There's no doubt about it, which again underscores the importance of good choices. Babies aren't dropped off by a stork. You have to insert semen into a woman's body on one of like three days each month. Don't do that!
And just to re-emphasize something I said in another comment: people make mistakes and this is an extraordinarily wealthy society. I'm a strong proponent of a welfare state. I don't want anybody to starve because they made bad choices. But getting pregnant when you're young and poor is correctly described as a bad choice! Ejaculating inside a woman who is ovulating isn't something that happens to you while you're sleeping.
The correct message to somebody who has fallen through the ice in the middle of a lake on a winter morning is, "let me help you."
The correct message to everybody else is that there are things you can do to avoid falling through the ice.
right nobody ever gets ejaculated into by anyone they didn't want ejaculating into them, nobody ever ejaculates into someone when doing well and then loses job, child has problems, one of partners dies and not able to take care of child etc.
A person is in some way a sort of god that has complete control over the world and can only be brought low by making a 'bad' choice.
This is nihilism. We can acknowledge that some people have better luck than others without entirely rejecting the notion that there are good and bad choices.
This reminds me a bit of the debate about the blank slate, which presupposes that there’s one side who thinks human development is all nurture and another side that thinks it’s all nature. But actually only one of those sides exists. That is to say, there are people who think it is entirely nurture and who reject genetic explanations for behavior whenever they’re proposed, but there are no people who think it’s entirely genetics and who believe environment is never a factor.
That second group simply doesn’t exist. Every single person who believes genetics are a significant factor in life outcomes also believes that environment matters.
There is only one side that takes a hard line.
So it is here. There isn’t a side that thinks everything is environmental and a second side that thinks you can overcome anything with choices and hard work. The side that thinks choices and hard work matter also acknowledges that environment is very often a factor and that there may be situations that are insurmountable. It’s the other side that takes a hard line, that never acknowledges the role of choices, that always cowers from telling people that there are things they might do to improve their situation.
Of course life outcomes are a mix of nature and nurture. And of course (even though choices matter) there exist people who make all the right choices who nevertheless are held back by external factors. But believing what I just said entails admitting that choices do matter!
And just to re-emphasize something I said in another comment: people make mistakes and this is an extraordinarily wealthy society. I'm a strong proponent of a welfare state. I don't want anybody to starve because they made bad choices. But getting pregnant when you're young and poor is correctly described as a bad choice! Ejaculating inside a woman who is ovulating isn't something that happens to you while you're sleeping.
The correct message to somebody who has fallen through the ice in the middle of a lake on a winter morning is, "let me help you."
The correct message to everybody else is that there are things you can do to avoid falling through the ice.