Metal Reviews

The fuck?



Rio, you're the nutter here. You completely ignored my points that the parents are doing it for the taboid money, and focused on the 'evil government' part. According to you, there is no difference whatsoever between single, adult parents having children, and <16s having them, because some adults aren't capable of looking after their children? Because some adults actively abuse their children, this is an argument for allowing births to happen that young? Those kids are not capable of looking after a baby on their own. The adult in question has made a choice to abuse, but is otherwise capable. That's the goddamn difference.

I disagree that babies are recognised universally as a source of great happiness, because it's rubbish. According to society's 'norms', babies are happiness incarnate, but that's clearly often not the case, and the act of having a baby is partially destructive.

And I'm calling them scum, for the umpteenth fucking time, because they're using a situation like this to get money from the papers, not because of pre-teen sex. Wealthy? Suffering of others?

Yes, obviously sex ed needs to be better, but when large parts of the most powerful country in the world doesn't like it, then alternative arrangements need to be found, no?

Apologies for losing my temper there, my reflux has been nasty all morning.

Charles, how you ever got Best Debater is beyond me. You're more focused on calling me a nutter than bringing up things like this, which would have stopped the argument ages ago!

No, you aren't calling them scum solely because of the papers. If you were, you wouldn't have gone on at quite such lengths about how they would never amount to anything, you wouldn't have used phrases like "shitting out babies", you wouldn't have made judgements on the (grand)father based on him being out of work (as reported in the same tabloids that you think they are "scum" for getting involved with), you wouldn't have referred to "that Palin daughter bitch", you wouldn't have asked repeatedly why she should have the right to keep her baby, as if you were some tough guy who would actually be prepared to take it away from her rather than just talking about it from the safety of your ivory tower. You're relying on good old fashioned tabloid bashing to cover up for the fact that you have made yourself look like a misogynist twat, at the end of the day. I guess you think my lack of patience for the Sun will make me forget my lack of patience for such twattery as "mandatory abortion". (Oh sorry, I forgot it was "obvious that you weren't serious" )

Now, if you think that the only reason babies are celebrated in pretty much every culture known to man is because of "societal norms", then you probably need to get out more. And I say that as a matter of some urgency. I have suspected in the past that you don't quite live in the same world as the rest of us and this goes some way to confirming that.

You still have no idea about the case except from what you have read in the Sun. And yet, the source you're basing your judgements on, is the same source that you seem to think associating with makes them "scum". But lo and behold, you still fall hook line and sinker for exactly the same elementary demonology. ("ooh look how expensive the dole scum's house is")Then there was some Guardian article in there, but then we have known for a long time that that paper is not above peering vicariously from behind the curtain at poor people doing poor people things, like having sex young. Even in the story you refer to initially, it says that the baby will be looked after in large parts by the grandparents, so the whole thing about them not being able to look after it alone is leading you down a bit of a blind alley. Very few people, let alone teenagers, bring up kids alone; there is often a continuous stream of granparents, aunts/uncles etc. crowding around to help.

Ultimately, my problem is that you seem to think you have the right to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her own body, which as I said before pretty much makes a mockery of the whole concept of being "pro-choice". And I fully intend to remind you of this hypocrisy whenever you get on your high horse about those abortion-hating evangelical christians in the future. All you have; literally all you have, is some peripheral craziness about how they are selling their story to the Sun, and the slightly more substantial point that kids can't really look after kids. But then, nobody ever disagreed with you on that, did they? The problem arises when you react to an extremely complex problem in such a terrifyingly totalitarian, judgemental and, most fundamentally, completely inhumane way.

lol now I have lost my temper at you.

Although to be honest, debating really doesn't come into it. If you can actually find anybody at all at work or in the street who doesn't react to the idea of "mandatory abortion" by calling you a nutter or worse, I will eat my hat.

I should have stressed that I meant normal people in the real world rather than FS.... anyway he seemed to change his mind pretty quick

It's not a woman's body, it's a teenage girl's. Now, if governments can make drinking alcohol and taking drugs and smoking illegal, why can't they make childbirth illegal since it's equally unsuitable, is my basic point, which seems to have got lost somewhere. You are overreacting hysterically to this. Nutter, not in the same world, wow. Remind me never to suggest that you look at something from another viewpoint.

Haha, yes. Good old Fridge.

That's the reason I think her parents (or legal tutors) are the ones that have to take the decision (listening to her, of course).

Call me cynical, and feel free to bash me, but let them suffer the fucking consecuenses. I don't necessarily mean that this should happen in every case (rape, incest etc). Offer them the help they can get from various institutions, governments etc, and let them take responsibility for their own carelessness

It is illegal for under 16s to buy cigs/alcohol and consume them in public places, but then it's also illegal to solicit sex from under 16s, and its certainly illegal to do that in a public place.

BUT, everyone recognises that if the kids smokle or drink in private then ultimately there is very little that can be done to prevent it. Or what, we actually would have to do to prevent it would entail such a gross invasion of privacy that the wrongs committed in the process would outweigh the kids smoking or drinking in the first place. (i.e. the police turning up with warrants on people's doorstep demanding entrance immediately to their children's bedrooms to check there's no booze in there??) It's exactly the same with underage sex.

Now let's be perfectly honest here. This:



is a bit of a porky pie, right? The only thing I reacted to "hysterically" was the idea of mandatory abortions. Had you just said "why can't we make childbirth illegal in the same way we do smoking and drinking for under 16s", then I probably would have queried in a gently mocking manner how you would intend to implement such a thing. But you went a teensy weensy bit further than that, didn't you? And, tbh, this:



is genuinely quite disturbing to me. It's not ok to force a woman through an uneccessary and potentially extremely traumatic medical procedure which in some cases might actually require them to give birth to a corpse, but it's perfectly justifiable to force a teenager to? This is what I am getting at with my "real world" comments. Do you have any younger sisters you can imagine being put through this? If so, does it seem more or less appaling than if it were a grown woman?

Fair enough; I never said that it would be easy, just suggested that it might be better. Giving a sort of vaccine a la MMR that would act as a birth control device? Of course, teen sex would probably go up as a result, which I honestly have no problem with, despite what you seem to think - never wanted to stop them having sex altogether. The 'mandatory abortion' thing is admittedly horrific, as is abortion, frankly, but it does happen.



Ah, I didn't mean it like that - I meant that the debate is over a child's body, and as such it might not be best left to the child herself.

You do seem a bit, erm, what's the word... funny about abortion. "Unnecessary"? "Potentially extremely traumatic"? If it happens early and is done by a professional there are very few health risks. The studies linking abortions to mental health are very inconclusive, and yes, late-trimester abortions do involve killing a baby more or less, but most - hell, the vast, vast majority of them are done for a pretty good reason - to save the mother's life, for example. They are illegal in other cases, of course.

Addressing the bit you added: I do have a 12-year old sister, and whilst hopefully the situation will never arise, I'd encourage her to have an early abortion rather than having a child at least until her 18th birthday if not further, yes. Heck, she's intelligent, hopefully she'd use protection - remember the community we live in.

Well, but the debate isn't REALLY over a child's body, though, it is over a teenager's. Leaving the boy aside, the girl in this case is 15. There are, I am reliably informed, medical precedents stating that a child of 14 should be allowed to refuse treatment for a fatal illness, provided that doctors are satisfied that child is of sound mind. The category of teenagers is extremely grey. Someone in your category of "child" could literally only be a couple of hours away from being able to do all these things legally anyway.

Actual, real, children, such as showmasters' 12 year old, getting pregnant are extremely rare (hence the media fuss), but in those cases sure, there is more weight to the interference argument. Of course, the decision on a termination should be in the hands of parents as well as the kid's GP and specialists, rather than the government. The very principle of the state getting involved in these types of decisions in a coercive manner is pretty abhorrent to me. In fact, the idea of NOT treating every single case as a unique individual one requiring different paths of action is abhorrent.

I am certainly "funny" about the idea of late-term abortions... Seriously, who isn't? This is certainly not to say I am against them happening. But it is to say that the idea of shepherding people towards them supposedly for their own good seems kind of immoral. But indeed this is different for earlier ones.

That paragraph resumes my thoughts about it.

Oh, certainly.

Upon being criticized for changing his mind on a debate, Keynes responded with "When I discover that I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?"

^Keynes was amazing at responding to nay-sayers.

@Zad: I just don't think you understand the fact that this girl probably had little sexual education, too poor to buy "frivolous" (the quotes represent her view as a lower class individual) birth control, and probably parents who were too busy distracted either by raising their own kids that they had due to the aforementioned reasons or working multiple jobs. In those kinds of situations, the oldest child which I believe was her usually have to fend for themselves. I'm generalizing with a lot of this so it may not apply to that girl specifically.

As for the tabloid money, did you ever think about how broke you have to be in order to sell the story of your accidental childbirth? Then add how marginalized she is and how she sees the tabloid opportunity probably has a way to get attention and make some money to help her family and her new baby.

As for the whole mass sterilization bit, that's just asking for the plight of Children of Men or The Handmaid's Tale to come about but if you're seriously considering it... By providing teens with birth control and letting them have sex rampantly, it is going to devalue sex and ultimately relationships. Social interaction based on sex is despicable but if that is really what you want. I'd compare it to binge drinking in teens but I don't feel like elaborating.

Then it also comes down to responsibility, education and resources, if you provide teens with an education and resources to get contraceptives then you have to expect them to be responsible enough to take care of themselves. Until you provide the material conditions, edu. and resources, then you can't condemn them for not doing what they should be responsible enough to do.

We should have just taken care of the whole situation with a pick-axe, right?

There's sex for the hell of it, and there's sex that is a form of intimacy with the person you love. It takes maturity to distinguish between the two, and some kids have to learn it. I don't think teens today are having any less sex then any other period, it's just that we're a lot more open about it.