From: frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Thanks for life
Date: 6 Nov 1992 10:00:46 GMT
Organization: Siemens-Nixdorf AG
NNTP-Posting-Host: d012s658.ap.mchp.sni.de

In article <Bx9CoI.4tt@news.udel.edu> roby@chopin.udel.edu (Scott W Roby) writes:
>In article <1d84kvINNaet@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S658.uucp (Frank O'Dwyer) writes:
>>

>True... true...
>I was just trying to make a positive statement for choice rather than 
>against abortion.  Fact is, I was an unplanned third child in our 
>family, although I have always felt very much wanted since birth.  
>
>However, if my mother and family had decided that abortion was the 
>way to go and if that choice would have made them healthier and 
>more prosperous, then I would have no objection, even from my current  
>perspective.  (I really am sincere about that.  Sure, I'd object to 

[...]

I tend to believe you - recently I read that a caller to an Irish radio talk
show expressed similar sentiments - her mother had died in childbirth, and
she had a lot of guilt about it.  Post-birth trauma?

>>For example, how many women of your mother's generation and mine enjoyed
>>equal pay?  How many enjoy it today?  Wouldn't you say that equal pay is a
>>rather important prerequisite (one of many) for making her choice?
>
>Well, back then, families could survive on one income.  Today they can't.

Damn.  We have only one income :-)

[...]

>My mother chose not to work while us young 'uns were still young.  She 

I question that in general women 'choose' to do this.  My wife would very
much like to go out and work, and I'm all for whatever she wants to do.
However, after child-minders and other expenses arising get paid it just
isn't worth the extra effort it entails for us.  On-the-job creches are
vanishingly rare in Ireland - and of course the problem is exacerbated (sp?)
by high unemployment.  Once we had the opportunity to 'switch roles' but even
that would have entailed financial hardship, so we didn't - and I'm not
unattracted to the idea.

>She was a teacher, which at the time, 
>was probably one of the better paying jobs for women, although I am 
>sure it was still disproportionate compared to men.  Women still don't 
>get equal pay due to the persistance of the antiquated idea of the 
>father being the family bread-winner.  What was your point?

Well, if you've got a family with both parents qualified to be teachers,
but a woman gets paid less, who stays home?

The reasons for the lack of equal pay are possibly quite subtle - I reckon
that they now change the names of jobs so that they are no longer the 'same',
rather than to have to equalise the pay, and also that traditionally
high-powered jobs often lose their status when women get into them.  And of
course, lots of women still wind up in the low paying jobs.  Some of this
may be less relevant in the US, but it happens in my neighborhood.

>>>Let's all take a moment of silence and be thankful that we weren't 
>>>forced upon our mothers by an uncaring government that chose for her.
>>
>>Force is sometimes overt, sometimes polite and imperceptible.
>
>An example of polite and imperceptible force, please.  Peer-pressure?
>Societal pressure?  Not in my book.  Government pressure?  Nope.

How about channeling girls into the lower streams of education?  This 
happens in Ireland, though it is slowly changing.  Far fewer girls study
advanced math in Ireland than do boys, to take one example.  Why?

How about the sexism that says pregnant women have an IQ of 2?  

[True story:  My wife used to work for a major airline in one of their retail
outlets.  One day, the shop was empty except for my wife, another (more
junior, and male) airline employee and one customer.  The male employee is
serving the customer, and my wife is just waiting for another customer to
come in.  A catholic priest comes in and waits in line for the _male_
employee, despite my wife's offering to help him.   Why was that do you
suppose, except perhaps that she was pregnant at the time?  The story has a
good ending though - eventually the priest gives up waiting and comes over to
my wife, who proceeds to charge him every charge there is for changing his
ticket :-)  ]

>>I'd like to suggest that we should give thanks that our mothers learnt to
>>want us.
>
>And pray for those that haven't been so lucky.  And be thankful for 
>those in the last ten years who weren't forced to be an unwanted child
>by people outside the family who think they know better than the family.

Absolutely.  There may be more tangible things which can be done too.

>Scott W. Roby           *This sentence no verb.*      "No Matter where you go..

-- 
Frank.ODwyer@ap.mchp.sni.de   "You take slaves when you make us free,
                               when you make us free your way"
                             World Party - 'Ain't going to come til I'm ready'
                   
Newsgroups: talk.abortion