Jennifer
K Bankier wrote:
Forgive me for my late entry to this discussion but I have been
away since Nov. 28 (and my email overloaded with spam while I was
away, so I have lost any comments after Dec. 1), so my apologies
if my comments are redundant but ...
A part of Lizzie Cooke's comment about her blood boiling below made
my blood boil ... specifically the part where she characterizes
her comment (and presumably, therefore her position) as a "ridiculously
female and irrational comment."
I assume that the "irrational part" is sarcastic. That is not the
problem for me. I assume Prof. Cooke's characterization of her position
as female was meant more seriously, in contrast to the characterization
of those who believe compensation for the costs of raising a child
as a result of a bungled sterilization as "chaps" ... in other words
there is an implication that women are more likely to agree with
Prof. Cooke's position that "it is WRONG regard [sic] the birth
of a child as something for which anyone should be compensated."
I am a woman and I emphatically believe that parents who receive
a child as a result of a bungled sterilization *should* be compensated.
I speak as a woman who decided at an early age, emphatically, that
I did not want to have children not only for career reasons but
because I do *not* enjoy children, and I consider the work involved
in raising them to be extremely burdensome, and not work I want
to undertake.
I was myself sterilized almost 30 years ago for this reason, and
giving birth to a child if this sterilization had been botched would
have had an extremely negative impact on my life, for non-monetary
reasons.
Child-care is *not* a positive experience for everyone, and *not*
everyone is good at it. The notion that once a woman gives birth
she will immediately love the child and be a good parent is nonsense
... as anyone who reads the papers should be able to recognize.
The same is true for fathers.
The assumption so far in this discussion is that the non-momentary
consequences of childbirth are always positive for everyone. In
some cases the non-monetary consequences may be extremely negative
... if we're going to get into non-tangibles as a mitigating factor
against awards for monetary losses, does that mean that parents
in such cases should be able to claim for non-monetary negative
consequences, e.g. distress, feeling harassed and burdened, the
"double shift" for women, etc.?
Furthermore, some people decide not to have children precisely because
they *cannot* afford to have them (an accurate assumption for some
people) and such people should be able to claim the additional expenses
resulting from a bungled sterilization including the costs of rearing
a child.
The problem here is over-generalization ... people who do experience
significant, positive non-monetary benefits from children generalizing
to an assumption that such positive benefits exist for all people
who experience an unwanted pregnancy as a result of a bungled sterilization.
This is an unfair universalization of the experience of *some*,
not *all* people, including *some*, not *all* women.
