@ fulhamish: "In the context of the empowerment of women, however, I do find it surprising that a process which actually tips the balances of the sexes the male way does not raise more hackles with those on the pro-choice side of the debate."

What? In what way does supporting a woman's right to choice tip the balance the male way? Surely it does the opposite?

@Jamiet.......what...............

Ah yes I see now you have missed out the main context of my post - that was sex-selective abortion. Neat :-(

The danger of sex selective abortion... What if no one ever chooses to have a baby girl? All of a sudden we are littered with baby boys and in 40 years there are no more women to give birth to baby anythings and we die out.

@semck, no I don't think it's justified in that case, because a parent of a born child has obligations (legal and personal) to provide for that child which do not exist while still in the womb. Still, I take your point, which is undoubtedly, "well how is THAT distinction not arbitrary?" I'm not sure how to best answer it. I can only say that somehow, the sum total of the reasons becomes more important than "never kill." I think you'd be hard pressed to present a scenario where all of the same factors exist with a 3 year old child. Which brings us back to...

I really need you to address my soldier point. If you can show why making an exception to the "no killing" rule is not arbitrary in that case, but is arbitrary in my case, then I think you will have made the important point. If you cannot, you only show that there exists an arbitrary hierarchy in any morality, which I have acknowledged from the start.

To your husband vs wife argument, I think my response to cyrus adequately addresses that already. Men can kill adult women, women can kill adult men, but only women can give birth. Men are not equipped to fully understand the reality of the situation. We are not the peers of women in this case.

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@fullhamish I too, was surprised how close it was, actually. But a 13 point spread is hardly "nothing." I would love to see these stats in a 1st world nation where abortion is not a key issue - you know, everywhere but US, UK and AU.

Perhaps I should have said "men are not fully equpped to *appreciate* the reality. I think we can understand it.

" because a parent of a born child has obligations (legal and personal) to provide for that child which do not exist while still in the womb. "

Actually, their only obligation is to turn them over to the state if they don't want them.

Which is not an option while in utero.

And also not an option while trapped in a cabin :)

Sorry, Fulhamish, I misunderstood you in amongst all the talk about whisky and ssorenn's personal attacks on me. I apologise.

Actually, to a degree, it is. The woman could volunteer to be put in a medical coma until her child is mature enough to be removed and incubated. And with viability being as early as 21 weeks now, that fits right in with where many right to life folks feel life truly begins (I'm not talking the conception nutters). Hell, give science more time and I bet they can get it down to before the end of the first trimester.

No problem jamiet. probably my fault for not being clearer.

@Draug: actually, I don't see any reason they won't be able to do the whole thing from a test tube. Probably within my lifetime.

I wish I could say that would satisfy both sides, but somehow I doubt it :)

But test tube from start to finish might be difficult. We'd need incubators big enough to hold the baby. No, I expect we will likely see the ability to transplant a very young embryo (say 3-6 weeks) from one mother to a surrogate first.

And test tube start to finish (or artificial womb after the fertilization) sort of still doesn't solve the problem. They need a way to remove a recently fertilized ovum to solve the issue as people wills till have sex and the test tube eliminates the sex.

Oh absolutely, it won't happen overnight, there will definitely be steps along the way.

I'm pretty sure people will still have sex even after all babies are grown in "test tubes." The point is that a woman can now say, "oh shit, I'm pregnant, I don't want a kid, lets go in for this simple extraction and let the state take care of it. Everybody wins!"

Because the conservatives will, of course, be happy to allow the state to accept this burden, since abortion will be illegal and they've removed her right to choose for herself.

But she is making a choice. A choice to keep the baby or not. Just because you'd rather she have the choice to kill the baby doesn't mean eliminating that eliminates all choice at that point.

And it isn't a conservative liberal difference. It is more of a religious fundie versus agnostic humanist difference. I know plenty of liberals who are right to lifers because they are religious people and plenty of conservatives who are right to choose people.

Probably true on both counts.

I would be perfectly happy with whole surrogacy thing. You don't want your baby, even in utero, you can give it to the state, where it will finish the incubation process. Why wouldn't that satisfy everyone?

It should, but we need to be able to collect and transplant embryos. Medicine isn't quite there yet.

@kingcyrus: because conservatives will ask, "Why should the taxpayer have to foot the bill?"

lol sorry Draug I'm not trying to turn it into a political discussion, honest!

Well, that is what the extreme conservatives will ask. And the simple answer is "they won't". People who adopt cover medical bills all the time. Why do you think adoptions are more expensive than having a baby?

I hope you're right :)

It's how it currently is. Adoption isn't free, especially of a baby. There are the legal costs and, in the case of babies, usually the mother and child's medical bills. So, if surrogacy and embryonic transfer become a reality, I'm sure the cost of the procedures will be built into the adoption process.

What about the ones who don't get adopted? I really don't know how it works.

There are *very* few babies don't get adopted. More demand than supply in that market. So if we can get an artificial uterus working, there shouldn't be any issues at all.

Everybody seems to think that, but I did some looking and it's not easy to find exact answers. About a third of them are placed in foster care, of which only 20% are adopted. I'm not sure though if that includes all foster care, or just of infants. Either way, it does seem that a healthy child generally has a good chance.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/adoption-statistics/

Probably affected by age, but even so, if 33% go to foster care and 20% of this get adopted, then 26% percent aren't or roughly 3/4ths of all foster kids are adopted where as 100% of all aborted kids are dead.

I prefer them that way.