(no subject)

[cleolinda]

Quick clarification on the Virginia story: I read the whole spiel at Daily Kos, and apparently what they're trying to do is target women who abandon babies in dumpsters. The problem is that the PROPOSED LAW does not target them. It's like saying that if anyone, anywhere, dies for any reason (heart attack? well-documented terminal illness? old age?), it's got to be reported to the homicide squad. If they want to target baby-dumping, they need to DO THAT, rather than force every single woman who ever miscarries at any stage of gestation, anywhere, to account for herself. You know, with words like "abandoning" and "receptacles not intended for babies, such as dumpsters, or the occasional birdbath."

Also, I just got back from class, and the professor raffled off her "desk copies" of our texts by having us choose a number between 1 and 100. Guess who won a brand new copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin? WHEE.

Comments

[squirrelgirl22.livejournal.com]

Here in Chicago, people are allowed to drop off unwanted babies who are under 3 days old at any police station or fire house without retribution. Perhaps instead of a law banning baby dumping, VA should give mothers a place to drop off unwanted newborns. You know, something positive instead of negative?

[thoughtcr1me.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm not positive and I can't check from work but I think they already do have baby dumping laws on the books. Will update if you want.

[guinevere33.livejournal.com]

Hell, even ALABAMA (I <3 my state) has a law like that. People are allowed to leave babies that are 2 days old (??) or less at a hospital without any repercussions.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

*Alabama fist bop*

[elbiesee.livejournal.com]

Hey, Oklahoma has one of those. Doesn't specify age, just 'newborn baby'. After a rash of infants left in dumpsters, they finally did something about it.

Now if they'd teach birth control along with abstinence... but I'm asking too much, I'm sure...

[kosher-jenny.livejournal.com]

They don't quite catch on that the more you teach people about contraception and how to use it, the number of unwanted pregnancies will be lowered, and with it the number of abortions. But that's logic, which is of the devil.

[orange852.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if people have access to affordable, effective birth control, they can have sex without consequences.

Sex! For fun! :O

The end goal is that no one ever has sex with anyone other than their lawfully wedded, opposite-sex spouse, if and only if they are prepared to be parents. Not that there's any wrong with that, should it be one's cup of tea. But when anything else is just hedonistic and decadent and immoral and shameful, I for one have a problem with the concept.

It's also head-buried-in-sand impractical. People fornicate and commit adultery at times and in places when it means(meant) no-holds-barred, guaranteed, painful death. Women have and do terminate pregnancies even when the risks to their own lives far outweigh the possibility of surviving the procedure. As far as I know, outlawing this stuff has never, ever worked.

I wish people would take all that "thou shalt not" energy and apply it to making the world a place where unplanned pregnancy doesn't end life as women know it. One where a woman's identity and choices in life don't just disappear into "you're someone's mother now, you can't...you must...you should..."

I agree with the person who once told me that raising a child is the most important and meaningful thing a woman can take on, but I don't agree that taking it on should render every other endeavor prohibitively difficult, impossible or meaningless. As long as it does, women need to be in control of when or if it happens.

[kosher-jenny.livejournal.com]

California has such a law too. I'm not familiar of the specifics though, I'm just reminded that it exists by the yellow and black sign of a pair hands holding a baby that I see everytime I go visit the doctor.