Europe is struggling with low birth rates. They wouldn’t do it here, as is right now it’s already a calamity.
> the side effects of the pill, which women endure and men don't.
women are free to choose to not take the pill or take it and accept the consequences. Also, there are many alternatives to the pill.
Either way, I don't understand what point you are trying to make. You are just making random statements and ignoring the context of the discussion.
Yes, but some people want all the benefits with none of the side effects. Of course there is no perfect solution.
Life is about making tradeoffs. There is no such thing as a free lunch, except while you are still a child.
Progress is about eliminating them. We don’t need to trade off seafaring against scurvy, for example.
I would, too. But it increases the pool of options, which means that for some people it really is a win-win. Get the same as you’re getting now, but with fewer (or less meaningful to you) side effects.
But yes, if they said something is 100% effective and it wasn’t, I would imagine they would be sued into bankruptcy pretty fast.
How much would an accidental child cost these days?
That said this is still great news especially as the condom is also much less safe then the female contraceptive pill.
We only have the numbers for the lab environment with I assume perfect use for this new drug, so we can only compare perfect use.
https://www.contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824(04)0...
The only reason for a properly used condom to not work would be a manufacturing defect, which should be extremely rare, certainly not 2%, that's plainly ridiculous and immediately disqualifies any study that claims so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_me...
I don't know if they mean 99% reduction compared to normal or 99% of mice did not cause a pregnancy. Either way this does not mean that every intercourse has a 1% chance of causing a pregnancy. Also you are assuming an unconditional probability. It could very well be a conditional probability. It might completely work for 99% that do not cause any pregnancies at all and not work for 1% that cause pregnancies as without the drug.
Anyway I am looking forward to getting the perl index for humans from clinical trials.
Edit: fixed wrong wording
Birth control effectiveness is measured by calculating the number of pregnancies per 100 women using a specific method for a full calendar year.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/family-plan...
>Effectiveness of methods is measured by the number of pregnancies per 100 women using the method per year.
Example: Silodosin.
You need to experiment with it. Sensitive clinical trials measured rates as high as 90-99%.
It is entirely non-hormonal. It does not affect libido (rarely), while hormonal male contraceptives do, and it is reversible upon cessation, without any delay, unlike hormonal male contraceptives.
It may be confusing, so to clarify: "seminal fluids" is a term typically used to refer to the fluid released during ejaculation, not throughout the arousal phase. The idea that sperm would be in the mix before the emission phase goes against standard reproductive physiology.
Sperm are only actively introduced into seminal fluid during the emission phase of ejaculation; the so-called "grand finale." :D. Before that, in the arousal phase, the fluids released (like pre-ejaculate) typically contain no sperm unless there's residual contamination from a previous ejaculation.
(And FWIW, if one might wonder: thankfully this aforementioned "residual contamination" poses no health risk or birth defects.)
If you recognize emission — not just when expulsion is imminent — and if you pull out and that's the end of vaginal intercourse until you've cleared the urethra again, then that's probably nearly perfect at preventing pregnancy.
If semen isn't ejaculated, the body reabsorbs the sperm in the epididymis and recycles the cellular material. Seminal fluids, which are produced during arousal, are either reabsorbed or, in cases like retrograde ejaculation (e.g., with alpha-blockers), pass into the bladder and are later urinated out. The system self-regulates; there's no harmful buildup to worry about. :)
So, TL;DR: You will just urinate it out in our case.
Silodosine-induced retrograde ejaculation does not prevent ejaculation from occurring, it simply redirects the pathway (different anatomical exit).
It is different from chronic ejaculatory abstinence.
Fantasy, meditation, hypnosis, Kegel exercises... They could lead to orgasms and sometimes even ejaculation (which would be bad in this case).
Some medications rarely may cause spontaneous orgasms, even, without physical contact, arousal or stimulation.
Plus the thing does not stop the drip so you do have to pull out sooner rather than later or else. It does not stop sperm production.
Also dry ones tend to result. They're sometimes uncomfortable.
Tamsulosin is I believe the modern one but all of them are for long term. Probably least side effects.
Otherwise if taken as a single dose fresh, side effects like orthostatic hypotension are vastly increased.
You're right that it doesn't stop sperm production, just emission. As for "the drip"; that's pre-ejaculate, which doesn't contain sperm inherently, but can pick up residual sperm in the urethra from a prior ejaculation.
And that's true, anejaculatory orgasms can feel strange or less satisfying for some, but it is not universal.
> Otherwise if taken as a single dose fresh, side effects like orthostatic hypotension are vastly increased.
That is true.
Edit: I / We will have to research the side-effect profile and mechanisms of the mentioned pill (in the submission). I have not yet done so. They mention no side-effects but it might be too early to tell.
I’d like to stress that point a bit.
I had a vasectomy about a year ago, and being the weirdo that I am, I figured I’d see how much sperm remained in my ejaculate (and for how long) after the procedure.
I waited maybe two or three days after the procedure, and then for the next three days, I’d collect three samples per day and take a look under my microscope. In the first four or five samples, the swimmers were swimming hard. Told my brother (who had been trying for a kid for a couple years, and had observed his own samples trying correlate diet and other factors to improved motility) about the straight laser beams I was seeing in the scope — he nearly had a fit when I described how long it took them to go from one side of the slide to the other under the given magnification.
It was the ninth sample when there were very few observable sperm, and what remained looked kinda drunk and unmotivated.
All of that to say: if you’re going to get a vasectomy, when your doctor tells you to abstain from condom-less/birthcontrol-less sex until you come back for a sperm count, take that seriously. It’s amazing how motile they are even when kinda old, and also amazing how many hang around downstream of the vas deferens after many ejaculations. And, while rare, sometimes the vas deferens do manage to reconnect.
And a bonus tip along these lines: testosterone replacement, even without hCG, is not a reliable form of birth control. I’m on (and was on) TRT, without hCG, and the concentration of sperm under the scope looked higher than any YouTube video I could find at the same magnification (meanwhile my bro is taking silly amounts of hCG and struggling). I hear a lot of people joke about TRT having the beneficial side effect of infertility, but that’s far from a certainty.
Spontaneous reconnection happens but is extremely rare. If you can follow the doctor’s orders for a few weeks, vasectomy’s failure rate may as well be 0%.
My expectation would be the first sample might have lower but significant sperm count, and each subsequent sample would decrease dramatically until any residual sperm died and the count was zero. You're talking about motility, not count, but it doesn't sound like you noticed a drastic decrease from sample to sample. That doesn't seem right according to my understanding.
That said, yeah, the relative amount of sperm didn’t drop off noticeably at the offset. And I think that kind of makes sense: as someone with a relatively short refractory period, let’s suppose I ejaculate two or three times in 5 minutes: I doubt (though I could be wrong) that my body actually evacuated all of the seminal fluid (and fully replaced it) each time. I would bet there’s simply a bunch “left in the tank”. Would be interesting to hear from a urologist (or someone with similar expertise).
Hard pass on messing with my fertility like that, too, TBH.
In relationships, mutual understanding and compromise are essential. I fully acknowledge that certain decisions come with trade-offs. For example, I would not hesitate to take Silodosin and deal with its potential side effects if it benefited the relationship. I would expect the same level of consideration in return (reciprocity), but that does not equate to coercion or irresponsibility.
My position remains unchanged: I would avoid hormonal contraceptives for myself, and I do not advocate their use by others. My preferred approaches are non-hormonal and do not carry such implications (as I have stated in previous comments). That said, I believe that in a committed relationship, some level of shared sacrifice or compromise is not only inevitable, but necessary.
Given that, I fail to see how your point is relevant to the context of our discussion. If your intention was to imply that I expect others to make sacrifices I would not make myself, then I outright reject that assumption. Mutual responsibility, respect, and voluntary compromise are foundational to any relationship I engage in, coercion has no place in it.
If this conversation is shifting from an exchange of ideas to personal insinuations, I see little value in continuing it further.
Thank you. :)
"I would avoid hormonal contraceptives" -> "I would avoid hormonal contraceptives and pills affecting fertility in the aforementioned ways".
I would have been ok with less satisfying but it felt horrible, like it was going somewhere else instead of coming out. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone
This is in the same range as, like, pulling out, for what it's worth.
If no semen is emitted, the chance of pregnancy is null (more about it in my other comments).
Plus 90–99% suppression of ejaculation has been recorded and suggested that it has a potentially high contraceptive efficacy, so that is way better than withdrawal.
Experiment, maybe it affects you in a way that you get 99%, which would make it a very efficient hormone-free male birth control pill.
Side-note: personally I prefer IUDs, and/or a medication that has been extensively studied, so this pill can wait.
(Meta-comment: probably best to keep everything in "success" percentage figures for direct comparison, instead of switching to failure percentages for some figures.)
Really incredible how effective such a simple solution is
Was completely effective for us.
And none of them say it’s “most people”. Perhaps some unmeasured population uses it as a secondary method, that’s total speculation and kind of beside the point
5.8% rely on withdrawal.
[0] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-method-u...
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-unit...
> Sexually active couples who do not use any method of contraception have approximately an 85% chance of experiencing a pregnancy over the course of a year.
Therefore, withdrawal is a method of contraception.
80+% rely on things like pill, condom, tied tubes, etc...:
23.9: tube ligation/implants
16.4: pill
13.2: condom
12.0: iud
8.50: vasectomy
2.6: implant
2.1: injectable
1.2: vaginal ring
.4: patch
80.3% rely on the contraceptions listed above.
The remaining rely on: withdrawal, emergency contraception, family planning, etc...:
5.8%: withdrawal
2.6%: family planning
0.2%: emergency contraception
0.2%: other
11%: no method
the 80% does not include withdrawal.
[0] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-method-u...
Couples who clearly don't want children typically have already discussed their stance in the couple and will be way more thorough about birth control. That's typically not the demographic that will YOLO it, so I guess you'd get much more pushback on that front ?
i could be misinterpreting what you mean by “most normal people” but it’s a wildly strange use, most people who aren’t seeking pregnancy use some form of contraceptive [0], the pill, condoms, etc… it’s almost 90% of sexually active and its been this steady since 2002.
> … who were not seeking pregnancy, 88% were using a contraceptive method in 2016, and this proportion has remained steady since 2002.
it seems most normal people are using contraceptives.
> …they get upset for some reason
im sure very few people are “upset” about this. are you misinterpreting someone correcting your overestimations as if they’re being upset?
[0] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-unit...
again, “most normal people” are not relying on pulling out. most people, by a significant amount, are relying on other methods.
> For every 100 people who use the pull out method perfectly, 4 will get pregnant.
> But pulling out can be difficult to do perfectly. So in real life, about 22 out of 100 people who use withdrawal get pregnant every year — that’s about 1 in 5.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/withdr...
These are not hard stats to look up.
Are those 4-in-100 distributed randomly?
Did the pregnancies result despite 100% adherence to the method, or was there occasional failure to adhere?
There's a big difference between a method being ineffective from the perspective of a health care provider, and a method being ineffective in absolute terms.
A provider has to care about what broad cross sections of people will actually do, rather than what they say they will do.
If you're an individual person who knows they can adhere to the method perfectly, the fact people on average cannot or will not adhere perfectly has no particular relevance to you.
I have no horse in this race, but the same difference in the meaning of "efficacy" arises in all sorts of aspects of health care, like advice on diet and exercise, or the prescription of specific exercises for physical therapy.
I'm not trying to no-true-Scotsman birth control methods, just pointing out that it's hard to draw meaningful conclusions when all you have is people's word.
Apologies for tmi
Alpha blockers also give one hell of a stuffy nose. Worst sleep ever after taking one.
I'm terrible at remembering to take pills. Maybe it's because they're pretty low stakes?
For example, I have a pill container for the days of the week. Pills go directly into my pocket and don't come out unless they're going in my mouth (almost always during breakfast.) The pocket to mouth routine makes sure I don't set them down somewhere and the pill box gives proof later that I took them.
The above routine is a specific practice to remember something — I basically think it would be effective for anyone that actually did it, and almost all non-adherence would be at step zero.
Men are terrified of getting someone pregnant. At least women have a choice as to what to do about it. If they don't want to keep it, they don't, assuming the law permits it or the law is easy to get around. Men don't ever have that choice.
But I don't think it needs to in order to succeed. For women, the stakes are higher. For men, they're still high enough. There's no reason both people can't be on the pill. Yes, it's a bit redundant, but when your goal is safety, redundancy is usually good.
"Trust me, babe, you won't get pregnant because I'm on the (male) pill!" is going to be tough sell in the bedroom. But "guys, control your own fate with a once-daily pill!" will be an easy sell in the inevitable TV ads.
Hell, if I'm engaging in casual sex, I'm going to take both the pill and wear a condom. I've had condoms break and not notice it immediately - thankfully never at the point where I've reached climax, but I could see it happening.
Great recurring source of revenue for the drug company!
Though I'm more interested in feral animals like dogs. It looks like this drug may work on dogs too? If so, it would be a huge boon for cities and villages in India.
The problem in places that have feral dog problems isn't the lack of a contraceptive, it's lack of funds, skilled vets, or (and I think this is the main one) political and cultural will to get it done.
I'm not sure why India is getting singled out here, lots of places around the world have a dog problem. India might have the largest number of strays on paper but only because it's huge.
Taking outside sources of testosterone permanently alters your body's ability to make testosterone naturally, to the extent that many people who previously took steroids find they have be on testosterone therapy for the rest of their lives.
I wouldn't call "creating a lifelong requirement to take artificial hormones in order to function at your previous baseline" qualifying as "no particularly good reason".
>Ever since that study, testosterone has undergone extensive clinical trials as a hormonal method of male contraception and many have found testosterone to be efficacious, reversible and safe with minimal short-term side effects
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6305868/
It's not super reliable but it's also easily testable if it's working or not.
Let's quote the short, succinct conclusion of the study you picked:
> Testosterone therapy is a contraceptive, albeit a poor one. Men of reproductive age with low testosterone should be counseled on the adverse effects of TRT on fertility. Obtaining a semen analysis and possible cryopreservation of sperm should be offered if TRT is prescribed to men interested in preserving fertility. Options such as clomiphene citrate and hCG along with a referral to a reproductive urologist should be considered to naturally increase testosterone levels in those men with low testosterone who want to avoid TRT.
Whether a contraceptive that is sufficiently irreversible that men using it are advised to freeze sperm if they ever want kids should be considered "reversible" is left as an exercise to the reader.
>If a patient currently desires fertility, TRT should be avoided or discontinued immediately. A semen analyses should be performed if the patient has discontinued TRT. Azoospermia or severe oligospermia may be seen in these patients, but most men should return to baseline semen analyses in 6 to 9 months after cessation of TRT [13,14,15]. A 2006 integrated analysis showed that 90% of patients were expected to return to baseline sperm concentration values 12 months after cessation of treatment and 100% after 24 months [50].
TRT is a very low dose of testosterone, used to supplement the body when it doesn't produce enough. It is reversible as you say, and has a negative effect on fertility but not enough to be reliably effective as a contraceptive at TRT dosages.
Testosterone as a contraceptive or steroid is a far higher dose. This is the one that has permanent effects.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-myth-of-roid-rag...
What many people don’t realize (probably in large part because they see testosterone and estrogen as diametrically opposed things) is that testosterone levels impacts estrogen levels. Why? Because the body produces estrogen through the aromitization of testosterone. Increasing testosterone will increase estrogen.
A common struggle for those on TRT (both those at true replacement levels, as well as those taking supraphysiological doses) is elevated estrogen. I know that when my estrogen levels have gone too high, I become more neurotic than I usually am.
If you couple increased neuroticism with an elevated sense of dominance (especially at bodybuilding doses), and top that off with a general lack of poor management of one’s emotions (which I suspect is common amongst bodybuilders), what you likely get is a very volatile person. Not because of testosterone, but because of the elevated estrogen and their existing psychological issues.
"Testosterone as a contraceptive can suppress spermatogenesis and lead to azoospermia in 65% of normospermic men within 4 months of use"
Does this sound like a convenient and effective contraceptive? Where are you really coming from with this statement?
As I wrote over in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43746406
I’m on TRT, without hCG. I went and had a vasectomy a year ago. Because I’m weird and infinitely curious, two or three days after the procedure, I took three samples per day, and looked at each under the microscope. What I saw put to shame just about any video I could find online of a “good” sperm sample. Straight laser beams, zipping from one side of the slide to the other. If you were to scale Micheal Phelps down to these swimmers, he’d stand no chance. And the concentration was ridiculous, too. And this all 2-5 day old (at least) sperm!
TRT is not a reliable form of birth control.
Most women would never do this, but a few definitely would.
birth-control pills (male or female) are powerless against sexually-transmissible diseases.
Long-term safety seems doubtful. Offspring could be affected. In a rational world there would be no volunteers for the trials.
"Insert coin to continue"
Do you have any tips or links on ways to have the orgasms you describe here?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43856-025-00752-7
> YCT-529 works by interfering with vitamin A signaling necessary for sperm production and fertility.
> The importance of dietary vitamin A and retinoid signaling for male germ cell development and differentiation has been recognized for many years6. All trans-retinoic acid (Fig. 1a) is an active metabolite of vitamin A that exerts its function, at least partly, by binding to retinoic acid receptors (RARs). The RARs α, β, and γ, are encoded by the Rara, Rarb, and Rarg genes in mice, and Rarα and Rarγ have been validated as contraceptive targets by genetic knockouts resulting in male sterility7,8. Notably, the effects on spermatogenesis in the absence of RARα most resemble the loss of RAR signaling in vitamin A deficiency, and the mice are otherwise normal7,8. Further, the effects on spermatogenesis in animals treated orally with the dual RARα/RARγ antagonist BMS-189453 (Fig. 1a, b) closely phenocopied the absence of RARα function. Importantly, the resulting male sterility is reversible9,10,11. We, therefore, wished to identify RARα−selective inhibitors for potential male non-hormonal contraception. Our study describes the development of YCT-529, a highly selective RARα antagonist that reduces sperm counts in mice and non-human primates. Mating studies with male mice treated with 10 mg/kg/day for 4 weeks show that YCT-529 is 99% effective in preventing pregnancies and that the mice fully regain fertility after drug cessation.
There’s lots of comments in this thread on the risks of cancer and this and that risk with male contraceptives. meanwhile, these are already real issues women have to consider when using modern day hormonal contraceptives. The discourse in this thread is so dude-centric tone deaf.
This dismissal is in bad taste and detracts significantly from the rest of your points made.
They are disregarding men having to face a disproportionate economic burden paired with lower (often, NO) rights to have a say. For example, even if they desire abortion, women can force men to pay alimony. Another example would be the common paternity testing prohibition, allowing women to plant cuckoo children as they see fit.
Pharmaceutical contraception for men gives then back their reproductive rights.
Now, on the topic itself - I really wonder about the safety profile of these. While this selectively inhibits only RARα and is thus "biased" towards mostly acting on testes, it could also have side-effects - and while the effect might not be pronounced yet, with long term use it definitely could be, especially if all the RARα receptors get inhibited (will beta and gamma pick up the slack? what is it going to cause?).
Considering the 99% effectiveness claim and the method of action, I wonder if the embryos in that 1% case can even survive.
2) Does it matter if the embryo will survive even in the 1% case? Somebody who uses birth control would not want a child anyway, right?
You can indeed live a life in fear of holy retribution, but you do not have the right to force others to do so as well.
Since you seem to be giving others here a hard time about Abrahamic ideas of belief, hell, and morals, I'll leave you with a quote from your own book:
Matthew 6:1: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
Contraception should be readily available for those that want it. Abortion should absolutely and definitevely be available for those that want and need it. There are far too many opinions connected to religious dogma, both consciously and unconsciously, that seek to deny women and couples access to abortion. Even the damned bible offers up instructions on abortives and how to use them, but this seems to be glossed over by hand wringing people who want to insert their rosaries into women's ovaries.
* as it relates to vaccine mandates: "As they have the right to…for themselves.
* as it relates to calling people by their preferred pronouns: "As they have the right to…for themselves."
Of course, both issues are far more nuanced than a simple "As they have the right to…for themselves" can refute, but so is abortion. You can't take complex issues and take potshots at them with one sentence comments.
The contract being common decency. Vaccinations are part of that contract (it affects others), pronouns are part of that contract (they affect others), abortions _are not_ (the only affect those having them, and potentially the medical professionals).
There is no nuance at all. You are free, of course, to not "sign" that contract - but that means that those who have are not obligated to apply it to you.
If you view the fetus? embryo? as a human life, then abortion doesn't just affect the person having it, but also the life being aborted. Not only that, but what are the moral implications to the rest of society if "murder" is allowed?
So for some people it's not that simple.
If you view leaving a comment as murder, then commenting doesn't just affect the person partaking in it, but also the life of everyone reading the comments. Not only that, but what are the moral implications to the rest of society if "murder" is allowed?
Here's is my point though: if you assume something is murder, of course you will conclude that it is bad. There's no "Devil's advocate"—or for that matter—any argument at all to be had. The entire debate revolves around the assumption you simply asserted for "Devil's advocate".
Either of them isn’t a real person, neither is fully conscious. Sure a newborn can feel pain but infanticide can be done in a humane way. What we are depriving from the newborn is the opportunity to live and experience the rest of its life but the same applies in both cases.
And in a quite a few ancient societies infanticide was fully acceptable (killing slightly older children was generally not) and used as a somewhat safer alternative to abortion.
From a practical perspective, giving up the newborn for adoption is significantly easier than the 4 month embryo - it's already been carried to term and birthed. And quite a few humans, correctly or otherwise, feel a lot more 'ick' around the idea of infanticide vs. abortion. But they also feel a lot more 'ick' around late gestation abortion too - most states have had gestational limits around abortion. Very few have had none. (Many of those with gestational limits do have exceptions around health/safety issues for the mother, or significant medical issues with the fetus, etc.)
It's kind of a strange argument because most of the US did accept the premise that at a certain point in the embryo's development abortion becomes less acceptable. I can't speak as definitively for the rest of the world, but a cursory google shows that the situation is quite similar - most countries that allow for abortion have gestational restrictions.
IIRC US is quite permissive in that regard? 12-14 is generally standard across much of Europe while in US that’s generally viewed as quite restrictive?
I think the entire reason the parent is punished is because it is not okay for a child to die in a gutter...
> all because we need to respect that one collection of DNA happened to hit and another collection of DNA and therefore multiplied
People don't experience spontaneous conception. The one collection of dna hitting the other is the result of a deliberate act of both dnas' owners [1].
In the scenario in which a fetus is regarded as a child, abortion is obviously equivalent to murder. It is death of a human against their volition by another.
The interesting future to me, policy-wise, is what happens when we have the ability to extract fetuses from mothers and grow them to maturity artifically? Will society determine that abortions are a no-go at that time since literally all fetuses can be saved without impact to the mother in excess of an abortion operation, or will society state that mothers must be allowed to murder [2] their children?
[1] Ignore rape, incest, etc. for argument's sake because we're discussing the freedom between men and women.
[2] Remember this scenario equates abortion to murder. I am not espousing personal beliefs. My username was chosen when I was contemplating suicide, not due to religious leanings.
If someone accepts that frame, would you attempt to argue that there is no social contract to protect the lives of children? That seems like a tough argument to carry.
What I find most tough to carry is the consequent: there are ~600,000 (rough number of abortions per year in USA) people "murdering" their own "children" every single year. I suppose in the process of putting their faith in god these people have removed all their faith in humanity...
Also, this is whataboutism. If someone cares about A but not enough about B, it doesn't mean that A is not a good thing.
Hypothetically [0], if someone saved another person from being murdered by a close relative would that count as proving to you their morality system is based on freedom and forgiveness?
[0] Imagine my poker face.
Observations shows that most societies forbid woman to throw their unwanted born child into a garbage bin, so if you claim that women are or should be as free as men in their lifestyle choices, where does that leave the woman? Either you need birth control to prevent that situation, or a social security network that takes care of the unwanted child after the fact. In my simple, male mind this should be a given. Otherwise, if I were a woman, I would refuse sex. The ancient Greeks have a funny story about that [0].
Of course, you can also say that women aren't allowed to be as free as men in their lifestyle choices. And I think, I'm not going too far out on a limb when I say that's actually at the bottom of this issue. Some people think it is OK to make women less free than men in the service of their ideals, while others think it is not. Resolve this tension and you will make progress.
It sounds like your premise is that women have less freedom in personal choice than men when abortion is not available. Presumably this is because men can walk away from a child while women are physically bound to them. Do I have that correct?
If so, women are really only physically bound to the child through the pregnancy. Once the child is born, the woman can give it up for adoption and be done with it forever.
I would also contest that men aren't totally free of sexual consequence. If they do happen to impregnate a woman, they can be forced to pay child support while the child is a minor.
The "abortion is murder" argument also doesn't totally meet the GGP's premise necessitating A and B. That is, if society is unwilling to provide a safety net for born, unwanted children, no contradiction exists if society also refuses to allow abortion. This just means society does not allow murder. After all, a society that does not provide a safety net does not explicity allow the murder of poor people. Just as a society that disallows murder does not necessarily have to provide nourishment via the government.
Financially also. In America, child birth will set you back 10-15k insured or 30-50k uninsured. Who pays for that? The woman who has been unable to work due to the debilitating condition that late stages of pregnancy is for most woman?
> Once the child is born, the woman can give it up for adoption and be done with it forever.
That doesn't deal with what happens to the child. I assume the GP comment is concerned with "pro-life" vs "pro-birth." Many self-proclaimed pro-lifers actually advocate for birth, not life.
Source? This Forbes article shows <$3k mean out of pocket costs. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/health-insurance/how-much-doe...
I had a baby 3 months ago. It was nowhere near $10-15k, and for some completely unknown reason to me and my spouse the hospital applied a 75% needs-based discount. I'm not even sure if we hit the total out of pocket max for the year, but even if we did the cap is only roughly $6k.
> That doesn't deal with what happens to the child. I assume the GP comment is concerned with "pro-life" vs "pro-birth." Many self-proclaimed pro-lifers actually advocate for birth, not life.
Birth is life.
True, babies will die if not cared for, and that would be seen as a child abuse murder. But there are plenty of adoption agencies, etc. that exist. Plenty of non government orgs that exist. It is unlikely a child will die of hunger, especially in a developed country.
And if there are no people willing to adopt the child with which the new mother is burdned? Tough. Maybe consider that when one engages in sex. But in a society that views abortion as murder: murder is murder. Having flippant sex and then murdering a child to prevent raising it should probably be at least equated to voluntary manslaughter. Sure, you didn't mean for the situation to arise, but your previous decisions resulted in the outcome nonetheless.
It seems the push for treating abortion as non-murder is really a push for a world in which sex and babies are decoupled. But just as sex and disease cannot be decoupled except through careful planning and purposeful engagement, neither can sex and babies.
Imagine there would be a law that disallows men to cut their hair, but allows it for women. Who would be less free here?
> It sounds like your premise is that women have less freedom in personal choice than men when abortion is not available. Presumably this is because men can walk away from a child while women are physically bound to them. Do I have that correct?
Your presumption is partially correct.
> If so, women are really only physically bound to the child through the pregnancy. Once the child is born, the woman can give it up for adoption and be done with it forever.
They are also less free because such a law -- even if only for the time of pregnancy -- prescribes a lifestyle with very limited choices. Ignoring that the physique of a pregnant woman makes some things mostly impossible, thus making the woman less free, I also guess anti-abortionists are not in the habit of applauding pregnant women who drink and smoke while stage-diving on a heavy metal concert. And while this is hyperbole I assume you get my drift.
> I would also contest that men aren't totally free of sexual consequence. If they do happen to impregnate a woman, they can be forced to pay child support while the child is a minor.
But would you accept that men are mostly free? For example, where's the woman in child support? Do the men have to pay the woman 9 month+ for pain, puking, limited lifestyle choices, and possible health consequences, too? Or how about strapping an additional 100g of weight to the man's belly for each week of the 40+ weeks of pregnancy? While we are at it, let's give him a good kick in the stomach once or twice a day for that time. What about the misery you feel when you are forced to do something you don't want to every waking and sleeping minute? You know, its not like a job where you are done and go home at 5 p.m. These arguments about money treat women as unfeeling delivery machines, nothing but cattle really, which in itself not only makes them less free, it makes them less than men.
> The "abortion is murder" argument also doesn't totally meet the GGP's premise necessitating A and B. That is, if society is unwilling to provide a safety net for born, unwanted children, no contradiction exists if society also refuses to allow abortion. This just means society does not allow murder. After all, a society that does not provide a safety net does not explicity allow the murder of poor people. Just as a society that disallows murder does not necessarily have to provide nourishment via the government.
Leaving aside the question if the removal of a lump of cells that can not be sustained outside of a woman's womb is homicide, let alone murder, in any meaningful sense, I am happy to engage with your premises.
So, the society you paint does not care about the child or the woman, it cares about murder. That's technically fine (the best kind of fine) if you are honest about it. Opponents to abortion in that society do not claim they care for children or women. Because, again according to your premises they don't, they just want that no murders happen. So nobody cares about the children, thus there is no inconsistency, which is great. It follows that this society should be fine with the woman, or anybody really, leaving the unwanted newborn on a park bench where is dies from starvation or weather, because that's not murder.
Frankly, I would be shocked if anybody would think that would be fine, but the premises and line of argument you offer would allow just that.
I addressed this in the child of a sibling to your comment, "True, babies will die if not cared for, and that would be seen as a child abuse murder."
If society wanted to define exposure to be non-murder, then there are no inconsistencies, as I think we both agree, just a strange society.
That said, I do not think a contradiction is introduced if the same society treated exposure as murder. In fact, it is similar to removing a clump of cells that cannot live outside the womb: purposeful death through exposure. It seems similar to murder if person A locks person B in a room and provides no food or water. Eventually person B starves, which would likely be seen as murder.
> Imagine there would be a law that disallows men to cut their hair, but allows it for women. Who would be less free here?
I think our main clash is in how we treat fairness. Of course your proposed hair-cutting law would be unfair. Both men and women exist such that it can be applied. Abortion is inherently asymmetric: men cannot get pregnant. [1]
As such, the law has two options: write it in such a way that 1. outcomes can be completely fair (or as close as possible given the biological differences) or 2. write laws that are tailored to the asymmetry of sexes.
(1) Provides a solution where abortion is allowed. The outcome must satisify the condition that both men and women can walk away from a pregnancy without burden.
(2) Recognizes that men, being incapable of bearing children, must be held accountable for their actions somehow, and monetary damages are probably the most fair way to provide compensation. Maybe the damages need to be increased when compared to current US society, but alternative solutions like forced marriage or forcing the man to be in proximity to help a women through pregnancy probably lead to less free outcomes.
Given the two choices, constrained by a society that equates abortion to murder, (2) is the only valid choice. Yes, there is an enormous burden physically, mentally, financially for the women. Given a deadbeat father, the only way to help the woman is by penalizing him enough financially to try and relieve these burdens as much as possible.
This is why I would suggest that, in such a society, both men and women make sexual decisions with careful forethought and premeditation. One should ask themself if they are prepared to birth or financially compensate their tango partner before getting on the dance floor.
[1] The asymmetry cuts both ways. Under prochoice laws, men cannot choose to have a child; all a man can do is impregnate a woman. Women get the only say in whether a child will be born, fairness be damned.
> If society wanted to define exposure to be non-murder, then there are no inconsistencies, as I think we both agree, just a strange society.
I think, the concept you are looking for is "negligent homicide", which is not murder. You can look it up. But this is just the same territory of discussion where we argue how many cells in a womb make a human being. It is pointless. You apparently have a loser understanding of murder and what makes a human being than I do and just as you will not convince me that a blastocyste is in any shape or form something that can be murdered, I will not be able to convince you that I'm right. So let's agree to disagree on this topic.
But since we have to live together in this society and being civilized and educated people, we can have a fruitful discussion on the topic of justice and fairness anyway. I happen to think your options do not exhaust the solution space, for example we could also reverse the responsibilities. We could make the "enormous burden" you mentioned the man's burden by law, while the woman after birht washes her hands of the issue and lives a life of her choice. You want to hold your wiener into a woman and you accidentally make a baby, someone said you you have brought it upon yourself and you just have to deal with. So it's "tough beat hombre", look forward to be a single dad the next 20 years. This would not be more suppressive than making abortion illegal, or what do you think?
Maybe this would even soften the bondage and misery women suffer with being forced to birth a child in a sense of cosmic justice or whatever. I'm not a big believer in cosmic justice so let's ask, how do we deal with 9 month of involuntary bondage and misery? How do we create a society where we do respect the women's liberty and rights and not force them to birth children through suppression by law, but make it the sensible and voluntary choice?
I think this would be a completely satisfactory outcome in a world where abortion is considered murder. And regardless of cosmic justice, it would be a more fair outcome in some sense as the burden of child rearing is at least nonzero for both parties.
> How do we create a society where we do respect the women's liberty and rights and not force them to birth children through suppression by law, but make it the sensible and voluntary choice?
This is the tough question. Your proposed solution of legally burdening the man with the child post birth seems fine. Or any other division along the line between man and women.
I think the major issue I am internally trying to resolve is where does humanity start? I'm not much a fan of laws that are time or tech variant, meaning that laws enacted today that say a fetus is human when it can survive outside the womb have the potential to be walked back to the moment the egg accepts the sperm, as at some point in the future it's probable we'll have tech to non-invasively extract the fertilized egg and grow it to maturity artifically.
But if the law makes a hard cutoff, what is it? Is there a difference between a 1 day fetus and a 10 day or 100 day or 270 day? If so, what is it materially?
I think the US has some places where heartbeats are the defining factor, which is something like 6 weeks. Seems kind of sensible from the outside, but considering the week counting is based on the last missed period, that basically gives only about two weeks to get an abortion done after being able to confirm one is pregnant if one is being vigilant. That's a tough timeline. This also excludes the complicatiom of how such laws would be applied to IVF or other involuntarily fertilizations.
Personally, I think I fall along the lines of "I probably would not personally get an abortion but also don't quite think the government should be able to step in and disallow others from doing so." I'm a big fan of negative rights, so that seems pretty aligned to me. It also seems to satisify your goal of allowing us to meet in the middle in what I would hope is both a respectible and satisfactory way for an educated society that tries to maximize individual liberty.
My solution violates the "treat abortionists as murderers" ideal for which I was arguing, but I was arguing from the viewpoint of a society in which that is the concensus. I fully recognize that such a society is not necessarily one in which I would prefer to dwell.
Edit: I did kind of veer away from my congruence of abortion and murder. To specifically answer your question under such a pretense:
> How do we create a society where we do respect the women's liberty and rights and not force them to birth children through suppression by law, but make it the sensible and voluntary choice?"
The answer here is likely abstinence. No woman is forced to bring a child to term in the absence of a child. Therefore the only fair solution would be for people to abstain from sex unless the outcome of a child was acceptable. This applies fairly to both men and women regardless of whom must raise a child that is conceived.
The mixer who abandoned her child is "a mother who abandoned her child". The father is not even in the picture.
I would live to live in a world where the rational words cubby, but culture, history, religion is still very strong.
And I live in France, love of the most free countries in the world in this regard.
Furthermore, hypotheticals are all fine and good, but society exists the way it does right now. The argument is only difficult to carry in a society where unwanted children have a reasonable chance at basic outcomes. That is not the world that we live in: what you are actually arguing is against a mercy killing, or expecting the baby to pull themselves up by their nappy-straps (they almost universally can't/won't). "Mercy killing" is brutal, I know, but it's not my beliefs that have established a world (and continue to push the world further towards) such a place where dying in the womb is a more merciful outcome.
Make hope more universally accessible and I'll have a much more difficult time with my argument. I am not carrying my argument, it is the broken state of society that is.
You want others to partake in your social contract, but you would probably be appalled if that contract demanded people not be overweight (affects others wherever healthcare is in limited supply), or maybe the contract demands people not be gay (lowers birth rates and therefore societies GDP… also increases disease transmission). Social contracts come and go with time and yours is as wrong tomorrow as my proposed one is today
I have a radial nerve injury (and no text-to-speech) so I cannot find it right now nor re-write it.
I absolutely agree with you and your conclusions.
I made my reply here, from a slightly different perspective: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43749123
You not using my preferred pronouns or name is simply a rude thing to do. If we remove the bizarre political fixation on it, if I tell you my name is John and you call me Joanna just because you think I look more like a Joanna, you're an asshole. I'm not in favor of making being an asshole illegal, but I will call you one.
I'm actually fully OK with there being consequences to being overweight! It does put a large burden on the healthcare system. Right now the healthcare system is largely privatized so, well, it's not like public health is the primary concern for it anyway, but if it were, sure I believe that there should be actions taken to reduce obesity. We have a lot of promising anorectic medications right now, primarily in the form of the GLP-1 and related medications, and I'd be in favor of overweight and obese people needing to also go on these if they want access to public healthcare for issues that are related to metabolic disorder, etc. But we're in a privatized system, so...
You're starting to really stretch the argument thin with the gay bit, though. Disease transmissions here still requires the informed consent of both parties - I'm not going to get HIV from a gay person without having some form of consensual sex with them, outside of behaviors that are already criminal - rape, contaminating something I'm eating with their semen, etc. This isn't the same as refusing vaccination and then participating in society for diseases that are transmissible like covid or ebola or similar. For birth rate/GDP, we do not enforce actions on straight couples when it comes to childbirth (or STDs, which while transmission rate is generally lower for some STDs for heterosexual intercourse it's obviously not exclusively limited to homosexual intercourse) so these suppositions seem to be targeted based not on the general outcome but simply on the fact the person is gay. If we started mandating child birth for straight people for whatever reason, then we can start having this conversation - but even in a fairly dystopic world where we are requiring married couples have kids, we can still provide options for gay people. Require them 'sponsor' an additional child for a straight couple, require them adopt, require surrogacy and them raising a child, etc. But targeting them just because of their sexual orientation would be quite obviously bigoted.
Not signing the contract simply means having no right to the protections that it affords. I have no responsibility to treat you with respect if you don't go out and vaccinate yourself. I have no responsibility to entertain traditions that you value, if you don't value the traditions of others.
You have attributed a loss of liberty to it, from the comment that you are replying to:
> You are free, of course, to not "sign" that contract - but that means that those who have are not obligated to apply it to you.
Participate in the social contract, or don't, your choice.
That sounds like limiting speech.
Strong disagree. They affect at minimum 2 (potentially 3 depending how you define life/person) by default. Both the parents are impacted by the choice either physically, emotionally, financially, and responsibility.
Situations where the two parents conflict on this choice are common and the power is incredibly asymmetrical and can/does lead to abuse.
Example:
- Most pro-choice supporters would support the female deciding that she was too young to become a mother and terminating a pregnancy not because of any medical reason, but because of the changes to her life it would cause (ie, "I'm not ready to be a mother yet"). This same option is not available to males. If the female has decided to keep the child, the male in most countries is now automatically bound to this decision and generally, at least financially, will have their life impacted even if they have the same reasoning (ie, "I'm not ready to be a father yet"). Alternatively, if the female has decided to terminate and the male desperately wants the child, there is no recourse.
I say asymmetrical because the results/responsibility of the decision are forced to be shared, however, the power to make said decision lies only with a single party.
I do not propose a solution here or make a judgement I'm simply pointing it out because the person I replied to made it sound like this decision is a simple and doesn't impact others.
That's exactly what I said?
>The contract being common decency. Vaccinations are part of that contract (it affects others), pronouns are part of that contract (they affect others), abortions _are not_ (the only affect those having them, and potentially the medical professionals).
You say it only affects those having the abortion (ie, female), I was pointing out that there is AT MINIMUM the other parent involved, and there are tons of arguments a person could make about it impacting a much larger portion of people due to the societal/social impact this option brings out.
You seemed to imply that a social contract requires people to take actions they may not want to do because by not taking those actions, they impact "others" and then said abortion doesn't fall into that because apparently that "others" group is so small it doesn't count as "others"?? Yet you included people using incorrect pronouns to an INDIVIDUAL... so your entire argument feels pretty arbitrary.
The pedantry response was to hopefully make you realize that your argument was arbitrary, I had hoped you'd come to that on your own - but here we are.
> A society is certainly conceivable in which there was no governmental intervention in family life or education and in which the sole function of law enforcement was the upholding of universal rights.
I would also refer you to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43748473.
https://store.mises.org/Myth-of-the-Social-Contract-Refuting... and https://cdn.mises.org/1_3_3_0.pdf and whatnot.
the government has a role in doing the most good for the most people. for example, keeping companies from dumping poison into rivers.
That is not what "social contract" is about (unless you keep playing the redefinition of words game, which many people do when arguing in favor of "muh social contract"), and no, we do not need the Government for that.
https://www.academia.edu/7185307/Libertarianism_and_Pollutio...
https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-government-pollution-contro...
https://mises.org/mises-daily/libertarian-manifesto-pollutio...
Among others... Please do ask if you want to read more about it. I personally like to read a lot of things with what I disagree.
Please reply to the other person's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43748473), too, I wonder what you'd come up with. :)
my reply to this bit is: Take your personal liberty to Libertarian Island.
Is it freedom to carry a gun, or freedom from getting shot?
Is it freedom to pollute, or freedom from pollution?
Is it the freedom to pay as little as possible, or the freedom from others pushing their tragedy-of-the-commons cost onto me?
Is it freedom to choose the ideal healthcare plan for me, or freedom from spending hours deciphering healthcare mumbo-jumbo and ending up in medical debt if you get it wrong?
Liberty is subjective and opinions differ. The social contract is society's collective détente.
Freedom to own a weapon is not equal to freedom to commit violence.
Pollution is an invasion of property rights, and should be treated as such under the law - i.e., as a tort or nuisance, actionable by the victims. In other words, pollution should be punished - not because the government says so, but because it constitutes an aggression against another's property.
Liberty means non-aggression and voluntary interaction.
If you want me to expand, please say so.
In a Libertarian system what the remedy is for people whose lands have been polluted?
And what about CO2 pollution the affects everyone everywhere, not just the local river? What's the remedy then?
And if I own a factory is it not personal liberty to make a profit with it even if it causes pollution?
Does trauma for the 1% outweigh the benefits of the 99%?
not if you're pro-choice, because you don't believe it's a human life in the first place.
But their so called "solutions" seem to become ever more destructive long term.
Neem is a natural alternative that has been used for a long time.
It is [1]. But it also trashes your liver if used chronically [2].
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34092456/
[2] https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018JPhCS1025a2043J/abstra...
“These [studies] suggest that frequent ejaculation after puberty offers some reduction of the risk of prostate cancer.”
I think we need more/bigger studies to get a handle on how big the effect is though.
[1] NSFW warning - this is a Wikipedia article with a picture of a guy ejaculating riiiiight at the top: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejaculation#Health_issues
Hope this makes my fellow Americans reconsider science funding :/
gnabgib•1mo ago