gadgetlady

I appreciate the thoughts, phyllisc and Wheetin, but believe it or not she already gets a professional manicure AND pedicure once a week! I took her to a podiatrist who recommended surgery for ingrown toenails, so we undertook the pedicure route instead hoping we could avoid surgery. And her fingernail cuticles overgrow and are very thick, so that was the reason for the manicures. I understand her compulsion to pick at them because they're so thick. We have given her lip balm but she doesn't much care for it and only uses it when we notice how awful her lips are and remind her. The problem is she's a beautiful girl who's going to start to get scars on her lips if she persists. My mom just promised her that she could wear her, my mom's, earrings at Christmas if she didn't pick at her nails between now and then. We'll see how that works. The problem is all of these compulsions are things we can't keep tabs on all the time. We only notice her picking her cuticles if she happens to be doing it in front of us. Anywho, I appreciate the ideas! You guys are (as usual) awesome.

Ohhh, I've had this too on and off. Mostly when I was pregnant. It was AWFUL! I used to have my dh yank on my legs to try to make it stop. Blech.

LOL! I just don't know if there is a solution or not. It was my impression that you either have these tendencies or you don't, and if they're severe you can medicate or be in long-term intensive therapy, but they never go away.

Thanks for the thought. I talked to her pediatrician about it and she said there's no need at this point because it's rather benign. Is there a (non-drug) remedy to OCD? I don't know too much about it. Non-destructive OCD habits I can think of: worry beads, doodling, etc. I'm looking for something she doesn't need implements for.

I'm actually looking for a non-destructive compulsion for my 10YO daughter. She switches between: picking at her lips until they bleed, picking at her cuticles until they bleed, biting her nails down so far it's painful, and picking her toenails down so far she's in danger of ingrown toenails. I understand she's a bit OCD and I'd like to find her a compulsion she can adopt that doesn't involve (mild) mutilation of her body. Any ideas?

I've always found it a curious dichotomy that it's OK to kill someone you're at war with, but if you fail to kill them and just maim them or capture them without injury, you have to be nice to them.

Your are absolutely right. I misspoke. You physically CAN do those things, but they are illegal. I believe abortion should be, too, especially since not only are you doing something to your own body but to another person's as well.

You said, So a sperm and an egg are human beings as far as you're concerned?, the implication being that I believed they were. I clarified that not only do I not believe they are, but that factually they are not.

If you saw off a boob, an arm, and a limb you will be taken to an institution (after you go the hospital). You can't take any drug you want, and you certainly can't sell your body in most states in the US. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's the law.

Not all in favor of abortion agree with you. Some believe it begins at viability and some have other places they draw the line. So you're perfectly OK with late term abortions? Abortion being legal up until the moment of birth? You see a huge distinction in the right to life between a full-term baby about to be delivered and one having just been delivered?

And implying that I believe a sperm and an egg separately are human beings isn't an attempt to insult me? Give me a break. Make whatever decisions you'd like about your own womb. Just don't do it when there's another person in there.

You know, there are a lot of things the government doesn't allow us to do with our bodies. If you go to a hospital and ask them to chop off your arm, they won't. You can't take certain drugs or drive while intoxicated. So we really don't "own" our bodies, as much as we might like to think we do. We certainly can't sell them in most parts of the US. In the case of abortion, not only are we not talking about our "own" bodies (which we don't "own"), there's another person's body involved.

If you don't feed or nourish a newborn, he or she will die. Does that mean he or she wasn't a human life before that death?

Let me see if I can help you out a little more with this concept, in case you never took a science class in school. The sperm has 100% of the father's DNA, just like his arm or his liver or any other body part. The egg has 100% of the mother's DNA, just like HER arm or HER liver or any other body part. When the sperm and egg come together during sexual intercourse (I'm not going to explain that one; you'll have to look it up yourself), they create a wholly different entity with his or her OWN DNA. A different egg and sperm combination would create a DIFFERENT human being. That newly created human being has all of his or her own blueprints for all of his or her own traits -- hair color, eye color, height, etc. -- that are separate from the mother's and the father's and also any other siblings that have been or might be created through the same process of sexual intercourse and conception. The baby is not a clone of one parent, nor is the baby a clone of his or her siblings. The baby is not an egg and the baby is not a sperm. He or she is the unique and unreproducible result of the combination between the two. Imagine if we all were able to be the deciders on when human life begins. You've got a group of 20-somethings standing around. One says, "My mother thought I was a human being when she felt me kick at 5 months in the womb, so that's when my life began." Another, "My mom didn't consider me a human being until my feet exited the vaginal canal, so that's when I was a human being." Another, "My dad was the Nobel prize laureate James D. Watson, who doesn't believe human life begins until 3 days after birth, so that's when I was a human being." Another, "My dad was a Nobel prize laureate too, Francis Crick, and he said a baby shouldn't be declared human until it passes certain genetic tests, so I wasn't a human life until I passed those tests." How ridiculous! Human life begins when human life begins, at conception. We can argue about the VALUE of that human life (which is precisely what the abortion debate is about), but to argue that it doesn't exist is ludicrous.

Don't put ridiculous words in my mouth. I did not say that whatsoever and you know it. A sperm is not a human being. An egg is not a human being. Just in case you don't understand simple human biology, when a sperm and egg join together they form a new human being with separate DNA from the parents. Prior to that, they are just a sperm and an egg which, left alone, will die.

They define a spectrum of development. Do you know of any scientists who claim a human "fetus" isn't human? If a scientist calls a newborn a "newborn" instead of a human being, does that make the newborn NOT a human being? A rose by any other name . . .

It is not the presence of a soul that defines one as human. A pregnant canine will always give birth to a canine. A pregnant human being will always give birth to a human being. The scientific makeup of the unborn baby is what makes that baby human, not whether or not the baby has a soul.

I can't speak to how people fallaciously used the Bible as an argument for slavery, but, curiously, it was people of faith (Christians) who fought quite hard to end slavery in the US. And, yet again I will state, my position on abortion has nothing to do with faith, religion, the presence or lack of a soul. It is 100% based on the humanity of the unborn. You don't have to be a Christian to be pro-life. There are many athiests who are also pro-life.

That's awfully aggressive for someone who's such a pacifist. Sorry you couldn't handle it.

Personally, I wouldn't have used spanking as a disciplinary measure in the situation on this video (one wonders why the parents were doing absolutely nothing to curtail this child's behavior). I personally would have closed the child in a room alone. Temper tantrums don't work when there's no audience. And spankings don't work when the child is out of control.

Right back at 'cha, buddy.

There are plenty of degreed scientists who disagree with evolution. You can be as sarcastic as you'd like; they exist.

What you're missing is the arguments that slave-owners used to justify their personal and private decision to own a slave: the black person doesn't have the same capacity for thought as the white person, they lack the brain development, etc. These are the same arguments that are used to deny life to the unborn. Ah, but that is patently untrue. Not all Americans agree. So for those who don't agree, should they be allowed to kill at that age? And since when do we determine who is worthy of life based on a consensus?

But, you see, therein lies the problem. Early Americans DID make laws out of it and forced others to agree with them. Well, they didn't force the anti-slavery people to agree with them. They only forced the slaves. "If you don't believe in slavery, don't have a slave." Just like current laws do -- they define someone as less than a person and then force their beliefs on that person. Just because the person lives in the womb doesn't change the scenario. The entire issue is whether we have the right to define when human life begins, and if that is a matter of personal preference or of scientific fact. If we do have a right to define it personally, then why stop at birth? Why not, as some learned scientists have suggested, allow parents to kill their children up until 1 month, 3 months, or 1 year? Because, after all, they're simply choosing to define the beginning of human life differently than you are. And they have a right to do so, don't they?

Science demonstrates that what is in the womb is a human being. Show me how it is not? And impaired or undeveloped body parts don't constitute lack of human-ness. Lots of adults have impaired or undeveloped body parts. We are all in a state of flux. My religion has nothing to do with my position on abortion. I was pro-life before I was a Christian, in fact from the first moment I understood what abortion was. It was obvious to me that the thing growing in the womb is a baby. My position has nothing to do with the presence or lack of a soul, which some people don't even believe in.