Female. male or embryo rights?

SD on 7/3/2006 at 22:01

Okay, hypothetical situation.

A woman becomes pregnant the natural way but has to have the foetus removed early in the pregnancy due to emergency medical treatment.

After receiving the treatment, which renders her eggs infertile, she wishes to continue with the pregnancy, but is opposed by the father, with whom she has broken up.

What do we do then?

Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky

you're just being a twat and you're impervious to logic, so what's the fucking point in joining in the chorus of people trying to explain that to you?

Psst - the judges voted 5-2. That means two of them agreed with me that the pregnancy ought to be allowed to continue. Let me guess - they were twats who were impervious to logic too?

Myoldnamebroke on 7/3/2006 at 22:17

Quote Posted by Strontium Dog

all I want is a change in the law to prevent this situation happening again.

Actually, you're asking for a change in the law so that if this happens again, it is decided in the way you want. This was my point earlier: the law already exists and is reasonably well defined. It's not a question of tightening legislation to prevent court cases, it's a question of changing the legislation so when the cases do happen they're resolved differently.

Quote:

I do think it's appalling that a man is able to withdraw his consent after a woman has put all her eggs in his basket, and I think the law should make allowances for that. I don't think that is at all contentious, and I think some people in this thread are just arguing for the sake of it.

This is an interesting flipside to the abortion argument. There are those that think on a level of personal ethics, having an abortion for reasons other than health is appalling. However, that doesn't stop the fact that it's still their decision to make, and while one may condemn their decision they shouldn't legislate to prevent it.

Away from abortion: you can't legislate for people being jerks.

I would still like to know if the chap concerned actually consented to having a child, or if he consented to have embryos created so that they could have kids in the future. Having the embryos created is medically more sensible than preserving eggs, apparently, so having them created isn't the same as wanting kids there and then.

An interesting test case would be: a couple have embryos created and then split up. The bloke then meets another infertile woman, who has no stored embryos. They want to have a child, and want to use the stored embryos. What if the bloke just wants a child and has the embryos grown into children with SCIENCE instead of in a womb?

It's made more complicated by the fact that the man will still be held legally responsible for the child. I assume that you can't sign a contract in contradiction to the law and expect it to hold under challenge?

There's also a question of having 'rights'. The woman is phrasing it as a question of having a 'right to a family', and she just wants the same rights as other women. The bloke is saying he has a right not to have starting a family inflicted on him. Well, he certainly doesn't have that right. Otherwise he'd have a right to force an abortion on someone he knocked up. Other women don't have a right to get pregnant, they have the ability to get pregnant. But is that consistent with NHS treatment for infertile couples?

Rug Burn Junky on 7/3/2006 at 22:39

Quote Posted by Strontium Dog

Psst - the judges voted 5-2. That means two of them agreed with me that the pregnancy ought to be allowed to continue. Let me guess - they were twats who were impervious to logic too?

I guarantee that the basis for dissenting opinion written by those judges has little, if anything in common with the outlandish shit that you're spewing.

Scots Taffer on 7/3/2006 at 22:40

I could be guessing wrong and I'm not circumventing 3 pages of hilarity, but I'd just like to say that this isn't the most fucked up case in this respect - I've actually heard of a case where the guy was dead and she later had pre-fertilised embryos re-inserted.

"Who's my dad?"
"Your dad's dead, hon."
"When did he die, Mummy?"
"August 2000, dear."
"Mummy?"
"Yes?"
"Does that make a zombie child since I was born in 2002?"

SD on 7/3/2006 at 22:43

Quote Posted by Myoldnamebroke

Actually, you're asking for a change in the law so that if this happens again, it is decided in the way you want.

No, I just want a law that enables one person to not be subject to another person's petty whim. The man would still be able to opt out before the event of fertilisation, and give the woman the free choice of an anonymous donor. He doesn't have to father a child with her and she doesn't have to worry about whether she will be permitted to have children. Everyone knows where they stand and nobody loses.

Quote:

I would still like to know if the chap concerned actually consented to having a child, or if he consented to have embryos created so that they could have kids in the future. Having the embryos created is medically more sensible than preserving eggs, apparently, so having them created isn't the same as wanting kids there and then.

One might well wonder why he volunteered his sperm in place of an anonymous donor in the first place. His actions have essentially robbed this woman of the chance to have children.

Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky

I guarantee that the basis for dissenting opinion written by those judges has little, if anything in common with the outlandish shit that you're spewing.

It was simply that they believed her right to a family life (under European law as part of the European Human Rights Act) outweighed his right to veto the use of the embryos (under British law). So, pretty much the same opinion as me, all things told.

Quote Posted by Scots_Taffer

Nothing fucked up about that because (a) he was dead and so couldn't withdraw consent and (b) as his wife and next of kin, she legally inherited all his property - including shared embryos.

Printer's Devil on 7/3/2006 at 22:44

Quote Posted by Gingerbread Man

Am I going to merge this thread with the other one? Tune in later to find out.

I'm afraid doing that might cause a rift in the space/time continuum, where all the possible arguments concerning reproductive rights would fuse into a superargument. As we all know, superarguments blaze hotter than a thousand forums, which could conceivably (pun intended? you be the judge!) MELT THE INTERNET!

Scots Taffer on 7/3/2006 at 22:46

Quote Posted by Strontium Dog

The difference is marginal.

Isn't there a rather large difference between:

yeah, that's the crazy bitch who I broke up with

and

yeah, that's the crazy bitch who I broke up with that later had kids of mine (how many? she could feasibly have five or six if the eggs are there) <strike>and then the bitch made me give child support to kids that she had after the fact (perhaps even out of spite!)</strike>

Rug Burn Junky on 7/3/2006 at 23:05

Quote Posted by Strontium Dog

So, pretty much the same opinion as me, all things told.

I don't suppose you've actually read the dissenting opinion, and I highly doubt you even come close to understanding it, but even assuming both of those as true: to then insist that they have "pretty much the same opinion as [you do]" means that you are simply dumber than we've all thought all along.

SD on 7/3/2006 at 23:13

Right. Well (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1416864#post1416864) this is the pertinent post.

Me: "The mother has far more to lose by the pregnancy not being allowed to proceed than the father has to gain".

The two dissenting voices on the ECHR: "The mother's right to proceed with the pregnancy outweighs the father's right to veto it".

If you'd like to point out where those two statements contradict, rather than just insulting and trolling your way through the thread, that would be awesome :).

Rug Burn Junky on 7/3/2006 at 23:31

Oh fucking christ. You have a whole thread of your usually twattery, and a seven page dissenting opinion, and the mere fact that you can pick out one sentence that is similar in each does not mean that taken in sum, you have anywhere near the same argument overall.

Like I said: impervious to logic.

Read (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/07_03_06_echr.pdf) the conclusion. Really, it's not that hard, they even put the relevant parts in bold.

First of all, they're basically saying "Yeah, the majority is probably right, except we'd make an exception in this case because of the totality of the circumstances" Which is A) not what you've been arguing, and B) a chickenshit way of writing an opinion to begin with.

Now run along and stop being a fucktard.