Teen mothers enduring childbirth

My mother told me that teen mothers should suffer the pains of childbirth because it's their own fault for becoming pregnant in the first place. I found this comment of hers rude and insensitive of her, especially given the fact that she had her second child, me, when she was seventeen.

Any takers on this one?

At 9/30/2009 7:16:12 PM, TheOutspokenOne wrote:
My mother told me that teen mothers should suffer the pains of childbirth because it's their own fault for becoming pregnant in the first place. I found this comment of hers rude and insensitive of her, especially given the fact that she had her second child, me, when she was seventeen.

Any takers on this one?

I'm actually a little bit confused as to your exact meaning here, perhaps you could clarify.

Are you saying your mother told you every teenage girl should experience childbirth pains as a lesson for why they should not get pregnant, or are you saying your mother told you every teenage girl who gets pregnant should experience childbirth pain and not have an abortion as a cop out?

At 9/30/2009 7:18:45 PM, PervRat wrote:

At 9/30/2009 7:16:12 PM, TheOutspokenOne wrote:
My mother told me that teen mothers should suffer the pains of childbirth because it's their own fault for becoming pregnant in the first place. I found this comment of hers rude and insensitive of her, especially given the fact that she had her second child, me, when she was seventeen.

Any takers on this one?

I'm actually a little bit confused as to your exact meaning here, perhaps you could clarify.

Are you saying your mother told you every teenage girl should experience childbirth pains as a lesson for why they should not get pregnant, or are you saying your mother told you every teenage girl who gets pregnant should experience childbirth pain and not have an abortion as a cop out?

The latter.

I can see her point; if you're negligent enough to get pregnant, then it makes sense that you should suffer through the consequences.

But that doesn't necessarily make it right. Teens make stupid decisions - it is a given. And while it is important we face the consequences of our actions, it is also important that those actions don't bite off more than they can chew. A pregnancy doesn't only mean labour pains; it also means a huge deduction on any pay, a huge investment of time, a possibility of the loss of education, and many other things. The consequences are simply too great to inflict on what really is quite a small, fixable discrepancy.

Why was she focusing on teens? Shouldn't this view encompass all age groups? If anyone should be forced to endure unwanted pregnancies, it should be adults.

At 9/30/2009 7:24:54 PM, Volkov wrote:
I can see her point; if you're negligent enough to get pregnant, then it makes sense that you should suffer through the consequences.

But that doesn't necessarily make it right. Teens make stupid decisions - it is a given. And while it is important we face the consequences of our actions, it is also important that those actions don't bite off more than they can chew. A pregnancy doesn't only mean labour pains; it also means a huge deduction on any pay, a huge investment of time, a possibility of the loss of education, and many other things. The consequences are simply too great to inflict on what really is quite a small, fixable discrepancy.

And all that can be solved with one simple murder.

At 9/30/2009 7:30:44 PM, mongoose wrote:
And all that can be solved with one simple murder.

Pretty much. Though, I don't advocate murdering the teen. I mean, that is pretty wrong.

At 9/30/2009 7:19:42 PM, leet4A1 wrote:

Are you saying your mother told you every teenage girl should experience childbirth pains as a lesson for why they should not get pregnant, or are you saying your mother told you every teenage girl who gets pregnant should experience childbirth pain and not have an abortion as a cop out?

The latter.

In that case, I'm on your mother's side. I'm one of those extremist anti-abortionists. But I would caution you on a few things before presuming me to fit some profile of a vehement anti-abortionist:

I am atheist, I'm even a bit too anti-Christian, just look at some of my replies and posts to the Religion part.
I am a liberal, just check out my "Big Issues" section on my profile here. Aside from abortion, I'm pretty much a liberal down the line ... I consider my anti-abortion stance to be liberal as well, obviously I have an uncommon perspective.
Further, my late wife (she died in 2006) shared the exact same view as I did ... and not only was my wife a woman, but she was the victim of incestuous rape at the hands of her own father when she was 12. Her parents, whatever little say most people might give them given their vile abuse of their own daughter (her mom didn't participate, she was in another state at the time and she didn't know until several months later when it became clear her 12 year old daughter was pregnant), were vehement Christians (her father and rapist was and, to my knowledge, still is a praticing priest in suburban Texas) and vehement anti-abortionists ... so at 12 years old, she carried her father's child to term and gave birth. The daughter's baby, a girl, was given up to adoption.

My wife came to realize that real fathers don't rape their young daughters eventually, and she disowned her parents when she became though for her own reasons chose not to prosecute her father for that heinous act. She became an atheist but did retain vehement anti-abortionism, as I did. She did not regret having brought the baby to term and felt it was not the baby's fault for what her father did to her in creating that life.

I'm guessing your mom's pregnancies of you and your elder sibling were more normal teenage "whoopses" and not the result of incestuous pedophilic rape, as was the case of my wife's father upon her, so I don't expect it to really change your mind if you view you mother as being wrong.

I don't want to offend you, certainly, I know this is a very contentious issue. I'm 33 and have been in many debates. I would love to answer any questions you have, give you more details if you like, but I also don't want to push this issue on you too hard because I know this is a very personal issue. I have no aims to kill abortion doctors or kill people seeking abortions, despite my hard stance against abortion even in cases of rape and incest. I hope you can trust, as much of a stranger as I am, that I have no inkling to threaten you and that I am willing to just talk and reason (again, acknowledging neither you nor I could likely sway the other's stance) ... I leave that entirely up to you.

At 9/30/2009 7:35:01 PM, PervRat wrote:
3000 characters of stuff.

That didn't explain or really address anything, PervRat. It explained your situation and how you sort of came to believe what you believe, but none of the reasoning behind it.

Besides, you can be anti-abortion, but would you be pro-choice?

At 9/30/2009 7:48:36 PM, Volkov wrote:

At 9/30/2009 7:35:01 PM, PervRat wrote:
3000 characters of stuff.

That didn't explain or really address anything, PervRat. It explained your situation and how you sort of came to believe what you believe, but none of the reasoning behind it.

Besides, you can be anti-abortion, but would you be pro-choice?

"Any takers on this one?" was a rather vague question. I weighed in and answered I am opposed to abortion, and that my late wife was as well despite what she went through. It explained a bit that I'm not the typical "I'm a Christian and that's why I'm anti-abortion and that's the only reason I give." I offered TheOutspokenOne to ask more questions if she likes but did not feel like I should force any more details or explanations on her unless she wanted.

As for the latter question, that too is ambiguous. The one and only circumstance in which I would tolerate performing an abortion is triage -- where due to some bizarre circumstance, either the mother or the unborn child could be saved but not both. In all likelihood, the mother would have the better chance of survival since premature babies are not likely to be able to survive outside the womb (but it has been known to happen with technological assistance from an extremely young age, far more than most people realize ... IIRC, as young as 2 months into the pregnancy a fetus has survived outside of the womb with a hefty help from medical technology).

I consider abortion to be murder in all cases outside of triage. I do not believe any being, even a child's mother, has the right to take the life of another innocent being.