don't do much damage to you (if your immune system is strong). I am not saying that I am willing to risk my girlfriend's health just to not get her pregnant. I honestly would love a male birth control. I have heard of a shot that is showing promise. I wouldn't mind that.

 

[fractalfeline]

<devilsadvocate>
Why on earth would people want to outlaw contraceptives for young teens? Do they believe that disallowing access to birth control will keep young teens from having sex?

Case in point: what's wrong with young teens having sex? Why would a parent want their legislature to pass laws limiting the amount of sex a young teen can have? Why would a parent think that limiting birth control for teens under 14-16 would be effective in reducing the amount of sex the teen can have?
</devilsadvocate>
Just to get the juices flowing.

 

[tcmstr134]

Before I begin, one must know that I am 16. I live through today's society in a big city, right in the heart of it. My school is composed of mainly minorities, and most students are coming from the "bad" neighborhoods in the city. If you wanna talk about peer pressure to do illegal activities,these are the front lines. Sure, In school we may be safe, but you wouldn't believe the stuff I've seen freshmen do just a block away.


Let me share a quick story with you all.

I have a friend. Lets call her Jane. Jane and her boyfriend (we'll call him Jake), have been going out for almost 2 calendar years. They're both 17. Anyways, they spend time at each other's houses all the time, and their parents are okay with that, and know about it. From what I've gathered heres what happened:
They were horny. They had no condom, and she can't get the pill (I won't even get into that argument, I'll get to that later). They decided that they were going to have sex anyways. They had the same old thought of "If shes on top, gravity will pull the sperm down, and she wont be pregnant." So, Murphy's law happened. She got pregnant. The day she found out, she went to a clinic to try and get an abortion. But Illinois' new law just came into effect, and is now requiring parental notification. She doesn't want to tell her mother (her father is out of the picture) as she is scared of what her mother may do. Shes currently unsure of what to do, and he's left her for another girl.

Stepping back from the story:
1 - The lack of knowledge about the subject is astonishing. Yes, they may be 17 years old, but the school teaches abstinence. They wont even mention the word sex, unless its in a context of "Don't do it". Why aren't our schools teaching REAL sex ed, not this fake abstinence stuff? For crying out loud, we had THREE freshman mothers my freshman year. We have a class size of 150. Thats ONE THIRD of our class, including males.
2 - The fact that she, taking full responsibility tried to get an abortion, and couldn't get one without parental consent is troubling to me. She has taken full responsibility, and can't decide her own future? Shes a YEAR (technically 7 months, but whatever) from being able to make that decision anyways. Why can't our government see the problem?

Anyways, if this made no sense, I'm sorry, its almost 1am and im supposed to be writing an essay. I'll elaborate more later today..

 

[phazzedout]

@tcmstr I agree with your perfectly, some people will walk around saying, why allow letting them have condoms and other things at their disposal, they shouldn't be doing it anyways.

That wouldn't make sense in anyone's head. Such as some of the stores here in our city, have new rules that people under 18 can not buy condoms. I mean.... Really?! So I gathered some people from my college and just spent a whole day in front of stores passing out condoms.

Every time we have friend we ask them, do you have condoms. If they say no and have been sexually active we usually slap them around, then we give them 100 condoms.

Really most of these people's argument does not even make sense. It is like saying, The guy that ran the kid over should not be blamed for anything since the kid shouldn't of been on the street anyway.

 

[fractalfeline]

@tcmstr I agree with your perfectly, some people will walk around saying, why allow letting them have condoms and other things at their disposal, they shouldn't be doing it anyways.

That wouldn't make sense in anyone's head. Such as some of the stores here in our city, have new rules that people under 18 can not buy condoms. I mean.... Really?! So I gathered some people from my college and just spent a whole day in front of stores passing out condoms.

Every time we have friend we ask them, do you have condoms. If they say no and have been sexually active we usually slap them around, then we give them 100 condoms.

Really most of these people's argument does not even make sense. It is like saying, The guy that ran the kid over should not be blamed for anything since the kid shouldn't of been on the street anyway.

I agree with you and tcmstr. Teens, as soon as they hit puberty, have the equipment and drive to have sex. They are, technically, biologically, adults. You don't see biologists classifying animals on the basis of whether the pride of lions allows the "cub" to start participating in adult activities; they are classified by whether they are able to reproduce. Pretty easy in the biological world, but here in the human world, you aren't adult until you're what, 18? Kinda arbitrary, considering most teens are fully done with puberty by time they're 16, and have fully grown brains by time they are 12.

"Mommy, why shouldn't I have sex?"
-- "Because."
"Because why?"
-- "Because I said so!"

You can get away with a conversation in that format when the kid is 6, but it doesn't quite work with a 15 year old.

Essentially, most teens are fully capable of making their own decisions about whether they want to have sex or not, and many times, the decision comes down to how strong their drive is at the time. Surely, if they knew what their options were, and what the consequences were, they could be capable of making a rational decision, yes?

So back to the question: Why do the laws, lawmakers, parents, and the like, continue to teach abstinence only, and disallow birth control and other reproductive rights to teens? Is there another factor here we aren't accounting for?

 

[descalzo]

Don't do any thing that will probably lead to pregnancy unless you are willing to have the child.

Don't have a child unless you are willing to care and support the child.

Other than that, anything goes between truely consenting "adults".

 

[phazzedout]

@descalzo Well that is all great but that never happens in real life. People will always have sex.

@frac The reason laws like these pass is religious influence and sheer ignorance of the people. You can not ignore that fact.

 

[fractalfeline]

@descalzo Well that is all great but that never happens in real life. People will always have sex.

@frac The reason laws like these pass is religious influence and sheer ignorance of the people. You can not ignore that fact.

@ descalzo
Aye, that's common sense if I ever heard it! Alas sense is not as common as we'd like it to be eh?

@ phazzedout
Yeah, people will have sex regardless of whether it's "safe" or "wise." Sadly there are always gonna be people who favor the short-term rewards despite the long-term consequences.

And yes, of course the religious influence and ignorance is a factor. I was hoping that we could flesh that out more.

 

[descalzo]

@descalzo Well that is all great but that never happens in real life. People will always have sex.

It happens all the time. It's called contraception. And, as a last resort, abortion.

 

[fractalfeline]

It happens all the time. It's called contraception. And, as a last resort, abortion.

<devilsadvocate>
But, wouldn't an attitude like that tend towards a certain moral degradation with regards to sexual habits and ethics? Wouldn't people be encouraged to engage in more sex, more often, with the consequent degradation in the value of human relations with each other? Would not sex be devalued, seen as a mere sport, rather than the emotionally binding experience that it truly is, or should be? Also, would not such a flippant attitude towards abortion lead to a sort of moral degradation towards the true value of life? What about the fetus' right to live, vs. the mother's right to make decisions about the quality and direction of her own life? For all you know, that fetus may have had a destiny to become the next Einstein, or the next Gandhi.
</devilsadvocate>

No offense to you descalzo, just trying to cover all bases here.

I'm just wondering where the pro-lifers are... ?

 

[1.supermind]

The most "advanced" animals known to us, humans, which are being characterised by superior intelligence, are making simple things more and more complicated. Other animals do not have any ethical (what is right and what is wrong) or any other problem in dealing with the basic propensities of eating, sleeping, mating and security. They do not have to go to school to learn how to eat nicely, how to sleep nicely, how to mate nicely and how to defend nicely. Still they are doing it very expertly, rightly and naturally to the extent that most people may sometimes feel ashamed in front of them. If we are to compare with animals in expertise on these four things, animals are and will continue to be millions of miles ahead of us. Still we are wasting so much time (school), energy (job), money (politics) and intelligence (scientists) to make improvement, advancement, progression, or whatever we may call it, in the abovementioned animalistic proclivities, forgetting the real purpose of human life - to understand, by our superior intelligence and little endeavour, who we are, what is this world, why we are unwillingly being born, becoming sick, old and finally faced with death - and how to solve these problems.

So, am I right or wrong?

Please forgive me for any offense I may have committed against anyone of you!

 

[phazzedout]

@1.supermind
No.

We are not any regular animal, we are THE animal. We are at the top of the food chain but not only are we at the top but we can manipulate the food chain the way we want it to be. If a human killing virus that threatens to destroy humanity runs around the globe we can find ways to get rid of it.

As for making things complicated, I have yet to see two dogs not going through their mating ritual. Just get two opposite sex dogs, you will see that they do some sort of "dance" and if the female dog does not like the guy then she attacks him away.

We have this in our society as well, have you ever wondered why most women seek love while men just seek sex. Woman have to get wooed to getting sex, while men are easy to give it up. Simple facts of life

Also what you are saying is that we live a primitive existence, which some people do and more power to them but we have come a long way and going back is not an option. Even so primitive cultures also have a mating ritual that is "complicated".

Sex is not easy, to teenagers it looks as it is.

 

[1.supermind]

I'm very pleased to discuss about this subject because it forms the basis of our existence. No one of us would have ever been born if some reproduction activity didn't take place among some of the involving agents ... we could and should think about it a lot ... This topic is about reproductive ethics, so I would also like to share my thoughts with you, because I consider it very important for our understanding of proper utilization of our lives. I do not intend to stress on my viewpoint, indeed I acknowledge everyone's contribution in this matter, for as long as it is having a good intention.

With regard to the last post by phazzedout, although he missed the basic point given in by my message, which is how to make proper use of human life, still he has given expert and factual thoughts about common nature in male and female relationships among different species of life. Yes, sex life is not easy. It is even more complicated then we may have been thought about. It is and most probably will continue to be the greatest mystery of the universe. But to the some extent, more or less, we can share our realizations about it. There is so much we can tell, if we are a little bit thoughtful. And that is where human intelligence comes in advance to other forms of life. Not how to live a more proficient animalistic life, but how to understand what is animalistic and what is nonanimalistic life, and what really makes humans different from animals. How to understand and live a human life is the main point of this discussion.

So, as I've already mentioned, I would like to share my thoughts with you, considering this topic the most important subject matter for the well being and happiness of all past, present and future generations in our society.

Also, apart from this discussion, I have an idea of creating a separate web site to promote the progress of present human thought, by involving a huge number of sincere participants of every kind to share, help and cooperate in every respect to make forward steps in human development.

And, that is all from me for now. If anyone gives me a positive response, I would be more encouraged to continue on with carrying out this vision. And one important thing - this task is very demanding and personal, or, more personal and patient we are, the more successful would it be. It is up to us what we want. Thank you for dedicating your time.

 

[xav0989]

I believe that there are two types of sex. The pleasure one and the reproductive one. After reading the posts here, getting some info, and thinking quite a lot about it, here is my thoughts about it.

The pleasure sex is the sex that people get just for fun, not to have kids. It could be with a partner, with many partners, or whoever knows. In this sex, there is no, I believe, emotional aspect. The two parties simple do the act for the reward that nature has brought to it, orgasm. Rape is included in this category, since the rapist wants the reward, even though he disregards his partner.
The reproductive sex is the sex that people have when they want kids, and always has an emotional aspect to it. This sex is present, but is less in view in the society we are in.

Men are hardwired to have sex with as much partners (like animals with herds), to ensure that they will have many descendant. Women, on the other side, seek a single partner (like animals mated for life).

It is a bit disorganized, but I am tired right now.

 

[mdailey]

Hi, I'm a Christian man. And I think I may be the first person to share a religious view on these topics. I stand behind everything I say and I'm willing to talk about these things with anyone privately via email, etc.

Let me first say that we cannot just talk about morals and sexuality--we have to have a foundation. Here it is: Either we were created by a God or we weren't. This foundational belief will determine how we view the issue of abortion, sexuality, morality, and everything else.

If there is no God, then nothing is "right." And at the same time then, everything is "right." I guess whether something is right or not would depend on the outcome--whether it feels good or is profitable. So then, sex would be OK, along with abortion and bestiality and whatever else, because it feels good and doesn't hurt anybody else. Also, no one can say what's wrong because there's no basis for wrong. One could only say that something harms people or is destructive, and therefore bad, but not wrong. The term "wrong" implies morality, and there is no morality if there is no God. But this is not what I will argue.

I say that God was our creator, and that God has told us how to live. I know that some of the people who read this do not believe that a God exists, but I say it just the same. If God exists, he exists whether people believed in him or not.

Here is my view on these things. Since God was the one who created us, he knows the best way for us to live. In fact, he created a way for us to live, and we should live that way. And God spoke through the prophets of the Old Testament of the Bible, telling us how to live. See a list of the OT laws. Now some of these laws have harsh punishments, but the commands themselves show what's right. And so basically God laid down guidelines for living. Let me explain the area of sexuality.

God created certain systems of life: family, government, marriage, and so on. And we should live according to these models. For example, God created marriage to join one man and one woman for life. Anything different from this is not what God designed us to do. For marriage, God created sex. Outside of marriage, sex has bad consequences. Inside marriage, as God intended it, sex has no bad consequences. If someone has sex with anyone else besides the one they're married to, that's called adultery, and it it forbidden in the OT law. Breaking this law essentially breaks marriage. And Jesus said, "What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" (Mark 10:9).

My main idea is that "God has joined together." God has created systems of living--models of life--for us to live by. These include: no sex before marriage, marriage between one man and one woman, no divorce, and having kids. If we fail to live by these models, then we err and we reap the consequences.

Galatians 6:7 - Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

Now i know that every human on this planet has come short of this perfection in some way. Maybe some of you are struggling with sin or the effects of sin--living lives that aren't good. But there is hope for a new life and freedom from sin. Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:34). Jesus can free anyone from their sins, no matter how big the sin. And that's not all: he grants you the opportunity to become a son of God. You see, Jesus died bearing the guilt and punishment for the sins of all humankind. But God raised him from the dead. And he extends the gift of a good righteous life, and truth, and eternal life to everyone who believes in him.

Thanks for reading all of this. As I said, I'm willing to talk with anyone who has questions about what I've said.

- Matthias