#96756 by purplewolf on 8/24 at 5:44 pm: “...we have heard about kind, decent upstanding men in this world ..........we still try to believe they exist. Unfortunately we have dealt with control freaks, druggies, booizies, abusers,those who never work among an endless list. We are not looking for 100% perfect as we are realistic, but after years of rules to benefit the male wrong or right, and more often wrong, you become very leery when the men who runs things claim it is in your best interest when dealing with things about women....”

Oh, its not only women who experience this, purplewolf. Sadly, those few “kind, decent upstanding men” are also inevitably under duress, too. No wonder, then, that they are a decreasing minority, uhhh. The male misogynist status quo doesn’t want anyone to “interfere with their plans”, male or female.

Also, sadly, many women bumping their heads on the ‘glass ceiling’ are also allowing themselves to be co-opted into the boys’ club and perpetrate the same scheming and manipulation regardless. Yes indeed, “the more things change, the more they are the same”.

#96792 by G.Anderson on 8/24 at 11:39 pm: “...Babies that are lucky enough to experience a sensitive and caring birth, can be born with an awareness, that others can never posses....... Believing that gestation has no emotional effect on the development of men and women makes it easy to see it as only a biological process of no emotional importance...”

GA, you do have a point but, as you finally concluded, it is about babies (and consequently, children) not about men or even women except in their roles as parents. No use blaming women merely because they happen to be the biological mothers.

Men do go through pregnancies, for as a fetus they experienced the ebb and flow of their mothers emotions, as they once bathed in their mothers amniotic fluids.

As a fetus they experienced, their mothers anxiety, her exhiliration, whether she smoked or not, and they were effected by the birth and labor process on a deep physical level. Men carry the history of each and every one of those experiences in their bodies for their entire lifetime. 

Dificult labors, and deliveries as well as good ones are encoded in every fibre of a man and woman’s body, and can influence whether or not they are physically responsive, sensitive or unconscious about their physical selves, or if they suffer from brain damage as a result of a violent birth, or remain disconnected from their bodies all their life.

To say that a women should be in comand of what happens in the birth process because she may experience some discomfort is reductionist.

It may be just as easily said that a baby should have more right to command what happens in that process because it is fragile and therefore experiences a much greater magnitute of pain, without an intellect to understand it.

Babies that are lucky enough to experience a sensitive and caring birth, can be born with an awareness, that others can never posses.

Believing that gestation has no emotional effect on the development of men and women makes it easy to see it as only a biological process of no emotional importance, and is a subconscious confession of the highest order.

No problem Doug,I have heard and my girlfriends, and all of their friends friends and all of our female realtives that we have talked about over roughly a 5 generation age group and we all agree, that we have heard about kind, decent upstanding men in this world, but we just never had fortune smile down upon us, as none of us have ever experienced knowing one of these men in our lifetimes. But we still try to believe they exist. Unfortunately we have dealt with control freaks, druggies, booizies, abusers,those who never work among an endless list. We are not looking for 100% perfect as we are realistic, but after years of rules to benefit the male wrong or right, and more often wrong, you become very leery when the men who runs things claim it is in your best interest when dealing with things about women.
Years ago there was a cartoon on the editorial page in the newspaper. It was about one of the world’s summit meetings and included the pope. The meeting was about womens health,education,right to abortion and the men looked at the lone woman watching them and the caption read something like this” Things would go along just fine as long as the women didn’t interfere with their plans.” The more things change, the more they are the same.

Quote Ellen Goodman: “The Blind Justice Award is winging its way to Carson City (Nev.) District Judge Bill Maddox. While sentencing a man on kiddie porn charges, he opined: “It’s my understanding that most men are sexually attracted to young women....”

#96654 by purplewolf on 8/24 at 1:15 am: “...I did it all basically alone even though if I had a husband, in name only.He liked the idea of having a son to brag he had one, just none of the work and responsibility that goes along with being a parent, he also became very violent...”

District Judge Bill Maddox obviously never had a daughter. Or, if he did, he was a menace to his own kids. That statement, along with the kiddie porn/pedophilia scandals is both degrading men and their relationship with women and with children. Up until recently, excusing men, particularly the ‘good boys’ in the sporting and other clubs, was the problem. Now, smearing all men has become another kind of terror destructive of the concept of love and of the possibility of loving relationships whether sexual or non-sexual.

Communities don’t exist under either of those attitudes. They just become a “jurisdiction” for the biased/partial “rule of law” (man’s law). Just adding to what you have said there, purplewolf......

#96638 G.Anderson:

You must me male.Men do not go thru pregnancy during the gestation process. A fertilized egg becomes a blastocyst,then a fetus,finally at birth a baby homo sapien, and that is what goes thru the developement, a man doesn’t come out at the end of 40 weeks, a baby does. Mens bodies do not go thru the physical changes that the female body goes thru. It never will.
Many children have lifetimes of pain and suffering not by something done during gestation, but throughout their lives due to abusive parenting or other things beyond their control.Many children suffer terrible abuse and might never have been exposed to that if abortion were allowed when their mothers were pregnant. It is a known fact that women suffer more abuse from their spouses once a pregnancy has been announced and to many times escalates once the baby is born, even to the point of death.It is on the news weekly. Not every baby is wanted and they all do not come into the world to a loving home where they have every need met. Adoption is not the answer to all of these situations. This is a fact that those who do not believe in abortion never even think about. They should. No one forces a woman to have an abortion, it is a choice, yet these same people think nothing about forcing a woman to carry an unwanted or a defected fetus to term. Abortion is a last resort in most cases, sometimes it is medical. And for this Justice Kennedy to impose his beliefs upon people he will never know,let alone the life these babies would be born into, let him have his beliefs but do not impose those beliefs on others. I would no more demand others live by the way I think they should live and they should have the same respect toward other people. If you don’t like it don’t do it. Men should not be the rulers of a womans body, to dictate how she is to live and what she can and cannot do with it.
It sounds like you had a tough life.It sounds like you may have paid for someone elses responsibility and been denied access to your children. The father of my children was there but never supported them physically, emotionally, or financhally, he was not there for me either.I did it all basically alone even though if I had a husband, in name only.He liked the idea of having a son to brag he had one, just none of the work and responsibility that goes along with being a parent, he also became very violent toward my daughter and myself, he had an 8th level in karate training.
The goal for every baby born should be that the baby was a wanted baby, and even then to many are abused after they are here.

Sadly you are mistaken, men do go through pregnancies inside the womb of their mothers.

Many children both male and female suffer lifetimes of pain because something or someone interferes with the natural process of gestation.

Often men are asked to be the ones that pay for someone else’s mistakes, and watch their children from the sidelines of their lives, and are valued only as a paycheck or the one who bears the responsibiltiy for picking up the pieces.

So Justice (as in lack of for women) Anthony Kennedy wants to protect women from “regret,grief and sorrow”.Then let they have the right to their own bodies.Women are the ones who have to go thru this experience known as pregnancy and men don’t. Therefore,men should not be allowed to even have a say in what a woman does with her body.The day men get pregnant and carry that potential human to birth is the day they can be allowed to give opinion to (not denial)of what should be a persons rite to govern their own bodies and medical decisions.Until then,everything that the male of the species decides to enforce upon the female should be nul and void.

Ellen Goodman: “...Nevertheless, we continue our time-honored tradition, celebrating this day by announcing the cherished Equal Rites Awards to those who have labored over the last 12 months to set back the cause of women....”

You might add TruthDig to the list as well for not having Ellen Goodman’s picture on their staff page (click on “Ellen Goodman” at top). But, then, we’ve just gone through a few of weeks rank female professional jealousy and mischevious and deceitful male chauvinism here already. Try this one http://www.postwritersgroup.com/goodman.htm