|
Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Oct 31, 2009 23:25:10 GMT -5
There has to be another way! by Vyckie
|
|
|
Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Nov 5, 2009 20:02:11 GMT -5
|
|
em
Full Member
Posts: 176
|
Post by em on Nov 5, 2009 22:50:52 GMT -5
Personally, I think it's a brilliant idea. Only way I'd consider having a baby. ;D lol
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Nov 6, 2009 20:36:43 GMT -5
If I could combine my husband and my DNA and put in an order for a baby and pick it up in 9 months without having to be pregnant or give birth I would have another baby.
Yes I have 8 children but I would happily have another one, or even another two if I didn't have to be pregnant.
I really like babies. Children are great, teenagers can be great (lol) and young adult offspring are totally awesome. I have all of these and I'd happily add another couple to the mix. I like being a mom and my family is the coolest group of people I know, we have a fantastic time together.
BUT. Pregnancy SUCKS. After I had my last baby my overwhelming thought as she was born was "THANK GOD I NEVER HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN." I don't even have difficult labors, in fact my last baby was PAIN FREE until the pushing part which only lasted a few minutes. But the whole birth thing is to me a violent, bloody, traumatizing event. The whole "birth is beautiful" idea is completely lost on me.
I've had women say to me, "I love being pregnant!" I cannot fathom this at all.
|
|
|
Post by rosa on Nov 8, 2009 22:18:50 GMT -5
There's a school of thought called Transhumanism that really plays with that idea (and other, like cyborgs and machine consciousness and post-gendered humans), the feminist Shulamaith Firesmith wrote a lot about this, that argued that there can never be equality between men and women until we give up on pregnancy and either stop having babies or start growing them outside the womb. And then there's this sf writer i really, really really like who has (is still, actually -t here's another coming next year) written a whole long awesome series of space opera novels where the central conceit is: what happens when we have the technology to really do that, put an embryo into a machine and grow a human being? She's won 4 Hugo awards for them - i just raced through them, all like 14 of them, in a month or two when I was a stay at home mom.
|
|
|
Post by jadehawk on Nov 8, 2009 23:32:26 GMT -5
There's a school of thought called Transhumanism that really plays with that idea (and other, like cyborgs and machine consciousness and post-gendered humans), the feminist Shulamaith Firesmith wrote a lot about this, that argued that there can never be equality between men and women until we give up on pregnancy and either stop having babies or start growing them outside the womb. and she probably has a point there; as long as children come with the prerequisite that some woman somewhere volunteers (ahem) to incubate them inside her and risk her health, life, and wellbeing for it, there will never be equality, even if women gain the ABSOLUTE control over the if, when, how, and how many. This is for two reasons: One, it is always the woman's body, health, and time that is being used. A man who decides to have children doesn't have to suffer the same consequences that a woman who makes the same choice does; but if there were artificial wombs, then the woman could chose to have a baby the same way men have babies: somewhere else. Two, when women have complete control over when to have children, then men have none; which is the only sane solution as long as it's women's bodies we're talking about, but for true equality, men would have to have the same chance at making the decision for themselves to have a baby. In the current world, a woman can get artificially inseminated. A man can't make himself a baby. In a world with artificial wombs though, a man could inseminate a donor egg in an artificial womb. what's the writer's name?
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Nov 8, 2009 23:45:10 GMT -5
Well.. I'm sure there are very good emotional and psychological reasons why young are grown inside their primary care giver. It's a lonely thought, being incubated in a lab for nine months.
|
|
|
Post by justme on Nov 8, 2009 23:56:16 GMT -5
And then there's this sf writer i really, really really like who has (is still, actually -t here's another coming next year) written a whole long awesome series of space opera novels where the central conceit is: what happens when we have the technology to really do that, put an embryo into a machine and grow a human being? She's won 4 Hugo awards for them - i just raced through them, all like 14 of them, in a month or two when I was a stay at home mom. what's the writer's name? I'd bet she's talking about Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series, although I wouldn't have called the external wombs the central conceit.
|
|
|
Post by rosa on Nov 8, 2009 23:57:43 GMT -5
I can't believe I left that out! Lois McMaster Bujold. The first book is called Cordelia's Honor. I wonder if my son felt cherished in the womb, since I just felt ill all the time? I didn't feel connected at all - just tired, or nauseated, or asleep, pretty much.
|
|
|
Post by asteli on Nov 9, 2009 0:00:27 GMT -5
I agree arietty. It would only work if newborns truly were blank slates. They aren't, though. There's constantly new research about what babies are learning in utero. Everything from their culture's food flavours (in amniotic fluid), to their mother's accent (they cry with the same accent), to even, somehow, what their mother looks like. There's an entire field devoted to prenatal psychology.
I doubt we'll ever know everything babies learn while being gestated and birthed, much less be able to replicate the experiences & hormonal stimuli babies need. We'd probably just screw it up.
|
|
|
Post by jadehawk on Nov 9, 2009 0:31:16 GMT -5
see, this is what I mean. why are women considered "their primary caregiver"? because women are the ones who fall pregnant. So to say that women are the ones who fall pregnant because they're the primary care givers is either circular logic, or backwards reasoning.
Either way, it already isn't always true that the mother is the primary care giver of a child. There ARE stay-at-home dads. Why shouldn't there be an artificial womb that can be strapped to the guy so the fetus can feed off the man for a change?
The point is that as long as women are the considered the default primary care givers (because they're the ones who are pregnant), there will be no such thing as real equality between the sexes.
|
|
|
Post by arietty on Nov 9, 2009 0:41:49 GMT -5
All good in theory but the majority of men suck at being primary caregivers. Whether this is mainly biology of society I don't know.
|
|
|
Post by jadehawk on Nov 9, 2009 1:08:34 GMT -5
All good in theory but the majority of men suck at being primary caregivers. Whether this is mainly biology of society I don't know. judging from more egalitarian societies (Scandinavian ones mostly), it seems to be mostly society, not biology. And even if real biological differences exist, differences between individuals have always turned out to be greater than differences between sexes in everything else we've at any point considered to be different between the sexes, so I have no reason to believe it will be much different in this, too. IOW, there's no reason to claim that all women are better parents than all men; and if that's isn't true, than defaulting to "women are better caregivers" is unfair to both those fathers who are good fathers and want to be the primary caregiver, and those mothers who aren't and don't want to be the primary caregiver. And this is why there won't be real equality until pregnancy stops being only something women do. This may not ever happen, but it might. Humans rather suck at predicting future inventions.
|
|
|
Post by rosa on Nov 9, 2009 1:21:43 GMT -5
Heh. I was the primary caregiver til I weaned my son, and now my partner is. He's a lot more patient than I am. I think he does about 75% of the parenting.
|
|