'The birth of a child should always be a happy event'

[Amorphos]

A simple ethic?

'The birth of a child should always be a happy event'

in or out of wedlock?
Pro-marriage:
1.we could say that the best environment for a child would be when its parents are married – that at least the child will have parents.
2.Common marriage; as above, but not legal.
Anti or without marriage:
1.if a couple cannot provide a happy birth/life for a child, then it is better for a single parent to raise the child.
2.In a communal society, everyone cares for the children as if their own – although its mother would still essentially be a single parent.

pro-birth; we could say that being 'allowed to live' is primary to this ethic.

Anti-pro-birth:
1.we can say that as soon as a female is ready to give birth then she should. But would you then except that a 12 year old give birth?
2.The birth should be a happy event! There are many ways in which giving birth under the wrong circumstances would be an unhappy event.


lets not make this a pro-birth debate though...

[Shaun]

1.we could say that the best environment for a child would be when its parents are married – that at least the child will have parents.

But a marriage does not necessarily make a relationship any stronger, and around 40% of marriages end up in divorce. The strength of a couple isnt necessarily measured in a bit of legal documentation, especially when not all couples can get married in the first place. So overall marriage dosent matter, its the strength of a relationship, some parents never get marriad, after all that money that is used for the expensive ceremony, dress and suits and party could buy the child a pram, crib and other necessities.

1.if a couple cannot provide a happy birth/life for a child, then it is better for a single parent to raise the child.

Agreed, physcology has proven that a mother and father figure isnt always going to be better than a single parent.

2.In a communal society, everyone cares for the children as if their own – although its mother would still essentially be a single parent.

This is rather different, and as you say the child would still technically have only one parent, and the community shouldnt be relied on to help raise the child, although if they want to then fine.

Anti-pro-birth:
1.we can say that as soon as a female is ready to give birth then she should. But would you then except that a 12 year old give birth?

No, in our age a 12 year old is just starting secondary/high school, and is no where near enough mentally and in most cases physically fit to produce a child. 12 year olds giving birth is something that happened in the medieval ages, and should stay there, not now when a child at an early age will be a negative to ones future.

2.The birth should be a happy event! There are many ways in which giving birth under the wrong circumstances would be an unhappy event.

Birth is a happy event for nearly all people, I think it is probably the natrual mother instinct to care for a child, regardless of if you want it or not. But if the father forgot his condoms, then thats tough luck for him, although in this situation I think an abortion would be more appropriate.

[Amorphos]

Hi shaun, agreed on points 1, 2, 3,

when a child at an early age will be a negative to ones future.

Again i agree [usually it would be so] although nature does not, but it is human to raise ourselves up above nature. Certainly, even though physically able – a young lady is not mentally ready! Probably until they are 35!


Shame jesus didn't say it eh, [that birth should always be a happy event] it kinda displaices many presumed morals.

[Ummon]

Agreed, physcology has proven that a mother and father figure isnt always going to be better than a single parent.

Actually, aside from cases of terrible domestic violence or mistreatment, I would say that overall, two parents is always better than one. Infact, two parents have more time for the child between them, logically.

[Tom Paine]

Actually, aside from cases of terrible domestic violence or mistreatment, I would say that overall, two parents is always better than one. Infact, two parents have more time for the child between them, logically.

Well, in theory, that'd be the case, but is not always in this fast-paced modern life.
Anyway, yes, generally 2 parents are better; but that does not force the birth of a child to single parents to be unhappy.

atilla;

Not so!...

The term 'should' is the main part of the ethic, i am a realist and i know a birth cannot always be happy, but i would place this ethic before many others, because it doesn't demand that we are all 'like so' e.g. We don't have too be married, rich/poor[ish] of given race, sex or religion etc.

The fact you would place it before many others does not make it any more realistic, in the end.

[Amorphos]

It is realistic in its unpretentiousness, it doesn't presume any preconditions it merely suggests that if possible...

[Tom Paine]

It is realistic in its unpretentiousness, it doesn't presume any preconditions it merely suggests that if possible...

No; it says should. Not, is if possible. There is a difference between these two formulations of an ethic, as one is not in fact an ethic at all. It seems semantic but is truly central

Anyway, the birth of an infant should always be a happy moment, no matter what, the actual birth is an event to rejoice. The baby should be wanted and appritiated. However, it is the emotional and lifestyle struggles that the baby will cause for the mother after birth. Anyway, this is related, of course, because in order for a baby to be appritiated for what it is and what it has the potential to become, it must be appritiated for it's life, not just for it's entrance to life.

Should the birth of Oedipus have been a happy moment for his father Laos, who know that his son would kill him and marry his (Oedipus') mother? We need to look at circumstances and not say that all births are happy events, that does not work.

[Katrina]

Actually, aside from cases of terrible domestic violence or mistreatment, I would say that overall, two parents is always better than one. Infact, two parents have more time for the child between them, logically.

Yes, two parents will always be better for the many obvious reasons. In a common situation, the child will grow up with the nature of both male and female portraited, extended support and individual attention towards the child can generally be provided through having another guardian in question, as well as support educationally, economically and emotionally for the child's growth. All in all, having the full package will always be more desirable for a child.

Anyway, the birth of an infant should always be a happy moment, no matter what, the actual birth is an event to rejoice. The baby should be wanted and appritiated. However, it is the emotional and lifestyle struggles that the baby will cause for the mother after birth. Anyway, this is related, of course, because in order for a baby to be appritiated for what it is and what it has the potential to become, it must be appritiated for it's life, not just for it's entrance to life.

[Tom Paine]

A child being born should always be a happy event for the simple reason that all children should only be born when they are wanted. Ethics is about living in an idealised world; thus the ethic holds true, but we live in the real world and so the situation does not map.

[Tom Paine]

Garb, as I said here, its an ethic, meaning it applies to an idalised world, not the real world...

A child being born should always be a happy event for the simple reason that all children should only be born when they are wanted. Ethics is about living in an idealised world; thus the ethic holds true, but we live in the real world and so the situation does not map.

[Cluny the Scourge]

The birth of a child isn't a happy event for the child, which is why they wail in protest as they are expelled from their flesh-bag in a vile outpouring of slime. Why does no-one take account of the child's preferences and simply not conceive them in the first place? Selfishness. Plus the product must then be inflicted upon the rest of society for years in the form of first noise-pollution and stench and ugliness, and then after about a decade in petty vandalism and abusive language.

[Tom Paine]

I might point out that birth may well be a happy moment, getting out of hot cramped and damp conditions; they wail 'cos they get skelped on the backside by a nurse!

[Sammur-amat]

damn right is happy event(if not stillborn or somehow unhealthy,offcourse)....cuz that momment mean end to sex apstinence for women overpumped with hormons...now for the father...dunno...

[vizi]

A birth of a child is usually a happy event but there are always exceptions

[mrjesushat]

The statement is too absolute to be a valid ethic. What if the child is born under signs and portents---valid within the society to which the child is born---that clearly demonstrate the child will be a source of evil and strife? Even if we hold that these signs and portents are scientifically invalid, we must also admit that the general belief in the same will bring unhappiness to both the child in question as well as the parents.

Moreover, if we say "always", then we must accept uncomfortable realities suggested by this ethic. For instance, the birth of Hitler may well have been a justifiably happy event at the time, but in retrospect, many would say Hitler should have been smothered in his swaddling clothes. I do not agree, hence I raise this point. If the birth of Adolf Hitler is always a happy event, even in retrospect, then it is not the child who is at fault for the actions of the adult. Some would say, "Of course, of course," but to say this is to miss the deeper issue. If the child is not the source of what the adult becomes---or is at most, only partly the source---then the fault in any adult is the result of conditioning and experience. Man and woman are not naturally evil or good, they are natively malleable and what people end up as has little to do with so-called, "personal responsibility".

Awesome topic, by the way.

[sephodwyrm]

It would be a happy event if society allows it to be.
And not just based on some demagogue propaganda or some slogan.
But really, on the way the society is constructed.

In the US, some women care too much about their figure to like childbirth.
Hence, the birth of a child is a catastrophic event. Their figures have been ruined.

[MaximiIian]

Why should the birth of a child be a happy event? Children bug me. Annoying little brats. Always with thier whining and stealing cookies and "Can I have a nickel! I want a nickel!".

[Garbarsardar]

A yet unconfirmed number of female Chinese killed at birth during the heights of the one child policy seem to disagree.

According to Zeng et al., "The practice was largely forsaken in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s." (Zeng et al., "Causes and Implications," p. 294.) Coale and Banister likewise acknowledge a "decline of excess female mortality after the establishment of the People's Republic ... assisted by the action of a strong government, which tried to modify this custom as well as other traditional practices that it viewed as harmful." (Coale and Banister, "Five Decades," p. 472.) But the number of "missing" women showed a sharp upward trend in the 1980s, linked by almost all scholars to the "one-child policy" introduced by the Chinese government in 1979 to control spiralling population growth. Couples are penalized by wage-cuts and reduced access to social services when children are born "outside the plan." Johansson and Nygren found that while "sex ratios [were] generally within or fairly near the expected range of 105 to 106 boys per 100 girls for live births within the plan ... they are, in contrast, clearly far above normal for children born outside the plan, even as high as 115 to 118 for 1984-87. That the phenomenon of missing girls in China in the 1980s is related to the government's population policy is thus conclusively shown." (Sten Johansson and Ola Nygren, "The Missing Girls of China: A New Demographic Account," Population and Development Review, 17: 1 [March 1991], pp. 40-41.)

Oh, India too:

A study of Tamil Nadu by the Community Service Guild of Madras similarly found that "female infanticide is rampant" in the state, though only among Hindu (rather than Moslem or Christian) families. "Of the 1,250 families covered by the study, 740 had only one girl child and 249 agreed directly that they had done away with the unwanted girl child. More than 213 of the families had more than one male child whereas half the respondents had only one daughter." (Malavika Karlekar, "The girl child in India: does she have any rights?," Canadian Woman Studies, March 1995.)

The bias against females in India is related to the fact that "Sons are called upon to provide the income; they are the ones who do most of the work in the fields. In this way sons are looked to as a type of insurance. With this perspective, it becomes clearer that the high value given to males decreases the value given to females." (Marina Porras, "Female Infanticide and Foeticide".) The problem is also intimately tied to the institution of dowry, in which the family of a prospective bride must pay enormous sums of money to the family in which the woman will live after marriage. Though formally outlawed, the institution is still pervasive. "The combination of dowry and wedding expenses usually add up to more than a million rupees ([US] $35,000). In India the average civil servant earns about 100,000 rupees ($3,500) a year. Given these figures combined with the low status of women, it seems not so illogical that the poorer Indian families would want only male children." (Porras, "Female Infanticide and Foeticide".) Murders of women whose families are deemed to have paid insufficient dowry have become increasingly common, and receive separate case-study treatment on this site.

In all, nothing new:

...another type of government killing whose victims may total millions ... In many cultures, government permitted, if not encouraged, the killing of handicapped or female infants or otherwise unwanted children. In the Greece of 200 B.C., for example, the murder of female infants was so common that among 6,000 families living in Delphi no more than 1 percent had two daughters. Among 79 families, nearly as many had one child as two. Among all there were only 28 daughters to 118 sons. ... But classical Greece was not unusual. In eighty-four societies spanning the Renaissance to our time, "defective" children have been killed in one-third of them. In India, for example, because of Hindu beliefs and the rigid caste system, young girls were murdered as a matter of course. When demographic statistics were first collected in the nineteenth century, it was discovered that in "some villages, no girl babies were found at all; in a total of thirty others, there were 343 boys to 54 girls.

http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

[Tom Paine]

A yet unconfirmed number of female Chinese killed at birth during the heights of the one child policy seem to disagree.

Oh, India too:

In all, nothing new:

http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

To remind you, it is an ethic, not a reality; the statement itself includes the word "should", and therefore attacking it as if it says "is" is entirely invalid.

[Garbarsardar]

To remind you, it is an ethic, not a reality; the statement itself includes the word "should", and therefore attacking it as if it says "is" is entirely invalid.

Attacking the statement? Where did that came from? :hmmm:

I was merely pointing at the fact that the birth of a child across cultures and eras is not always a happy event. Now if you want to demystify the use of the word should you will end up either by a wishful thinking proposition (we should be good towards our fellow humans) or with a meaningless topic for any argument.

Or are we to be faced with some absolute ethic here deriving from divine commandment?

Should the birth of a female child be a happy event for a Chinese farmer under the one child policy?

Should the birth of his 10th child be a happy event for a woman from sub-saharan Africa suffering from Aids while there is famine and draught in her country?

And mind you, I'm still not attacking the statement, first because it is a question and not a statement and second because the intrinsic value of should makes it impossible to "attack it".