Information I'd love to know

cthia wrote::( Re Ephraim Templeton and Judith Winton

In the late 19th Century PD, he captured his junior wife, Judith. She was the daughter of Grayson merchants, taken as a prisoner when Templeton attacked and captured her parents' ship.

He married her when she was twelve and began trying to impregnate her. She had her first miscarriage a year later and a second six months after that; at sixteen she became pregnant again with a girl that Templeton wanted to abort because of his preferring male children. Judith was determined to protect the child and escape from her captivity; she had been taught to read by her parents, a fact she had hidden from everyone for years.

I don't know how advanced Masadan medicine is. I'd say, not very. At any rate, I'm surprised that a Masadan, or any descendant of Grayson, would ever adopt the practice of 'abortion' as a gender filter, since numerous abortions could cause an inability of a woman to bear any gender.

Multiple full term pregnancies are far more likely to cause problems than multiple abortions. By a long way.

But if the women are easily replacable things why would he care?

Annachie wrote:Multiple full term pregnancies are far more likely to cause problems than multiple abortions. By a long way.

But if the women are easily replacable things why would he care?

Correction: multiple correctly performed abortions are far less likely to cause problems than multiple full-term pregnancies.

Let's just say my faith that Masada has anything of the kind is rather low.

They run starships, so the odds that they don't have what we consider modern medicine is pretty much insignificant. Not what the SL core considers modern medicine, but right now.

kzt wrote:They run starships, so the odds that they don't have what we consider modern medicine is pretty much insignificant. Not what the SL core considers modern medicine, but right now.

It's not whether or not they have it that worries me. It's whether or not they care enough to use it...

kzt wrote:They run starships, so the odds that they don't have what we consider modern medicine is pretty much insignificant. Not what the SL core considers modern medicine, but right now.

North Korea runs airplanes, but would you want your heart operation there?

There are dangerous complications that may arise from late term abortion. One of the most common, as a few doctors have told me, is embolism. The woman can simply bleed out. I was also informed that modern societies limit this to around 1 in a 1000. For modern societies. I would imagine it to be higher for Masada.

I can conceive of many Masadan abortion methods to be less than safe, and not simply because of late term abortions or inferior medical procedures. But rather the following scenario, I surmise, to be quite common ...

1. Women would be protective of their children. (I assume, and that assumption could be in error) and would hesitate to divulge news of conception. Naturally the husband would find out at a much later point in the term. His anger would prompt swift violent actions resulting in a punch to the stomach.

2. Certain doctors have informed me that there exists a very high number of inhibited conceptions as a symptom of psychological trauma and psychosomatic disease. (Which I would think would be quite prevalent in Masadan women)

3. I was also informed that correctly performed abortions does not guarantee continued fertility because of a particular woman's possible vulnerability to physical shock induced by abortions. Especially late term abortions.

4. I also wonder about Masadan prenatal care and proper diet. I envision malnourished women from being overworked, under fed, emotionally and psychologically too damaged to eat well or too frightened, or just plain neglected and abused.

The discussion gets too technical for me beyond this, and there's the barrier of translating Romanian to English for me to understand.

At any rate, it seems Masada's abortion attitude would inevitably lead to problems. Moreover, there's a certain additional consideration of the uncontrolled genocide of women, that would seemingly reduce their large female population, putting more stress on remaining women to conceive. As a result, it seems, younger and younger wives would be called upon to bear. A twelve year old body and younger could be irreparably damaged.

Masada is killing their women by stoning. *Sport. And genocide. Seems a shortage of skirts shall soon ensue.

To be honest, I wonder how there's a surplus of women in the first place.

Hutch wrote:

kzt wrote:They run starships, so the odds that they don't have what we consider modern medicine is pretty much insignificant. Not what the SL core considers modern medicine, but right now.

North Korea runs airplanes, but would you want your heart operation there?

Not really, but you are not exactly talking heart surgery here.

cthia wrote:At any rate, it seems Masada's abortion attitude would inevitably lead to problems. Moreover, there's a certain additional consideration of the uncontrolled genocide of women, that would seemingly reduce their large female population, putting more stress on remaining women to conceive. As a result, it seems, younger and younger wives would be called upon to bear. A twelve year old body and younger could be irreparably damaged.

Masada is killing their women by stoning. *Sport. And genocide. Seems a shortage of skirts shall soon ensue.

To be honest, I wonder how there's a surplus of women in the first place.

They have the same genetic damage as greyson, so they have a lot more women then men.

Cultures with a large number of young men with no possibility of getting married (or otherwise acquiring the functional equivalent) are unstable. Often very unstable.

12-13 y/o's can have kids with a reasonable degree of success. With c-sections (which are hardly high-tech) they can usually carry the kid to term, often without them. 15-16 y/o are more likely to have a successful natural birth without surgical intervention.

The fact that they have techniques to reliably determine a fetuses gender says they have a reasonably high level of medical tech.

Given the culture it really makes no sense to have the upper classes abort girls. It's not like they can't afford to feed them and they are useful to tie followers and other families together and the culture wants a high level of personal servants. You don't have to pay your family members and they are unlikely (if you control them effectively) unlikely to plot with outsiders against you.

kzt wrote:

Hutch wrote:North Korea runs airplanes, but would you want your heart operation there?

Not really, but you are not exactly talking heart surgery here.

Air Koryo is also the only airline ever to get a one-star rating by Skytrax and was banned throughout most of the EU because of major safety violations, so...

/AirTravelGeek

Why is it, that of all the holidays celebrated on Old Earth, Halloween is the biggest one to survive in the Honorverse?