Sacrificing Women at the Altar of Fetus Fetishism

201 thoughts on Sacrificing Women at the Altar of Fetus Fetishism

1. Ack! Spoiler!

   Having had a baby during prime cool movie season, I missed Pan’s Labrynth in theatres. Was it good?

   Anyhow, I find this scene fairly chilling.

   There we were in the bathroom with the home pregnancy test kit in hand reading positive for pregnancy and she gets all histerical, crying and raving on and on about how her life is now ruined and how she can’t go through with being pregnant, etc.. I told her it’s her choice, but if she kills my baby (has an abortion) that I would divorce her in a heartbeat and I would never speak to her again. I thank God that I was able to sway her foolish and immature, emotional and illogical thinking, and she decided not to kill our baby girl.

   I’d kind of like to hear his wife’s description of that conversation. It’s really creepy to hear someone devalue his wife so confidently.

2. That’s my thought. What about when “daddy’s little girl” gets a mind and a heart of her own and starts talking back/sneaking out/disagreeing with his opinions/becomes pro-choice? Will his love be so infinite then? Or is it only contingent on her being some kind of -reflection- of him?

   That’s so frightening. His poor wife.

3. whoa. just, whoa. im totally uncomfortable with this grown man rambling on and on and on about how he loves his daughter more than he could ever love his wife. even to compare the (paternal/maternal) love of your child with the (romantic/sexual) love of your spouse makes warning bells go off in my head. to talk about:

   “my baby is a part of me, she is my own blood, my offspring, she is genetically closer to me than my own wife. My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will.. the love between a daughter and father is, in my opinion, greater than between a husband and wife. Agree with me or not, that is my opinion.. and my baby girl is only 1 yr old. All she can say is “da da”, but I know she loves me and I love her infinitely so.. my wife, I love also infinitely so, but sometimes it’s rocky, sometimes it’s up and down and we aren’t always as close as we’d like to be, but I will always love my baby girl infinitely”

   makes me think of lines that shouldnt be crossed. it makes me see a potential for an incredibly innapropriate incestuous relationship. my father felt the same way about me, was obsessive in the same way, was raping me by the time i was 7. i have friends who are fathers, while they love their children very much, they would never sacrifice their wives/girlfriends health to have children, would never talk about the deeper love between father and daughter vs father and wife. becos its creepy and wrong. i certainly hope the mother in this case sleeps with one eye open.

4. I thank God that I was able to sway her foolish and immature, emotional and illogical thinking….
   In fact, if we did not have our baby (if my wife never got pregnant), I am pretty sure we would not still be married… having the baby has brought my wife and I closer in our marriage

   That freaks me out. How exactly did he “sway” her? Because I’m thinking that reasoned argument didn’t come in to it. Maybe the threat of divorce was enough, as he says. But then he says they were already on the rocks. And the idea that having a baby with this guy could ruin your life hardly seems like the epitome of illogic.
   And that second sentence could easily mean “my wife would have left me, but now I have a way to control her.” Given everything else he’s written, I think it probably does mean that.

   It makes your blood run cold, really.

5. Wow. It sure is a good thing the rational man was able to overcome that crazy bitch’s hysteria. Because bitches are crazy.

   She needs to kick his ass to the curb.

6. I find it infinitely sad that the only reason he thinks that he and his wife are together today is that they had a child together. And that his wife is somehow less precious to him because “it’s sometimes rocky”. I feel very, very sorry for that little girl the first time she talks back to him or doesn’t mind, or god(s) forbid, when she goes through normal adolescence where you question everything, including your parents. I get a very bad feeling about how he might be as a parent.

7. The picture from Pan’s Labyrinth is perfect, especially considering the regulation of sexuality under Franco. Remember the captain saying that his baby will be born in a “clean” Spain.

   The vision of Guillermo Del Toro encapsulates the horror of that man’s comment. Sometimes mere words just won’t do the job.

   And I’ve always found it interesting that the fascist states of the 1930s were intensely interested in regulating women’s sexuality. Clearly there is a tie between totalitarian states and how those who want to stay in power use the regulation of sexuality to maintain their power.

   Abortion was illegal in Spain until 1985. But due to the restriction of birth control, illegal abortions, were, of course, quite common. (for another even more extreme example of this, is, of course, Romania.)

8. I wonder what he’d say to the argument that fetuses are cheap, but adults are expensive? I’m going to be scurrilously capitalist running-dog here and advance a radical hypothesis: I do actually think the life of an adult is worth more than the life of a fetus, without even having to get into tedious metaphysics. It has nothing to do with potential, and everything to do with sink cost. For example, to get me to where I am today has required nineteen years of direct parental involvement, five high-priced surgeries, lots of medical intervention, eight years of primary education, five years of secondary education, and five years of postsecondary education; a great deal of occupational training, some social benefits assistance, and lots of other stuff like that. On the other hand, I’m productive, participate in civil society, and pay taxes, something a fetus won’t do for approximately sixteen to eighteen years after birth and still requires all that sink cost up front before starting to return the parental/societal investment.

   So his argument is that productive, functioning members of society who have already incurred all those social and monetary costs are less valuable than potential members of society who require all those costs to be advanced to them before they can start being productive and functional, and therefore if we the adults die in the service of making more of these potential societal members, that’s ok? I seeee…

   And I didn’t even have to call him a patriarchal scumbag to do it. But “Antiabortionist = anticapitalist” is an interesting, and possibly effective frame to use against them…

9. Killing a fetus with a heartbeat is murder, plain and simple. It should not be a choice any girl or woman can simply make without a very good reason (their own life is in danger). Even in the case of rape. Two wrongs don’t make a right. In fact, adding the killing of a baby (abortion) in addition to the horror of a raped woman only makes the overall tragedy even worse.

   What. A. Fucking. ASSHOLE.

   I’m sorry, aborting the product of rape makes the tragedy worse? For whom? Certainly not the woman, who, in most cases, would rather not spend nine months feeling and watching her body grow and change (and endure the dangers inherent in pregnancy) with her RAPIST’S baby.

   Getting your life back makes the baby Jeebus cry!

10. If he had to choose, he would choose an unborn fetus over his own wife. The end. That women needs to take away his power of attorney a-fucking-sap.

11. I couldn’t read all of that guy’s comments, but thank you for posting this insight into their minds.

    As a woman who quite recently suffered an early miscarriage, and had been trying to conceive her first child, I find it too upsetting to dwell much on his thoughts.

    What I miscarried wasn’t a person, it wasn’t a child, it wasn’t a baby. Sure it was the potential of life, and I’m very sad that it isn’t going to see fruition. But it wasn’t a life, and I wouldn’t have given mine to save it. I would expect my partner to have valued my life ahead of it too. Does that make us selfish? No, it makes us moral – to put a possible life (only possible, not actual) ahead of an actual, here right now, breathing, living, bleeding, life is wrong.

    I wonder how this man might feel when his daughter grows up, if his future son-in-law chose to kill his daughter to save a fetus. Actually he’d probably think that was ok too. But how would he feel if it was his son who was bearing a child, would he still choose the fetus then?

    (Sorry to write this anon, but I don’t really want to share about my health stuff with everyone under my usual handle)

12. Wow.
    The child is only one year old. He has no idea who she will turn out to be or what her personality will be like. I was going to say the very same thing that pachakuti said. Some day that girl will be able to speak back, will she then be less valuable? How can you ever know that you will love someone unconditionally?
    Bizarre.

13. That guy is unbelievably callous. And yeah, I’m with Cortney, Laurie and pachakuti, it’s gonna be hell for the poor daughter when he finds out that she’s not his little plaything. *shudders* I feel so sorry for his wife too, I wonder if she knows just how much he ‘values’ her.

14. my wife, I love also infinitely so, but sometimes it’s rocky, sometimes it’s up and down and we aren’t always as close as we’d like to be,

    Wonder why.

15. she is genetically closer to me than my own wife.

    I should §&/(&§$ well hope so! Who the heck are the pro-lifers marrying anyway?

16. I hope that poor woman can get her life together enough to DTMFA before he gets her pregnant again and enslaves her further or kills her with more pregnancies. Which he would, without hesitation. You have his own word for it.

17. I don’t mean to be rude or harsh, but I think you are bending your thinking in your own favor just to make it easier to get over this loss. The fact is that born or unborn, you still lost a child and I don’t believe that it should be viewed as any less of a loss either way.

    Wow, I’m sure the person grieving for the loss of his baby will find great comfort in this asshole’s words. Nothing like telling a grieving person that their grief just isn’t good enough.

    My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will..

    Maybe, until he opens his mouth and spews out bile like this.

18. My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will..

    Anyone else find this super creepy? Like, not just a little creepy. A whole lot creepy.

19. ick… ick… ick… I think you guys all said what I was thinking while reading this… just ick

    By the way… why was the pregnancy an accident, doesn’t that make him just as irresponsible and careless (according to his logic), as those “horrible” women who get abortions. I can’t believe this guy.. ick (for good measure).

20. no, I don’t think pro-lifers are actually Hell-dwelling demons with eyeballs on their hands.

    I’m curious to see the evidence that leads you to the negative hypothesis on this one.

    My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will..

    Super extra creepy. He loves having a newborn, but he’s not going to love having a 15-year-old at all.

21. Gosh, what are you saying, Liz? It’s only women who ‘get themselves’ pregnant! Because after all, it’s all her responsbility to keep her legs shut.

    Anyway, that entire post makes me wanna puke. I find it extremely disturbing that this guy values the instinctal ‘paternal love’ more than the love that can develop between two individuals (because that would mean seeing his wife as a equal human being). He cares only about that baby because it’s HIS genetic material, which shows what an utterly seflish bastard he is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of those types who think you can never love an adopted child as much as a genetic child.

22. *Yes, it’s a joke; no, I don’t think pro-lifers are actually Hell-dwelling demons with eyeballs on their hands.

    Perhaps not all of them, but I’m prepared to believe that Mr Anonymous is. He reacted to his wife’s terror at being pregnant by calling her “histerical” (sic) and threatening her until she changed her “foolish and immature, emotional and illogical thinking”. A demon is a tormenting force, and thus his appalling treatment of this poor woman is more or less literally demonic. As for hell-dwelling, well, castigating someone else (DBB) who has been through a horrific trauma for incorrectly conforming to your idea of what their grief should be is pretty much a straight-to-hell pass in my book.

    And, as for eyeballs in his hands, I suspect his “baby girl” is going to start feeling pretty creeped out as she moves towards adolescence and finds him increasingly paranoid, controlling and unable to cope with the concept that she might have her own ideas about whom she wants to love and with what conditions.

    It’s all summed up by:

    I am strongly pro-life (of the baby).

    Yes, that’s right. As Andrea Dworkin put it, “Female selflessness expresses itself in the conviction that a fertilized egg surpasses an adult female in the authenticity of its existence.” Except here, it’s not female selflessness expressing itself, but male denial of female selfhood being expressed.

    I hope his wife comes to her senses, takes her daughter, and gets away from this monster.

23. I predict he’ll be divorced in less than 5 years.

24. Probably less if the wife ever reads his post.

25. no, I don’t think pro-lifers are actually Hell-dwelling demons with eyeballs on their hands.

    I do.

26. I am strongly pro-life (of the baby).

    That about sums up the “pro-life” position. Screw the woman (her life, her decisionmaking, her already living family), save the fetus!

27. Well at least he’s honest, instead of pretending like he is concerned about his wife or the “abortion harms women” crap. I think a lot of anti-choice men have this position – that the baybee is his and his wife is merely an incubator and if she has to be sacrificed for him to have his baybee then so be it. After all, women exist to make baybees and if they have a choice not to, then there’s no point in them existing. Instead of focusing on rape victims and maternal health and making illogical compromises, I think the choice movement could be much better served in exposing the ideology of the anti-choice people – an ideology that sees women as things and children as trophies. A lot of people who waiver on abortion would be much more likely to be strongly pro-choice if this was exposed and highly publicised.

28. but if the child can be saved at the loss of the mother then I would choose the child.

    The bird in the tree is worth more than the bird at hand. Man lives in La-la land, use them up and throw them away ’cause you can always get another wife. Oh yeah, that’s all good and moral.

29. Wow, good thing all my political stances aren’t decided by whether or not my sex partner annoys me. I give their marriage 6 months.

30. Ew. Ew ew ew. His baby love crosses a line from loving father to Purity Ball Loving Father. Gross.

    I can’t even process how disgusting this is:

    I am strongly pro-life (of the baby).

    Strongly pro-life–if you are good and innocent. Because God only cares about babies and other unsullied lives, whereas the lives of actual people aren’t important.

    I also love this:

    If I had allowed my wife to abort our baby

    because it totally confirms everything we know about anti-choicers, and how a pro-life (of the baby) stance is really a thinly veiled attempt at controlling women. This, of course, is totally confirmed by his weird obsession with his baby and his love for her being totally about him, and the way he talks about his wife and not loving her as much due to her horrifying ability to make her own decisions. Narcissist.

31. Which is to say, I say to that woman, “Leave! Now!” Bet he threatens that he’ll steal the baby to keep her in the house and cleaning and caring for the baby and having sex with him.

32. I’m creeped out too, but that’s because his reasoning follows a lot of the reasoning that I’ve seen and heard incestuous perpetrators use to “justify” their behavior.

    Dude, babies aren’t owned.

33. First, thanks so much for the post link to DBB’s blog regarding how he (with his wife unconscious due to almost bleeding out) had to make a decision to save her life (and thus abort their 9-wk old fetus, a potential child that they both wanted). It was a really affecting article–well written, thoughtful, and something I’d love to share with other men as recommended reading when they and their wives consider pregnancy.

    Regarding this pro-life ass who commented–Jesus Christina! So, he would rather his wife bleed out while the fetus exact status is unknown? Yeah, that’s pro-life. He exemplifies the male pro-life agenda–women are vessels for their seed and if one were to die bringing about their seed, then get the next wife at a church potluck with your puppy-dog “I just lost my wife and I don’t know how to care for a baby” eyes. Since more women attend church than men, he’d probably have wifey number 2 in six weeks. Disgusting, dehumanizing, and quite frankly, how necrophilic. I think that most main-stream heterosexual men reading this commentary after reading the affecting one written by “Disgusted Beyond Belief” would probably also find this perv, well a perv. But, that 70% of anti-abortion activist leaders are men, that 70% pretty much represent or are just like this knob-head. Oh, also, that 70% will 100% never be pregnant (let alone face a situation where they might bleed out due to pregnancy complications) so shut the fuck up, you self-referential (and reverential) fucks.

34. told her it’s her choice, but if she kills my baby (has an abortion) that I would divorce her in a heartbeat and I would never speak to her again.

    What a fucking sick fuck.

35. At first, I was sort of “Eurgh!” at starting my morning with the eyeball monster from Pan’s Labyrinth (I’m a wuss and watched that scene between my fingers, terrified). Then I was just slackjawed at the horriffic quote that followed. What a smallminded, Grinchy-hearted, twisted, SAD little man. He is going to be so, so unhappy fifteen years down the road when his wife leaves his emotionally abusive ass and his daughter becomes a stranger to him, as all teenage girls do. And he’ll wonder why women hate a nice guy like him.

    Cripes.

36. Is it bad that my first reaction was, “It can’t be real, it’s just someone trying to wind everyone up”? It’s just too horrible.

37. My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will.

    Does that guy just not remember what it was like to be a child? I mean, goddamn, man. I love my husband more than I ever loved my mother, and this is now, when she’s no longer in the habit of telling me no when I desperately want something and lack the capacity to understand why getting what I want would not be in my best interests.

38. Exactly. Right after I posted that last night I thought about how difficult it is going to be for his daughter when she grows up and dares to have opinions of her own. I also think that in the event of a divorce (or even w/o one) that this guy is likely to try to demonize the girl’s mother by telling his daughter that her mother wanted to abort her and he saved her by not allowing that to happen. So scary.

39. That childbirth scene in Pan’s Labyrinth is truly horrifying. The look of shock and terror on Maribel Verdu’s face (the rebel housekeeper/heroine) when she walks down the hallway carrying a load of bloody rags… It makes you wonder what exactly they did to the wife to save the baby.

40. I know this is adding to the chorus, but after a couple of paragraphs, i just couldn’t read anymore. It’s so incredibly frigging creepy.

    That poor woman. their poor daughter. ;_;

41. Also adding to the chorus:

    Mostly Normal Says:
    April 26th, 2007 at 4:06 am
    My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will..

    Anyone else find this super creepy? Like, not just a little creepy. A whole lot creepy.

    I vote: a whole lot creepy. I worry a little for that child.

    Is anyone else picking up on the potentially abusive vibe?

42. It should not be a choice any girl or woman can simply make without a very good reason (their own life is in danger). Even in the case of rape. Two wrongs don’t make a right. In fact, adding the killing of a baby (abortion) in addition to the horror of a raped woman only makes the overall tragedy even worse.

    This is so sick. What kind of twisted logic is at work here? The “it’s the woman’s own fault if she got raped” one? My goodness. I’d say hbeing forced to keep a rape baby would wurely add more to the horror of a raped woman.

    I am so very very sad. That poor girl. Her mother should pack her up along with her suitcase and leave that jerk immediately.

43. The guy is forgetting his Bible lessons.

    Adults leave their parents and become one with their marriage partners.

    His little girl will do the same, if he raises her to be a good Christian, that is.

    Seriously though, what a monster.

44. This guy decides who lives and who dies based on who loves him the most? What an asshole.

45. Is anyone else picking up on the potentially abusive vibe?

    That was my first thought, too. His perspective on the value of women, the focus on innocence and purity, and the overwhelming possessiveness are all major risk factors for abuse.

46. my baby girl is only 1 yr old. All she can say is “da da”, but I know she loves me and I love her infinitely so.. my wife, I love also infinitely so, but sometimes it’s rocky, sometimes it’s up and down and we aren’t always as close as we’d like to be

    hahaha, I can’t wait until his daughter’s 15.

47. Is it wrong of me to hope that this guy’s wife divorces him and leaves the state with the baby? Such a things feels both karmic and the most hopeful. I agree with so many above that his guy is Purity Ball Daddy Lovin’ creepy and I fear just how that “love” will be translated in the near future. Not only that, but I can’t see how either the woman or her child will ever be able to grow as whole people with this patriarch running the show.

48. His wife and his daughter are both HIS possessions, and his daughter is the more valueable because she’s part him. Everything about this guy is “I I I I I I”—it’s all his wants and his needs. How does his idealized creepy love for his daughter co-exist with his domination of his wife and his contempt for her? And other women are even more out of luck—this is a woman he married, for pete’s sake—-he’d let her die so as to have his precious spawn, so I fear for women in his immediate vicinity.

49. That woman should leave him at once and take her daughter with her. Anyone can tell this guy has the mindset of an abuser, just by the utter contempt his displays for his wife, and his delusional expectations with respect to his authority on his wife’s decisions and behaviour.

    “I would not only give my own life to save my baby girl but I would kill or spend the rest of my life in prison if I had to, or pay any price no matter how high, to protect the life and safety of my innocent child.”

    Is it just me or he is actually implying that he would go as far as to kill his wife had she chosen to terminate her pregnancy?

    This guy gives me the creeps, and I can clearly hear alarm bells in hy head: “Run for your life!”

50. Holy crap. So.. what happens the first time his daughter says “I hate you” to him?
    Folks…if they ever threaten to leave you if you don’t do what they say… walk. Just go. Staying will never be worth sacrificing your autonomy,s afety and dignity. No-one who makes their affection and your worth conditional is EVER worth your time. Not to mention being right out of the “good parent” pool.

51. First, thank you so much for posting this asshole’s ugly, disgusting comment. When I first read it yesterday, I literally felt sick to my stomach for hours afterward.

    I agree with the previous commenters who are rightfully creeped out by the whole possessive, controlling, narcissistic vibe this guy throws off. I feel completely sick at heart for his wife and I despair for the daughter, as she faces growing up in that severely dysfunctional environment.

    What really set my teeth on edge, though was this:

    I told her it’s her choice, but if she kills my baby (has an abortion) that I would divorce her in a heartbeat and I would never speak to her again.

    This pretty much told me all I needed to know about the tone of this whole “marriage”. He’s an emotional blackmailer who probably holds the threat of abandonment over her constantly like the sword of Damocles. Like most abusers of this stripe, he’s probably made sure that she is, emotionally and/or financially, as dependent on him as possible. In the best of all possible worlds, he’d ‘cry wolf’ one too many times and she’d finally just tell him not to let the doorknob hit him in the ass on the way out.

    I doubt the likelihood of that outcome – and it makes me want to cry.

52. Pingback: Extremely Telling Sentence « Our Descent Into Madness

53. My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will.

    When I read this, I thought of the people I know who don’t love their fathers- whose feeling toward their fathers range from having a low opinion of him to outright hatred. In every case, the father held very traditional gender roles.* In one case, the friend’s negative feelings toward her father were exacerbated by the fact that he believed he was entitled to her love because he was here father and provided for her.

    * I realize that my circle of friends and acquaintences is not a representative sample, and I’m sure there are sons and daughters of men who hold to traditional gender roles who totally love their fathers.

    I noticed the creepy incest vibe also. According to his value system, that would be perfect- a sex partner who is biologically related to him (because that increases the love) and belongs to him in a way a separate adult never could.

54. So, correct me if I’m wrong: what he’s saying is, even in the case of rape, even if your life is threatened by keeping the baby – it’s tough. ‘Cos abortion is murder.

    BUT

    “I would kill … to protect the life and safety of my innocent child.”

    God, do these people actually hear themselves? That would be no, I guess. Amazing that people with the general intellect of this guy actually get to make decisions that affect other people’s lives.

    Oh, and I’m with you all on the sounding abusive and creepy part.

55. I talked to a staunch anti-choicer fundie once who was explaining the difficulty he was having with his teenage son, and he told me in all seriousness that the first time he hears “fuck you” from his son, (and he proceeded to make a fist and pump it in my face) that he would “break his nose.”

56. I couldn’t resist. I posted my response at my own blog.

57. Dude, babies aren’t owned.

    And my 9-month-old already makes this perfectly clear. Oh, the toddler years are going to be fun.

58. This is so thoroughly fucked up that I’m not sure where to start. All I can think of is the scene from Pan’s Labyrinth where Capitan Vidal (the villain) tells doctors that if it’s a choice between his wife’s life and his son’s (who his wife is in the process of birthing), that they should choose his son. They do, and she dies. And in the movie, his sacrificing of his wife is used to demonstrate how thoroughly evil he is

    you know, in some places the only hospital that pregnant women can go to are catholic hospitals, which routinely make choices like that. i have a friend who was seriously injured during the delivery of her kid, an injury which plagues her to this day, because of that approach that the baby is more important than the mother. My point being, maybe in the movie it was evil, but in the usa, it’s routine in many areas of the country, and pregnant mamas better just hope that it doesn’t come to that.

    anyway, if my partner spoke about his love for our daughter in that way and in that tone, i think maybe I’d take the kid and leave. creeeeee-py.

59. Probably less if the wife ever reads his post.

    I hope someone sends it to her.

60. CreepaZOID. I told ginmar, I bet he threatened to kill his wife to get her to stay. If she already felt like the pregnancy would ruin her life and all he had done was threaten divorce, nothing short of a death threat should have made her change her mind. That on top of the obvious incestuous undertones of how he feels about the baby.

    One nitpick. People here are going, “We’ll see how unconditionally he loves his daughter when she starts acting up.” I don’t quite agree with this assessment. I don’t think he loves her to begin with. His feelings about her are entirely selfish and unrealistic. Even if he did, love does not = like. You can love someone and not like what they do. Healthy parenting DOES involve unconditional love, which does NOT involve feeling happy and squishy about your kid no matter what they do.

61. # Perkyshai Says:
    April 26th, 2007 at 10:21 am

    Holy crap. So.. what happens the first time his daughter says “I hate you” to him?
    Folks…if they ever threaten to leave you if you don’t do what they say… walk. Just go. Staying will never be worth sacrificing your autonomy,s afety and dignity. No-one who makes their affection and your worth conditional is EVER worth your time. Not to mention being right out of the “good parent” pool.

    Depends on the context of what’s being demanded. I mean, how would you address it if the guy’s being a cheating bastard and you can’t just walk out the door and be done with him because you’re married to him, and you go, “Dump the girlfriend or I’m filing for divorce?” Or you’re dating him and he’s mostly OK but is given to sexist jokes and you tell him to get a new repertoire or it’s over?

    And it’s not that you’re telling him he’s worthless. Anyone who bases their worth on whether a particular person is fucking them on a regular basis doesn’t belong in an adult relationship. It’s about what the deal-breakers are in your particular ethical system.

    Had this guy kept his threat limited to “get an abortion and I’ll divorce you,” it actually would have been OK. She could have said, “Fine, ‘bye,” and that would have been the end of it. (And hey, he would have had whine fodder for his next hot date: “Wah, my wife aborted my child, pity me.” Win-win all around.) The trouble with this particular ultimatum was that I don’t think he limited it to just Keep The Baby Or I’ll Divorce You. There’s a reason she thought the pregnancy would ruin her life, and it probably isn’t because she hates babies. By his own account she appears to love her daughter very much. I think it’s because he’s an abusive asshole and he threatened to kill her.

62. Considering that the monster pictured is Sr. del Toro’s metaphor for the Catholic church, this is more than a little appropriate.

63. My mother chose to have children because she believed we would “have to” love her. It made for some very dysfunctional behaviour on her part. A child should never be put in the position of being the emotional support for the parent.

    My husband has made it very clear that I will always be his first priority, even over a born child. I’m not sure I believe him, but I know I’m damn well higher priority right now than this 6-week-old embryo currently messing with my system.

64. In fact, adding the killing of a baby (abortion) in addition to the horror of a raped woman only makes the overall tragedy even worse.

    Nice subject/object demarcation there – “the horror of a raped woman” sounds like “the horror of a car crash” or “the horror of 500 gallons of blood falling on you.” It’s the horror he feels at seeing this disgusting creature, this “raped woman.” The horror isn’t based on the fact that this woman subjectively experienced a horrific assault, no. The horror is in the fact that now she’s sullen, worth less than before. An abortion would only add to his horror – and since he’s the only subject here, the only one capable of experiencing horror, his feelings are all that matter.

    On the off-chance that his poor wife is reading this blog – DTMFA!!

65. “By his own account she appears to love her daughter very much. I think it’s because he’s an abusive asshole and he threatened to kill her.”

    He wouldn’t necessarily have needed to threaten her life. If he’d made her financially and emotionally dependent before this all came up, divorce wouldn’t exactly be a light thing to threaten. If they live in a community where having an abortion means social ostracism and the loss of what support network she might have, and he made sure she knew he’d tell everyone why he’d divorced her, it would be even less so.

66. I couldn’t even read the whole thing, talk about making one’s skin crawl. My first thought was how much the situation is going to explode when the daughter gets older and tells him she hates him.
    I hope the wife and child get away from this utter creep as quickly as possible…. though sadly I think the theory on emotional/financial dependency is probably right >.

67. # preying mantis Says:
    April 26th, 2007 at 11:53 am

    “By his own account she appears to love her daughter very much. I think it’s because he’s an abusive asshole and he threatened to kill her.”

    He wouldn’t necessarily have needed to threaten her life. If he’d made her financially and emotionally dependent before this all came up, divorce wouldn’t exactly be a light thing to threaten. If they live in a community where having an abortion means social ostracism and the loss of what support network she might have, and he made sure she knew he’d tell everyone why he’d divorced her, it would be even less so.

    I agree with preying mantis: this guy’s line of reasoning (it’s perfectly ok to threaten a woman making a serious choice about her own body/life/autonomy with abandonment) smacks of an emotionally abusive asshole — especially when you consider that he’s doing so in such a blithe, unreflective manner. It distinctly reminded me of my ex-boyfriend, who fit the bill. Insisted we have a joint checking account (that he controlled) as early as my first year of college. Routinely threatened that he would break up with me if I was friends with other guys, or danced with anyone at school dances (high school), etc. So this is what those sort of guys turn into when they get a fetus *of their very own!* Yuck.

68. Considering that the monster pictured is Sr. del Toro’s metaphor for the Catholic church, this is more than a little appropriate.

    You think so? I read him as a Holocaust metaphor. There is a large pile of shoes in that scene that reminded me very strongly of the warehouses of stolen goods you can still see at Dachau.

    Anyway, yes, this guy is a fairly pathetic human.

69. “What I am strongly against is pro-choice people arguing that a woman can get pregnant (accidentally, by being careless and irresponsible) and have the simple option of going down to the abortion clinic and in essence, “making the problem go away.”

    Because when a woman chooses to have an abortion it’s because she was an irresponsible slut. *rolls eyes*

    Well, I guess there isn’t much for me to say, this post sums up the pro-life position. That the fetus is much more important than the mother’s life and her well-being.

70. Is it pedantic to point out that no one aborts a baby or a child, or even fetus, you abort a pregnancy? And pregnancy is a condition of a woman’s body. And that’s completely aside from the issue of whether you believe a fetus is a baby or a person — pro-choice is not about the right to kill a fetus/baby, but about the right to choose whether to remain pregnant or not. To me, at least, that’s a different issue.

    I would also be very interested to hear this story from the woman’s point of view. No wonder she was horrified at finding out she was pregnant, if pregnancy meant she suddenly became a sub-human in the eyes of her partner, and he no longer cared if she lived or died, never mind caring about her health and happiness. But it doesn’t sound like he ever had a very high opinion of her — if you love and respect someone, that doesn’t change just because they get pregnant.

71. And yes, this just sums up for me that the pro-life position is not about believing that fetuses are people, but believing that women are not.

72. “*Yes, it’s a joke; no, I don’t think pro-lifers are actually Hell-dwelling demons with eyeballs on their hands.”

    Is it ok if I do?

    ‘Cause I think this image is what they look like in the dark.

73. My mother chose to have children because she believed we would “have to” love her. It made for some very dysfunctional behaviour on her part. A child should never be put in the position of being the emotional support for the parent.

    A friend of mine was adopted, pretty much in order to give his (adopted) mother something to live for. She committed suicide anyway when he was 10.

    He’s 43 now, and only recently, through a lot of therapy, has he come to terms with the idea that he couldn’t have saved her and it was unfair for the adults in his life to put him in that position. He’s also finally come to terms with the abandonment issues from having been put up for adoption in the first place. Though I think it helped a lot finding out that his birth parents were pretty young teenagers in 1960s Louisiana, and there was no way anyone was going to let them keep him, married or not.

    Of course a lot of this came after his engagement went bad, after he began to pressure the fiancee to have kids before she couldn’t anymore even though her father had just died, and she (quite rightly, IMO) began to see that he was viewing her as a vessel to get the blood child he wanted.

74. I’m sure the guy’s attitude would be multiplied ten-fold if the kid would have been a boy.

    The mind reels.

75. Because when a woman chooses to have an abortion it’s because she was an irresponsible slut. *rolls eyes*

    Yeah, she shoulda realized her fetus would have a severe birth defect before she got pregnant!

    /wingnut

76. I think prochoice bloggers could adopt that scary photo and use it when writing about reproductive rights and anti-choicers.

    Seriously, that’s what anti-woman/religious wingnut/antichoice energy LOOKS like to me. The original artist was definitely on to something.

77. Wow. That started out completely creepy and went downhill from there.

    This asshole is mistaking possessiveness and a need to control for love – on his side – and complete helplessness, with expectations of obedience when she gets older, for love on his daughter’s side.

    Ages ago, my now ex-husband and I had some arguments over abortion. He wasn’t as big an asshole as the guy in this example, but he was awfully close. “How could you even THINK of killing my/our child?!?” plus helpings of “but it’s an innocent life” and denial that an adult’s life (mine) is worth more than this potential, “innocent” life. I think he’s come around a bit since then, but we haven’t talked about it in years. Grr.

78. What I am strongly against is pro-choice people arguing that a woman can get pregnant (accidentally, by being careless and irresponsible) and have the simple option of going down to the abortion clinic and in essence, “making the problem go away.

    So women get pregnant on their very own, yet the baby is his genetic property. The insane troll logic of wingnuts.

    I am strongly pro-life (of the baby).

    FINALLY! It’s good to see an out-and-out admission that the life of a woman DOES. NOT. MATTER. to these people.

    I bet this guy will take his daughter to a Purity Ball before she is two years old. I hope his poor wife is watching out for her.

79. Being an allegory, the monster with its eyes in its hand is a lot of things — and the piles of shoes was most certainly a deliberate choice. But it was also a commentary on the Church. The monster sits at a table, not ever seeing the feast set before it. Instead it eats children, especially those who dare to taste from the its feast, the pleasures that life can bring.

    Then again, there are plenty of monster-eating children in the world. The overwhelming majority of them are human.

80. What you guys said.

    Um, on the remote chance that the wife reads this, sweetie, he is an abuser. He may not have hit you or the kid yet, but he’ll get around to it eventually, and in the meantime he’ll grind down your self-esteem to make sure you can’t leave when that day comes. I was raised by a guy with attitudes quite similar to your husband’s, and thank God my mom managed to get out eventually. But she and her kids would’ve been better off if she could’ve done it earlier.

    Open a savings account at a different bank than the one you and your husband use (I’m guessing you have a joint account, just a gut feeling here) and don’t tell him about it. Put bits and pieces of money in it when you can. Start looking around for a job. If your qualifications have lapsed or something, try to go back to school. Don’t necessarily tell him why.

    Call a local battered women’s shelter or crisis line, and see about support groups, phone counselling, that kind of thing. Incidentally, many shelters have on-site childcare for non-residents who are coming in for a meeting with a counsellor or to participate in a support group, so you can always tell the hubby you took the kid to the park. They’ll still help you even if he hasn’t hit you (yet), and will be happy to try and make a plan for you to get out without having to stay in the shelter (leaves beds free but still gets you out). And if things get suddenly worse, you’ll have a safe place to stay.

    If at all possible, try to have a job, a place to stay, and daycare lined up before or shortly after you leave, because he’ll probably fight you for custody. You need to look stable. Again, a shelter can help you find a woman-friendly attorney. If there’s anything creepy or threatening he’s written down or said in public, document it. You may need it in hte future.

    And good luck to you and your daughter.

81. I’ve got news for him: daughters don’t always love their fathers unconditionally. Mine is an asshole and, while we get along better than we used to, if it came down to him or my mother, I’d pick my mother. Every. Time.

82. I was reading that blog and all the comments until about 4 in the morning today (even though I have two exams and a presentation today…ow). That particular commenter also struck me as particularly disgusting and hateful.

    The part that really caught me was…
    I am strongly pro-life (of the baby). I would always choose the life of my child over my own life or anyone else’s life, including my wife. Harsh? Think about it. What’s more precious, an innocent life of a child who has their entire life ahead of them or a grown adult who has had a fair opportunity to live their life and have whatever experiences they have been blessed to have?

    How convenient that he claims he would sacrifice his life or his wife’s life for a fetus. Good to know that he values his wife enough as a person to sacrifice her. Also…how often would he, or any other anti-choice male, be subjected to a situation where they would actually have to sacrifice themselves for a fetus? Yet they claim they would, so that makes it equal, right? sure…If only he could actually be put in the position of his wife for once, see how it feels to have all that hatred, humiliation, and forced “choice” thrust upon him.

    I am tired of anti-choicers using the term “pro-life”. He is a perfect example of how little many of them value life.

    And what exactly does he mean by “precious”? This is too messed up.

    I hope she reads what he wrote about her and leaves him (maybe even take the kid too, if she wants it)

83. …my wife, I love also infinitely so, but sometimes it’s rocky, sometimes it’s up and down and we aren’t always as close as we’d like to be, but I will always love my baby girl infinitely

    In other words, his wife is less valuable to him, therefore she is less valuable period. Nice. And yeah, this guy is in for a shock if he thinks children and parents don’t have rocky relationships. This is a nice illustration also, I think, of how other types of personality issues (megalomania, say) get expressed through culturally validated attitudes (like misogyny and racism). I would imagine this guy has issues in all his interpersonal relationships, but misogny and the ‘pro-life’ movement give him the ideal outlet for his insecurities and need to see other people as existing for his own validation.

84. “I was able to sway her foolish and immature, emotional and illogical thinking”

    ”

    Consider, sir, that this woman, who is by your own standards and according to your own testimony:

    1) foolish, 2) immature, 3) emotional, and 4) immature

    —happens to be the one woman in the world who is married to you. This strongly implies that her decision to marry you was a:

    1) foolish, 2) immature, 3) emotional, and 4) immature

    decision, which in turn explains most of the rest of the content of your post.

    I can, in good conscience, congratulate you on the birth of your baby girl, but I can’t, in good conscience, congratulate you on your marriage. God bless your daughter; God help your wife. Fatherhood is often of great benefit to men; I trust it may prove so in your case; in the meantime, please stop dragging your wife into an Oedipal drama in which your daughter is cast as the Other (younger, cuter, more adorable) Woman. A woman ought not to have to act as a romantic rival to her own child. That’s a sheer bitch of a role to have to play under the best of circumstances; under the worst, it scarcely bears thinking about.

85. Creeped out here too, but others have analyzed the creepiness better than I can.

    I will say though that I am a little uneasy using possesive words to describe people, like my wife, our son, etc. I wish English had different words for expressing human relationships than the ones we use for objects.

86. Jeez. I’m a new dad myself, and I have a daughter. Do I love her more than I love my wife? Nah. She hasn’t really said much yet, so it’s too early to tell. Choice between the life of a fetus and the life of my wife? Wife, every time. No contest. We can make more.

    What a sick, sick man that commenter is… I’m also totally getting that creepy vibe from him that everybody’s talking about. I can almost guarantee he’s going to do something terrible if his wife doesn’t leave and take the daughter before he gets the chance.

87. Re: scary demon thing with eyeballs in hands.

    That’s not a bad interpretation. I was under the impression that del Toro himself was fairly Catholic, but I could be wrong about that. Via IMDb:

    He told Gross [an interviewer] that his [strictly Catholic] grandmother would require him to mortify himself in self-punishment, in one case placing metal bottle caps into his shoes so that the soles of his feet were bloodied while walking to school. She also tried to exorcise him twice because of his persistent interest in fantasy and drawing monsters from his imagination.

    I realize that this isn’t a film-studies blog, but I can’t bring myself to write anything about the asshat we’re supposed to be discussing.

88. Creepy is the word for this guy’s attitude…scary, icky, chills up the spine.

    I don’t see your connection between the laws and being pro-choice. If the law says “every effort must be made in every case to save the life of the unborn fetus, and only in the case of the certain death of the mother would an abortion be permissible.” Then what is wrong with such a law?

    He doesn’t see that life is not always certain, even after reading how very unclear it was whether DBB’s wife was endangered, and then whether she was going to make it, or even what was wrong with her? If the law requires that the mother’s life be considered ONLY if her death is certain, then a lot of women will die. But of course, after the decision in Gonzalez vs. Carhart, not even risk to her life need be considered. Lucky us. We are worth less than a fetus, and we don’t have to be consulted about our own lives or bodies.

89. As a friend of mine says, it’s those moments when the egg cracks open and the grub comes crawling out that you learn to appreciate. That is, when the faux-lifers stop their “OMG TEH BAYBEE!” rhetoric and admit that, really, they’re woman-hating control freaks.

90. one has to ask how much this tool really loves his wife (his assertions of their fabulously happy marriage aside) if he would cheerfully sacrifice her life for that of a complete stranger… a genetically close stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. And quite possibly one who might not “love him unconditionally” after learning how little he values said stranger’s own mother.

    God willing, the wife will read this article, move out, and save her baby girl from a childhood under the shadow of such an incredibly uncaring person.

91. I’m sorry, aborting the product of rape makes the tragedy worse? For whom? Certainly not the woman, who, in most cases, would rather not spend nine months feeling and watching her body grow and change (and endure the dangers inherent in pregnancy) with her RAPIST’S baby.

    Aren’t you admitting it is a BABY?

92. Jeez. I’m a new dad myself, and I have a daughter. Do I love her more than I love my wife? Nah. She hasn’t really said much yet, so it’s too early to tell. Choice between the life of a fetus and the life of my wife? Wife, every time. No contest. We can make more.

    Now that it sick.

93. I wish, really wish, that this kind of statement would get a more widespread reading than just the folks who read this blog. Because, lets face it folks, we’re preaching to the choir. If more people saw this crap, it might give them some insight into the REAL argument against abortion.

94. I will say though that I am a little uneasy using possesive words to describe people, like my wife, our son, etc. I wish English had different words for expressing human relationships than the ones we use for objects.

    Me too RonO. I carry a baby around town and say “Hi this is a baby, no please don’t say ‘what is your babies name’ its really not my baby it belongs to mother earth

    Get real. She is my baby, I have to raise her, I am responsible for her.

95. Gina…please learn how to use the quote tags, it will make your posts easier to figure out.

    Just highlight the part you want to quote and lick on the thing that says “quote” on the top of the text box. That way we know what you’re quoting and what you’re saying.

96. Sorry, new to this and I see my mistake.

97. I will say though that I am a little uneasy using possesive words to describe people, like my wife, our son, etc. I wish English had different words for expressing human relationships than the ones we use for objects.

    Me too RonO. I carry a baby around town and say “Hi this is a baby, no please don’t say ‘what is your babies name’ its really not my baby it belongs to mother earth

    Get real. She is my baby, I have to raise her, I am responsible for her

98. Just because you’re responsible for something doesn’t mean you own it. For example, I’m responsible for the project I’m doing at work, but when it’s done, the company — not I — will own the copyright. You may be responsible for that baby, but that doesn’t mean you own her.

    This is a language problem, where we have multiple meanings for the same word (kind of like how religious nuts gloss over the scientific meaning of “theory”). The problem is that “your” too often denotes ownership…and historically, there has been too much of a precedent towards considering people other people’s property, for that not to be extremely problematic. If we had better words for kinship relations, people wouldn’t confuse the “my” in “my baby” with the “my” in “my property,” and there’d be less of a tendency to see a baby (or a wife) as a piece of property.

99. This is just unbelievably, gut-stabbingly horrifying. Apparently I’ve been giving pro-lifers too much credit – certainly never thought I’d say that.

100. Actally Gina, my husband viewed my highrisk pregnancy with extreme suspicion, and he had no problem pitching the “baby” out with the bloody paper towels, metaphorically speaking.

     What a wuss!

101. Gina – you have me utterly puzzled. Why is it horrific that someone would choose the life of his wife over the life of a fetus? I’d be pretty darned horrified if my husband didn’t place my life and health over a fetus. Among other things, I would never wish to traumatize my two little boys by making them grow up without a mother.

     I might disagree, but I can understand being horrified by somebody choosing an abortion when the situation is not dire, but when the mother’s life is in danger? Seriously?

102. Gina,

     See that toolbar above the comment box? See the “italic” and/or the the “quote” buttons on that toolbar? Try using them.

     Choice between the life of a fetus and the life of my wife? Wife, every time. No contest. We can make more.

     Now that it sick.

     No, that is normal: from a biological, sociological, economical, or psychological perspective, that’s the obvious correct choice. You have a lot of time, money, and emotion invested in your life partner, and your chances of finding another one “just as good” are slim at best. On the flip, a fetus has no uniqueness to it, does not contribute to the family in any way, does not represent more than a year of investment, and has a much better chance of “being replaced” than your spouse.

     Cold and rational? Sure. “Sick”? Nope–realistic. Given the choice between “getting over” the loss of a fetus with the help of a spouse and “getting over” the loss of a spouse with the help of a newborn infant, which do you think most people in the world would choose?

103. Aren’t you admitting it is a BABY?

     Oh my, you’ve shattered my entire worldview!

     (Can’t we get better trolls than this?)

104. Dude, babies aren’t owned.

     Clearly babies are pwned.

105. My baby girl will love me more as she is growing up than my own wife ever will.. the love between a daughter and father is, in my opinion, greater than between a husband and wife.

     Just … iew.

106. (Can’t we get better trolls than this?)

     Haha! Shira, will you marry me? 🙂

107. Did I insult you?

108. Dorothy! Well done.

     Indeed.

     One wonders how preferring the live baby to the dead mother works…in evolutionary terms?

109. I actually never said choose the life of fetus over the mother. I didn’t highlight a quote earlier from Matthew from earlier. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I might be butch, but I am not a dude.

110. See, Gina is why ya gotta let the trolls thru from time to time. Too fun.

111. God, imagine if the child were a boy. I hope his wife leaves him before she gets pregnant with a boy.

112. One wonders how preferring the live baby to the dead mother works…in evolutionary terms?

     Fairly well, actually. If there is a gene for such a preference, it would have an advantage over the allele for prefering the live mother, as the baby, being related to you, is more likely to contain that gene. Roughly, altruism should increase in proportion to the person in question’s relatedness to you.

     It’s worth pointing out that this does not make it morally right, however. Humans aren’t genetically determined. The same theory predicts that genes for murdering your stepchildren should proliferate (a fairly common practice in the animal kingdom).

113. Aren’t you admitting it is a BABY?

     After a woman makes it for 9 and a half months, sure. After a guy shoots his load? No.

114. Did I insult you?

     I just don’t understand why you can’t let fetuses be fetuses. When I was a fetus, I was so dead-set against becoming a baby that, 3-weeks post-due date and after 3 days of attempting to chemically induce labor, the doctors had to cut open my mother and drag me out kicking and screaming. Even then, I have it on good authority that it took the entire obstetrics department to pry my slimy drug-addled baby fingers off the umbilical cord.

115. “Fairly well, actually.”

     How do you figure? You’d be sacrificing any number of potential offspring with a secure mate in exchange for one infant that stands a worse-than-average (‘average’ already being ‘not terribly great’) chance of surviving without its mother to nurse off of.

     You can probably assume that there are other lactating women around who would be willing to cut your baby in, but your baby certainly isn’t going to come before their own offspring, even if you’re a relative of theirs. If you already have offspring, they’re suddenly down a care-taker, meaning those offspring have slightly decreased odds in the survival-and-fitness game. If your group’s resources are already stretched thin, that slight decrease turns into a moderate or considerable decrease.

     If this is your first child, then you not only have to manage nourishment you personally can’t give it yet but find a new mate, because hanging all your gene-transmission on one baby is a strategy unlikely to yield much success. And, of course, assuming you’re able to find a new mate, she’s probably going to give preference to her own offspring over her step-child, further stacking the deck against the offspring you sacrificed your first mate to save….

     “Humans aren’t genetically determined. The same theory predicts that genes for murdering your stepchildren should proliferate (a fairly common practice in the animal kingdom).”

     Aren’t there plenty of studies that suggest humans are statistically far more likely to abuse and neglect step-children than their own children, and that the abuse and neglect tends to be far more serious?

116. So it is a baby after a woman carries it. Who\’s baby it it?

117. So it is a baby after a woman carries it. Who\’s baby it it?

118. Did you miss the part about “Babies are not owned”?

119. I really don\’t like the idea of calling her YOUR mother. I mean, dude, mothers aren\’t owned.

120. I really don\’t like the idea of calling her YOUR mother. I mean, dude, mothers aren\’t owned.

121. I really don\’t like the idea of calling her YOUR mother. I mean, dude, mothers aren\’t owned.

     Gina, Point. Point, Gina.

122. Aaaawwwww. It’s such a CUTE widdle troll. Totally adorable!

123. Gina, are you familiar with Spanish grammar at all? In Spanish, nouns are gendered – a female Mexican would be Mexicana. A male Mexican would be a Mexicano.

     So, let’s say a Spanish-speaker says, “I wish nouns in Spanish weren’t gendered.”

     What you’re basically doing is saying, “But if I’m not a Mexicana, what am I? A MEXICANO?? That’s stupid, I’m not a man!”

     But, you know, in Spanish.

124. I am bearly fermilur with english

125. I hate reading articles like this, it contains absolutely every reason why I have so little respect for most pro-life extremists. It makes me very sad for the world, I remember reading about ‘purity balls’ once and some of the comments from the fathers made me a little ill. Something along the lines of “having something to give away at the altar” when their daughters make a virginity pledge (which don’t even work). As if there is nothing to give away unless she’s “pure.” Why can’t these fathers think of anything else? I would like to think that I have more value to my own parents than my freaking ‘purity.’ You know, like a brain, having opinions, being driven, doing well in school, taking pride in myself, my personality. Anything but whether or not I still have a flap of skin in my vagina. I like your comments on this disturbing response from a disturbing man. Props for the comprehensive analysis.

126. Also, so basically what this guy is saying is that he’ll choose based upon which person he LOVES more and is closer to? That’s completely egotistical.

127. “And I applaud you for hesitating as to whether or not to abort.”

     Um… I’d like to know who wouldn’t hesitate on whether or not to abort. That’s a difficult decision to have to make, except apparently for this maniac, who’d immediately choose the child.

128. Sadly, this guy reminds me of my best friend’s boyfriend.

     He’s one of those super-conservative uber-Christians and makes her feel guilty for not being as “perfect” as she “should” be.

     Hell, he’s even told her that while he cannot choose her friends, if she was where she needed to be with God she’d only be surrounded by Christians (I’m not one, and he dislikes me because of that and the fact that I live with my boyfriend).

129. I would give my life in a heartbeat to save my baby girl and how any mother would hesitate to even think otherwise is beyond me.

     I am willing to test this theory, if Mr Creepy Borderline Personality Disorder Narcissist would like to put his money where his mouth is.

     Plus I particularly like that his grammar renders the sentence open to the interpretation: “I would die for my baby and I can’t imagine how any mother would pause for a moment before deciding to do the exact opposite.” Or possibly even “… and I can’t imagine any mother hesitating even for a minute before she let me die for my daughter.”

     Honestly, what kind of asshole reads an article of such power and grief as DBB’s and then decides to post a comment like that? Someone with absolutely no empathy, that’s for sure.

130. Reminds me of my ex-husband. Whom I left, eventually. Who is now trying to manipulate my daughter into choosing to live with him.

     I don’t sleep well. (Though I sleep better than I did… for now…)

131. This is a language problem, where we have multiple meanings for the same word (kind of like how religious nuts gloss over the scientific meaning of “theory”). The problem is that “your” too often denotes ownership…and historically, there has been too much of a precedent towards considering people other people’s property, for that not to be extremely problematic. If we had better words for kinship relations, people wouldn’t confuse the “my” in “my baby” with the “my” in “my property,” and there’d be less of a tendency to see a baby (or a wife) as a piece of property

     For the first time ever on this particular blog I find myself wanting to quote C.S. Lewis; I believe it was in “Screwtape Letters” that he had a paragraph or two on the distinctions of meaning of “my” in English. Unfortunately I cannot find “Screwtape Letters” or any other particular book in this house except for the few hundred that have accidentally remained alphabetized, but I believe he had a list of phrases – my God, my country, my wife – and remarked on the degree of possessiveness implied in each case.

132. Yes, Gina. We can tell.

     My sons are mine only in the sense that I love and care for them, they carry half my genetic material, and I am responsible for them under the law. In every other measure, they are their own, not mine. I do not own them in any sense whatsoever.

     I am my husband’s in even less sense than that – likewise him to me. We love each other; we form a household together; he is my next of kin. I do not in any sense belong to him, nor him to me. The dude up above seems to be lacking that distinction in his usage of “mine”. His wife and his daughter seem to rank up there with his dog, his car, or even his hand. Beloved, sure, but he can’t seem to fathom that they are people with every bit as much self-determination as he has.

133. I would give my life in a heartbeat to save my baby girl and how any mother would hesitate to even think otherwise is beyond me.

     Well, a pregnant woman is not necessarily a mother, and may well not think of the embryo/fetus as her child, especially early in pregnancy. So even a mother who would unthinkingly sacrifice her life for one of her born children would not necessarily feel the same way about terminating a pregnancy. Even if you feel the two situations are morally equivalent, it is obviously emotionally different for the person concerned.

     I’m also a little uncomfortable with the whole idea that a woman should feel obliged to sacrifice everything, even her life, for her child. Some may choose to, certainly, on the rare occasion where the situation arises, but it is not ‘beyond me’ that someone might not want to. We all have a strong instinct to survive, right?

134. Sara no H said:

     I’ve got news for him: daughters don’t always love their fathers unconditionally. Mine is an asshole and, while we get along better than we used to, if it came down to him or my mother, I’d pick my mother. Every. Time.

     Word.

     I’m in the same boat. Didn’t speak to The Sperm Donor (as Mom and I call him) for 20 years. He had/has similar ownership issues about his kids, and also that whole insisting that we’re responsible for his emotional well being.

135. So it is a baby after a woman carries it. Who\’s baby it it?

     And now we get to the heart of the matter. As usual with anti-choicers, it has nothing to do with “babies” and everything to do with male dominance.

     “Gina”, if that’s your real name, you can kiss the asses of sexist men all you want and they still hate you.

136. That’s a difficult decision to have to make, except apparently for this maniac, who’d immediately choose the child.

     Technically, since there was no child and there would be no child, he’d choose to kill his wife. He’s basically chomping at the bit to off the poor woman.

137. Technically, since there was no child and there would be no child, he’d choose to kill his wife. He’s basically chomping at the bit to off the poor woman.

     Yup. And it’s clear that he sees it that way–he congratulates the addressee with his willingness to sacrifice everything, even his woman.

138. Right on brother! The problem with our society, is that many people are selfish. So when they accidentally become pregnant, they only think of themselves.

     It is so easy to an abortionist. After all, the child is a mere inconvenience, just terminate, and move on.

     A woman that would seek to kill her own child is probably just as ruthless if not more than Mao Tse-tung. Fortunately, this lady came to her senses.

139. “Technically, since there was no child and there would be no child, he’d choose to kill his wife. He’s basically chomping at the bit to off the poor woman.”

     I wonder if she knows she’s been basically put on a waiting list to be martyred in the name of his display of paternal devotion. Personally, if I wanted a way to show a kid I loved them thiiiiiis much, I’d buy them a pony. I mean, sure, “I let your mom die to save you” eats less, but you can’t ride it and therapists are more expensive than farriers.

140. Sadly, the attitude is not limited to men.

     I was a member of a very pro-life church. The one that had taken the step from “all pregnancies should be carried to term” to “all married women should be making babies all the time.”

     And the older ladies of the church kept trying to reinforce to us younger ones: “In earlier days, women weren’t afraid to die having babies.” And we were regularly reminded that while the child was unique, we were infinitely replaceable. Our husbands could marry again easily (?? in that town? Where the m/f ratio was 5:1?) but that the child would be lost.

     We were definitely expected to say “Save the baby” if it came to choices.

     And we bought it.
     Some of us.
     For a while.

     So, no, I’m neither horrified or even surprised at the comment above. And no, the wife’s not likely to leave him. Not even when he gets his perfect baby girl pregnant at 14.

141. I could not imagine sacrificing my wife like this man. My wife was scared she was going to die. She most definitely did not want to die. We wanted another child, but that would not have been worth it, and as others have pointed out, we had a child at home who needed us. Both of us.

     I think it is scary to think there would be laws banning abortion without a health exception. Then theoretically, if a woman is pregnant but it turns out the only way the baby can be brought to term is if the woman is put in a coma for seven months, risking brain damage (but not death!) then she would be forced to do that because hey, she could bring the baby out and not die. That is the ultimate use of a woman as an incubator, not as a person. Not to mention the fact that most women would lose their jobs if that ever happened. And hey, if some woman actually volunteered to do that for her fetus, well, good for her – again, it is her choice, with input from the other interested party and her doctors, not anyone elses.

142. Angel,
     that church sounds horrendously awful.

143. Reading over the comments, it is obvious that the hatred is on the left more so then the right.

     Because the guy has a love for his child, it does not = lust. Grow up. Try to discuss this with some sort of intellectual thought.

     The true debate lies in whether or not an unborn child has the same rights as a born child. Basically, stripped down to the fundamentals, an unborn child is as human as a 21 year old college graduate. She deserves the same rights to live, to independence, and to procreate as we all have.

     Abortionist go on believing that what they believe is something unique and just. They adore the fact that they believe they are standing for women’s rights against the overbearing Christian Right. They lose all sense of debate and simply slander anyone with an opposing opinion.

     You all claim to tolerate, but from some of the comments spewed out here against this loving father, I can see the intolerance is from the left.

144. Gracious, people, do any of you project much?

     1) It is atrociously rude of each and every one of you to be making ad-hoc clinical diagnoses of this gentleman, who has taken so much trouble to explain his point of view to you; moreover it is excessively patronizing of you to presume to give instructions to his wife on the status of her familial relationships. That is their business, not yours.

     2) One of the primary social and cultural roles of the institution of ‘marriage’, for thousands of years, has been the production and nurturance of children. Anyone who enters into this institution with the understanding that this is not the case is remarkably deluded.

     3) It is perfectly within any person’s rights to make his or her boundaries known within a relationship. If aborting his child was a deal-breaker for this man, he was right to let this fact be known. It would certainly be a deal-breaker for me if any man insisted that I abort my child because he did not wish to be saddled with the responsibilities of parenthood.

145. Purity balls – those I don’t quite understand. Ok, I can understand at a high level, the strong bond a father can have with a daughter. I feel it with my 20 month old daughter now. She is everything to me and my wife. She’s the highlight of my day when I pick her up from day care. She can always bring a smile to my face, just by my thinking about her.

     But the whole purity ball thing – well, that does seem kind of creepy to me. Maybe it is because I’m an atheist, so I don’t get the religious aspect of it. But to me, all I care about is whether or not my daughter is happy. I’d rather she be having lots of sex (safely, of course) and happy than she be a virgin and miserable. Not that there’s a correlation between sex and happiness. I certainly was not a virgin when I got married. Neither was my wife. In fact, I think it is probably irresponsible to not, at the very least, have sex with a potential spouse before deciding to tie the knot because sexual compatibility is an important thing to know before you make a lifelong committment like that.

     Perhaps this man truly sees his daughter as his, in an ownership sort of way. Hopefully, by the time she’s two, she’ll disabuse him of that notion – my daughter has already indicated at 20 months, in no uncertain terms, that she is an independent person who has a will of her own and she is going to follow it rather than what we tell her. Ah, the joys of parenting. At least she’s really cute when she throws a tantrum.

146. 1) It is atrociously rude of each and every one of you to be making ad-hoc clinical diagnoses of this gentleman, who has taken so much trouble to explain his point of view to you; moreover it is excessively patronizing of you to presume to give instructions to his wife on the status of her familial relationships. That is their business, not yours.

     This is a blog; it’s what we do. Less flippantly, I think it’s the community’s responsibility to address dysfunctional patterns when we see them, and to offer support to people who may want to escape those patterns. “Close the door and take care of your own house” has facilitated a lot of domestic abuse over the centuries. And what you interpret as him taking the trouble to explain his POV to us, we see as him berating a man in a very difficult situation, and preaching to someone who really didn’t need to be preached at.

     2) One of the primary social and cultural roles of the institution of ‘marriage’, for thousands of years, has been the production and nurturance of children. Anyone who enters into this institution with the understanding that this is not the case is remarkably deluded.

     Marriage is a very flexible institution, and each couple makes of it what they choose. And in this story, it sounds like maybe the woman was open to children, but not at that time. Not that it matters; her body, her pregnancy, her choice.

     3) It is perfectly within any person’s rights to make his or her boundaries known within a relationship. If aborting his child was a deal-breaker for this man, he was right to let this fact be known. It would certainly be a deal-breaker for me if any man insisted that I abort my child because he did not wish to be saddled with the responsibilities of parenthood.

     This one I actually agree with. I also have deal-breaking expectations for my marriage (e.g. no violence). However, the manner in which these expectations are conveyed is also important. My interpretation of this story is that she was berated, called hysterical, and threatened with abandonment. This is different from a measured statement of boundaries to an equal.

147. So the pro-lifers are all about having two parent households but when one is faced with a life or death situation where either baby dies or mommy dies, I guess it just doesn’t matter cause at least baby gets to live. I hate America.

     I want kids, but I honestly feel like I should just give that up and get my tubes tied.

148. “So the pro-lifers are all about having two parent households but when one is faced with a life or death situation where either baby dies or mommy dies, I guess it just doesn’t matter cause at least baby gets to live.”

     Don’t be silly–the father just replaces the dead wife with a new one. To do otherwise would be wrong–everybody knows that babies need women taking care of them. If they’re deprived of uterine-emitted XX-rays, they’ll wither and die.

149. But funny that the exact opposite argument is used against women in the military – their kids need *that* particular woman to care for them, and no one else can do the job. Or else you’re a terrible, terrible mother.

     But dying in childbirth is a-ok!

150. My baby girl is the most beautiful gift God has ever given me and the one thing I am most thankful for.

     So he’s a Christian. Ish.

     What’s more precious, an innocent life of a child

     In which case, how can he be calling an unborn child innocent? According to his religion, every human soul comes complete with its own taint of original sin. So if a foetus is a person, it’s an unclean person fit only for death and damnation.

151. Wow. It sure is a good thing the rational man was able to overcome that crazy bitch’s hysteria. Because bitches are crazy.

     She needs to kick his ass to the curb

     & give him a swift kick on the hacky-sack for good measure.

     Fucking arsewipe.

152. Well I missed alot. a foetus is considered innocent in almost every Christian denomination.

     I would hope you would allow him the opportunity to explain his beliefs and not tell him what you think they are.

153. Oh, I can’t WAIT until that kid gets to be about 15!

154. You know, the funny thing is that I think (no way to tell unless it comes up) that I *would* give my life for my born children. And my stepchildren. (I specify step only to make it clear that they’re not genetically related; I have raised them since they were 2. They’re my kids.)

     But I most emphatically was not interested in giving my life for my babies *before* they were born. I had difficult pregnancies, and I lived in terror of another miscarriage, but had I been told that I needed to abort or my *life* would have been in danger… for instance I had cancer and needed chemo, or something… I would totally have aborted. (And I do view abortion as the taking of human life, I just view it as doing so in self-defense and therefore justifiable. You aren’t allowed to parasitically feed on another human against their will no matter how innocent you are when you do it.)

     I felt protective toward my fetuses in utero, but it was NOTHING like what I felt toward them after they were born and I could hold them and see their tiny faces. I don’t know how it’s possible for anyone to confuse a born baby with an unborn baby. How could you possibly feel the same way toward an unborn baby (especially at an embryonic stage, like 5 weeks into a pregnancy) as you do toward a born baby?

     Hell, I might even sacrifice my husband to save my *born* children (including the ones that are genetically related to him but not me.) But I cannot imagine sacrificing another human for a being that has not yet been born. They have never lived, they have no awareness… yes, technically they are *alive*, but they have no consciousness of it. Especially since we don’t abort viable fetuses for reasons of the mother’s health; if the fetus is *viable* we do emergency c-sections or something. It’s the ones that can’t themselves live, or their quality of life would be horrible, or the ones that cannot live outside the mother yet and their presence is killing her, that we perform third-trimester abortions on. So it’s already simply not done to abort something as sentient and conscious as a newborn baby; the brain development that occurs at the end of the pregnancy, when the fetus doubles in size, is dramatic. We’re comparing a thing that has essentially the brain of an insect to a thing that has the brain of a kitten when we compare unborn and abortable to born.

155. He should love his child unconditionally; all parents should. But he doesn’t love his wife that way, so he won’t. I could see my abusive father saying the very same thing–and in fact he lived it; his children existed to take care of HIS needs and make HIM feel better, not the other way around. That’s exactly what this guy is saying. This guy is in for a huge wakeup call eventually, because this daughter is not going to love him unconditionally. She’ll end up pitying him, perhaps. Not even close.

156. It is atrociously rude of each and every one of you to be making ad-hoc clinical diagnoses of this gentleman

     He makes the fact that he’s an abusive sack of shit pretty goddamn obvious. That’s his own fault.

157. Yes, it’s a joke; no, I don’t think pro-lifers are actually Hell-dwelling demons with eyeballs on their hands.

     Of course not … their eyeballs are in their head. 😉

158. In which case, how can he be calling an unborn child innocent? According to his religion, every human soul comes complete with its own taint of original sin.

     Eh… not all Christians believe in Original Sin. In fact, according to the Pope, aborted babies go straight to heaven. Hooray for them!

     2) One of the primary social and cultural roles of the institution of ‘marriage’, for thousands of years, has been the production and nurturance of children. Anyone who enters into this institution with the understanding that this is not the case is remarkably deluded.

     And anyone who enters into marriage in the year 2007 with the understanding that that is the only role of marriage is insane. People get married for a variety of reasons, and many people get married who have absolutely no intention of having children what-so-ever. If I ever get married, rest assured that the production and nuturance of children will not be the reason.

     3) It is perfectly within any person’s rights to make his or her boundaries known within a relationship. If aborting his child was a deal-breaker for this man, he was right to let this fact be known. It would certainly be a deal-breaker for me if any man insisted that I abort my child because he did not wish to be saddled with the responsibilities of parenthood

     I’d argue that they should have talked about this before they got married, but, whatever. Sure, he should make his boundaries known. That doesn’t make him less an asshole, though.

159. Pingback: Abortion « God likes mosh pits too.

160. Why can’t these fathers think of anything else?

     You know why not. Ick.

161. Actually Alex re: evolution…there is this little thing call “mother’s milk, the absence of which precludes the little darling carrying anything downrange.

162. Gina Said:

     a foetus is considered innocent in almost every Christian denomination.

     ummm… no gina. most christians consider children before they are baptized to have “original sin”. this implies that they are not innocent.

     also, many christians will tell you that ALL nonchristians are going to hell. some of these will say the nonbaptized are going to hell because of original sin. hell is gonna be pretty full up with aborted fetuses and embryos that miscarried.

     jesus is a pretty sadistic dude.

163. The true debate lies in whether or not an unborn child has the same rights as a born child. Basically, stripped down to the fundamentals, an unborn child is as human as a 21 year old college graduate. She deserves the same rights to live, to independence, and to procreate as we all have.

     So tell us how it is done, Jay? Tell us how a pregnant woman enjoys the “same rights” as a 21 year old college graduate if in fact the fetus has the same rights as a 21 year old college graduate? What if the college graduate is a scuba instructor, hazardous materials inspector, machine operator or is simply engaged in any of the professions/hobbies known to carry risks to the fetus?

     Are you telling us that pregnant women have fewer rights than the fetus from the moment of conception? What?

164. Ah, but a lot of the Christian denominations get around the problem by creating an “age of reason”. Babies are innocent for a couple of years, but at some point they reach the age at which they, in a basic sense, know right from wrong. And, of course, sometimes they choose wrong, and that’s God’s “Gotcha!” moment at which they are now doomed to hell. That age is impossible to pin down, and most adherents will say it’s sometime between ages 2-4, but it conveniently lets them say dead babies go to Heaven but it’s perfectly normal for a 5 year old (like in Jesus Camp) to say that he’s been saved from his sin.

165. Hi. Just came across this thread and it looked interesting.

     Just thought I’d play devil’s advocate here for a second. From an evolutionary biological standpoint, investing more and caring more about the life and wellbeing of an offspring more than a mate is in fact an adaptive trait. If you haven’t read it, Richard Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene” deals with this. (Note: the original writer you quote probably wouldn’t like Dawkins. He’s probably the most outspoken atheist in America). There’s suggestion that our social nature and attachment to family is in fact predicated on our genes, and our capacity to pass them into the next generation.

     Note: I didn’t miss your point. You’re coming from an individual rights perspective. Just a quick question, BTW, should you have to make a choice, between an offspring and a mate, where would you choose?

166. Torn:

     In comment #116, preying mantis *does* give another view regarding an evolutionary standpoint: Is it worth sacrificing one’s mate for an infant (assuming viability, for sake of the argument) that may or may not survive? And if we get all armchair evolutionary theorist, an infant that a male can’t so easily feed?

     I already quizzed my boyfriend, who got the (ie, my) right answer: save me, not a fetus.

167. I think I would always choose to save my partner over anyone else in the world, but then I don’t have any children yet and perhaps I would feel differently if I did. However saving my partner’s life over saving a pregnancy, even a wanted pregnancy, woudn’t even require a moment’s deliberation.

     I’m also not convinced that preserving the life of individual offspring at all costs is necessarily an evolved trait. In many species the parent will abandon (or even kill and eat) the offspring, in times of scarce resources, especially those who might not survive anyway. It may be a better reproductive strategy to lose some offspring in the hope of having more/better ones at a later time.

     I do find evolutionary biology absolutely fascinating, however the ways in which it affects modern-day human society are, while very real, far more complex than most people seem to realise. I don’t claim to be an expert myself, however the over-simplistic interpretations are sometimes painful to hear. Especially when they’re used transparently to justify certain gender roles and behaviours that the speaker obviously has a vested interest in maintaining. Not that this is happening here, necessarily, but it does happen.

168. Actually, yes, Tom, you did miss the point. Part of the point is that we’re not talking about an abstract “mate” or “offspring”, but about a real choice between a loved one (you DO know what those are, yes?) and a not-yet-viable fetus.

     In Dawkins-land, it may well be more adaptive for your mate to abort a difficult pregnancy and try again to bear viable offpsring with her.

169. From an evolutionary biological standpoint, investing more and caring more about the life and wellbeing of an offspring more than a mate is in fact an adaptive trait. If you haven’t read it, Richard Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene” deals with this.

     And that’s why Dawkins is extremely controversial from an evolutionary biology point of view: he doesn’t explain why it is that so many animals — humans included — will kill their offspring as infants if offspring are in fact the primary focus of evolution. If that were true, there would be no infanticide.

     They just did a really interesting study on infanticide and discovered that it usually happens for very rational reasons: the mother will have to put so many resources into supporting the child that she won’t be able to support herself and/or the children she already has, so she kills the infant, either directly or through neglect. And it happens in every culture.

     In other words, he has an interesting theory, but it doesn’t seem to be borne out in the real world.

170. re: the psychoanalysis of the guy–it’s one thing to clearly state a boundary. It’s another to threaten/bully a person into your way of thinking. Here’s a novel idea, instead of being an ass, he could’ve offered some support/understanding of her fears while still advocating carrying the pregnancy to term (e.g. I’ll be here for you, we’ll get through this together). The way he chose to take his stand on the pregnancy (threatening to leave her) speaks volumes about him. If that wasn’t enough to win him a place on the Ass Olympic team (and IMHO, it was plenty), he then patronized/condscends to DBB’s about his very real, non-hypothetical situation. Dude’s an ass, I feel sorry for the wife and kid.

171. C’mon…this is silly.

     Tom, tell me how, 100,000 years ago, upon the death of Mom in childbirth, Dad feeds the surviving infant?

     What are the selection pressures that would produce the adaptive trait of Dad preferring infant to Mom?

     Just wondering?

172. OK, a little perspective on the “Holy Book.” Christians manipulate scripture to assign a kinder nature to their God, hiding the violent, jealous, murdering, cannibalistic reality. And no, the argument that it was the “old testament” stuff doesn’t hold:

     •2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is inspired by God …”
     •Luke 16:17 All the vicious Old Testament laws will be binding forever.
     •Matthew 5:17 (Jesus) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets…”

     SO, NOW REGARDING THE SANCTITY OF LIFE:

     •Numbers 21:27-35 God helped Moses destroy “…the men, the women, and the little ones.”
     •Deuteronomy 3:3-7 God ordered Moses’ army to “utterly destroy” 60 cities, killing all the women and children within!

     YEAH, BUT HOW ABOUT THE INNOCENT CHILDREN, THE BABIES:

     •1 Samuel 15:3 God commands the death of helpless “suckling” infants. God killed nursing children.
     •Psalms 135:8 & 136: God’s praised for slaughtering little babies.
     •Psalms 137:9 God commands that infants should be “dashed upon the rocks”.

     NO, I MEAN THE UNBORN BABIES IN THE WOMB:

     •Hosea 9:11-16 Hosea prays for God’s intervention. “… yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their
     womb.” Is this not “abortion”?
     •Numbers 31:17 (Moses) “…kill every male among the little ones, and kill every women that hath known man by lying with him.” Meaning women who might be pregnant, which clearly is abortion for the fetus.
     •Hosea 13:16 God promises to dash to pieces the infants of Samaria and the “their women with child shall be ripped up”. Once again this god kills the unborn, including their pregnant mothers.

     WHAT COULD BE WORSE THEN KILLING THE BABIES?:

     •Isaiah 13:15-18 If God can find you, he will “thrust you through,” smash your children “to pieces” before your eyes, and rape your wife.
     •Jeremiah 19:7-9 God will make parents eat their own children, and friends eat each other.
     •Judges 11:30-40 Jephthah killed his young daughter (his only child) by burning her alive as a burnt sacrifice to the lord as he commanded it.

     AND SHOULD THAT GUY’S PRECIOUS ONE YEAR OLD BECOME AN INDEPENDENT YOUNG WOMAN NOT TO HIS LIKING, THE “HOLY BOOK” HAS THE ANSWER:

     •Exodus 21:7 God gives out laws on how to sell one’ daughter into slavery.

     OR IF THAT DOESN’T WORK:

     •Exodus 20:9-10 Death for cursing out one’s parents

     Yeah, the Holy Book, what a wonderful, life affirming lesson book. But what do I know, I’m just an old hippy white dude…

173. And that’s why Dawkins is extremely controversial from an evolutionary biology point of view: he doesn’t explain why it is that so many animals — humans included — will kill their offspring as infants if offspring are in fact the primary focus of evolution. If that were true, there would be no infanticide.

     They just did a really interesting study on infanticide and discovered that it usually happens for very rational reasons: the mother will have to put so many resources into supporting the child that she won’t be able to support herself and/or the children she already has, so she kills the infant, either directly or through neglect. And it happens in every culture.

     In other words, he has an interesting theory, but it doesn’t seem to be borne out in the real world.

     Actually, he is not saying that offspring are the primary focus at all. Its a persons genes that are important, hence the name of his book, The Selfish GENE. So his theory is perfectly in line with infanticide; if your child is unlikely to be viable, it’s best to cut your losses and try again later, with an offspring that is more likely to survive and carry on your genes.

174. Ah, So we got why deliberately induced abortion is adaptive, in Dawkins evolutionary theory.

     I’m stilll harping on the preference of the Dads for the Moms, over the fetus.

     Look, I know that personal experience is not valid here, but I am telling you what Dad thinks:

     Dad thinks that if Mom is at risk…wart removal and induced abortion are equivalent.

     Take my word for it.

175. So his theory is perfectly in line with infanticide; if your child is unlikely to be viable, it’s best to cut your losses and try again later, with an offspring that is more likely to survive and carry on your genes.

     Actually, it’s not so much the viability of the infant, though that can be a factor — it’s how the infant will impact the survival of the mother. Even if the infant is perfectly healthy, the mother will sometimes decide that putting the effort into that infant isn’t worth it.

     But that also shows that “the father will choose the infant over the mother because of evolutionary biology” makes no sense. If it’s a choice between a mate with proven fertility (she got pregnant at least once, right?) and an infant that has an iffy chance of survival without a mother, the smart choice, evolution-wise, is the mate, not the infant.

176. The idea that infants are inherently more valuable in an evolutionary sense doesn’t make much sense when you consider the fact that most infants died before their first birthday before the advent of modern medicine, even if you ignore deliberate infanticide. At the turn of the 20th century, the average lifespan was 44 years (and in ancient Rome, it was 22!), but that was less because people dropped dead at 40 at more because most people died before their first year, pulling the average down for everyone else. There’s a reason infants were not named until they were at least a year or two old, and why the bible places no value on infants younger than one month.

177. Well you obviousl dont understand that a mans worth in the afterlife is based on how many souls he brings into the world. Regardless of which women are used to bring them into this world. If a woman brings a mans baby into this world then she is serving god and will be rewarded by being allowed to sit next to the man in the afterlife.

     Vote Mitt Romney – hes a beleiver!

178. And that’s why Dawkins is extremely controversial from an evolutionary biology point of view: he doesn’t explain why it is that so many animals — humans included — will kill their offspring as infants if offspring are in fact the primary focus of evolution. If that were true, there would be no infanticide.

     Now, I’ve not read The Selfish Gene specifically, but I’ve read other Dawkins on evolution, and I’m familiar with his concept. I think it’s pretty clear that it’s possible to have offspring – or more accurately gene reproduction – be the focus of evolution and have infanticide occur.

     Chimp and to a lesser degree gorilla males will commit infanticide when the parentage of infants is in doubt. If there’s no possibility, they will kill the infant in order to get the mother ovulating again, so *they* can impregnate her. The mother pretty much always goes off with the killer. After all, if the male you were with wasn’t able to defend your child, then he probably didn’t have good genes to create an individual who would successfully carry on *your* genes. And if this male was strong/quick/whatever enough to fight off you and the male you were with, then he has better genes.

     Although i don’t think this translates to human behavior or anything. Just that infanticide often makes perfect sense evolutionarily, in certian group living situations.

     This doesn’t happen in all apes though. Infanticide is pretty much unobserved amongst Bonobos and Orangutans. I’m not sure about the gibbons.

179. I think we have pretty much put to rest the notion of Dad preferring the live infant over the dead Mom as an adaptive trait. Admittedly, when I raised the question, I was not expecting anything other than a few grins for pointing out the obvious.

     And yes, this is off-topic, but I can’t help but think that the reason so silly a notion could be advanced is because of the lingering idea that human evolution was solely the product of the mens becoming mighty warriors and hunters. The womens just sat around in the dirt waiting to be fed sos the babes could be fed.

     Oooops…looks like those unimportant womanly breasts serving as anything other than tittie-lation for the exhausted manly hunter dragging home his kill to feed his starving family… is nonsense.

     The point?

     How something so fundamental and so obvious can be so blithely overlooked, in this day and age, and on this board… tells me we still got a looooong way to go in giving the gals the credit we are due, then and now.

180. If there’s no possibility, they will kill the infant in order to get the mother ovulating again, so *they* can impregnate her.

     My moderated comment should read, If there’s no possibility of them being the father they will often kill the infant…etc, which will totally make more sense once it’s out of the moderation queue.

181. But then Vanessa…somewhere along the line…female fertility became a hidden proposition, and the policy of offing the young’uns might not have inspired the traditional female cooperation of yore.

     Just speculating.

182. To ahunt:

     You’re right, women have not been given the credit they were due in accordance with the development of civilization and the adaptation of our species to almost every environment on the planet. That’s mostly because up until very recently, anthropologists and archaeologists (mostly men) have looked at the evidence left behind through the spectrum of their own patriarchal society, without looking at the facts through the lens of the original culture.

     It is interesting to me that in the European Upper Paleolithic, most mobilary art (portable pieces of art, like stone dolls, trinkets, etc.) are either of anthropomorphic animals or exaggerated women. But there are rarely human depictions of men. Even the wall/cave paintings of 35,000 years ago are mostly of animals, and if humans are depicted, they are androgenous (widely accepted as male, but there is no evidence for it — only a lack of breasts. But lack of breasts does not constitute male. Most depictions of humans are stone-age equivalents of stick-people).

     Since animal worship is likely, because that’s where their livelihood came from, and anthropomorphic animals are generally representative of some sort of spiritual belief or god-like quality, then you might attribute the same to the female figurines that are equally or even more widely found. I would propose, then, that these female figurines aren’t “sex toys” made by men, but rather seeing women as the main source of life and the continuance of human existence… not men. Why else would they be so conspicuously absent from early Paleolithic artistic culture when depcitions of women are so common?

183. Additionally, female influence within a society is highly correlated with female contribution to food.

     In hunter-gatherer

184. Ooops. Wrong button. To continue:

     In hunter-gatherer societies (also the societies of early homo-sapiens, I might add), you find some of the most egalitarian societal setups on the planet. Women contribute main staples to food, and in some societies participate in net-hunting, where the entire community provides precious meat resources. Not just the “warrior-men” we might think of. Additionally, men do the “womanly” work of gathering as well… hunting is rare. In Inuit societies, where there is no vegetation to collect, and men do most of the fishing, women are almost property because they make no other contribution to the household other than being baby cannons for men.

     In horticultural societies, women have a good amount of influence as well, because they often tend the fields while the men go and hunt. They have less influence because meat resources are more precious than grain or vegetation… but still, they can have great power within the society: for reference, see many of the Native-American societal setups of North America.

     But then, we get to agricultural societies, which are stagnant and do not move around. This means that the men not only have the meat resources with them, but they also tend the fields… and women have no contribution to food resources at all, reducing them to tending the home instead of the fields. Here we see a huge inequality pop up in history, since women have less economic value (except perhaps for their fertile purposes).

     And then, industrial societies. Since our long cultural stagnation in an agricultural setup, that does not allow women to contribute economically to the household, we assume that this is how it has “always been.” And it has, for a couple thousand years, in the most populated and largest societies (but not all). And if that is how it has “always been,” that means that it’s “natural.” Today, since in industrial soceities women now have the ability to provide for themselves once again, we are fighting that image that has been long standing (but not as long as the history of homo sapiens before agriculture!) that places women out of the economic spectrum.

185. But then Vanessa…somewhere along the line…female fertility became a hidden proposition, and the policy of offing the young’uns might not have inspired the traditional female cooperation of yore.

     Interestingly enough, this is how it works with the Bonobos. Female fertility is hidden (for the opposite reason than amongst humans, bonobo females appear to be in estrus *all the time*) and the females remain grouped together, so male status is hinged upon the status of your mother, and the females cooperate to such a degree that they totally dominate the males.

     Again, not saying that this relates to human behavior at all. Just that it’s perfectly reasonable for infanticide to “work” evolutionarily.

186. It is interesting to me that in the European Upper Paleolithic, most mobilary art (portable pieces of art, like stone dolls, trinkets, etc.) are either of anthropomorphic animals or exaggerated women. But there are rarely human depictions of men. Even the wall/cave paintings of 35,000 years ago are mostly of animals, and if humans are depicted, they are androgenous (widely accepted as male, but there is no evidence for it — only a lack of breasts. But lack of breasts does not constitute male. Most depictions of humans are stone-age equivalents of stick-people).

     Eh. I don’t know if this is really true. One of the most famous, and earliest sculptures is of a lion-headed human figure with a wang. Also, many of the hunting scenes depict human with what are pretty clearly penises, often erect penises.

187. Actually, Vanessa, the most widespread art of the Gravettian and Magdalenian periods, about 35,000-20,000 years ago in Europe, is pieces of stone, bone, or clay art that depict [usually rather hefty] women. And I know which sculpture you’re talking about. The thing is… there’s only one of those. There’s a lot more of women. Keep in mind, too, that there are penises on only some of the cave paintings — and throwing spears at wild animals is way less interesting to paint than catching rabbits communally with nets and harvesting pumpkins. Spear hunting was rare, maybe a few times a year. Who wants to paint pumpkins?

188. Who wants to paint pumpkins?

     Point taken. I actually got into a big discussion in class about this kind of thing the other day re: the early work of Shelly Ortner. I don’t really want to start a whole thing, so I won’t get into it.

     What were we talking about, again?

189. Oh we are so far off-topic, but I thank everyone for the discussion.

     Again, I was just looking for grins, cuz it all seemed pretty simple to me.

     Thing is, Jess…I’m not clear that animal protein EVER comprised the main staple of homo sapiens diet. In fact, I would bet against it. I come from the perspective of rural growers and hunters/fisherfolk, and I’m thinking that vegetation protein played at least as much of a role in feeding the family as the red meat.

     At least initially.

190. I’m not clear that animal protein EVER comprised the main staple of homo sapiens diet. In fact, I would bet against it.

     It depends, I guess. Some Homo sapiens live/lived in places with pretty much no plants at all. But even when it’s not the main staple per say, it provides essential protiens.

     Whoever said that (nomadic) foraging societies were egalitarian upthread was pretty much correct. Not only do both sexes depend on and provision the other, but there’s pretty much no class distinction or division of labor. I had a history teacher once suggest that farming was where it all started to go horribly wrong.

191. Thing is, Jess…I’m not clear that animal protein EVER comprised the main staple of homo sapiens diet. In fact, I would bet against it. I come from the perspective of rural growers and hunters/fisherfolk, and I’m thinking that vegetation protein played at least as much of a role in feeding the family as the red meat.

     Exactly what I’m saying. Animal protein, at least from mega fauna like mammoths, lions, deer, bears, was generally a rarity… which is precisely why women were more important in the prehistorical record than previously assumed.

192. I had a history teacher once suggest that farming was where it all started to go horribly wrong.

     Haha, I had an anthropologist tell me that agriculture, aside from bipedalism, is one of the worst mistakes in human/evolutionary history.

193. Lord, I am enjoying this

     Folks, I also had a anthro/history prof (25 years ago) who suggested to me that the intelligent ag labor of women led to their downfall; once the nature of “roots” was established…it all became about controlling territory.

     Thank you, Van and Jess, for some good fun. I doubt we will be hearing any other defense of offing Mom for the sake of the fetus, but you never know.

194. I value life, but you know what? I wouldn’t dare tell another woman what do with her body. Maybe its because I am a woman. I don’t know. I just do not understand so many of those pro-lifers out there. Then there is this particular asshole. Yuck! Its not the first time I have encountered that kind of attitude but it never fails to make me want to projectile vomit. I really do hope his wife kicks his potential abusing ass to the curb and his daughter disowns him. Is it wrong of me to wish he gets run over by a big ass truck in the near future?

195. I would be interested on how this woman felt about the constant hate spewing thoughts aimed at her husband.

     Was this woman’s life on the line in childbirth? No. So then she was tempted to do something drastic and horrifying. She came to her senses. It is also the father’s child. Unfortunately, feminists here are proving to be too selfish to realize that important fact.

196. I would be interested on how this woman felt about the constant hate spewing thoughts aimed at her husband.

     And I’d be interested to see how this woman felt about her husband spewing hate about her.

     Just saying.

197. Hey, if he could figure out a way to carry the child to term in his nutsack, he’s more than welcome to have a say in gestation.

     Just because you park your car somewhere doesn’t mean you own the garage.

198. It is also the father’s child. Unfortunately, feminists here are proving to be too selfish to realize that important fact.

     …. well, that takes up my “babies are men’s property (that women are supposed to gestate, birth and raise)” and “lwomen don’t have no autonomy” and “feminists are selfish” and… wow, I think I have Bingo.

     Do I get a prize?

199. Hey, if he could figure out a way to carry the child to term in his nutsack, he’s more than welcome to have a say in gestation.

     HA! wouldn’t that be something?
     and who said all feminists are humorless?

200. Hey, if he could figure out a way to carry the child to term in his nutsack, he’s more than welcome to have a say in gestation.

     Considering the diameter of his birth canal, all he’d be saying is “OWWW! MUTHABLEEPIN OWWW! GIVE ME DRUGS!”

201. 1) It is atrociously rude of each and every one of you to be making ad-hoc clinical diagnoses of this gentleman […]

     2) Anyone who enters into [marriage] this institution with the understanding that this [marriage has been for children for thousands of years] is not the case is remarkably deluded.

     Is it okay to make the diagnoses if you don’t directly point fingers or name names? Gracious me.

Comments are currently closed.