Ireland compensates woman forced to travel to Britain for an abortion

[garbon]

Meh.  She doesn't care.  It's clearly she views it only through the lens of women's rights and power.  Consequences be damned.

How dare she. She really should learn how to moderate her point of view so it will be palatable to...err...well, I can't exactly think why she needs to do that.

[Berkut]

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

I think you might be being sarcastic here

Noted.

[garbon]

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

I think you might be being sarcastic here

Noted.

I've definitely written it down in my log.

[Valmy]

Sometimes dialog can only take us so far

The funny thing is we all agree on like 99% of the issues. This must be like what those Church Councils were like.

[Berkut]

Meh.  She doesn't care.  It's clearly she views it only through the lens of women's rights and power.  Consequences be damned.

How dare she. She really should learn how to moderate her point of view so it will be palatable to...err...well, I can't exactly think why she needs to do that.

Presumably because she wants to actually convince people.

If she wants to just feel offended and worked up over being oppressed, she can go on arguing that a fetus is a parasite, and not agreeing with that is arguing that women have no rights.

[garbon]

Meh.  She doesn't care.  It's clearly she views it only through the lens of women's rights and power.  Consequences be damned.

How dare she. She really should learn how to moderate her point of view so it will be palatable to...err...well, I can't exactly think why she needs to do that.

Presumably because she wants to actually convince people.

If she wants to just feel offended and worked up over being oppressed, she can go on arguing that a fetus is a parasite, and not agreeing with that is arguing that women have no rights.

But who is she trying to 'convince' Languish? I don't think Meri is a reproductive rights activist or a politician.

[merithyn]

Not particularly. As has been noted, 70% or more of Americans believe that abortion should be, in the words of Bill Clinton, safe, legal, and rare. I hold onto that as hope that it will remain safe and legal. The other 30%? There is no convincing them, and it's not really my job to try.

The thing of it is, I've done the moderate, temperate, quietly convincing thing for years, and honestly? I'm tired of it. It did no good, and all it did was make me sick that I had to kindly argue that while yes, I am an incubator, really, who I am as a person might want to come into the picture, too, don't you think? And no, they didn't think so because THINK OF THE CHILDREN. Hell, I was once told that there should be laws about what a woman could do while pregnant, like making it a felony if she smoked, drank, or took Tylenol while she was pregnant. That for nine months, give or take, we should have zero rights to what we do if there is any risk to the child at all. And that conversation was with trusted people whom I love and who love me. Men, of course, who would never have any idea what toll pregnancy already takes on a person.

At the end of the day, it should be no one else's business what I, or any other woman, do with our bodies. It just shouldn't. And I'm done with giving any quarter on it.

[Berkut]

Meh.  She doesn't care.  It's clearly she views it only through the lens of women's rights and power.  Consequences be damned.

How dare she. She really should learn how to moderate her point of view so it will be palatable to...err...well, I can't exactly think why she needs to do that.

Presumably because she wants to actually convince people.

If she wants to just feel offended and worked up over being oppressed, she can go on arguing that a fetus is a parasite, and not agreeing with that is arguing that women have no rights.

But who is she trying to 'convince' Languish? I don't think Meri is a reproductive rights activist or a politician.

Noe of us are, so presuambly we are debating things on Languish that we find meaningful and relevant to one another.

If we are all just hear to listen to ourselves talk, then fine. But I certainly change my views on things in part based on what people on Languish convince me of, and I presume that some others do as well. To the extent that I find others opinions interesting and even worthy of consideration when it comes to forming my own views, *their* willingness to be convinced enters into that metric as well. I engage in discussion in good faith, and my interest in others point of views is largely dependent on their doing the same.

Meri apparently is telling me that my opinions about her opinions are not interesting to her, since they challenge her views and tone. Shrug. Ok. As I said, noted. I will afford her views with rather less weight in the future, since apparently discussion is not her goal here, she just wants to vent and have people agree with her, like Raz or siege. Which is fine, that is what some people want out of languish, but it isn't what keeps me posting.

Different drummers and all that.

[garbon]

Meh.  She doesn't care.  It's clearly she views it only through the lens of women's rights and power.  Consequences be damned.

How dare she. She really should learn how to moderate her point of view so it will be palatable to...err...well, I can't exactly think why she needs to do that.

Presumably because she wants to actually convince people.

If she wants to just feel offended and worked up over being oppressed, she can go on arguing that a fetus is a parasite, and not agreeing with that is arguing that women have no rights.

But who is she trying to 'convince' Languish? I don't think Meri is a reproductive rights activist or a politician.

Noe of us are, so presuambly we are debating things on Languish that we find meaningful and relevant to one another.

If we are all just hear to listen to ourselves talk, then fine. But I certainly change my views on things in part based on what people on Languish convince me of, and I presume that some others do as well. To the extent that I find others opinions interesting and even worthy of consideration when it comes to forming my own views, *their* willingness to be convinced enters into that metric as well. I engage in discussion in good faith, and my interest in others point of views is largely dependent on their doing the same.

Meri apparently is telling me that my opinions about her opinions are not interesting to her, since they challenge her views and tone. Shrug. Ok. As I said, noted. I will afford her views with rather less weight in the future, since apparently discussion is not her goal here, she just wants to vent and have people agree with her, like Raz or siege. Which is fine, that is what some people want out of languish, but it isn't what keeps me posting.

Different drummers and all that.

I think people can post on Languish for different reasons and that's okay. That doesn't make Meri more akin to Siege simply because she doesn't want to join your debating society.

[Berkut]

Meh.  She doesn't care.  It's clearly she views it only through the lens of women's rights and power.  Consequences be damned.

How dare she. She really should learn how to moderate her point of view so it will be palatable to...err...well, I can't exactly think why she needs to do that.

Presumably because she wants to actually convince people.

If she wants to just feel offended and worked up over being oppressed, she can go on arguing that a fetus is a parasite, and not agreeing with that is arguing that women have no rights.

But who is she trying to 'convince' Languish? I don't think Meri is a reproductive rights activist or a politician.

Noe of us are, so presuambly we are debating things on Languish that we find meaningful and relevant to one another.

If we are all just hear to listen to ourselves talk, then fine. But I certainly change my views on things in part based on what people on Languish convince me of, and I presume that some others do as well. To the extent that I find others opinions interesting and even worthy of consideration when it comes to forming my own views, *their* willingness to be convinced enters into that metric as well. I engage in discussion in good faith, and my interest in others point of views is largely dependent on their doing the same.

Meri apparently is telling me that my opinions about her opinions are not interesting to her, since they challenge her views and tone. Shrug. Ok. As I said, noted. I will afford her views with rather less weight in the future, since apparently discussion is not her goal here, she just wants to vent and have people agree with her, like Raz or siege. Which is fine, that is what some people want out of languish, but it isn't what keeps me posting.

Different drummers and all that.

I think people can post on Languish for different reasons and that's okay.

I think that is exactly what I just said...

But I have very little interest in being your dragon for you to play white knight to, and Meri deserves more respect than being cast as your damsel in distress.

[Valmy]

Men, of course, who would never have any idea what toll pregnancy already takes on a person.

Well maybe someday we grow all of our babies in Fate's vats and nobody will ever be pregnant again. Then this will no longer be an issue.

[Berkut]

Men, of course, who would never have any idea what toll pregnancy already takes on a person.

Again, a completely ridiculous comment.

men can NEVER have ANY idea? Never? None at all?

We are, because we are men, incapable of simple observation and learning from our senses? We, because we are men, are incapable of empathy with our wives and lovers?

And pregnancy NEVER has ANY effect on men at all? We NEVER have ANY say of any kind in that life?

I thought Meri is demanding that we DO NOT consider women to just be incubators, but apparently being an incubator is the complete and total experience that 100% informs everything that is *possible* to know about pregnancy and it "toll", such that men are and must be completely ignorant of it.

This is all ridiculous of course. It is taking the argument from one absolutely idiotic extreme straight to the other. And again, it just empowers the one extreme to paint everyone not in their extreme to be in the other extreme. This is, right here, a *perfect* example of how positional polarization happens.

You either inhabit MY extreme, or by definition you inhabit the other, because the structure of the debate is setup so that there is no possible middle ground. Because "Men, of course, who would never have any idea...."

[derspiess]

I'm still trying to get rid of my pregnancy weight

[Valmy]

To be fair Meri had some particularly horrendous pregnancies.

[merithyn]

Meri apparently is telling me that my opinions about her opinions are not interesting to her, since they challenge her views and tone. Shrug. Ok. As I said, noted. I will afford her views with rather less weight in the future, since apparently discussion is not her goal here, she just wants to vent and have people agree with her, like Raz or siege. Which is fine, that is what some people want out of languish, but it isn't what keeps me posting.

Different drummers and all that.

Wow. Okay.

You're not arguing about my points, but rather how I share them. That's not a debate, Berk.  You've made it clear that you disagree with my stance and why. I disagree with yours. Okay, fine. Not a big deal. As I stated, I don't expect people to change their mind on this. I presented my opinion, my reasons for my opinion, and listened to yours. That I don't really feel a need to be told that my style of presentation isn't to your liking. I assure you that there are any number of times where your style of presentation and debate isn't to my liking, either. But I don't feel a need to condescendingly coach you on how to make yourself more pleasing to me.