Developers Cut Ties With Tripwire Following President's Anti-Abortion Statement - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 September 2021 / 2,012 Views
John Gibson, the president of Maneater and Killing Floor developer Tripwire Interactive, tweeted his support for the US Supreme Court's decision to not block a new Texas law that bans abortions for most women after six weeks. The Heartbeat Act incldues a "a private civil right of action", which means any Texas citizen has the right to sue anyone involved in an abortion for up to $10,000.
Proud of #USSupremeCourt affirming the Texas law banning abortion for babies with a heartbeat," said Gibson via Twitter. "As an entertainer I don’t get political often. Yet with so many vocal peers on the other side of this issue, I felt it was important to go on the record as a pro-life game developer."
Gibson has faced criticism for this tweet with some developers who have worked with Tripwire in the past saying they will never work with them again.
Shipwright Studios, a co-development studio that worked with Tripwire on Maneater and Chivalry II have declared they will never work with Tripwire again following the anti-abortion statement from its president.
— Shipwright Studios (@shipwrightstdio) September 5, 2021
"While your politics are your own, the moment you make them a matter of public discourse you entangle all of those working for and with you," reads the statement from Shipwright Studios. "We have worked closely alongside the talented and passionate developers at Tripwire and your partners for the last 3+ years.
"We know it is difficult for employees to speak up or act out in these scenarios, and they may not feel comfortable to speak their minds. It is regrettable, but we feel it would be doing ourselves, your employees, your partners, and the industry as a whole a disservice to allow this pattern to continue with comment.
"We started Shipwright with the idea that it was finally time to put our money where our mouth is. We cannot in good conscience continue to work with Tripwire under the current leadership structure. We will begin the cancellation of our existing contracts effective immediately."
Chivalry II developer TornBanner Studios has released a statement they do not share the opinion expressed by John Gibson.
"We do not share the opinion expressed in a recent tweet by the president of Tripwire, publisher of Chivalry 2," said TornBanner Studios. "This perspective is not shared by our team, nor is it reflected in the games we create. The statement stands in opposition to what we believe about women’s rights."
We do not share the opinion expressed in a recent tweet by the president of Tripwire, publisher of Chivalry 2. This perspective is not shared by our team, nor is it reflected in the games we create. The statement stands in opposition to what we believe about women’s rights.
— Torn Banner Studios (@TornBanner) September 6, 2021
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Assuming TornBanner doesn't cut ties then I approve of their approach. 'We disagree with those views. Here's what we believe in. [But we won't be ending our contracts just because of this difference in political beliefs].' That's the approach I'd take if it were my business.
As for Shipwright's response - their first two paragraphs are true, and it's partly why I think companies would be wise to avoid making political statements. But their concern isn't because he made a political statement - I don't think for a moment they'd have a problem with it if he'd taken the opposite view - it's that he has the wrong politics. Their answer is to cancel business ties with his firm. That's their choice, but it's an incredibly unhealthy state of affairs if replicated throughout the industry whenever someone voices an unfashionable but nonetheless mainstream (in America) political view.
You can disagree with his politics, and I do in this case, without wanting to destroy his business and force all similar minded people to self-censor for fear of having their lives destroyed.
Nice to see a measured take in this thread. Cancel culture does so much harm in the US. This guy stated his personal beliefs on his personal twitter account, not the twitter account for his studio. Now people are threatening to blacklist him from the gaming industry, threatening to boycott all of his studio's games. Boycott and cancelation shouldn't be the first thoughts that pop into any of our heads whenever we see somebody say something that we don't agree with.
We have allowed politics to become so ingrained into every aspect of our lives, from entertainment to products. Once companies started making open political belief statements things became even worse, because then we had people on both sides of the fence calling for boycotts on every company who has released a political statement that they disagree with. The US has become the most political society on the planet I feel, and that is not a good thing. The division between us just keep getting wider and wider, and our enemies like China will cease the opportunity of the weakness that our increased division creates. I fear the US is hurtling towards destruction and we are too blind to see it.
It's more the fact that he's the president of his company. There are people who look up to him and listen to his every word. Those people will take it seriously with what he says and attack those who don't support his ideology. That's the danger there. He can have his belief snd his opinion but don't do it publicly. He can do it in his home, with his family or friends who support it. There's a time and place for everything
Social media has given us the idea of a rather expanded notion of freedom of speech. Where you say what you want and people should somehow compartmentalize that and allow it to have no impact on your relationship with them.
But that's not how it works. You can't unring a bell. If someone supports something morally abhorent, then I would not want to do business with them, or have any of my money go to them. I would assume you would agree with that course of action if they were advocating genocide for instance.
If you agree that some opinions are so extreme that they are legit grounds to break off all contact, then the only point of disagreement is whether this particular position is too far. To me, it would be.
Your second two paragraphs are fine. The first is wrong.
The structure of claims about freedom of speech have not changed markedly at all. What has changed is that whereas in years gone by, a political statement made by one person to another, or published in a newspaper, would seldom have had repercussions for people who weren't in politics, these days social media posts are seen as constitutive of the political discourse rather than a reflection on it. It hinges mostly on the "private realm" which liberals (the intellectual tradition) believed lay beyond politics. Many people today don't think so.
So in the liberal canon you have the argument that free speech is both constitutive of human flourishing, and instrumentally valuable since repressed speech may contain truth, and because it allows better ideas to remain. Having companies cancel contracts on you and thereby threaten your career if you take an unpopular position within a young, socially liberal industry is, however you skin it, tantamount to the repression of those ideas. I am not aware (and I do still keep up with political theory journals) of any respected reading of the liberal tradition (Mill etc.) which doesn't include the harm principle in its ethical framework on speech, and they find that social coercion (like this) is not justified to restrict harmless speech, no matter how offensive. There is some work around the edges (inspired by Rawls and his successors) about "reasonable" political doctrines but no disagreement within the tradition on what would apply on this matter.
You may think that making social pariahs out of those with outmoded or 'morally abhorrent' views is justified; and it may be! But the idea that the personal is not political and that speech exactly like this mans shouldn't lead to such consequences is as old as the hills, and it seems to be a perfectly fair reflection of traditional liberal thought. I'm not saying Mill or Arendt or whoever else must be right - you may be right and they may be wrong! - but I am saying that you're 100% wrong to claim that a new "expanded" notion of free speech has come about recently or that it has come from social media.
Sorry to leave such a long reply but I've seen this type of comment, which I do not blame you for at all, which ever-more-boldly misrepresents liberal theorists. These people often have excellent arguments but have a terrible habit for redefining terms which have long-established meanings, and it's incredibly frustrating.
You have demonstrated the very point I was making.
When Rawls talks about suppression of speech, he is talking about the legitimate bounds of government. Based on what I've read of his, he is not speaking about people cancelling contracts or any other form of social pressure.
You should be free of the government suppressing your speech, absent demonstrable harm that it causes. That is what is traditionally meant by freedom of speech. You are not free from negative consequences from other people. This is the lay Facebook poster idea of freedom of speech that people have concocted, which has no basis in reality or law.
Because people have freedom of speech and freedom of association. If I think you're an asshole, generally I do not have any obligation to do business with you, absent a contractual obligation that is not breakable.
I can't see how commenting on the actions of the Supreme Court to literally everyone in the world who wishes to see it can be considered private. If in the past someone had taken a front page ad out on a certain matter that would absolutely be considered a public statement, and he may have faced economic harm and a lawsuit from his company if he were a CEO. The only thing Twitter has changed is that now many more people are likely to see those comments, so naturally the effect is more severe. If everyone can see what you said, everyone is likely to have an opinion.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that liberal scholars would in any way be opposed to someone's right to break off contract with someone they find objectionable, or would equate that with government suppression (admittedly I only dabble in that sort of thing). Except in a very narrow set of circumstances, that is part of freedom of speech.
"That is what is traditionally meant by freedom of speech. You are not free from negative consequences from other people. This is the lay Facebook poster idea of freedom of speech that people have concocted, which has no basis in reality or law."
I emphatically do not agree and you should have a second reading of my comment!
Your reading of Rawls is very suspect. He was acutely aware of non-governmental associations ("clubs and universities" being his words, but the thought extends to businesses etc) which can leverage social capital to punish opponents and repress their ideas. It's why Rawls puts so much time (more than 10 chapters of JAF (the restatement of Theory of justice), and many more in Political Liberalism dedicated) into the principles of moral conduct for individuals, which arise from the principle of fairness (the same principle used to elicit the principles of justice). Treating people as equals (the essential goal of liberalism) requires these natural duties to be fulfilled, which includes, crucially, the requirement to support and comply with just institutions that exist and apply to us.
The essence of his claims, and Mill's and many other liberal heavyweights are actually the opposite of what you think they are. It's that the just society for the liberal demands support from its citizens for its principles of justice. The most important (due to its lexical superiority) is the first principle of justice, which secures the basic rights for all including free speech. So it is clear when you place it in Rawls' political regime that freedom of speech includes offensive and obnoxious speech, and that Tripwire games are neglecting their principles of moral conduct (neglecting the liberal ethos) by denouncing him in this way. It's also why beliefs which cannot endorse the principles of justice (eg. fascism, communism) are ipso facto unreasonable and lie beyond the political realm. We need not focus on Rawls, either. The same is stated much more plainly elsewhere in the liberal canon. But if we're focusing on Rawls himself, in a rather extreme example, he did actually refuse to condemn the flying of a confederate flag outside the dormitory window of a student while he was at Harvard, though he said it was highly offensive to black students. That's not a refusal to remove it, or support its removal. But a refusal even to use his influence to condemn it. To tolerate it which has been part of the fabric of Liberalism since Hobbes. Not just government repression, but all sources of it.
So in view of that your final paragraph should be responded to like this: " in any way be opposed to someone's right to break off contract with someone they find objectionable, or would equate that with government suppression"
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they wouldn't question their right to do so. But the liberal ethos tells us we shouldn't exercise that right. (The quote comes with the proviso that "at least when this can be done without too much cost to ourselves (115)").
- they wouldn't equate it to government suppression but nowhere is it suggested that free speech protections only pertain to government repression, any more than freedom of association only protects you from government interference, or property rights only protect you from government expropriation.
You Said: "they wouldn't question [other people]'s right to [apply social pressure]. But the liberal ethos tells us we shouldn't exercise that right. (The quote comes with the proviso that "at least when this can be done without too much cost to ourselves (115)"
So if everyone has a right to apply social pressure, then by corollary nobody can have the right to speak while being free from that social pressure. So they agree with me, great. Have a second reading of your own post.
If Rawls thinks people shouldn't do that, then I don't really give a fuck. I don't agree that he does say that. He specified that Harvard administration should not interfere NOT that students shouldn't. He said students should have a tacitly understood code of conduct, and that they should work out the issue among themselves. Presumably, the only means would be through social pressure. Which is what's happening hear. Shipwright is not the Harvard administration, they have no special power over Tripwire. They are their fellow students.
But even if Rawls does disagree with me, I don't care. If there's a good reason for it, I'd consider this, but a pure argument from authority that the bastions of liberal ethos have decreed it so doesn't do anything for me. If the writings of Rawls are the Bible of liberalism that I must adhere to, then I guess I'm not a liberal.
"So if everyone has a right to apply social pressure, then by corollary nobody can have the right to speak while being free from that social pressure. So they agree with me, great. Have a second reading of your own post."
This is very slippery, sir. I said that they had a right to break off contracts under Rawlsian liberalism, as of course they do subject to tort law and property rights secured under the first principle of justice. This doesn't imply a positive right to apply social pressure, and certainly not one with lexical superiority to the first principle of justice. You can't fudge my agreement with you by putting what you wish I had said in [square brackets]. Read Dworkin - Rights as trumps, if you want more.
By the sound of your last paragraph you're still trying to convince me that applying social pressure is a good thing (edit: or at least an available tool which can be justifiably used) . My only purpose in this debate was to show you - and anyone else who might read - that the idea that traditional liberalism protects free speech by offering both legal and ethical defenses of it, against social pressure is not part of some new Facebook or social media revisionism. It's been around for a very long time in the liberal tradition.
So the claim "free speech doesn't mean freedom from its consequences" (as I have heard often before), insofar as it references the liberal conception of free speech, is wide of the mark.
You're absolutely welcome not to be a liberal, as there are many other perfectly good political theories, various Marxisms, Republicanism/communitarianism, Progressive Conservatism, Feminism (public vs. private) which have relevant things to say about liberal pretenses about all kinds of different rights that liberals argue for. Carl Schmitt *(though he was later a N.a.z.i) also comes to mind. He was also frustrated by the liberal tendency to tolerate those ethics and practices hostile to it. These groups are all united by a desire to "rescue" politics from what they see as anti-political liberal dogma.
Square brackets are used when a quote is clear within the context , but not outside of it. When there is a vague term in a quote i.e. "right to do so", you use those to put in what was being referred to. I thought I was accurately representing what you said. If I wasn't, then my bad. But I can't see why their opinion on contracts would differ from how they'd feel about other forms of societal pressure. So I maintain that they agree with my position.
You are continuously doing the very thing I suggested, extending the prohibition on government or quasigovernmental restriction of free speech to individuals to create a super right to uninhibited freedom of speech. Dworkin is absolutely not stating that free speech trumps other individual's rights, he is saying it trumps the government's, or other quasigovernment entities, ability to impose laws. He does not in any way shape or form suggest that I can not or should not exercise my rights when they might dissuade a person from using theirs.
You seem primarily interested in name dropping philosophers. If your whole point is that some people disagree with me whoopdie fucking doo. Neither I, nor anyone else, should give a shit, unless they actually have good arguments that you can present, whether it's Rawls, Dworkins, or the guy in the next apartment.
It seems that the members of the political side of good, love, tolerance and kisses-kisses are not so tolerant.
I guess they just don't hold up to the absurd standard you facetiously attributed to them. Imagine that.
"While your politics are your own, the moment you make them a matter of public discourse you entangle all of those working for and with you"
Eeeeh, no. Why would it work that way? Why should it work that way? Why do people need to mix politics with everything else constantly? Why would people assume you have the same opinions as your boss or your employees? Why should your coworkers/boss/employees abstain from expressing their opinions, least you cut all ties from them? If you can't make business with someone you disagree politically, you won't do business with anyone, ever. And if that's applied to any other area, people won't be able to live with each other without constant conflict. We're all different, we think differently, we have different values, opinions, morals and ethics. This line of logic just erases any kind of middle ground that could make a society function.
Because I'm human.
The fact that Keanu Reeves is by all accounts a wonderful human being makes me more want to see him in movies. Regardless of whether or not it's rational, I am more inclined to support someone I see as aligned with my values.
On the other hand if I know someone is a terrible person I am less likely to support them. I loved Pineapple Express and the Disaster Artist but after finding out that James Franco is likely a sexual predator, I just haven't wanted to watch them. It wasn't even like a conscious decision to cancel him or not want to see his movies. I just don't have the inclination.
Perhaps you have the ability to completely compartmentalize those things, but I can't. If I know these things about people, I know them, and it's going to effect how likely I am to view their product. And that is going to impact others who are associated with them.
That's the way my mind work, and I think the vast majority of people. When you say things it influences people's opinions of you, and their actions towards you. Just the way it is.
But this goes beyond a mater of mere support, it's a matter of being able to work with someone you disagree with in matters that in no way involve your work in question. Let's take Tripwire Interactive as an example. According to Wikipedia, they have around 80 employees working for them, plus any freelancer they need to hire. Do you think they all have the same take about the subject at hand? Do you think it would be fair for them being unable to express their support/opposition to this subject without the fear of being excluded from the company? Do you believe they would be able to do any work if they were unwilling to cooperate with someone they disagreed with politically? Because if they couldn't do it for something like this, it opens the door for the thousand other thorny subject matters life has in store for us. And I'm willing to bet they don't all think in complete lockstep.
When you're the CEO of a company, PR is part of your job. He was shit at it.
But yeah, if the company's opinion is they don't want to work with anyone they disagree with, then that's their prerogative. If they take it to an absurd degree where they won't work with a company if their freelancer likes Dane Cook (perfectly valid reason actually when I think about it) then they probably won't stay in that industry. And if there's money to be made in that industry, there will be other people willing to take the opportunity.
That's the free market, and it will temper how picky people can chose to be about their business associates.
Personally, I haven't had any job that I didn't feel the need to hold back many of my opinions. Depending on the job, some of them had legal/contractual protections. Even so, I had to keep certain opinions when anyone from work could hear me, and kept my social media private. If you want to argue that certain people can't do that because their business requires them to interact on social media, then that's part of their job.
Good, I live in Texas and it’s a stupid law.
The extreme curtailment of abortion rights is awful enough. This law also endangers the concept of standing. Standing means that you can only bring legal action against someone if you are a party who has directly suffered injury because of the defendant's actions. It is outlined in the United States Constitution, Article III. This law not only allows pretty much anybody to sue a woman, a doctor, or any other involved parties on the suspicion of being involved in an abortion, it absolves them from all responsibility even if they lose, so the defendant is still on the hook for legal fees no matter what. This is a dangerous precedent to set regardless of anything else.
I disagree with the man, but regardless of the position one takes on any given matter, I hate what the world has become in the last 5-10 years. There's only one acceptable opinion on every matter and everyone must abide by that, there's no room for discussion or debate. People will be kicked off platforms and their livelihoods will be torn down for daring to express dissenting opinions. Pure totalitarianism. It's sickening, no better than the oppressive, fascist communist regimes in history. People seem to be totally oblivious to this tyranny of good intentions.
On the other hand, I've always maintained that you should not mix your politics with your work, unless your work is directly about politics. So if I give leftist politics in the entertainment industry a hard time, I cannot give this guy a pass either. It just makes everything a needless mess. Shut the hell up and concentrate on making good games. Vent your politics at family dinners or quit and become a politician for real.
Sometimes, it's best not to say anything.
He's going, he's going - and he's out of there.
"Jason Schreier @jasonschreier
BREAKING: Tripwire Interactive CEO John Gibson is stepping down following severe backlash"
It is a dumbass law. And that dude is an idiot. But, this thing where people don't want to so business with companies because people in the company don't share their political views is stupid.
I buy AAA games mostly. They're made by teams of hundreds of people. It's safe to say that a large portion of those teams hold views that I do not agree with. But, I don't refuse to play the games over a difference of political opinion. It's an irrelevant issue, and society would be better off if we would stop giving it relevance.
Except that companies are heavily involved in politics, and typically the most donations come from the tops. Corporations (and other business entities) have fought to entangle themselves in politics, and that cuts both ways. If I suppose my money might go to supporting something I find immoral, I may think twice about where I spend it.
That would be fine, except that politics literally affects every facet of our lives, always has since the beginning of civilization, and always will until the end of humanity.. Politics are the origin of the rules that, when you get right down to it, society enforces at the end of a gun barrel.
I agree with that. But, like I said, you're going to be supporting causes that you do not agree with almost all the time, unless you're simply not going to buy anything that takes more than one or two people to produce.
It seems like pretty much all game development studios these days are driven by left wing politics because they are headquartered in big cities or the metropolitan areas of big cities, which are nearly all filled with left wing voters. Because right wing voters like myself almost all live in rural areas and small cities and towns, we are hugely underrepresented in game development. It's nice to see that there is at least one game studio that is ran by somebody who is right wing. I feel increasingly pushed out of my favorite passtime by what is happening within the gaming industry, over the last 15 years or so I have noticed a huge shift from largely apolitical games to games shoving left wing politics and left wing ideals down our throats.
Maneater doesn't really try to push politics at all, it's apolitical, but that is not good enough for the far left people who are taking over gaming I guess. The head isn't even allowed to publicly state his personal beliefs on his personal twitter account (not the account for the studio he runs), without being attacked for those beliefs and cancel cultured by the industry. Looking at that tweet thread, I see left wing people attacking others simply for saying that they don't care about politics and want to play good games, smh.
Ah, I see that you agree if a group is underrepresented it's good to see more of them <3
I suppose you would approve of efforts to ensure more, shall we say, diversity in the games industry? To make sure underrepresented groups have their opinion voiced?
What defines people is what they think, not what they look like. So more diversity of opinion would be a good thing.
Only left wingers think that what define people is their skin color.
Who said people were defined by skin color? Or anything about skin color? If you want to create your own arguments to refute, you can do that by yourself.
You just said it with different words.
You assume that more "diverse" people would have a different opinion.
You said that every "group" have a different opinion. Those groups are based on the skin color, their sexuality, their language, etc.
I don't agree. I think every individual have a different opinion.
Nobody said anything about how to define groups. Since you're whole thing is just making up things to argue about, don't respond to me any further. Please and thanks.
lol
“You just said it with different words”
So basically you are twisting his words to try and make out he said something that he didn’t actually say.
I am a "Left winger". - I can assure you... I define people by more than just skin colour.
I respect each and every single individual.
You are trying to make this out to be about skin pigmentation when it has absolutely nothing to do with it... In short. Your argument is bullshit.
You are using divisive rhetoric to try and undermine any opponents.
I have always been ok with diversity in gaming. I just prefer that the diversity feel natural and represents actual percentages of the population for where the game is set. A game set in a rural area of America that is like 95% white and 99% straight shouldn't have a main cast that has more minority race characters than white characters and like 3 or 4 LGBT characters, just like it wouldn't make sense for a game set in inner-city Chicago to have mainly white characters who are all straight. Diversity is great, forced diversity sucks.
Remember when Kingdom Come Deliverance was attacked for not having minority representation? It was a game set in Medieval Germany, it wouldn't make sense for the characters to be anything but white.
That is a good example of your point. Also, it worth looking up some of the criticism of TLOU2.
No, not the well known criticism - trans-rights groups criticised it for not having trans-writers for the trans character and for having the extremist religious cult refer to Lev as Lily.
Yeah that's true, wouldn't expect the characters to be anything but white in KCD. Also, was it not set in Bohemia? (Present day Czech Republic) although yes it was part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Yes, Bohemia (Czech Republic) not Germany.
Yeah, that was my bad, the game was set in Bohemia, modern day Czech Republic, rather than modern day Germany.
It's not like his views don't affect others, I find it funnny that a country that prides itself on "being free" has laws like this that literally limit freedom for certain individuals. There seems to be a section of republicans that have their own version of sharia law.
There is no policy on abortion that isn't going to affect the rights of one group or another. Banning abortion affects the mother's right to bodily autonomy, while allowing abortion affects the right to life of the unborn child as well as any fathers who don't want to see their son or daughter killed.
As long as somebody's rights are being stomped on one way or the other, it comes down to picking the lesser of two evils. And I believe the lesser evil to be banning abortion, since the unborn children don't have a voice to advocate for their own right to life.
Nobody has a right to live by using someone else's body.
If I need a liver transplant due to no fault of my own, and my father is the only person who can give it, he does not need to consent, and faces no penalty if he does. It doesn't matter how much I want to live, how well I advocate, or how much my mother would like to see me live. It doesn't even matter if my father is dead, assuming he made his wishes known, I can not use his liver to live.
If a baby is a day old, and needs a blood transfusion from the mother, she can legally refuse. The father cannot do anything about it then. Doesn't matter if she has a container full of blood in her freezer (who knows why) and it would literally not inconvenience her at all. She maintains complete autonomy.
Bizarrely, the only situation where a human being can lose bodily autonomy is when it is a pregnant woman and when the fetus is in utero. You are not protecting the fetus rights, you are creating a right for the fetus that nobody else has, and imposing an obligation on the mother that nobody else has.
Quote : "You are not protecting the fetus rights, you are creating a right for the fetus that nobody else has"
Every human being was once a fetus, so if a fetus have rights, everybody have them.
Well, at least it's something I actually said, so there's that. But it makes completely no sense. An adult has the right to consent, children do not. Children have the right to an education, adults do not. We give different rights to different groups of people, depending on various factors such as age and capability.
If a fetus has a right to use its parents' body to sustain its life, I see no reason why a 1 minute old baby would not have the same rights. Yet, we cannot force a mother to donate her blood to save her newborn.
I’ll give you credit, you presented a better argument for abortion than I have ever seen from a supporter, usually they just screech about bodily autonomy but will never back up that argument when asked for reasoning.
Do I agree? Can’t say I do. Women give up their right to full bodily autonomy when they voluntarily agree to have sex, because any sex, even with contraception, can still result in pregnancy. It is my belief that as soon as a woman consents to sex, she is giving consent to possibly have her body used as a vessel for another life for the next 9 months.
Now the tricky part comes in the event when she doesn’t give consent to the sex act. While I do think it’s wrong that a child should be judged for the sins of his or her rapist father, the fact remains that the woman didn’t consent to sex and therefore didn’t consent to her body being used as a vessel for another life for the next 9 months. That is where I do disagree with the Texas law, it only provides exception for life threatening pregnancies and not for rape.
I'm at least glad you would like to see a rape exemption.
That being said, you acknowledged my point then didn't really address it.
My father had sex, and he knew that could, and did, lead to my birth. I am undoubtedly a living, breathing, thinking, feeling, human being. I can advocate for myself. I really want to keep living. What medical procedures can we force my father to undergo to secure my right to keep living assuming I meet with a completely unavoidable need? How does my mother's right to see me live influence that?
What if a baby is a minute out of the vagina and needs blood? Is the father obligated to give blood? He consented to sex, and knew pregnancy might result.
Suppose a mother dies and her will specifically states not to use her blood, bone marrow, organs, etc? Can we use them anyway if her kids need them and the father would really like them to live? Suppose the mother died during child birth and her last words to the doctors were "don't give any blood, organs, blood marrow etc. to my babies"?
When does a fetus lose this right to sustain its life by use of its parents' bodies? Currently in our law, (or rather Texas' law) it's literally the second it's born. That is absurd. Either parents are required to sacrifice their bodily autonomy for their children, or they are not. If they are, that completely upends our concept of bodily rights. If someone else, even you're child's, need for your body can at any point trump your rights over your own body, it leads to some very thorny utilitarian arguments over who weighs those interests. Allowing each person the right over their own body is the only practical and moral position.
A girl I know expressed her freedom three times. She aborted Three times because she did not want to use contraceptives. The father was the same guy, her boyfriend. And since abortions are reimbursed by social security, it affected me because she did it with taxpayer money.
What sharia law? Christianity is more strict on abortion than Islam...
I don't know much about Islam, but the Bible says very little about abortion. Jewish law explicitly sets different standards for rights of a fetus and for a born child in terms of penalties for harming them, burial proceedings, mourning periods, etc. The New Testament adds nothing to my knowledge.
It's nothing in the Bible itself that demands this law. It's just people's interpretation of what they think god would want which is based little on scripture and mainly on personal intuition and upbringing. Which should not be the basis for law.
Yes, the Bible doesn't explicitly say "Thou shall not have an abortion", but when the Pope himself says it's a sin and is akin to hiring a "hitman", for a lot of Christians I guess it's hard to argue with him. Although, to my knowledge most American Christians are Protestants so they may not agree with him but I think the majority of Protestant Churches still oppose abortion.
Christianity is in steep decline in North America and Europe. It is even starting to crack in Latin America, especially Chile, where only 45% of the population identifiedt themselves as Catholic in 2018. The reason why is because both the Catholic and Protestant Churches set themselves up as moral authorities while committing amoral acts.
I spent the summer dealing with cases against the Catholic Church. I'm not saying the Catholic Church was designed specifically to enable child molesters, but if you wanted to create a system to enable child molesters, you could not build a better one. Even if you believe the Bible, the fact that anyone can take that organization as a moral authority on anything is baffling.
Yep. But Protestant churches do the same thing. Because the Protestant and Evangelical movements are not a monolithic organization like the RCC, they don’t attract the same press. So they are even better set up to cover up sexual abuse. My wife grew up in a Southern Baptist household. She knew a lot of people who were molested by church elders. Someone I knew raped a girl at the Falls Creek church camp in Oklahoma. He got off with probation despite admitting to the crime, because the church who hired him was planning to investigate the victim’s sex life as a defense, Boz Tchividjian, Billy Graham’s grandson, was a sex crimes investigator in Virginia. He has said that at some
point, the evangelical church
will have its own reckoning like the RCC.
I don't think that's necessarily the case. The Catholic Church is certainly an easier entity to sue because of their hierarchy. It's easy to argue that the people with the money actually knew what was going on.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen in other institutions as well, it definitely does, but from my anecdotal experience we had very few cases coming from other religious organizations. That's partially due to demographic factors, but even if you accounted for that the Catholic Church is disproportionately overrepresented.
The fact that Priests are not allowed to get married means that the people who go into the clergy do not desire heterosexual marriage, which means a disproportionate amount of those will have attraction to something besides heterosexual marriage age women. The altar boy program puts them in close contact with children. The fact that they are believed to be literally divine prevents any questioning and often times, even when reported, the parents themselves don't believe the child due to their own indoctrination. It also is a huge benefit that the priests are moved often, which decreases the risk of being found out and gives them a fresh supply of targets.
There is potential for abuse in other religious institutions of course. Many Baptist churches are very much family affairs and have a "what happens in the family stays in the family" culture, and that creates a serious risk of abuse, as nobody will speak up when it happens. Any time a community becomes extremely close off abuse almost invariably follows: See Amish, Jewish Orthodoxy. But I still maintain that the Catholic Church is the absolute worst of it.
Thank you for your excellent response. Your last paragraph is why you don’t see so many of these cases. Many church “families” tend to close ranks against outsiders and their mouths against law enforcement. What happened with Josh Duggar is a prime example of that. His family sent him to an unlicensed counselor when he molested his sisters, rhen when that became public knowledge, Mike Huckabee came to his defense. Earlier this year, he was arrested for child pornography, and one of the pieces of child porn they found on his computer was said by the investigators to be one of the most horrific things they had ever seen. Duggar and his siblings were also home schooled so their parents could protect the kids from what they considered immoral influences.
Pastors and deacons are not only allowed to get married, they are pressured to get married. An unmarried deacon or pastor above a certain age raises questions in the church community. However, until they get married, they are suppose to be chaste. That also breeds conditions ripe for sexual abuse.
I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, and I've seen other cases where family members are the victims. But the nature of the Catholic church gives them much broader reach for victims. So does the fact that the Catholic Church operates so many schools and other large institutions which house children (foster homes/orphanges etc.) While those in the family are often at risk, it is much harder for those outside the family to become victims compared to the catholic church.
I don't think I follow why expecting people to get married would increase sexual abuse.
I’m curious, what games do you thing are pushing a left-wing agenda. I know a common answer would be TLOU2 or a lesser known game like Tell Me Why (although personally I think it is a massive overreaction to say a game is left wing just for having a trans character).
Most games tend to stay apolitical so they don’t alienate half of their potential audience. There’s a few outliers like Watchdogs Legion, which was criticised for not taking a stance on Brexit, although my point above is basically why it didn’t.
Companies have been hedging their opinions to the masses since day 1. There's a reason that gay people didn't exist on TV until 1971 and even then were virtually invisible until the 90s. People only get upset when it is opposed to their personal viewpoints.
Which is fine. You don't have to support things you don't like. But, there is an attempt to label it as "political" to shut it down without actually addressing the substance.
Having games with only straight characters, is no more political than having one with gay characters. Unless people are getting equally upset when minority groups are either over or underrepresented, they can't hide behind the political argument.
It's an absurd law and this man deserves whatever ever backlash he gets for supporting it.
Just like that John Gibson is stepping down as CEO. Excellent news.
