Writer's Block: You and me and baby makes three

[lisaquestions]

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Oh, what the hell, Livejournal? What kind of inane, misogynist question is this? Were you wistfully wondering why there wasn't enough eugenicist talk lately? Did you think that women needed to be reminded that our bodies are never considered to actually belong to us? Did you just feel that it was a good time to have a rip roaring classist, misogynist, ableist party?

You're not even trying. Just throwing out questions wrapped in fake edginess and inviting your readers to show the worst of themselves to the world.

Seriously, stick to the fluffy questions. Don't bring anyone's human rights under debate. It's sickening.

Comments

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

Because controlling whether some people are allowed to have children primarily affects women. Many many many women were sterilized against their will on the basis of this kind of question - women of color and women with disabilities especially. In practical, historical terms, men were much less likely to be sterilized "for their own good."

[wombathouse.livejournal.com]

I am just randomly (and months later) here because I liked your post on dot_gimp_snark & lurked over here to your journal.

I wanted to comment about this thread:

I didn't see the original question, don't follow those public threads and have no doubt they are rife with stupidity.

And your point here is very worth taking.

Having said that, however, I must add:

I believe that the original question, as worded, is a valid and absolutely necessary question, along with its corollary:
if having children is a fundamental human right, how may we humanely restrict the number of births on this planet?

This is a conversation our species must have, or breed ourselves straight into extinction.

Some of my favorite authors, Lois McMaster Bujold in particular, have some cogent thoughts on this subject.

I think I agree with you that LJ may not post questions like this with high-minded public debate as the goal: but we have to talk about these things. Maybe anything that gets these conversations going, so we have the opportunity to point out the dangers and inequities -- as you did -- along with the necessities, is a good thing.

What do you think?

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

I think that if a conversation like this must happen at all that it must be a conversation. Questions on "writer's block" are not a conversation, and we just get to see people parade their worst bullshit.

Right now I'm unconvinced that the primary problem facing humanity is overpopulation. It's more a matter of who gets the resources and who works to supply many of those resources. The situation is currently untenable because it's built on the concept of economic exploitation of less powerful nations and marginalized people.

The other thing is that I am pretty much entirely opposed to eugenics, which I think this kind of large scale handling of procreation seems almost guaranteed to jump into at a breakneck pace.