Med School Single Parents?

[Trismegistus4]

What you're saying, although it might be true in general, is completely irrelevant to the case at hand. This woman is pregnant. This cannot be undone. She can only abort this baby and cover up its very existence from cruel people like you (considering your conservatism, I would think you would be against abortion, but it is precisely your attitude that encourages an already pregnant woman to consider abortion more seriously), or she can bare this baby and give it away or raise it on her own.

Try to come up with something useful for the OP given her situation at present.

Yeah, I know this wasn't what the thread was supposed to be about. But if I believe our society should return to standards of traditional morality, I've got to say something. The existence and effectiveness of those standards depends on there being a shared, public sense of disapproval over violations of them.

So, you're saying that a society can't have standards unless it vigorously and harshly enforces those standards?

No more than it can have laws unless it punishes those who violate them. "Enforcement" doesn't have to mean beheading; it can, and did, mean a powerful shame, a lack of any kind of acceptability for certain things to be mentioned in polite society.

Isn't that what most Middle Eastern countries do? The ones where they physically punish any woman who leaves her head uncovered, or any man who doesn't follow the Koran's teachings to the letter?

Only if you think that there is no appreciable difference between those Muslim countries and, say, the America of our grandparents, and if you were forced to choose between living in one or the other environment, you would have no preference. Is that what you think?

My point is just that, as an imperfect human being, I'm not going to harshly criticize someone else for making a mistake. Or is hypocrisy an acceptable societal standard?

When you put it that way, yes. Society is comprised of individuals, and thus individuals must be willing and able to criticize people for doing wrong things even when they occasionally do things wrong themselves. Otherwise, again, no jury would be able to vote to convict someone since hey, the jurors have done bad things too.

The divorce rate was lower back then, too! Let's go back to a time where societies beliefs made people stay in abusive relationships instead of engaging in such destructive behaviors as divorce!

Ah, a variation of the "back of the bus" argument. I was actually kind of surprised someone hadn't brought this up already. A very common tactic of the left. "Yes, divorce was lower, but wife-beating was rampant." "Yes, abortion was illegal, but tens of thousands of women were dying every month in back-alley coat-hanger abortions." "Yes, crime rates were lower, but the criminal justice system was racist and executed innocent people." Etc., etc.

Do you have any actual evidence that marital abuse was such a massive, endemic problem that it justified enacting no-fault divorce and the ensuing catastrophic breakdown of the family? Or do you think we can just assume that to be true, since all right-thinking people know that society was evil and oppressive and patriarchal back in those Dark Ages, and so wife-beating must have been accepted and common?

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[smq123]

When you put it that way, yes. Society is comprised of individuals, and thus individuals must be willing and able to criticize people for doing wrong things even when they occasionally do things wrong themselves. Otherwise, again, no jury would be able to vote to convict someone since hey, the jurors have done bad things too.

I think that's a bad example. Jurors convicting people is based against a fairly objective standard - i.e., the legal parameters that limit what you can and cannot do.

And, actually - would YOU want a convicted serial murderer serving on the jury that is deliberating over YOUR conviction? Most likely not. So, actually, if a juror DOES do something wrong themselves, then they are generally NOT given the chance to serve on a jury and convict others.

There's no law prohibiting people from premarital sex or from having children out of wedlock. When discussing moral grey zones, no, I think it IS hypocritical to harshly criticize people for their mistakes. You might consider gently criticizing people, and questioning whether they thought about the possible consequences of their actions. But saying, "You dumb f**k, you screwed up, and you're a bad person for it" is, as I've been saying, hypocritical and also just plain counterproductive.

 

[muireinin]

Are you aware that illegitimacy rates have skyrocketed since the sexual revolution of the 1960s? And that this skyrocketing has corresponded with the abandonment of the stigma against unwed motherhood...

A major problem with that stigma was that only women were blamed. You can easily pick out a pregnant female, finding the equally responsible father is less easy.

 

[Trismegistus4]

I think that's a bad example. Jurors convicting people is based against a fairly objective standard - i.e., the legal parameters that limit what you can and cannot do.

And, actually - would YOU want a convicted serial murderer serving on the jury that is deliberating over YOUR conviction? Most likely not. So, actually, if a juror DOES do something wrong themselves, then they are generally NOT given the chance to serve on a jury and convict others.

There's no law prohibiting people from premarital sex or from having children out of wedlock. When discussing moral grey zones, no, I think it IS hypocritical to harshly criticize people for their mistakes. You might consider gently criticizing people, and questioning whether they thought about the possible consequences of their actions. But saying, "You dumb f**k, you screwed up, and you're a bad person for it" is, as I've been saying, hypocritical and also just plain counterproductive.

But what if the jurors had done other bad things? What if one of them had shoplifted as a teenager and not been caught? Would it then be invalid of him to vote to convict an accused murderer?

See, the problem is that a society is more than just the sum of its parts. Modern liberalism refuses to recognize this and keeps reducing everything to the individual, as you're doing. Societal disapproval of unwed motherhood does not require every last person to disapprove of unwed motherhood, nor does it require that no one get pregnant out of wedlock. Heck, I admitted that the illegitimacy rate used to be 4%; I didn't say it was 0%.

Unless you think that all or most people get pregnant out of wedlock (which is nonsensical anyway, since 50% of us are men and can't get pregnant), then we are not looking at a case of endemic "hypocrisy" if society disapproves of undwed motherhood. And how is it counterproductive? On the contrary, it's quite productive of the end we have in mind, reducing unwed motherhood, as is shown by the fact that when we had this social stigma, the illegitimacy rate was much, much lower.

A major problem with that stigma was that only women were blamed. You can easily pick out a pregnant female, finding the equally responsible father is less easy.

First of all, it's not true that only women were blamed. Fathers took great care to keep cads away from their daughters, and many irresponsible bachelors were forced into shotgun weddings.

Second, although most of the blame may have landed on the girl in many situations, I don't agree that this is a major problem. It's the way life is. Modern liberalism assumes all people are totally equal and thinks that therefore if people are being treated unequally or outcomes between different groups are different, there must be some injustice going on. But people are not equal. In this case, women are the ones who get pregnant, and women are the ones who control the supply and demand of sex (i.e., most men will boink almost anything that moves, while most women can have their choice of men.) That's biology, as you yourself point out about being able to easily pick out the pregnant female, and it's not something you can change. It's not a social construct or something the patriarchy created to oppress women or any of that other leftist nonsense. If that means that the primary deterrent against undwed motherhood is shame and stigma against the woman, so be it.

 

[Depakote]

I'm going to go ahead and suggest the OP post in the confidential consult forum.

She'll be able to get advice there and we can filter out the people that are posting just to push their own moral agendas while users with pertinent comments may still respond.

 

[muireinin]

That's biology, as you yourself point out about being able to easily pick out the pregnant female, and it's not something you can change. It's not a social construct or something the patriarchy created to oppress women or any of that other leftist nonsense. If that means that the primary deterrent against undwed motherhood is shame and stigma against the woman, so be it.

It may be biology that women carry the child, but it's a social construct when only the woman is shunned/targeted for a situation that it took two people to create. And what about the child? Illegitimate children were horribly treated. These devoted fathers of which you speak were trying to protect their investment; virginity had a price back then. Paying to send the girl away to the little sisters of mercy is not equivalent to bearing a child alone.

Single parenthood is not an ideal situation, but punishing the child and only 1/2 the guilty party is not my idea of justice. It's hardly the best solution.

Don't paint us all with the same liberal brush. I'm not a huge proponent of single-parent families, but it happens. Better that mom and baby are accepted quietly (and/or helped) than ostracized. Leftist nonsense my ass.

 

[MadameLULU]

Closing. This thread has run its course.