Elisa Mariño
3 min readAug 30, 2022

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And it is considered in its own merits. Pregnancy happens to a woman's body. It affects her health and might kill her. It is a risk for her. Yet, you want to take decisions about late term pregnancy from them. Because you think that the phoetus is the "same" as a baby except fot its need to use the woman's body. But once it is born, no longer would be allowed to use other person's body because after birth, it is "different" since "it is not to be expected that they would need blood donation" (blood transfusion are one of the things that lowered child mortality by the way).

So in this scenario: late term pregnancy with complications. She could finish the pregnancy at the cost of becoming blind due diabetes. Women is denied the choice of abortion and forced to give birth (she becomes blind), but even with this, the phoetus was weak but is born alive. But since is weak, needs a blood transfusion. Bio father says no. You would have forced a birth and denied abortion (and body integrity) only for the new born to die here if there is no other willing donors. Somehow, denying body integrity to the man is a no-no, while denying to the woman is a "non desiderable but unaviodable thing".

The way you talk about how it is "different" and bio parent should not be forced to donate, and how paying child support is unfair (it could be and that is why I think it should be the government) just show that it has never been about babies lives.

It is absurd to ask that phoetus have rights that babies don't. In fact, if it is about phoetuses, then you should consider that the man pay at least half of the hospital bills pregnancy related. Or that would be slavery too? But the forced pregnancy won't be considered slavery even if the woman now experience both the physical and finantial burden of pregnancy 100% on her own.

You know, if your aim is for alive babies, then the paying for hospital bills and mandatory donation should be on the table. And that is discusing pregnancy on its own terms. Note: if both parents agree, they can give the child for adoption and nagotiate for a third party to pay the hospital bills.

My suggestion: ask only the sacrifices that you would consider fair to ask to a man. I won't force a man to donate and I won't force a pregnancy on other women. And I say this as a blood donor myself. Since I was legaly allowed to donate. I would also pay more taxes to help single parents since depending on parents to pay shild support many times means costly legal procedures that won't guarantee the payment.

Ask yourself and be honest, would you give up part of your body integrity? As you said, it is already limited since you can't self harm. Donating blood takes about half an hour once a year. No side effects, just a small needle compared with ephydural. Way less painful than birth, no scars. Asking for mandatory blood donation would save lives and it is asking for far less than you ask of a woman with a pregnancy. So why are you comfortable asking women to renounce their body integrity of pregnant but it is so hard to ask for far less sacrifice from men?

At its core, the answer is that we are not the ones taking the risk or making the sacrifice. It is easy to say "I didn't meant for her to end being blind" or "I didn't meant for her her to die giving birth" and not take responsibility for forcing her to that unwanted pregnancy.

So if you want us to believe that it is about "saving babies lives", then at least make some sacrifice yourself to actually save babies lives. That is donate blood and marrow and pay more taxes so single parents can get financial help.

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Elisa Mariño
Elisa Mariño

Written by Elisa Mariño

Fiction is the art to tell lies to show truths. Politics is the art to use truths to tell lies.

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