(no subject)
Nov. 7th, 2012 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naathYay Obama is still president!
Also yay! 4 states voted for (or against being against) same-sex marriage to be allowed!
Legal notions of family.
I am strongly in favour of allowing same sex couples to get married (also couples where one or both parties are neither male nor female). In the UK we have the campaign for equal marriage who would like to introduce this right here too. I support them (but think they have a kinda nasty website). I don't like calling it "gay marriage" because it's not really - not all same sex couples are gay (some are bisexual) for one thing.
Also I'm in favour of bringing in civil partnerships (or similarly named non-marriage marriage-like things) for all couples; because I have strong personal reasons to not want to get married myself. I'm not in favour of claiming that CPs are "just like marriage" and should be "good enough" for same-sex couples. They really aren't; it's a principle-of-the-thing even if the rights are very-nearly-identical.
I'm also also in favour of extending legal recognition of marriage (and/or CP) to groups of more than 2 people; although I understand that this is rather harder, because (for instance) if you have 3 wives who are all exactly as closely related to you in law then how does the law decide which of them gets to turn off the life support machine? Also if my wife's wife husband divorces her then does he get a share in my worldly wealth (because I agreed, by marrying her, to own all things in common with her)? It's not as simple as writing three names on the marriage cert. (Although note that it's clearly not IMPOSSIBLE; and Islamic jurisprudence presumably has a full set of rules for how one-man-many-wives works).
I'd also like the law to recognise intentional family bonds other than "spouse" (through marriage) and "parent-child" (through adoption); and also the dissolution of blood family bonds in a similar way to divorce. For instance the law recognises my brother's relationship to me if I die intestate or if I'm on life support, especially if our parents are dead; it would be nice if I could "divorce" my brother and/or "adopt" friends as my siblings-in-law (er, except that term already means something). This seems like it might be a legal minefield.
Also yay! 4 states voted for (or against being against) same-sex marriage to be allowed!
Legal notions of family.
I am strongly in favour of allowing same sex couples to get married (also couples where one or both parties are neither male nor female). In the UK we have the campaign for equal marriage who would like to introduce this right here too. I support them (but think they have a kinda nasty website). I don't like calling it "gay marriage" because it's not really - not all same sex couples are gay (some are bisexual) for one thing.
Also I'm in favour of bringing in civil partnerships (or similarly named non-marriage marriage-like things) for all couples; because I have strong personal reasons to not want to get married myself. I'm not in favour of claiming that CPs are "just like marriage" and should be "good enough" for same-sex couples. They really aren't; it's a principle-of-the-thing even if the rights are very-nearly-identical.
I'm also also in favour of extending legal recognition of marriage (and/or CP) to groups of more than 2 people; although I understand that this is rather harder, because (for instance) if you have 3 wives who are all exactly as closely related to you in law then how does the law decide which of them gets to turn off the life support machine? Also if my wife's wife husband divorces her then does he get a share in my worldly wealth (because I agreed, by marrying her, to own all things in common with her)? It's not as simple as writing three names on the marriage cert. (Although note that it's clearly not IMPOSSIBLE; and Islamic jurisprudence presumably has a full set of rules for how one-man-many-wives works).
I'd also like the law to recognise intentional family bonds other than "spouse" (through marriage) and "parent-child" (through adoption); and also the dissolution of blood family bonds in a similar way to divorce. For instance the law recognises my brother's relationship to me if I die intestate or if I'm on life support, especially if our parents are dead; it would be nice if I could "divorce" my brother and/or "adopt" friends as my siblings-in-law (er, except that term already means something). This seems like it might be a legal minefield.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-08 11:15 pm (UTC)If the mother is a drug user or heavy drinker, very considerable permanent damage has already been inflicted by birth. Smoking too damages babies in utero permanently.
Here is a paper on outcomes for children adopted from care in the UK:
http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/13/4/305.full
Roughly 20% of such placements encounter such severe problems that, despite the very careful selection and preparation of adoptive parents, they break down.
AdoptionUK thinks (http://www.adoptionuk.org/files/234383/FileName/Educationoutcomesofyoungpeopleincare-AdoptionUKresponse-13September2010.pdf) that all adopted children should get the same priority for schools that children in care do, in recognition of their ongoing problems.
I don't have UK data for outcomes of adoption at birth specifically, but this US page (http://hss.semel.ucla.edu/Programs/Adoption.html) says "Even children adopted at birth have twice the odds of having a mental health diagnosis related to poor adjustment, making them often difficult to manage in school and home settings. Being adopted doubles the chances a child has of entering mental health treatment."
I'm not seeing how being given the choice of "don't give birth" or "have child removed at birth" is worse than being forced into either of those options without choice
The parents (mothers, let's be clear - we have no non-permanent way to prevent bad fathers procreating) we're talking about aren't making a "choice" to go on and have a child, not really, and they certainly don't see themselves as making a choice to have a child and have it removed at birth; in as far as getting pregnant is a choice at all, it is a choice made in the unrealistic hope that this time it will be different. (Here I'm speculating, but I think not very controversially.)
You're right about the side-effects being in some cases cruel and unusual, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-11-09 09:39 am (UTC)I've not myself been in this position, and I don't believe I know anyone who has been (that is, the position of "being an abusive parent") so I don't really feel qualified to comment on the extent to which their decision to repeatedly have children in spite of the state taking them all away is something they actually choose or not. I guess you are thinking a lot of parents who are abusive and neglectful because they are permanently drunk/stoned/high; which is not the image in mind that I had, so I hadn't really thought about the problems relating to how such an altered mental state causes one to fail to think about the consequences of one's actions.
I wasn't previously aware that adopted-at-birth children suffered such an inflated chance of problems; which certainly would push my thinking towards putting a higher value on "prevent these people having children" than "allow a free choice between birth control and adoption".