Fathers Don't Have Enough Say About Abortions

I recently saw a post online about abortion and I was really provoked into evaluating the situation further.

The post was doing the same old debate about how some people argue about abortion and the varying disparities in opinion of what constitutes "life," "rights," and "choice."

Ultimately, I think the main problem with any/all childbearing law is that exactly none of those three options are explored fully, and the laws are all unfairly kedged to popular media. Instead of looking at everything from a slanted viewpoint, let's evaluate the topic of abortion from these three standpoints and show a few different sides.

LIFE

In the arena of life, this can possibly affect all three parties involved. The mother's life is certainly changed and her life is significantly valuable. The father's life is very much also changed, not just financially, but emotionally, and mentally also. The child obviously has a stake in this category also.

Here are some basic statements that I think are true:

• At whatever point you call something life (conception/heartbeat/brain signals/etc), it should be entitled to whatever potential that life provides
• A mother has the right to decide what she wants to do with her body and her future
• A father also has the right to decide what he wants to do with his body and his future

If those are all true, the concept of life is a bigger picture than simply "when does a baby become a baby" or "is the mother or the baby more important" and it becomes something that is more complex. It's an evaluation of what this life has the potential of being, how that potential affects the lives of the people who conceived it, and how that triad plays a role in the community around it. 

So when you are speaking with people about "What Constitutes Life" please be sure to acknowledge that ALL of the lives involved with this are exactly that - involved. 

The argument comes in when people argue at what point actually begins. Some people argue that life begins when the full body of the baby is formed. Others argue at the first heartbeat. Others argue at conception. 

I think to really get at the heart of what the issue is, you need to get to the dirty and gritty truth of the question. The real question is, "at what point is is still okay to completely mangle something that may potentially become a human being and when is it no longer acceptable?"

In my personal opinion, I would argue that the question is rather superfluous, because nobody really wants to do that, but I would also wager that most people can agree that once something can FEEL it's morally reprehensible to do something so painful to something. At that point, I make the argument that the "life" point is when the zygote/fetus/baby/etc has nerves that can actually send signals.

If your argument is to the contrary, understand that you are saying you feel it's okay to intentionally mangle and liquify potential life while it is able to feel every moment. 

Current law doesn't take into thought AT ALL what the actual thing inside the mother FEELS. It is based on viability outside of the womb, but that's really not considering the LIFE inside her if you agree that being able to feel presumes life.

RIGHTS

On the subject of rights, let's talk about equality and making everything fair for everyone. I talk about it this way, because the general consensus is that everyone should have equal rights. There are again, three parties involved here. 

The Baby/Fetus/Zygote/etc. - Once this "thing" inside the mother attains the luxurious status of "alive" it now attains all of the rights that are attributed with that. Since people are consenting to this, the general argument is "when does life begin" - because nobody wants to be accused of ending a life, particularly a "young" life because it has potential. Personally, I would then question that even further and get to the idea that once something has potential for life it now has the potential for all of what is entailed by that also. Once something has "life" it has rights.

The Mother - the mother has all the rights of being alive, which carries the rights to her body, the rights to her future, the rights to her finances, and the right to make choices. Certainly a pregnancy carries a hefty physical choice along with mental/emotional and financial choices. 

The Father - The father should have all the rights of being alive also, carrying the right to his body, his future, his finances, and his choices. There is a very big mental/emotional and financial toll for him also. 

The problem with law currently is that it affords rights to the potential child only when it becomes viable outside the mother. It hardly affords the father any rights, and the mother has nearly 100% rights. Let's look at this in several situations:

1 - The mother decides she cannot financially support a baby (Potential child and father have no say): She can abort, give up for adoption, apply for government aid, etc.

2 - The father decides he cannot financially support a baby (Father and potential child have no say): Too bad. The mother can decide to keep a baby he may have used protection against and his finances, emotional, and mental futures are all altered without his own permission. 

3 - The baby has reached a point where nerves are present and working (father and potential child have no say): Too bad. The mother has 100% legal rights to blend those nerves up as much as she likes, even if she simply doesn't feel like she can financially support them.

In these three scenarios, the current laws are OBVIOUSLY neglecting both the potential child and the father. 

CHOICE

I think the main problem with the concept here is not what DEFINES choice, but more of a WHEN is the choice defined. Many times people say that the mother doesn't have a choice, the father doesn't have a choice, etc. 

Choice for childbearing is a two part decision and is fluid in my opinion. Simply, if a guy isn't using protection against it, then he is conceding that he is accepting to potential childbearing. If a woman isn't doing something to prevent it also (pill, implant, ring, female protection, etc) then she is equally culpable at that point in time. 

The true point of choice for a guy is always leading into the romance. Any situation after that is already outside of his control and thus outside of his ability to choose. For the gal, the choice making still has a few steps before there is even a third party. 

A woman could take a morning after pill, use cleaning methods, and other precautions to make pregnancy a less likely option by a vast margin. 

The law currently acknowledges only the mother's choices at the point where she is pregnant. It doesn't look at actions from the guy and doesn't look at preventive measures taken. 

WHAT IS THE FIX?

I don't think that I have a universal answer to the question. I do have a few ideas as to things that should rectify some of these questions. Here is a list of things that I think would help - maybe not fix entirely:

1 - Life should be defined as whenever something has working nerves. At that point it can potentially feel and morally and ethically deserves to not feel pain. 

2 - Men should be offered a parental rights and responsibility waiver once they are informed they are going to be a father. At that point, they should (prior to the child being aborted/adopted/birthed) be able to know, just as much as a mother is allowed to abort at any point before "viability," whether they want to and can support the child. At that point, they can make the decision and then definitively give the mother another piece to making her decision. 

3 - Women should be given a deadline (window of days) to announce to potential fathers that they are potentially a parent in order to facilitate the father's right to waive

I am not a chauvinist nor a feminist, but as I look at the current law it becomes more evident that the potential child and potential father are distinctly disadvantaged in this situation. Women, by all means, should have the right to control their own bodies. At the same time, that shouldn't come at the expense of the rights of the majority of everyone else involved. 

That's the way I see it.

Net Neutrality - Life in The Fast Lane (For a Price)

Net Neutrality. What the heck? What is this junk and why do people care about it? What in the world is the FCC and why do I care?

Alright...let's break this down into segments that are easy to digest.

FCC = Federal Communications Committee - This is basically a government organization that sort of polices the ethics of communication in our nation. It's what assumes to allow certain things to happen for companies and individuals to communicate.

Net Neutrality = Our ability to access sites and information being open and having equal opportunity to all people and all companies. This means you can watch videos, skype, blog, play Xbox live, add modems, and use the internet in a way that is of your choosing, hampered by only your own ability to access.

SO WHAT ARE THE RULES?

1. Transparency: That all ISPs must transparently disclose to their subscribers and users all relevant information as to the policies that govern their network

2. No Blocking: That no legal content may be blocked

3. No Unreasonable Discrimination: That ISPs may not act in a commercially unreasonable manner to harm the Internet, including favoring the traffic from an affiliated entity.

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/open-internet

So what is all of the hub-bub about then? This sounds like stuff that is pretty reasonable and regular. I mean, we do want things to be good for everyone right?

The problem is the consequences.

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?

The legislation conflicts with a few simple statements:

1 - Comcast just bought out Time Warner Cable (TWC) and now owns 31 million subscribers. (by comparison the next runner up is At&T with about 17 Million and below this isn't worth mentioning)

2 - Coverage in the US is largely by the top two companies (Previously TWC and Comcast) http://www.broadbandmap.gov/number-of-providers - but they are now a single company, so the majority of coverage is offered not only by one company but it is mostly available THROUGH one company now.

3 - The new regulations allow ISP's to charge different money to companies like Facebook, Youtube, Hulu, Netflix, Skype, etc. for the volume of their service required for their site. In this case if, say YouTube pays an extra fee their site gets the speed needed, but if say Vimeo does not then videos on Vimeo will run so slow that the website will crash.

4 - The regulations don't stay with the companies specifically. That is to say, if your phone has the cool video call option, but it uses an ISP service to do that, the ISP now has a right to charge you as a consumer of that faster data, an extra price for that service.

DIAL IT DOWN AND KEEP IT SIMPLE 

Internet Service Providers (ISP's) are basically now allowed to charge more for smooth access to sites. In most cases this will be passed onto the company that offers the service (Hulu, Netflix, Skype, Facebook, etc.). There are some rare cases where you might have an ISP (AT&T) who enables your phone where they can charge you more for the faster access that FaceTime requires - i.e. charge you a "FaceTime Fee" essentially, although I'm sure they wouldn't call it that directly.

Consequently, when these service companies get fees, they will pass those fees onto their users. What this does is create a fast and slow lane for the internet. There will be blazing fast speeds and access to all of the information so long as you pay up to the almighty ISP that wants to charge you for it. In this case, you are likely in an area that only offers Comcast now, since AT&T has a very spotty broadband network and Comcast just bought TWC.

The short of this is that Comcast will basically now have the right to charge more money for access to sites that require faster usage - never mind that you are already paying them for a "faster connection" in the first place. Since they operate over 50% of the market and own the availability to much more than that with their availability, it's unlikely that even AT&T can oppose them, and will likely follow suit.

The end result is that we as consumers will be given slower internet with less ability to see places like Reddit, Facebook, Skype, Twitter, and so on unless we pay a fee. So when your kid wants to go to the internet and get information for a paper, you should make sure they don't need to get anything that would require a bigger or faster connection, or you'll pay more money. If you don't, they won't have the information...so what happens to their grades?

Remember when you could research a paper online? Gone unless you pay.

Remember when you could video connect with people? Gone unless you pay.

Remember when you could watch videos to educate yourself? Gone unless you pay.

Remember when you could exchange ideas with people abroad? Gone unless you pay.

Who will you pay? Most of us - Comcast. Others - AT&T.

Today is the day that Net Neutrality suffered a huge blow and with the open element to the FCC over the next few months we need to DEMAND that these fast and slow lanes are not allowed.

Denying Climate Disruption Is Outrageous

The recent debate about global warming has got to be the most ridiculous thing I've heard of in a long while. People are making claims that it's all about political agenda and making money and I just shake my head. 

The reason for the research and the money that keeps going toward it is because deniers don't understand it. This is the same reason why the names keep changing. The overall concept is that what we are emitting in to the atmosphere at alarming rates is causing a distortion or an unwanted change in the way our ecosystem naturally evolves over time.

CHANGES IN THE CONCEPT OVER TIME

Originally this was called "Global warming", because one of the biggest effects was warming of the poles which we know to be happening (http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-photos/ice-melt-poles;http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/12/14/global_warming_ice_loss_continues.html;http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/29/ice-melt-global-warming/1736457/;http://www.worldwatch.org/melting-earths-ice-cover-reaches-new-high;http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-north-pole-is-melting/) but then deniers said ignorant things like, "well how come the winter here was so cold then if it's global warming?!"

So we adjusted it to say that it was "Climate Change" to illustrate other effects of this problem. The idea of climate change is that we are experiencing altogether warmer temperatures, but also that the seasons naturally make a shift to adjust with this. For this reason, winter starts later and lasts longer and summer starts later and lasts longer. We are noticing that the seasons we experience normally are now beginning to shift (http://www.livescience.com/5296-timing-seasons-changing.html; http://www.livescience.com/19679-climate-change-seasons-shift-mismatch.html; http://earthairwaves.kunm.org/2012/04/03/scientists-push-to-change-timing-of-seasons/; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/5749560/Climate-change-shifting-seasons-is-causing-widespread-hunger.html) in a way that causes problems for certain places of established people. Deniers then said that it wasn't changing the climate any more or less than it was before and that all of the changes we see happen naturally whether humans were polluting the atmosphere or not (which is a wild assumption because we know that every action has an equal and opposite reaction (law of motion) everywhere in nature and closed systems naturally push for equilibrium and that increases entropy (law of thermodynamics)...but I digress...)

So now the people arguing for the epidemic have again relabeled it as "Climate Disruption" so as to illuminate how it's specifically caused by our industry and pollution (https://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq/how-much-has-global-temperature-risen-last-100-years; http://co2now.org/current-co2/co2-now/annual-co2.html;http://geospatial.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83476d35153ef015439106c90970c-800wi;http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/image/hpag200001/fb1010003.gif; http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/A-Look-at-World-Energy-Consumption-Over-the-Last-200-Years.html) and now naysayers are trying to argue that the scientists are lying to us and creating conspiracies about things. There are people actually trying to argue that the polar caps are increasing in ice despite the absolute non-truth of this.

WHAT THE HECK DOES CO² HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

We are putting more CO2 in the air than ever before. To say this doesn't change the system is outrageous. You can't put more of something into a system without changing the way it works. If I take air out of the tires on your car and put in pudding it will function differently.

Moreover, the trends for polar caps melting is certain. We know this is certainly more than before because when we drill down in the ice and find ice from 12,000 years ago and test it, the CO² levels are much lower and the thickness of ice that dates there is much thicker, meaning it was there longer and for a bigger area.

The conclusion of the data is that CO² at lower levels is directly related to the ice being there and we are currently pushing the system to higher CO² Levels.

If the earth had trees that grew nearly uninhibitedly before humans and then when we had the industrial revolution we started raping our land of trees and spewing unprecedented levels of CO² into the atmosphere, what would lead you to think that we aren't changing the system? Furthermore, since it's obvious that we ARE changing the system, what makes you think that it wouldn't make the system worse if the system naturally uses trees to get rid of CO²and yet we are eliminating them and introducing copious volumes of it?

Carbon Dioxide is a "greenhouse gas" not because of some mysterious guess we are making. We have observed it absorbing heat rays since 1861. What happens is that it allows short wave radiation (the sun waves) to pass through, but the infrared waves given off of the earths surface by the sun (long wave radiation) is absorbed by carbon dioxide. You can literally test this in a lab anywhere in the world. The carbon dioxide then emits this radiation in all directions and a good portion of that is spewed back into the atmosphere and is unable to change. The increase in this longwave radiation heats up the earth and causes changes in high and low pressure systems causing more storms and melting at the poles. (http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-intermediate.htm)

Don't believe that we are having more storms and that they are worse? 

We have had several hurricanes that hit America in 2013 alone

(http://www.livescience.com/34518-hurricane-names-2013.html)

The prevalence of tropical storm/hurricane weather has increased dramatically:

(http://www.skepticalscience.com/hurricanes-global-warming.htm)

Ike 2008 was Category 4 and made landfall as a Cat 4 (Sept 7, 2008) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike

Karl 2010 was Category 3 and made landfall as a cat 3 (Sep 17, 2010)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Karl_(2010)

Irene 2011 was category 3 and made landfall as a cat 3 (Aug 22, 2011) (also the 11th costliest in history for America) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Irene

Sandy 2012 was Category 3 and made landfall as a Cat 3 (Oct 26,2012) (also the 2nd costliest for lives and money for America) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Sandy

If they are more frequent and higher severity it's only a matter of time.

CONCLUSION

The real reason we are even putting money into fighting for the science is because the conspiracy theorists have a loud voice that is stopping progress. Whatever you want to call the epidemic (Global Warming, Climate Change, Climate Disruption) doesn't change that it's happening and that we are observing direct effects. Don't be a denier just because you like the conspiracy bandwagon. It's funny how when oil prices skyrocket you have the same people claiming big oil is a conspiracy, but when you have people arguing for low emissions and the atmosphere now the green fuels people are a conspiracy.

How about we are just messing up the planet and need to change things?