love, sex, and singapore babies.
This blog is not usually a social commentary but I was appalled to read the article in ST's Saturday section about abortion in Singapore. According to it something like 25% of all pregnancies here are terminated through abortion. And that's down from a high of 35%. I remember roughly the same statistics came up while I was researching for population geog last year. And roughly the same thought came to my mind:
What the hell?
To put things in perspective, the Rwandan Genocide resulted in the death of about 10% of Rwanda's population. And assuming that biblical Egypt had the same TFR as Egypt in 1985 (that's 5 babies per woman), the deaths of the firstborn only amounted to one-fifth of the pharaoh's kids. I'm trivialising things a bit here but you get the picture...
Imagine these foetuses were all born before they were slaughtered. Now just for a slight semantic shift you could call it a death rate of 25%. To me it's not too much of a stretch to label our abortion rate as genocide, by negligence. And it's not like Singaporeans have that much sex in the first place.
Why on earth are we killing ourselves off? I don't think Singaporeans really hate themselves that much, do they? Is it just symptomatic of a general callousness about humanity that we have? Do these people realise they're killing babies?
Certainly I'm pro-choice; there're valid reasons to terminate a pregnancy... but let me put this to you: the probability that an act of coitus will end in conception is the same regardless of whether that conception culminates in abortion or not. That suggests that 25% of all vaginal intercourse in Singapore is regarded by the female partner as a mistake, at least when it ends in pregnancy.
I'm not a moraliser; I don't wish to speculate on the lax values these depraved specimens of humanity uphold in their lives. I merely wish to point out their colossal and systemic failure to undertake a simple cost-benefit analysis before they, quite literally, fuck around.
That's my thought for the day. Cost-benefit analysis.
What the hell?
To put things in perspective, the Rwandan Genocide resulted in the death of about 10% of Rwanda's population. And assuming that biblical Egypt had the same TFR as Egypt in 1985 (that's 5 babies per woman), the deaths of the firstborn only amounted to one-fifth of the pharaoh's kids. I'm trivialising things a bit here but you get the picture...
Imagine these foetuses were all born before they were slaughtered. Now just for a slight semantic shift you could call it a death rate of 25%. To me it's not too much of a stretch to label our abortion rate as genocide, by negligence. And it's not like Singaporeans have that much sex in the first place.
Why on earth are we killing ourselves off? I don't think Singaporeans really hate themselves that much, do they? Is it just symptomatic of a general callousness about humanity that we have? Do these people realise they're killing babies?
Certainly I'm pro-choice; there're valid reasons to terminate a pregnancy... but let me put this to you: the probability that an act of coitus will end in conception is the same regardless of whether that conception culminates in abortion or not. That suggests that 25% of all vaginal intercourse in Singapore is regarded by the female partner as a mistake, at least when it ends in pregnancy.
I'm not a moraliser; I don't wish to speculate on the lax values these depraved specimens of humanity uphold in their lives. I merely wish to point out their colossal and systemic failure to undertake a simple cost-benefit analysis before they, quite literally, fuck around.
That's my thought for the day. Cost-benefit analysis.
Labels: The Universe
posted by Unknown at
9:59 am
6 Comments:
bloody hell adam you're catholic!
I think the more accurate term is 'was'. or youw're, if we're being context-sensitive. or youwr'e.
I think the church now is a bit fucked because the Catholics are getting more and more out of touch with reality while the protestants are getting more and more out of touch with Christianity.
adam
hrm that's a good way of looking at it.
1) "25% of all pregnancies here are terminated through abortion" - To me, it does seem like Singaporeans don't like their babies and realize the mistake only after conceiving them. But what are the reasons for the abortions? What is the global average for termination through abortion, and how does Singapore compare with other countries? Rwandan Genocide and Egypt in 1985 cannot be made a comparison; both might well have higher abortion rates than in Singapore.
2) I believe in Singapore abortion is only allowed before the first trimester (or something like that). From the moment of conception until the time of birth, at which point do we consider the foetus a life? Before we can settle on that, and know how far into the pregnancy "babies" are allowed to be terminated in Singapore, it's a leap to say that abortion amounts to genocide/killing.
3) In any case, perhaps the 25% figure is lower than the actual rate? Two countries with lax medical regulations/standards (ok, i'm biased) are just a few kilometers away to the north and south. Many Singaporeans may have ended up there when they can't have abortions in Singapore. ;)
- Ming
argh ming loong! like adam pointed out, i'm bitching. don't take me seriously!
i'm not referring to egypt in 1985, i'm talking about the biblical plagues (please do go revise your old testament before you go princeton if you're signing up for the humanities sequence). true, comparing 10% death rate to 25% abortion rate is apples to oranges all over again, but i'm exaggerating to make a point: it's excessive.
to me, comparing singapore to other countries is fundamentally baseless. yes if you were a social scientist you might like to analyse the reasons why people abort their babies but ten bucks says some of the reasons are absolutely frivolous.
("ten bucks says ..." means "i bet ten bucks that ..." but with stronger and more pungent connotations)
i'm not about to be drawn into a pro-choice versus pro-life debate, or when is a foetus a life... any foetus is potential humanity, and i'd hate to see it go to waste.
if you REALLY REALLY want me to go on (but diminishing returns apply to arguments too, ming loong!) and i guess you do: foetuses either have the ability to undertake, or the capacity to develop, all the functions and characteristics which define life in the conventional sense. That's homeostasis, cellular organisation, metabolism, growth, response to stimuli, and reproduction. And that's my basis for suggesting that foetuses from the moment of conception are potential life.
gawd. please don't take it so seriously.
so sorry!!! =/ =| =\ haha
- Ming =)
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