I am curious about the voters who believe that the Teddy/Alice situation is more complicated than the Bob/Carol situation.
Is that because Alice has a say in if the child will actually be born where Bob does not?
I’m a big fan of women’s rights, and I believe that no one should be allowed to force a woman to undergo either a pregnancy or an abortion. However the issue I’ve always had with that is that under our current laws that means that men have 9 months of no rights or input at all, and depending on the situation that could mean the loss of their potential child or the responsibility for a child they do not want. I understand and agree that by having unprotected sex they essentially made the choice to have a child already but they are in an inherently unequal situation where the mother has rights that they do not.
I don’t know what the solution is, and indeed I’m fairly sure that there isn’t a perfect solution, it’s just always struck me as unfair.
Yes. Their wishes are irrelevant. The right to a father belongs to the child, not to those women.
What she wants is irrelevant. She has no right (barring a reason to believe the child would be endangered) to prevent a relationship between her child and its father. You don’t seem to able to understand that the child is a separate human being with rights of its own. You only seem to be able to see it as an inanimate extension of the mother.
I’m having a hard time seeing how it’s any less loving or unifying than, say, fucking around on someone. Or any more emotionally alienating than asking someone to have the evidence and reminder of said fucking around thrust under their noses every damn day.
Everybody has certain things you have to accept if you’re going to be with them–what Dan Savage refers to as “the price of admission.” In these cases, all four partners have a price of admission, and in all four cases it’s really fucking steep. In two cases the price is to accept not only infidelity, but also a constant, ever-present reminder of that infidelity without any sort of resentment or penalty. In the other two the price is to not have a relationship with your child without any sort of resentment or penalty. I personally don’t feel like you have a right to bitch about your partner’s high price of admission when yours is equally high.
I have a list here of all the men who have died of pre-eclampsia in the United States in the last 235 years. It is exactly 0 lines long, on account of men not being able to get pregnant. I’d ask you if that is fair except for my rhetorical questions suck rule.
Fair has no relevance in this issue. Men and women cannot have the same rights in terms of pregnancy, because men cannot get pregnant.
I try not to ask rhetorical questions. If I had meant to write, “You should not elevate the child’s interest above all others,” I would have written that. You may note that I did not.
I’ll answer yours, though. It’s not so much that I don’t elevate the child’s interest above all others as it is that I don’t think the child exists in a vacuum. Therfe are other persons involved who must also be considered.
I defy you to point to anything I have written that supports that last sentence.
I don’t believe children are inanimate extensions of their mothers. I do, however, believe that the responsibility and authority for deciding what is to be done with a child lies with the parents, which to me means the parents have the obligation to make informed choices as to what it best for the child. I’ll even go so far as to say that, when the parents are unmarried, that authority lie with the mother first, not the father. The lover may make the decision that the child will be better if Bob is absent.
And no, I am not saying that Bob has no obligation to support the child. I am saying that the child is not the only being in the world.
Dio put this much better than I could. The infidelity is a separate issue from that of the child. The child did not commit adultery. The child is guilty of nothing. The child deserves a father.
It is entirely reasonable to say, “I can’t stay in this relationship on account of you knocking somebody else up.” It is entirely reasonable to say, “I entered into this relationship with the expectation of faithfulness and you have broken that vow. Goodbye.” It is entirely reasonable to say, “I don’t want you to ever be alone with the woman you impregnated.” What is not reasonable is, “I can forgive the infidelity. I can forgive you having unprotected sex. I can forgive you getting someone pregnant. But by God, I cannot accept that child so it’s him or me.”
I said the faithful partner should have dumped the cheater regardless. If they’re not going to do that, though, then they have to accept all the consequences of staying, and that includes their partner’s obligations to their children. Cheating hurts the partner, but trying to emotionally blackmail somebody into throwing away their child hurts both the partner and the innocent child.
Obligations to children are non-negotiable. It’s not a price of admission, it’s now an irrevocable and permanent part of who the other person is. Accept the whole person or leave. If you’re willing to accept them being a cheater then it’s ridiculous to whine about accepting the consquences of that cheating.
The child trumps everything because the child had no say in being brought into existence. I do not believe that the parents have a moral right to decide that the child is not entitled to a father.
In the first situation, the child is being born and kept. He obviously has the responsibility to financially care for the child. I would say he also should be part of the child’s life, it’s not the kids fault that his dad is married to someone who isn’t his mother.
In the 2nd situation, it’s more complicated. If they do keep the child, then they have the lifelong responsibility of raising it on a day to day basis. It doesn’t indicate if Alice has a strong preference whether to keep the child or not, so that would be the deciding factor to me. If Alice wants to keep the baby, then Teddy needs to decide if she can accept that and stay in the relationship or not.
I don’t think either of the cheated on parties are unreasonable for making the preference known, but the final decision on how to handle it rests with the cheaters who are now (or with Alice, potentially) parents. It is then up to the cheated on partners to decide if they can accept the decision and stay, or if they need to go.
The bolded section is simply not true in my judgment. For instance, if a woman has a lover who abuses her but not her children, her right to be free of weekly black eyes outweigh the children’s right to a father. No?
By the way, you may note that I voted that Carol’s position is unreasonable. My problem with your position is its lack of nuance.
Because I think that once the trust in a relationship has been betrayed it can’t be repaired. For those who don’t care about being able to trust their partner, I suppose the relationship can continue.
There’s no such thing as an unreasonable demand If the other partner gets to make the choice. The demander knows what she can or can’t live with, and the unwanted prospective child of a SO can be a deal breaker for a lot of people.
Its all about choice.
Now if these demands were made upon me , I’d kindly tell my partner where the door is.
Carol is unreasonable - her husband has fathered a child, and a child has a right to know its father. If she chooses to be with her husband, she is choosing to be with a man who has a child. “Wronged party” does not enter into it.
Teddy, however, is reasonable. If she does not want to raise a child, she does not want to raise a child. We all have a right to dump whomever we please for any reason. Alice also has a right to make whatever decision she finds best, based on her own circumstances. Again, “wronged party” does not enter into it.
I think time is a useful way to examine the issues.
As in neither aggrieved party agreed to this situation as part of their relationships. It is not inherently blackmail to stick to that position and to separate over that. So what has to be considered is the response to a separation possibly occurring.
As in if Teddy separates, and then Alice comes to her later and says ‘I had an abortion, I dont want to bring a child up by myself’, the relationship could be able to continue depending on her views about abortion.
And if the husband in the other scenario comes back after separating and says ‘I disowned the child’ it could also be seen as not her responsibility - she is left with whether she wants to be with a person who would do that, but in itself is not responsible for that choice. In the scenario as stated she obviously is willing to be with someone who would do that.
So given it can happen in this way, does it change anything to point out these are choices each party has before separation happens?
Everyone is allowed to ask for what they need in a relationship. The person asked has to determine if they can live with/provide for that need. If not, they have a right to say no, and the asker has a right to leave.
Isn’t that how relationships are supposed to work? Hell, isn’t that how adulthood is supposed to work?