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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25584 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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Is anyone outside the court system seriously defending the bio parents here? Like (the conviction of) Lindsay Clancy 2.0, the virginia mom found guilty of abuse for letting her 5-year-old walk 1/2 mile unsupervised in a gated community.

Another win for jury trials, it would be nearly impossible to select even a majority of ordinary people who’d convict either.

+1 for the parents, cautiously. I'm receptive to arguments about bodily autonomy/finding an economic system where poor people are incentivised to be walking incubators to be distasteful, but at the same time so far there is no legal clarity against it and I don't think there should be takesies-backsies when society couldn't get itself to ban something but then didn't like the outcome.

Also, taking for granted that weakening surrogacy contracts like this is halfway to banning it, it's not like surrogacy doesn't have its good sides, from a eugenic perspective as much as for the personal good of the would-be genetic parents.

Me. It's not her child and she had signed a contract.

I'm glad you responded. But

It's not her child and she had signed a contract

The bio parents don't want the child. Even ignoring that a child isn't property and did not sign (at this point they're born, and even before then, I see abortion as a lesser evil); if somebody doesn't want something for themselves, why should they be allowed to deny others?

Should the surrogate be able to turn around and sue for child support? She should be able to force a DNA of the donors to prove their maternity/paternity.

Edit: If so, what does this mean for father's rights regarding child support when they wish to legally surrender their paternity prior to birth?

No. I don’t see why there would be child support since they have both adoptive parents, and the state should pay for medical care, but if it’s needed, I like the suggestion that the agency is responsible.

EDIT: actually, since (unless) the surrogate has a partner who signs with the agency, I think they should be obligated to pay.

It looks to me like the parents didnt want the huge medical bill and what they believed would be the death of the infant. Now that the surrogate got the state of Texas to pay for it, they obviously do want the child that they initially engaged the surrogate for. But I tend to agree that the surrogate, being the one to get Texas to pay for saving the child, now has the stronger claim.

The fetus is absolutely their property. Should IVF clinics be allowed to use your frozen eggs without your consent if you don't need them?

If they can find decent adoptive parents, I don't see why not.

By that logic, why not go full Murray Rothbard, and declare children to be the parents' property?

I'm on board. IMO it's simpler, more straightforward and practical and philosophically consistent than any of the competing theories.

Because some of us think that fetuses are qualitatively different from children. Children meet my definition of sentient human beings, but fetuses don't.

This is obviously not science though I guess without clear science picking 9 months post conception as sentient sort of works. But there is no science that makes outside of mother as suddenly sentient being. Somewhat similar to how we have different ages for adulthood but they’re basically made up.

The religious people have the better science argument of just declaring we don’t know when it’s sentient so let’s do none of this.

I don't actually think 9 months post conception is particularly human (the "human" part of "sentient human" is doing more work for me) either; it's just a convenient cutoff point since before it it for sure isn't and afterwards the cutoff is different for every instance.

Ya your human/fetus distinction is just is no longer in mother. But that can be manipulated. Kill a baby 2 days outside of mom and get life so legally it’s mattered.

The problem with sentient is it’s just as easy to say it’s ok to kill a 1 year old. But it’s a practical workable legal line since we don’t have technology that says this is now alive.

You don't meet the definition either when you're unconcious.

Since you apparently presume to know my definition, can you state it in your own words?

Sorry, was reading too fast and parsed "my" as "the". Feel free to explain to me why you think you're sentient when you're unconcious.

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I believe that the answer given to that problem in past discussions on this website⁎ is: a previously-conscious child has a future expectation of consciousness (barring an unrecoverable coma), while a never-previously-conscious fetus has no such future expectation.

⁎Which I failed to find in a few minutes of searching, so I unfortunately am forced to write this comment instead of just giving a terse "previous discussion" link.

a previously-conscious child has a future expectation of consciousness (barring an unrecoverable coma), while a never-previously-conscious fetus has no such future expectation.

But we very much do expect fetuses to become conscious? Or is the idea that previously-conscious people are the ones expecting to become conscious prior to the events leading to their unconsciousness? If so, how can the unrecoverable coma exception work? I don't think anyone actually expects their coma to be unrecoverable.

You mean full Rome?

Article

tl;dr: A child is a person in possession of the right of self-ownership but not yet competent to exercise that right, so it is placed under the pseudo-ownership/trusteeship of its parents. (The parents are not allowed to harm the child through action, but are allowed to let it come to harm through inaction, and are allowed to sell the trusteeship to others.) The child can assert its right of self-ownership and end the trusteeship once it is competent to do so (e. g., by leaving the parents' household).

Sure, also.

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