Listen, dudes, when it’s your body, you’ll get the choice over whether to have an abortion. I am fully in support of you getting to decide whether you abort an embryo or fetus that is growing in you, and if I contribute to the pregnancy but you don’t want to abort, I’ll pay child support.
Sure, that’s not going to happen, since I can become pregnant and you can’t. Trust me, I’d much MUCH MUCH rather not ever to risk becoming pregnant. Men can’t even see when they have the biological upper hand. They want the entire deck.
So, if I understand correctly, you believe women should not have the option of giving up their child for adoption (especially if you replace “condom” with “contraceptives”). Is this accurate?
Well, despite the blunt way Diogenes put it, do you have a better method for legislating these sorts of decisions? How do you codify the process of a man ‘divorcing’ (for lack of a better term) himself from his child in a way that doesn’t leave women on the hook for every single child if the man decides he doesn’t want it? There is no reasonable way to give the man that sort of legal power on his own beyond the point of conception.
It’s not about ‘punishing the man’ or outmoded attitudes towards sex, it’s the very practical matter that there needs to be some way to hold men responsible for thier out-of-wedlock progeny. Yes, no contriceptive is 100% effective; that’s a risk one takes. There’s no rule that says if you take all reasonable precautions aside from abstenance that you therefore get a pass on any unwanted consequences of your actions. That’s like saying that because I wear my seatbelt I should never get hurt in a car accident.
How are women on the hook if they give the baby up for adoption?
If they discuss abortion and she says no (as is her right), the man then decides that ha can’t afford/doesn’t want the child. It would be at this point that the woman could decide whether she has the financial means to raise the child or give it up for adoption.
It’s not. So don’t rely on it if you don’t want to be a parent.
I’m saying if you choose to engage in vaginal sexual intrcourse, you are assuming a risk of pregnancy. The fact that this risk cannot be 100% eliminated is not the state’s problem. If you don’t want to assume the risk, don’t take it. You do not have a right to engage in sexual intercourse free of consequence. You are responsible for your own sperm and your own babies.
They are on the hook. Giving the child up for adoption is one way of taking responsibility. They also can’t do it if the father objects. Mothers have no special rights in that regard.
No. The man already decided he would be responsible for the child when he came.
Unless it’s a situation like Richie Rich knocks up the maid, forcing someone who is unwilling and/or unable to be a parent to make payments very rarely actually results in a better situation for kids. I think the solution should be, for one, better contraception education and subsidies. But I also think the state should actively encourage people to chose adoption (or even abortion, but I will concede that ain’t gonna happen), as opposed to actively encouraging women to keep kids in crappy family environments because they think they can force an unwilling father to support them.
Sure when a woman does dig her heels in and absolutely refuses to give up a child when she doesn’t have the resources to raise it herself or a willing partner, the state will probably end up supporting that family to some extent. But that’s what happens most of the time under the system we have anyways, and if removing the mandatory default child support assumption results in more childred being adopted by families who aren’t burdens on the state that should lead to savings, not to mention the societal benefits of fewer children living in poverty and in bad home lives.
Adoption is not a reasonable solution to unwanted pregnancy on a large scale.
Look, does it seem reasonable for me to be able to go impregnate as many women as I can manage, and then just tell them all, “get an abortion, keep it, give it up for adoption, I don’t care I just don’t want to be involved”?
I think that if you find this situation reasonable then you’re blind to the conseqences. Thousands upon thousands of children born to single (likely poor) mothers with limited resources. Are you going to open up orphanages again to accomodate the likely large influx of parentless children this would bring? And increase funding to social services to both single mothers, and their children?
And, hey, what a cool idea. I can go have sex with anyone I want, and as long as we’re both STD free I can be 100% free of any potential financial/parental burden, because I’m the guy and I should have choice too, damnit! And the girls, well, they can always get an abortion. Or give the kid up for adoption. See, they have choice as well. It’s all good!
You can’t say, “well, I didn’t want this outcome so therefore I should be able to will it away.” Just because you imagine that sex should be able to be had for 100% recreational reasons doesn’t mean that, barring extreme controceptive measures, pregnancy isn’t possible. And, if you can’t arrive at a mutually agreeable response to that possibility with the person you’re fucking, then that is your cross to bear. You can’t solve that impass by walking away.
Just as much choice? So if there is an unintended pregnancy, the guy has “just as much choice” as the woman in deciding whether or not they will become parents?
I relaize its a bit of a line drawing exercise but is it really fair to say that men make an irrevocable choice when they have sex (even protected sex) while women get a second bite at the apple through abortion?
Why can’t we admit that there is asymmetry which you happen to be very comfortable with.
Of course there are going to be women who receive child support who still require government assistance, just as there are families with both parents in the home who require public assisstance. The argument is that there will be more single parents and children requiring public assistance without child support payments. One out of every three to four custodial parents is below the poverty line (cite), and without child support payments that number would be greater, meaning more public assistance. Laws enforcing child support obligations aren’t about enforcing antiquated Victorian values regarding sex and procreation, they’re rooted in very real world economic and societal concerns that outweigh the desire of non-custodial parents to have consequence free sex.
What about the bad consequences of bringing children up in poverty? Dead beat dads aren’t some mythological creature. It happens, and it happens more often than not to those already in poverty. Who supports those kids? We do, so your stance is that it would create more of these types of situation?
What about the good that would come of the adopted children, has that no bearing at all?
Yeah, I don’t know what the answer is either. I recognize theasymmetry of rights and generally i am comfortable with the asymmetry because of welfare of the child is mroe important than the convenience of the father but it makes you wonder why the welfare of a fetus is secondary to the convenience of the mother. Does it all boil down to the burden of pregnancy and childbirth?
I mean if we are willing to derail an 18 year old boy’s life by making him support his child that he did not want, why is it so unfair to tell a pregnant woman that we are going to make her choose between derailing their life and giving up the child for adoption (heck the father doesn’t even get to give up his parental rights and obligations through adoption). The only difference I can see is the burden of pregnancy and childbirth. Is the right to abortion really premised on that alone? If not then how do you emaningfully distinguish their position from that of the unwilling father?
Of course not but lets acknowledge that our current situation is not principled. It may work for the time being but it does not treat fathers the same as pregnant mothers.
She doesn’t. At least in some states, the father has to approve giving the child up for adoption, he can also sue to block an adoption. I would hope in such a case, that the father can gain custody and the mother be on the hook for child support.
This is not a solution in any way. How do you deal with unexpected, out-of-wedlock children? Contraception will never be a complete solution. Nor will abortion or adoption. You think putting all these kids up for adoption is going to be better for them? Maybe on a case-by-case basis, but if you institutionalize adoption as an unwanted baby solution, you’re going to end up with many many many permanantly orphaned kids living off the state in orphanages, or in and out of foster homes.
Dig in her heals? To keep her kid?
Look, I think you have a very misguided idea about how this all works. You can look at one woman and say, “oh, poor woman, she really doesn’t have the resources to raise her kid, she ought to give it up for adoption.” But are you going to adopt her kid? Then don’t assume that there are all of these families just waiting to adopt children. Your premise from earlier in the thread that there is a family waiting with open arms for every child being held in poverty by his/her poor, selfish mother, is unfounded. Adoption, while an option, is not a solution to unexpected pregnancies that makes parental responsibility of the father null and void.
At any rate, all of this is arguing the details. The real issue is this: there will always be some number of unwed mothers who are going to keep their children. Should society allow the fathers of those children divulge all interest and responsibility for those children, just because they want to?
I think the answer is obviously no. Any other argument is situational, (she’s rich and he’s poor!) which can be addressed on a case-by-case basis, or is based on public “policy” that requires all people to make the same choices as mandated by the state (“we’ll all use contraception perfectly,” or, “we’ll get all those mothers to give their kids up for adoption or abort, so we don’t have to deal with the question!”).
