Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politics?

[DevilEyes]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

I don't. I presume it's because the mother isn't able to (because of her circumstances), or doesn't want to, or is scared of having to be responsible for the child (and I suspect that most abortions fall into category 1; adult, educated, well-off women tend to use contraception). Your view is very weird. Why the hell would anyone be against a kid existing at all? Or is that just a part of your agenda to portray women who have abortions as bloodthirsty murderers even though that has very little to do with real life?

What did I say that made you imagine that I'm not pro-choice? Other than using language that accepts the reality that it is a nasty business, of course--but certainly no nastier than a heart surgeon's business, and probably less so.

No, you didn't say just that, you said that the primary motive for abortion is that "the mother, and perhaps other lobbies involved (father, parents, society), don't want a kid to exist at all", i.e. even if they had a choice to immediately transfer the fetus to an incubator and stop being responsible for it (the child will be the responsibility of the social services), they'd still rather prevent the kid's existence. Why wouldn't they want a kid to exist if it's no burden on them? You make it sound like they're bloodthirsty and really have it in for the kid.

Incidentally, the phrase you used, "life worth preserving," contains at least as much of a pro-life bias as anything I've said, since it implicitly contemplates a child as an extant life, distinguishable from the mother. You cannot preserve something which does not, yet, exist. And of course there's certainly no harm in not creating life (otherwise the directives from our major religions would be very different).

Pro-life? What does that mean? I always found those terms annoying. It's not "pro-life", it's "against the right for abortion", Why can't Americans simply say it as it is: "against the right of abortion", "for the right of abortion" rather than fancy terms that are tailor made to support one's position. Of course I am in favor of life, who wouldn't be in favor of life? But that's not what the issue is about. And yes, I do think the fetus is alive - but it's not a person yet, it's not sentient, and it is not really 'distinguishable' from the mother because it is inside her body, feeding on her body, using its resources for growth. If you want an ugly but rather accurate comparison... I'll use the term I've heard from my best friend, who has a year and a half old infant she adores, really wanted to have, and is totally dedicated to: she said that pregnancy is in many ways like having a parasite in your body.

Imagine a hypothetical situation if you had a comatose person connected to your body in such a way that you can't be separated without the person dying; their body is getting all the nutrients and warmth from your body, needing your body to stay alive until presumably getting cured and released from you in 9 months time, in a very painful and quite dangerous procedure in which either or both of you can die. While it would be really great for you to try to be patient and sacrifice yourself for the good of the other being, to keep them alive despite the inconvenience and physical dangers involved (not to mention all sorts of social dangers and inconveniences, like getting fired from your job [yeah, it happens a lot, maybe not in USA or Western Europe, but believe me it does] or being unable to find one, or screwing up your education, driving your parents crazy, getting nasty and despising looks from your neighbors, possibly being ostracized from the society, etc.)... I really wouldn't feel I had the right to force you to do it, however you feel about it. If you decide to remove the other person's body from your own, ending their possibility of continuing their life... it's a nasty business, but it's your right to make that choice.

Now that is the gist of choice - the right to control your own body. And the moment when that other organism is out of your body, that issue is over. It's not the issue of your body anymore. You don't have the right to decide to stop the child from existing.

By your logic, you would have the right to kill the new born baby, since that also means you're choosing for the child not to exist at all.

This is the gist of choice--and it is proper to choose for a child to not exist at all, which is the gist of abortion. Preventing a being from not existing at all avoids the problem of harm entirely and is a morally neutral act--and, perhaps, on occasion, a morally praiseworthy act. Whereas abandoning an extant child for adoption is a morally suspect act, often the least of possible evils. (I can imagine situations where it could be morally praiseworthy, but this is not the usual case.)

Huh? What? It is morally praiseworthy to prevent a child from existing, but not to have the child and give it to people who want to take care of it and who could presumably be good parents to that child?

So what you're saying is basically that living the life of a person who grew up adopted or in foster care is worse than never being born at all? If you haven't grown up with your biological parents, you're cursed, worthless and eternally unhappy?

Just curious - do you know someone who was adopted or grew up in foster care? Have you tried to tell them that?

Why would they be?

Because now they have an extant child who wants his or her mommy. It is morally blameworthy, in itself, to turn away from the child. In certain cases, it is best to do so regardless, because of extrinsic factors--economic, social, and emotional ones.

If you know that you'd be a crappy parent, either because you're too immature or not ready to be a parent or because you feel you wouldn't be able to give the baby what it needs, the best option and the most morally praiseworthy thing is to make it possible for the baby to have a mommy or a daddy (or a mommy and daddy, or two mommies or two daddies) who will be able take care of it and love it and be good parents to it.

]In the decadent Federation, there are far fewer factors which would make raising a child undesirable, from the child's point of view. There's pretty decent logic in the maxim that anyone who does not want a child should be forced to raise it, but unlike in the present day, where extrinsic factors militate against the raising of a child, in the Fed it's probably just going to come off as selfish.

So? Some people are selfish. Some people don't love their children. Some people abuse their children. Some people may love their children but are too screwed up psychologically to take care of them. There's a lot of crappy parents. And with so many people who love children and would want to take care of them, it is completely illogical to try to force people to do it against their will. You'd also be condemning the poor children to parents who don't want them and who'll just resent the fact that the damn brat has been forced on them.

Adoption is a far less tidy solution, since it does cause a kind of harm, even if that harm is as intangible as "my biological mother didn't want me."

Much more harm is caused by biological parents who abuse, ignore, or simply don't love their children.

By no means do I mean to imply that adopted children are necessarily consigned to a life of emotional cripplehood. I'm just saying that this aspect has gotta suck.*

Probably not nearly as much as the aspect of having grown up with really crappy parents.

*And not telling them is even worse! This is probably the most morally repugnant thing adoptive parents are capable of, because they think it's in the child's best interests. It is not, because no one likes accidentally fucking their own sister. Well, almost no one.

Actually, research shows that a huge number of people really like it, even if they do know - apart from the issue of the social stigma and feelings of guilt and shame that come because of it - and that telling your adopted children who their biological parents and siblings are is all the more likely to lead to them fucking their biological sisters/brothers/parents.

They are far more disgusted at the very idea of fucking their adopted siblings or stepsisters/stepbrothers (if they have grown up together since early age).

Spoiler: Westermarck effect

But how persuasive is this Oedipal theory nowadays? Because Freudian ideas dominated much of the 20th century, what is less well known is that, at the turn of the 19th century, a contemporary of Freud's, the Finnish social anthropologist Edward Westermarck, put forward the opposite view, based not on the theory of natural attraction but of natural aversion. According to Westermarck, children growing up in close proximity are not sexually attracted to each other as adults. Quite the contrary: the "Westermarck effect" meant that overfamiliarity and boredom automatically caused siblings and other close relatives raised together to go out of their way to avoid sexual contact. Westermarck also reasoned that, since we find the idea of sex with our relatives so distasteful, we developed moral codes and laws to ensure that society conformed to this "norm" to avoid any social disruption, shame or discrimination.

Although these ideas were rubbished by Freud for their lack of supportive evidence - despite his own inability to provide a scientific rationale for the Oedipus complex - in recent years evidence confirming the Westermarck effect among humans and other species continues to grow. By revealing more about what lies behind our choice of sexual partners, these findings may hold clues to the "mystery" of GSA.
In one ongoing study of children raised on Kiryat Yedidim, an Israeli kibbutz, between the 1950s and late 1960s, US and Israeli anthropologists were amazed to discover that the sabras - boys and girls of almost identical ages from different families - did not, as their parents hoped and anticipated, marry each other. As one of the first researchers, Melford Spiro, observed in 1958, the intimacy between these children, especially between the ages of seven and 12, could not have been greater. Not only did they shower, sleep and run around naked together and explore each other's bodies, as they approached puberty they began openly to play sex games, including intimate kissing, fondling and simulated, or attempted, sexual intercourse. Despite this climate of sexual freedom, by their mid-teens the girls, especially, displayed signs of shame and became hostile towards the boys, to the point of insisting on having unisex showers. At around 15, the girls became attracted to older students and young unmarried men in the kibbutz, admitting that they saw their peers as "brothers".
In a second phase of the study, when these children had grown up, it emerged that not only had no marriages taken place between any of the sabras from Kiryat Yedidim, and three other kibbutzim, but neither was there a single reported incident of sexual intercourse. Eventually, another team of sociologists analysed the records of almost all known kibbutz marriages, totalling nearly 3,000: in only 16 cases did members of the same peer group marry - and in these cases the couple had met only after the age of six.
In the 1960s, about the same time as the kibbutz studies were being concluded, Professor Arthur Wolf, an American anthropologist from Stanford University in California, travelled to Taiwan to study the effects of child-training methods on child behaviour. He ended up living for long periods in Chinese communities after discovering, by chance, that these had a high incidence of a certain type of arranged marriage - known as the sim-pua, or "minor form" - in which the bride was sent away as a young child by her parents to be brought up alongside her future husband as an adopted "daughter-in-law" of the family.
Wolf, now 70, has spent the past four decades examining the effects of this now almost extinct practice, and revealing its previously unforeseen consequences. "Although the age at which the girl went to the future husband's family was between three and five, in some areas of Taiwan they were under two. Many who entered these marriages were, in fact, nursed by their future mothers-in-law." When Wolf asked some of these surviving mothers-in-law why they did this, he was taken aback by their candour. "They explained that the children weren't treated as daughters: they were referred to as 'little daughter-in-law'. They'd say, 'It's better to raise your son's wife, because she will listen to what you tell her and won't always be talking about your son behind your back.' It was the classic mother-in-law strategy!"
A shortage of suitable brides in these developing communities in the late 19th and early 20th century made this "trade" in girl children an attractive proposition. Wolf discovered that the mothers of infant boys whose next child was a girl preferred to give her away and then adopt someone else's infant daughter as a future daughter-in-law. As in the kibbutzim, the future couple, very close in age, were effectively raised as siblings. Unlike the children from the kibbutz, however, they had to marry - and, as grown-ups, many refused to go through with the marriage, or did so only under threat of severe punishment. Some women, says Wolf, became prostitutes rather than marry their fiancée. And in marriage adultery was rife: "One man promised he would marry any other woman as long as it wasn't his fiancée, although she was very attractive. This was more than lack of sexual interest - it was a complete sexual indifference towards their intended partner, which, as Westermarck claimed, led to disgust and aversion when the act was merely thought of or became a possibility."

It seems that, when it comes to the issue of 'who is really your family, the ones with the most similar DNA or the ones you grew up with?', biology means a lot less than most people tend to presume.

and 2) with all that opulence and high standards of living that we keep hearing about in Trek, there should be no problem finding parents to adopt, or at least foster care, and that any 'orphanages' are hundreds of years (well, literally in this case) more advanced and better furnished (in material as well as personnel) than today. Apparently, even 6-year Klingon children can find Human parents willing to adopt them.

I think that's more in line with the Federation being largely comprised of generous people. I'm sure there are orphanages, but they'd be for, like, orphans, not abandonees.

Why? Because there are no abandonees? That's about as likely as the Federation literally having 0.0000 rates of poverty and crime.

Or because one is more worthy and noble if their parents have died on them rather than abandoned them, and therefore the former should have more rights?

 

[T'Girl]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Where do these incubator-children go? Are the parents dragooned into caring for them?

Women who transfer their children to incubators would have a extra few/several months to make the final decision about adoption. Incubators would also be an option for women who wish to have their own biological children, but who don't wish to carry or give birth.

Why can't Americans simply say it as it is: "against the right of abortion", "for the right of abortion" rather than fancy terms that are tailor made to support one's position.

The simplest way of saying it would be "Pro-abortion" and "Anti-abortion." that would be cutting all the fancy words away.

What the Anti-side really what isn't to take away the right or the legality, they want to take away the occurrence.
If abortion remained completely legal, but no pregnant woman was having them performed, the Anti-side would be
happy as clams.

it could be that contraceptives have become so sophisticated that the couple actually has to take active steps to conceive (such as a reverse form of The Pill) that enables them to have children when they want. That way only children that are planned and wanted would be conceived at all, rendering abortion redundant

There would still be incidents of women changing their minds after conception.

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

No, you didn't say just that, you said that the primary motive for abortion is that "the mother, and perhaps other lobbies involved (father, parents, society), don't want a kid to exist at all", i.e. even if they had a choice to immediately transfer the fetus to an incubator and stop being responsible for it (the child will be the responsibility of the social services), they'd still rather prevent the kid's existence. Why wouldn't they want a kid to exist if it's no burden on them? You make it sound like they're bloodthirsty and really have it in for the kid.

What is bloodthirsty about preventing life from existing?

You seem to be defining abortion as a homicide, but justifiable; whereas I'm defining it as nothing much more involved than removing wisdom teeth. No one expects the dentist to find a good home for that unwanted wisdom tooth.

Pro-life? What does that mean? I always found those terms annoying. It's not "pro-life", it's "against the right for abortion", Why can't Americans simply say it as it is: "against the right of abortion", "for the right of abortion" rather than fancy terms that are tailor made to support one's position.

It's what they self-identify as. I considered making the same point, but Nazis self-identified as Nazis, even though they weren't particularly good socialists.

Of course I am in favor of life, who wouldn't be in favor of life?

Really? Unrestrained life? There are more possible humans than there are electrons in the universe. I am against that number of humans being created.

But that's not what the issue is about. And yes, I do think the fetus is alive - but it's not a person yet, it's not sentient, and it is not really 'distinguishable' from the mother because it is inside her body, feeding on her body, using its resources for growth.

Well, there's no debating it's alive. It self-replicates, hence life.

If you want an ugly but rather accurate comparison... I'll use the term I've heard from my best friend, who has a year and a half old infant she adores, really wanted to have, and is totally dedicated to: she said that pregnancy is in many ways like having a parasite in your body.

Exactly like a parasite, really, except immune response is mostly suppressed.

Imagine a hypothetical situation if you had a comatose person connected to your body in such a way that you can't be separated without the person dying; their body is getting all the nutrients and warmth from your body, needing your body to stay alive until presumably getting cured and released from you in 9 months time, in a very painful and quite dangerous procedure in which either or both of you can die. While it would be really great for you to try to be patient and sacrifice yourself for the good of the other being, to keep them alive despite the inconvenience and physical dangers involved (not to mention all sorts of social dangers and inconveniences, like getting fired from your job [yeah, it happens a lot, maybe not in USA or Western Europe, but believe me it does] or being unable to find one, or screwing up your education, driving your parents crazy, getting nasty and despising looks from your neighbors, possibly being ostracized from the society, etc.)... I really wouldn't feel I had the right to force you to do it, however you feel about it. If you decide to remove the other person's body from your own, ending their possibility of continuing their life... it's a nasty business, but it's your right to make that choice.

Well, the point is taken, although I question the analogy. For four months or so it's not really that bad.

Now that is the gist of choice - the right to control your own body. And the moment when that other organism is out of your body, that issue is over. It's not the issue of your body anymore. You don't have the right to decide to stop the child from existing.

By your logic, you would have the right to kill the new born baby, since that also means you're choosing for the child not to exist at all.

Infanticide has been a common practice throughout history. I'm not very keen on the Roman method exposure, ala the stories of Romulus and Remus, Paris, and so forth, since presumably an infant can feel pain. It also strikes me as lazy and cowardly.

Wrong? Society has certainly reached a consensus that it is, although it's difficult to see what it's based on. There is absolutely no magic transformation to the infant's body in the birth canal that turns it from a non-person into a person.

Huh? What? It is morally praiseworthy to prevent a child from existing,

Usually morally neutral and occasionally morally praiseworthy. It is morally praiseworthy, for example, to abort a harlequin. They have terrible lives.

It is obviously not morally praiseworthy to try to kill the three or so harlequins in the history of planet Earth who have survived to adulthood, because they are sapients with agency, capable of making their own decisions about terminating (or not terminating) their existence.

The point here is that these potential harlequin adults do not exist yet. You are not "taking" their lives, because no entity exists to lay any sort of moral or legal claim upon that life. What is morally praiseworthy is that the aborting mother is preventing the inevitable, immediate consequences of the harlequin's existence--great pain and great expense. The longer-term consequences that could develop when, and (especially in a harlequin's case) if, a human mind emerges inside the human body, need not be considered.

but not to have the child and give it to people who want to take care of it and who could presumably be good parents to that child?

It's morally suspect. If you bring a child to term, the presumption is it's your responsibility.

If I'm a terrible pilot, but I am employed as a pilot, I should probably mention it before I accidentally make a controlled flight into terrain. Likewise, this is what abortion is for, it's indeed what the word connotes--to take an action to end a process, thereby preventing problems before they occur.

So what you're saying is basically that living the life of a person who grew up adopted or in foster care is worse than never being born at all?

No. I prefer not to deal with the past perfect tense in the conditional mood ("If I had been aborted, I would not exist to say abortion is okay"), since taken to extremes it will inevitably end in us all singing the chorus of "Every Sperm is Sacred."

If you haven't grown up with your biological parents, you're cursed, worthless and eternally unhappy?

Okay, yes. Adoptive children are subhuman creatures worthy only of scorn and we should put them all in camps.

Just curious - do you know someone who was adopted or grew up in foster care? Have you tried to tell them that?

I have no idea. I'm about 95% certain that a very good friend of mine is adopted. For some reason, this bothers him. Really, it oughtn't, since it changes nothing about his present condition, but there you go--there's a sting to it no matter how optimal a decision it was.
I think we can probably agree that the best good is to be raised happily and healthily and never to be abandoned. For adoptees, they may well be raised happily and healthily, but they have, by definition, been abandoned. Good reasons, bad reasons, whatever, the sting is there.

If you know that you'd be a crappy parent, either because you're too immature or not ready to be a parent or because you feel you wouldn't be able to give the baby what it needs, the best option and the most morally praiseworthy thing is to make it possible for the baby to have a mommy or a daddy (or a mommy and daddy, or two mommies or two daddies) who will be able take care of it and love it and be good parents to it.

What is morally praiseworthy about being immature, poor,* or irresponsible?

*Morally neutral. Not preaching the Gospel of Wealth here.

So? Some people are selfish. Some people don't love their children. Some people abuse their children. Some people may love their children but are too screwed up psychologically to take care of them. There's a lot of crappy parents. And with so many people who love children and would want to take care of them, it is completely illogical to try to force people to do it against their will. You'd also be condemning the poor children to parents who don't want them and who'll just resent the fact that the damn brat has been forced on them.

That's what abortion is for--again, avoiding the problem of harm. Adoption is a second-best alternative, since it does not avoid the problem of harm.

I don't have anything against the concept of adoption. But it generally should not be seen as a replacement for abortion.

Actually, research shows that a huge number of people really like it, even if they do know - apart from the issue of the social stigma and feelings of guilt and shame that come because of it - and that telling your adopted children who their biological parents and siblings are is all the more likely to lead to them fucking their biological sisters/brothers/parents.

They are far more disgusted at the very idea of fucking their adopted siblings or stepsisters/stepbrothers (if they have grown up together since early age).

It seems that, when it comes to the issue of 'who is really your family, the ones with the most similar DNA or the ones you grew up with?', biology means a lot less than most people tend to presume.

I am aware of this effect. Okay, to correct my joke, "no one else wants someone to fuck his sister." I wonder how true that will be in the future--personally, I have no particular qualm with the act itself, although I'd strongly encourage a childless union, possibly through legislation.

In the 24C, even this might not be particularly necessary, since they go on about how birth defects are reparable. On the other hand, pretty serious mental retardation, such as Bashir apparently had that kept him from telling cats and dogs apart, is not considered a birth defect, so YMMV on how good an idea it would be to conceive with a sibling.

Why? Because there are no abandonees? That's about as likely as the Federation literally having 0.0000 rates of poverty and crime.

There would be fewer, I suspect, than in present day. I mean, they've got a liberal society that is open and frank about sexuality (no matter how juvenile it comes across in execution at times ). Nearly universal contraception should be very easy; abortion is very likely to be open and routine, on the rare occasion that contraception fails; so we're left with people who refused abortion and decided to abandon later, people who for whatever reason had no access to basic medical care for longer than nine months, and people who had a life-changing epiphany and decided they were terrible parents and wanted to terminate their rights in the kid. How often are those fact patterns gonna come up in Paradise?

Or because one is more worthy and noble if their parents have died on them rather than abandoned them, and therefore the former should have more rights?

That actually probably sucks worse than just being given away before you're fully human. Dying, clearly, is a morally blameworthy act.

There would still be incidents of women changing their minds after conception.

That's a damn valid point.

 

[DevilEyes]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Why can't Americans simply say it as it is: "against the right of abortion", "for the right of abortion" rather than fancy terms that are tailor made to support one's position.

The simplest way of saying it would be "Pro-abortion" and "Anti-abortion." that would be cutting all the fancy words away.

What the Anti-side really what isn't to take away the right or the legality, they want to take away the occurrence.
If abortion remained completely legal, but no pregnant woman was having them performed, the Anti-side would be
happy as clams.

But that's not the case.

You're making it seem like the "pro" side is arguing that abortion is an awesome thing it itself and that they really want abortion to occur as much as possible. Which is not the case at all (well, maybe it is for some people, I don't know, but that's certainly not what the issue is about.) When in fact, the "pro" side is arguing that a pregnant woman should have the choice whether to have an abortion or carry the baby to term.

The "anti" side is not just trying to "take away the occurrence". If that was what they were trying to achieve, they would focus on 1) educating the population about contraception, 2) the ways to make it easier for women to become mothers, to help those pregnant women, or expecting couples who might want the child but don't think they are in position to raise it, for economic or social reasons. But as far as I know, that's not what the anti-abortionist are about, their goal is to make abortion illegal. And I suspect that, while illegality may decrease the overall number of abortions performed, it definitely increases the number of botched and unskillfully performed abortions that can result in the death of the patient, or her inability to ever have children. That's not hypothetical, that's what used to happen in real life wherever abortions were illegal.

Infanticide has been a common practice throughout history.

Yeah, like lots of things that are considered crimes today.

I'm not very keen on the Roman method exposure, ala the stories of Romulus and Remus, Paris, and so forth, since presumably an infant can feel pain. It also strikes me as lazy and cowardly.

That's good to know.

I have no idea. I'm about 95% certain that a very good friend of mine is adopted. For some reason, this bothers him.

Would he prefer not to have been born?

How about your friends who weren't adopted? Were they all completely happy with their parents? I had a friend whose parents (biological, yes) didn't seem to give a damn about him. (It's not something he said in those words- it's a conclusion based on evidence, e.g. when he didn't have any money or a place to stay and they refused to help him.) and this is pure observation on our part. ) For some reason, I tend to think that this bothered him, and was a big part of the reason why he was emotionally screwed-up and very insecure, why he was a heroin addict and why he eventually died of overdose.

I think we can probably agree that the best good is to be raised happily and healthily and never to be abandoned.

Well, duh. Thing is, it many cases, people don't grow up in perfect 1950s sitcom families. This goes for many of those who grew up with their biological parents as well.

What is morally praiseworthy about being immature, poor,* or irresponsible?

Huh? Please read again I wrote.

If you know that you'd be a crappy parent, either because you're too immature or not ready to be a parent or because you feel you wouldn't be able to give the baby what it needs, the best option and the most morally praiseworthy thing is to make it possible for the baby to have a mommy or a daddy (or a mommy and daddy, or two mommies or two daddies) who will be able take care of it and love it and be good parents to it.

If I properly understand your unusual and interesting position on abortion - that abortion is not an issue of a woman having control over her body, but rather of the supposed need to stop some individuals from getting born - it seems to support the idea that it shouldn't be the mother, but rather the society - say, some sort of commission or another officially appointed institution - that decides if a woman should have an abortion or not?

Come to think of it, that also reminds me of policies of compulsory sterilization programs of those who were deemed unfit to have children. Which, BTW, is recognized as a crime against humanity today. I wonder if they had that in the Masterpiece Society... It wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Cepstrum]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Guys: I'm sorry for inciting an abortion debate. I really didn't mean for that to happen. I read through MA's background notes on the episode, and if it can be trusted, evidently Michael Piller liked it, but Rick Berman and Jeri Taylor did not.

Here's Rick's comment:

It's a very philosophical issue that we felt seriously about, and a show that I thought was disappointing and didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. It was slow and talky and we had casting problems. As for the abortion issue, that's nonsense. It was totally unintended. I think that there are very few people on our writing staff who would be involved with something that would be a non-choice outlook.

Thus, it seems the mystery is solved. It *was* unintended, and it was *not* well-received by several TNG folks.

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

If I properly understand your unusual and interesting position on abortion - that abortion is not an issue of a woman having control over her body, but rather of the supposed need to stop some individuals from getting born -

It can be both. And no one's advocating forcing women to abort babies that are obviously defective and going to cause them, society, and, critically, the child tremendous pain, suffering, and hardship. Hard cases make bad law, hence I'd prefer not to make any law.

it seems to support the idea that it shouldn't be the mother, but rather the society - say, some sort of commission or another officially appointed institution - that decides if a woman should have an abortion or not?

Er, no. The rights to the child's existence or nonexistence are vested in the mother. This is probably the best system possible, despite its flaws, because other systems--father-mother egalitarianism, and your notion of a state-run eugenics board--raise terrifying spectres.

Come to think of it, that also reminds me of policies of compulsory sterilization programs of those who were deemed unfit to have children. Which, BTW, is recognized as a crime against humanity today. I wonder if they had that in the Masterpiece Society... It wouldn't surprise me.

Like most human endeavors, it's mainly bad because humans cannot be trusted with absolute power over other humans. In any event, in a biotechnologically advanced society, compulsory sterilization of the entire population has so many benefits and so few drawbacks that it's hard to imagine it wouldn't be implemented.

 

[Destructor]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Was Trek used as a vehicle for pushing a set of beliefs, or did it merely explore such topics in a disguised manner? ... I've heard references here to the UFP employing capital punishment during TOS for some strange violation.

I recall a VOY ep about Seven that came down pretty hard on capital punishment.

"Who Watches the Watchers" also pushed atheism to a considerable degree, iirc.

Harking back to the OP, it's silly to think Trek doesn't occasionally push a political or moral viewpoint, one that is usually (though not always) a little left-of-center. This is one of the stated goals of the creator of the show, so it's tough to argue.

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Er, I just wanted to state, for the record, that I do not support any sort of compulsory sterilization programs at our current technological level of development--which is to say, without the means for fully artificial reproduction.

Just in case that wasn't clear. I'm no Oliver Wendell Holmes* or Josef Mengele, okay?

And for what it's worth, I tend to agree with Seymour Itzkoff, who called the Holocaust profoundly dysgenic, and find this criticism equally applicable to many early 20th century so-called "eugenic" efforts, since they rested almost entirely on junk science as well as deep antipathy toward personal liberty.

*Yeah, so it turns out, viz. Buck v. Bell, where Holmes wrote the majority opinion upholding a Virginia forced sterilization law. I mean, I already knew he was a anti-liberty douchebag after Schenck v. U.S., but it turns out one of the most well-known USSC justices was a full-on Natzi scumbag fit to be beaten to death with a baseball bat and scalped.

 

[Timo]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

A random on-topic (and thus off-thread) observation:

Why can't Americans simply say it as it is: "against the right of abortion", "for the right of abortion" rather than fancy terms that are tailor made to support one's position.

I think that as soon as we start using the word "right", we steer clear away from Star Trek or any relevance that the show might have on social stances.

After all, Star Trek doesn't describe the sort of systems that would feature rights in the legal or practical sense. Star Trek social dilemmas almost invariably involve individuals from very distinct cultures: here, Geordi LaForge and Hannah Bates are not subject to the same set of laws, do not bow to the same authorities, and couldn't sue each other. They do not need to share any sort of commonly agreed rights, any more than they are obligated to share personal philosophies.

At times, one wonders if the concept of rights exists even within the UFP. That mega-society is already internally diverse and features distinct subgroups that exhibit extreme isolationism. It also seems to completely lack a law enforcement arm, save for whatever moonlighting the military does on legal matters of military relevance. Perhaps we should not be at all surprised if the concept of crime is less than universally agreed on, if a person can make his or her own, socially unregulated choice about whether to let another person live, or keep his wallet, or eat one's prize apples straight off the tree.

Despite the sight of a lawyer or two, the UFP might basically be a lawless society, one where everybody has the right to do everything and is only answerable in the broad social context, not through some universally rigid set of rules and sanctions. There's very little evidence of "legal consistency" between episodes - and perhaps there is very little need for that, too. All we need is character consistency: Riker might be pro-abortion where LaForge is anti-abortion, or the LaForge may simply be concerned about his personal well-being and existence and quite willing to abort anybody else.

It's not just pro-choice: it's all-choice, no-choice-but-choice. Unless you sign up in the military, or one of the other social sub-groups that have rigid self-imposed mores and sanctions systems. Perhaps Sam Cogley's only source of income was Starfleet officers in trouble?

No doubt the UFP could also be construed as having a fairly conventional set of internal laws. But it would still be very difficult for Trek to push any sort of a political or social agenda by using the UFP society as an example, since the episodes remain at interpersonal and ofter intersocietal level. It's futile to promote an abortion stance when two societies collide and the "guest" society of the week just plain has to be the villain one, for fundamental reasons of Trek storytelling.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DevilEyes]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

I think that as soon as we start using the word "right", we steer clear away from Star Trek or any relevance that the show might have on social stances.

After all, Star Trek doesn't describe the sort of systems that would feature rights in the legal or practical sense. Star Trek social dilemmas almost invariably involve individuals from very distinct cultures: here, Geordi LaForge and Hannah Bates are not subject to the same set of laws, do not bow to the same authorities, and couldn't sue each other. They do not need to share any sort of commonly agreed rights, any more than they are obligated to share personal philosophies.

At times, one wonders if the concept of rights exists even within the UFP. That mega-society is already internally diverse and features distinct subgroups that exhibit extreme isolationism. It also seems to completely lack a law enforcement arm, save for whatever moonlighting the military does on legal matters of military relevance. Perhaps we should not be at all surprised if the concept of crime is less than universally agreed on, if a person can make his or her own, socially unregulated choice about whether to let another person live, or keep his wallet, or eat one's prize apples straight off the tree.

Despite the sight of a lawyer or two, the UFP might basically be a lawless society, one where everybody has the right to do everything and is only answerable in the broad social context, not through some universally rigid set of rules and sanctions. There's very little evidence of "legal consistency" between episodes - and perhaps there is very little need for that, too. All we need is character consistency: Riker might be pro-abortion where LaForge is anti-abortion, or the LaForge may simply be concerned about his personal well-being and existence and quite willing to abort anybody else.

It's not just pro-choice: it's all-choice, no-choice-but-choice. Unless you sign up in the military, or one of the other social sub-groups that have rigid self-imposed mores and sanctions systems. Perhaps Sam Cogley's only source of income was Starfleet officers in trouble?

Where did you get the idea that UFP is a lawless society? Apart from the fact that there is no canon evidence to support that, it makes no sense whatsoever. It's fairytale land...Though I suppose that could explain another ridiculous belief, that there is no crime in the UFP - if there is no law, then technically there is no crime even if people are killing each other all over the place, since they're not breaking the law. (Just kidding. And no, I don't believe that the crime rate in UFP is zero; I believe that it's relatively low, that's all.)

There's plenty of evidence about law of the UFP. We know that UFP has a Constitution, Code of Justice and Judicial Code. http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Federation_law We know that it has a legislative body (Federation Council). We know there are very strict laws against genetic engineering. We know that people get imprisoned. Did you forget Richard Bashir? He was sentenced to 2 years in a penal colony in New Zealand. What about the 'rehabilitation colonies' for the criminally insane, such as those we've seen in "Dagger of the Mind"? You don't think that they only have people there who committed themselves voluntarily, do you? If people were there on their free will, why would they have force fields and other security measures to keep them in? And what's this about people like Garth of Izar escaping from an asylum - surely, if there was no law enforcement and no law, he should have been able to just walk out of there...

It also seems to completely lack a law enforcement arm, save for whatever moonlighting the military does on legal matters of military relevance.

Where are you getting that from?! We have seen very little of the inner workings of the UFP society in Trek. What makes you think there is no law enforcement arm?

And Richard Bashir was a civilian, so obviously civilians do get imprisoned if they break the law.

All we need is character consistency: Riker might be pro-abortion where LaForge is anti-abortion, or the LaForge may simply be concerned about his personal well-being and existence and quite willing to abort anybody else.

Geordi never said anything about abortion in general, and Riker never said anything about abortion at all.

 

[Timo]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Where did you get the idea that UFP is a lawless society? Apart from the fact that there is no canon evidence to support that, it makes no sense whatsoever.

It's scifi - it doesn't need to make sense.

And the idea would stem from the lack of legal coherence. Sometimes e.g. murder is bad, while at other times it is not. Some people can do it, others cannot. UFP law exists - but if it is the same for Vulcans and humans, then it cannot e.g. have a clause against passion-motivated murder, and would appear to be an empty letter only.

Rather than being totally lawless, the UFP might feature a complex system of laws whose main characteristic is that they are not the same for all people - necessary because all people aren't the same, and in fact are so completely different from each other in this context that they require carefully tailored laws. Further, the system would probably not be based on sanctions, because that's not what our heroes and villains get - they get "rehabilitation" or "counseling". Both these aspects, rather deeply built into the structure of Star Trek, would more or less preclude a law on abortion...

What makes you think there is no law enforcement arm?

The total absence of one, despite lots of the drama being based on the presence and actions of "villains"? The total usurping of that role by Starfleet whenever a villain needs comeuppance or a hero has to be unjustly persecuted?

Geordi never said anything about abortion in general, and Riker never said anything about abortion at all.

And?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DevilEyes]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Where did you get the idea that UFP is a lawless society? Apart from the fact that there is no canon evidence to support that, it makes no sense whatsoever.

It's scifi - it doesn't need to make sense.

And the idea would stem from the lack of legal coherence. Sometimes e.g. murder is bad, while at other times it is not. Some people can do it, others cannot. UFP law exists - but if it is the same for Vulcans and humans, then it cannot e.g. have a clause against passion-motivated murder, and would appear to be an empty letter only.

Rather than being totally lawless, the UFP might feature a complex system of laws whose main characteristic is that they are not the same for all people - necessary because all people aren't the same, and in fact are so completely different from each other in this context that they require carefully tailored laws. Further, the system would probably not be based on sanctions, because that's not what our heroes and villains get - they get "rehabilitation" or "counseling". Both these aspects, rather deeply built into the structure of Star Trek, would more or less preclude a law on abortion...

So it's all just conjecture on your part.

UFP clearly has some laws that apply to the entire UFP, that much we know. It stands to reason that individual planets have different laws and regulations on some matters.

What makes you think there is no law enforcement arm?

The total absence of one, despite lots of the drama being based on the presence and actions of "villains"? The total usurping of that role by Starfleet whenever a villain needs comeuppance or a hero has to be unjustly persecuted?

Um, it's a TV show whose main characters are Starfleet members. We rarely see UFP civilians.

And what difference does it make whether Starfleet usurps the role of the law enforcement? Someone is still performing the role of the law enforcement. We just don't normally see civilians on Earth or Vulcan or wherever committing crimes and being arrested, so we don't see who performs the role there. I doubt that it's Starfleet that goes there to arrest them. They have other things to do.

Geordi never said anything about abortion in general, and Riker never said anything about abortion at all.

And?

And you don't have any evidence for your claims.

 

[T'Girl]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

All we need is character consistency: Riker might be pro-abortion where LaForge is anti-abortion, or the LaForge may simply be concerned about his personal well-being and existence and quite willing to abort anybody else.

Geordi never said anything about abortion in general, and Riker never said anything about abortion at all.

LaForge's comment to Hannah Bates would seem to express his viewpoint on abortion in general, but yes that might have been his own belief that he personally should not have been killed/aborted at the decision of another.

Riker's position on abortion could be seen in his actions, not his words, when he destroyed both the developing clones.

There's plenty of evidence about law of the UFP. ... We know there are very strict laws against genetic engineering.

The prohibition on genetic manipulation would seem to be against genetic enhancements, not genetic engineering in general. And the evidence would suggest that the restriction applied only to Humans. Possible a law stemming from the eugenics war, a law enforced by the Federation (or only United Earth), but again applied only to Humans.

the UFP might feature a complex system of laws whose main characteristic is that they are not the same for all people - necessary because all people aren't the same, and in fact are so completely different from each other in this context that they require carefully tailored laws.

There might be a relatively small number of generic "Federation" laws and a larger number of "species" laws. The restrictions on Human genetic enhancements being an example.

Death duels for a spouse would be illegal for Humans though out the Federation (by Human law), while the same would be perfectly legal for Vulcans anywhere. There wouldn't be a "Federation" law on the subject of death duels, because of Vulcan cultural practices there couldn't be a Federation law on the matter.

One species could legally commit suicide, while the same act by another would be illegal. One species slander is another species free speech. It would be very complex, but as long as it was consistently applied it could be made to work.

 

[DevilEyes]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

All we need is character consistency: Riker might be pro-abortion where LaForge is anti-abortion, or the LaForge may simply be concerned about his personal well-being and existence and quite willing to abort anybody else.

Geordi never said anything about abortion in general, and Riker never said anything about abortion at all.

LaForge's comment to Hannah Bates would seem to express his viewpoint on abortion in general, but yes that might have been his own belief that he personally should not have been killed/aborted at the decision of another.

Riker's position on abortion could be seen in his actions, not his words, when he destroyed both the developing clones.

No, Riker's actions show that he believes that nobody is allowed to make clones of him without his consent, and that he has the right to kill his grown clone. Which has nothing to do with abortion.

Although you may perhaps argue that this means that he would think that a man who hasn't been told by his ex-lover that he would become a father has the right to kill the baby. That would be a more apt parallel.

 

[Cepstrum]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Was Trek used as a vehicle for pushing a set of beliefs, or did it merely explore such topics in a disguised manner? ... I've heard references here to the UFP employing capital punishment during TOS for some strange violation.

I recall a VOY ep about Seven that came down pretty hard on capital punishment.

"Who Watches the Watchers" also pushed atheism to a considerable degree, iirc.

Harking back to the OP, it's silly to think Trek doesn't occasionally push a political or moral viewpoint, one that is usually (though not always) a little left-of-center. This is one of the stated goals of the creator of the show, so it's tough to argue.

Destructor: you're right. I was pretty dumb about that, really. And all it took was a check on MA to answer my other question, and now I've inadvertantly caused an abortion debate.

I'm really sorry for my ill-advised thread and deeply regret yet another dumb move on my part. Rats.

 

[T'Girl]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

No, Riker's actions show that he believes that nobody is allowed to make clones of him without his consent, and that he has the right to kill his grown clone. Which has nothing to do with abortion.

But then wouldn't Riker use his phaser on the people who created the clone, not the clone himself? . While the clone in question was produced without Riker's consent, the clone was not the offending party. And there's no indication that the clone would have been William Riker after it was "born," certainly not in terms of his personality. He merely would have possessed Riker's appearance. The clone wasn't "his" to do with as he pleased. It's difficult to see where Riker thought the right to kill him came from.

This is why I thought Riker should have removed the clone back to the ship. Rescued it.

Riker destroyed a developing life that he thought of as his, which was the connection to abortion.

.

 

[DevilEyes]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Riker destroyed a developing life that he thought of as his, which was the connection to abortion.

What connection to abortion?

There is none. None that speaks to the actual issue of the right to choose whether to have an abortion or not.

Yeah, I know that the writer thought it was. But that just speaks to the stupidity of the TNG writing staff in the first 2 seasons. Apparently they also thought that the episode showed the Irish in a good light. http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Up_The_Long_Ladder_(episode)

 

[Rush Limborg]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

See--I am still not convinced that the two "clones" that Riker shoots were alive.

Understand...an unborn child has a heart beat, and eminates brain waves. These two elements are commonly referred to as "vital signs", or "life signs"--even in Star Trek.

Correct me if I'm wrong (not a platitude--please correct me if I'm wrong), but I do not recall Pulaski saying anything like "I'm detecting life signs" in that scene.

So I would therefore argue that the idea that Riker's actions were "Pro-Choice" (i.e., pro-abortion) is a moot point.

 

[6079SmithW]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Interestingly, LaForge showed similar sentiments in that episode where he is trapped on a planet with a Romulan and they have to survive together. The Romulan asks him how he became blind and LaForge said he was born that way. The Romulan, in shock, says something like, "Your parents knew you were defective and they let you live?!" La Forge is outraged by this and the Romulan's statement that defective children are terminated and that LaForge would have been terminated had he been born a Romulan. I think the Romulan was talking about infanticide rather than abortion, though. He also says something like, "No wonder humans are so weak."

So, is this another veiled anti-abortion message given by Geordie? Why is Geordie's character given this position, supposing there really was an anti-abortion message in these episodes?

 

[Myasishchev]

Re: Was "Masterpiece Society" anti-abortion? And did Trek push politic

Because the writers are probably trying to make a point about inclusiveness for the extant blind, which is a good thing, but possibly of marginal effectiveness because Geordi isn't blind.

It was probably also to make Romulan to be kind of a dick, because, really, who says something like that when they first meet someone?

Perhaps Sam Cogley's only source of income was Starfleet officers in trouble?

Then no wonder he can't afford a computer. I wouldn't hire that jackass to fight a parking ticket.

However, we know that there is some federal legal system in the Fed, because they have laws which apply to everybody, and they have a Supreme Court, which apparently has powers of judicial review for unconstitutional (unchartrist?) laws and agency decisions.