Abortion and child support

Oh, that solution! Hot damn, you’re right! Why hasn’t anybody thought of that before now? Thread over!

I figured what the thread contained hadn’t changed since the last 5 times.

And I was right!

Because the male goal isn’t pregnancy, it’s sex.
The female goal (in this scenario) is pregnancy and a child, sex is just the means.

Huge, extremely meaningful difference.

I’m convinced. I urge you to write your congressman immediately.

Um, does it occur to you that the issue has also been considered by legal minds for decades now and there’s a good reason the laws are as they are. I can’t say who in this thread has discussed this before but I believe the previous threads were linked to earlier if you’d like to look at them. Nobody here has presented any new argument that hasn’t already been thoroughly dealt with.

Think about what you’re suggesting here. You’re suggesting women bear even more of the financial responsibility because the biology makes the ultimate decision hers. So, rather than make it more equitable, you’re making it less, by shifting almost all the responsibility to women {or perhaps society as a whole} not only financial, but contraception as well.
Let’s also remove inaccurate language. What about the males choice to risk pregnancy and perhaps bring a child he doesn’t want into the world? Is giving him an easy and complete free pass an improvement in equity?
She IS NOT imposing the consequences of her decision on the man. The state is holding him and her equally responsible for their choice. The state is also saying that because the pregnancy occurs in her body she has a choice the man doesn’t have. That’s not unfair . That’s choices based on reality.

Holy crap… IT IS APPLIED TO PREGNANT MOTHERS. how can you keep missing that? They actually share the 18 year burden of having a child RIGHT???

I just explained that and that’s exactly why you need to do more reading if you’re sincerely interested. The child support is correlated to the income of BOTH PARENTS, and if he has custody and a low paying job, while she is a high paid lawyer, then SHE PAYS MUCH MORE.
It is assumed by the law that the child deserves the resources available from BOTH biological parents, whether they be great or small.
If you have more, more is required.

It’s holding , both parents, accountable for their choices, and not punishment for either. It sounds to me like you want to punish women and perhaps children as well, because of biology. I think that’s been done enough in past generations don’t you?
That’s how the law works in many scenarios. If you have an accident,you are responsible for the short and long term consequences , and “I didn’t mean too” doesn’t cut it.

The child , planned or not , is deserving of support. Who should be responsible? The biological parents who created that child together. It’s really that simple.

NO, not with a realistic definition of fair rather than a childish one.

in this country, yes, and it’s morally fair. If you have more you give more. It’s not morally fair for a child to have the minimum when a biological parent can afford much better.

That expense can and should be offset by men meeting their financial responsibility. Society agrees to care for children whose parents cannot care for them, but not for those who simply don’t feel like it. Try to reduce it to a smaller closer scenario.
As a decent person you might help out a child in need, but if the parents were able to finance those needs and simply didn’t want to, how would you feel? Like that was fair and equitable?

Oh please! Exaggerate much? How about encouraging men to share in the responsibility of contraception and to be responsible for children they sire. It’s not punishment for men or women. It’s choices and consequences based on reality.

Being one of those fellas who actually paid for 20 years I know what you mean, but stop phrasing it as if the mother isn’t facing the very same burden. It’s simply not true. It’s not raising a child compared to supporting a child is it? It’s raising and supporting vs just supporting in many cases.

In the same way the laws we have now have greatly reduced unwanted pregnancies by making men financially responsible? You’re fooling yourself.
The details of your plan are meaningless. All it essentially does is give men an easy way to avoid responsibility for supporting the children they sire and bothering with contraception. That doesn’t work and it certainly isn’t anything close to fair.

The only way that would work would be if unwanted pregnancies were in some way planned by the mother to trap her man, by a fairly large percentage. I’m going to assume you have no shred of evidence to support that idea, but you’re welcome to correct me if I’m wrong.

Yeah, in this scenario which is a small % of the incidents of unplanned pregnancies. So your plan isn’t close to practical solution.

hehe

How does making men financially responsible reduce unwanted pregnancy? Does anyone think this is the case, was the case, will be the case…? I don’t even see how that’s supposed to work.

As for “Doesn’t work” - how can we possibly know without trying it? Does such a system exist somewhere in the world as an example to learn from? If it does I’d be very interested in knowing more.

As for “not close to fair” - obviously this is a matter of opinion. Your argument for why it’s not isn’t made by the use of the word “obviously” because it’s certainly not obvious to me. How is it not fair, or less fair than the current system? Both parties know the law exists and the risks. I think it’s as close to truly fair as it could possibly get, given the various realities.

Right now he assumes all the risk with very little reliable control outside of permanent sterilization or abstinence, neither of which strike me as either fair or realistic, especially with very young men.

As a percentage of total babies conceived, no, not large.

But the situations we’re talking about are the situations in which the man WOULD, had he had the chance, have said no, I’m going to say yes, in the pool of babies conceived and carried to term against the father’s wishes that feature a woman seeking child support, the percentage of babies conceived with the intention of trapping the man are pretty damn high. After all, we’re dealing with men who obviously aren’t interested in committing (at least to the relationship in question), it’s a solid bet that she knew that, didn’t like it, and decided on what she felt was the most effective tool for overcoming that.

Because women who sincerely lack any interest in trapping a man who obviously doesn’t want to commit make sure they don’t get knocked up by that man. Or if they do anyway, they either abort or decline to pursue child support. And that is my personal observation, of course, but I’ve very rarely observed it to be otherwise.
And that’s a hard thing to prove or disprove, since women don’t generally step right up and announce that they got knocked up deliberately in hopes of trapping the man. but I’ve never really looked, so I will see what might be available to support my assertion.

The first 6 words of that post is really say it all.

What shit eating grin? The arguments I make echo things that have been said before but these are also arguments that never got addressed.

I’m not anti-woman, you jsut think that anyone who is even a little bit pro-choice is anti-woman. For the record i am entirely pro-choice right up until the thrid trimester.

Good! So we’re done then?

As mentioned earlier, a man who takes reasonable precautions (using birth control and avoiding pro-life, baby-hungry, or batshit insane sex partners) should not find himself in this situation. It is as rare as getting stuck by lightening. If we made this law, it would protect the .0001% of men who find themselves in this situation.

What is far more common are men who don’t care if they knock a girl up, or even kind of like the idea of spreading their seed far and wide, but suddenly clam up when it comes to supporting the child they created. Of course, it’d be a foolish for any man to sign the “I’ll support my kid statement.” This law would protect a lot of those assholes, while screwing over the kids.

It isn’t perfect, but hopefully the possibility of being responsible for a child crosses a man’s mind and prompts him to take steps to prevent that from happening, by use of contraception , or abstaining when none is around, or being more conscious of who he chooses to have sex with. Your plan on the other hand removes whatever concern he might have.

Given the history of society in the past 6 or 7 generations why would you expect your plan, placing even more responsibility on women and removing mens responsibility , to have a much greater effect than the one where we have where the responsibility is shared. Why would you consider it reasonable to expect more pressure on women to generate greater personal responsibility and still question how placing responsibility on men works at all. It’s just goofy. Isn’t it reasonable to expect responsibility from human beings regardless of gender?

I’ve already pointed that out. All your plan is doing is removing the responsibility for men by giving them an easy out, and placing even more responsibility on women. So under your plan, women have essentially all the responsibility for contraception and child rearing and at at the mercy of the whim of the man who willingly participated in creating the child.
So current plan, women and men are more or less equally responsible for efforts of contraception and know they are both held responsible for the risk of pregnancy they are taking. Both are held financially responsible for the child of an unplanned pregnancy.
Under your plan, women have all the compelling responsibility for contraception and all the financial responsibility for any unplanned child.
For some reason you think compelling women to take responsibility is sure to work, but compelling men to doesn’t even make sense to you.
How is that anything but completely and obviously unfair and a product of basic logic?

As far as evidence. We’ve already had a society where men were not legally compelled to support the children they sired and decided it wasn’t a good idea for women children or society as whole. How about the fact that most developed nations and societies have similar expectations from parents and even have agreements to enforce child support internationally. These laws didn’t come from throwing darts at a dart board.

It is now. You plan certainly isn’t.

This is utter bullshit. They both assume the risk when they agree to have sex.

.
Then provide some shred of evidence as I requested because I think this is also utter bullshit. If you can’t your great plan is based on your imagination. In case you didn’t know, both men and women have sex drives, it’s genetic ya know.

Does it happen, sure, but I’d say most unplanned unwanted pregnancies are carelessness or failed contraception. In fact if you cared to you could find data is easy to find.

So only 47% use no contraception, which kinda blows your theory out of the water doesn’t it?

Now you are just making shit up. Use real data or accept that your theory is based on your imagination rather than reality.

Then you’re not observing enough of the real world because data indicates otherwise. Again, you’re claiming women will be and can be excepted to be more responsible , especially if compelled, and men shouldn’t be expected to be responsible or compelled to be, Then you insist that nonsense is a better solution. It isn’t.
It’s very possible that a women might feel her unplanned child deserves child support from it’s genetic father, willing or not, since he helped create the child. That doesn’t make it a trap.

By all means check it out because I’m guessing nothing is. If sexually active people are using contraception that usually means the pregnancy wasn’t a man trap.

Why are posters acting like we don’t have real world data showing what would happen if men weren’t held accountable for their offspring?

Maybe I’d think differently about the arguments in this thread if someone could name one country that doesn’t enforce child support which isn’t 1) overpopulated, 2) impoverished, and 3) awash in STI’s/HIV. But no one has done that; there’s only la-la-land dreaming going on here.

Correlation doesn’t causation, but it’s gotta take some willful ignorance to think its mere coincidence that the healthiest, most productive nations all expect men to support their kids, wanted or unwanted. No one has provided any evidence that changing this will induce women to do a better job at preventing their pregnancies. It’s like, stop already, please.

I don’t understand your hang up with fairness.

Is it fair that women have to endure the pain and nuisance of 30+ years of menstrual periods while men do not?

Is it fair that women have to risk their lives, sacrifice comfort, and deal with sometimes burdensome, permanent physical changes in the reproductive process (ie urinary incontinence, uterine prolapse, etc), while men do not?

Is it fair that women have to endure the pain and cost of having an abortion, while men do not?

These things are “unfair” in the same way it’s “unfair” that a pregnant woman has choices that a man does not. The former more than cancels the latter out. Men have nothing to complain about.

Since condoms are a form of contraception, it pretty much explodes the idea that men are trying their goshdarned best to prevent pregnancy, it’s just those BITCHES who insist on getting pregnant who are to blame.

Come on, now jsgoddess. Using condoms would be rational, which men are not capable of, and you know we all depend on men being irrational about sex!

and so another thread on this subject comes to a close with the very same result as the others. Those who thought they might have some new wrinkle to ad and somehow make things more equitable for poor beleaguered men have been demonstrated to have nothing to support their contentions and it turns out the way laws have developed in modern societies was based on reality rather than some fiendish plot to punish men.

Who’d a thunk it.

Usually because his mother had the common sense to secure the inheritance rights and the right to support for her children before getting pregnant. Which is also exactly why in an ideal world the unwanted offspring of a wealthy father would get nothing except maybe a note that says, “you could have had a better life, but your mother was a stupid idiot who refused to plan for your birth. Blame her for any misfortunes of poverty.”

Yeah, that has nothing to do with the question that response was answering. Again, you down with murdering children and pregnant women to avoid child support, me not so much, agree to disagree, no need for further debate, etc.