There seems to be a bizarre misconception running rampant among some around here that the only real reason SCOTUS ruled as it did was because of a woman’s biological involvement in being a parent, and that the court wasn’t really intending to imply that it was giving women a right to make a reproductive decision for any other reason.
Well, allow me to gently state that you who believe this are very much mistaken.
Especially you, Dio…you oughta take some of your own medicine before you tell others to:
Originally Posted by Stoid
Dio replied:
Stoid sez:
And Dio stepped up to chew on his foot thusly:
I give you the words of the Supreme COurt of the UNited States of America, in the case of Roe v. Wade:
Welcome to the heart and soul of what **reproductive choice **means, and the fact that the Supreme Court absolutely DID mean to make it clear that becoming a parent is a personal, private choice that a human being gets to make for themselves, based on many factors that have absolutely zero to do with the fact that the child in question is growing in the woman’s body.
ANd THEREFORE, I stand firmly by my position that a man should have exactly the same right as a woman: the right to decide early on whether he wants to become a parent or not. Because HE TOO may find it psychologically difficult, financially burdensome, etc, etc. HE TOO has reasons that he would want to NOT be a parent.
I think you are having the comprehension issue. Privacy was the legal basis (read the case), the practical need for invoking and protecting that right to privacy was outlined was in the words I quoted that you don’t want to acknowledge because they knock the basis of your argument right out from under it.
And… what the hell could you possibly be trying to sell by saying that anyway? The key word is privacy meaning…what? Privacy is secret SCOTUS code for “because a baby grows in a woman’s womb, all the rest of what we said is crap”? “Privacy” is “Key” because…somehow SCOTUS was really trying to say that a woman has a right to an abortion because the doctor gets to look up her cooch?
Huh?
It’s okay to say “Whoops! I was mistaken about Roe v. Wade!”, espeically since you absolutely were. It doesn’t mean you’re a drooling idiot or anything. (I meant that exactly as I said it, it wasn’t some GD-coded way of accusing Dio of being a drooling idiot, he’s not, that’s my point.)
I think that’s a great idea. The world is brimming with people who want all the rights and none of the responsibilities of many things. (assuming the failure is willful, versus a consequence of a greater inability to meet one’s obligations generally. Can’t punish a person for being broke. Such a law would have ripped my heart out and stomped on it when I was a child, since my father was my primary caregiver for the first 6 years of my life and my parents separation was devastating for me. My dad was financially completely worthless, but emotionally critical to my well-being. I adore him beyond all ability to express to this very day, and if I’d had to rely on him financially I probably would have starved.)
John Rawls, 20th century philosopher, states that no person can make a reasonable or just decision without being behind a “veil of ignorance”. A person cannot possibly make a decision absent of bias without knowing which “person” they are in the situation. Imagine not knowing anything about yourself other than social norms, no scratch that, without basic biological principles. How would you make the law if you were a man that was used by a woman to make a child and steal your wealth? I would you make the law if you were a man who lied to a woman about wanting a baby and changing your mind? Now flip those positions and view it from the other side. Now take in fact that man, male homo sapiens, do not have a biological need to be monogamous or to care for offspring in a societal situation where safety (prey oriented) isn’t in threat, but have an internal need to have sexual intercourse and pass on dominate genes. Many say that a man has the ability to make the decision where his … goes. This is true when we look at it in a societal sense. Men have a much higher sex drive (broad generalization) than women and are at times incapable of formulating a true view of future events when aroused, especially when one is not trained to do so. So in my viewpoint, inside the veil, I find that I would want the possibility of abortion as a woman in all situations. I also find that I would want to have a choice whether to be involved in the child’s life as the father and not have it forced on me. Also (regrettably to my sensibility and bias) I would be in favor of forced monetary support should the father be capable of such support. I believe that these as undeniable and reasonable if a person can remove themselves and their bias from the equations.
Look, I admit the details have to be better thought through, but the idea boils down to having a witness to your informing the woman of your present disposition, so that it in turns colors the perception of her choice to have the baby regardless. I don’t understand your apparent position that a woman wanting to carry a pregnancy to term when she knows she’s not going to be able to support the child on her own, and knows the father will be unwilling to help is not the irresponsible one.
The concern I have is this scenario :
boy meets girl. boy and girl make sweet monkey love. girl gets pregnant, and informs boy she’d like to keep it. Boy and girl sign a contract to the amount of “boy unilateraly waives all paternal rights, girl unilateraly absolves boy of all paternal duties”. Boy and girl go their own way. Girl figures out too late that lone parenting is hard, or falls on hard financial times or whatever. Girl tracks down boy and begs him to help. Boy says “I told you so, and we had a contract”. Girl goes to trial.
Would Judge tell girl to “man up”, or tell boy that the contract is unenforceable because it’s trumped by the child’s well being or whatever ? Has there ever been such a case ?
You can google it. I couldn’t find any statistics compiled on it, but there are dozens of entries on the subject. I personally know of people who’ve done it (one of my ex’s flings, for one). And you’re right…a father can force a woman to submit to paternity testing if he feels he is the biological father. However, if he doesn’t know she’s pregnant and she leaves, he’ll never know. I have a friend who had no idea he had a 19-year-old daughter until a couple years ago. The mother decided to tell the girl all those years later and she looked him up. There is very little in the way of effort on the part of the officials to establish paternity. If the mother says she doesn’t know, that’s what goes on the birth certificate.
That is somewhat rare for a man. He is to be commended for being a responsible father. I know it’s tough. But reread what you wrote about your brother. This does describe the situation for many, if not most single mothers. That’s why so many of them live at home with their own mothers.
Good idea. Make that true for even numbered years. For odd numbered years, if a man isn’t married to the woman who gave birth to his child, she has no responsibility for the offspring and he must bear all parental burdens.
Why shouldn’t the child be protected from being deprived of parental support for 18 years because his mother chose to lie to his father? The baby didn’t even exist at that time. The baby belongs to the father just as much as to the mother. The father’s ancestors are the baby’s ancestors. Their blood runs in his veins. He has paternal grandparents who would love him if given a chance. He has his father’s eyes and his grandmother’s mouth. You want to put a price on that?
I think that some men have forgotten that they really are fathers. They are IT for these kids. They are the DADS in the sentences that begin “When I was a kid, my Dad and I used to…”
The luckiest break I ever had was having a really good father. One of the toughest disappointments was not having a child of my own.
Wouln’t this whole problem be solved if men used really good and semi-permanent contraceptives of their own? Some form that would not dependent on skilled or conscious use.
We could send our teenage sons to get an hormone implant when they turn 16. An implant that would need renewal only once every five years. If a girl claimed she got pregnant, we (or our sons) would wave the doctor’s certificate that he had taken the trouble of anticonception, and that, therefore, we have taken all steps to avoid becoming a father.
Yes, it would. Unfortunately, male biology makes that really hard. Trust me, it’s not like no one’s trying. The ideas are that you can either block the sperm (condom), or you can block production of or release of the sperm. As far as I know, the only idea for blocking the release of the sperm is vasectomy, which isn’t reliably reversible. Barriers like condoms break with horrifying frequency, and of course interfere with sensation, so are refused by some men. That leaves blocking the production of sperm, which needs hormonal alteration. But the problem there is the same hormones that cause men to make sperm also make them manly men. Not many men are willing to trade certain contraception for manboobs and a higher voice.
But regardless of any steps taken, failures and mistakes happen. So if the son turns out to be the father, he’s on the hook for child support anyway, right?
Yeah, or maybe he’s just barely making it financially and doesn’t want to be driven into the ground with ridiculous child support payments. Now, even if the payments are fair, a lot of the time they will not be enough for the either parent to survive all that well either, but the point of this thread is that the woman has that choice, and in addition, has the bonus of a relationship with a wanted child while the father usually gets to “visit” every other weekend if that.
I wouldn’t mind forcing fathers to pay even if they don’t want to (barring rape or outright fraud,) if the payments were more sane, and parents “visitation” (as if you’re not a real parent, too) rights were more consistently applied.
For instance, my dad’s payments were around $100 a month for my brother and me, which was perhaps a bit low even in the 80s, but then again he only had us every other weekend which was probably also a bit low. But my half-sister’s dad’s payments were $400 a month for just my half sister in the mid 90’s, which is extremely high considering he made about the same as my dad did in the early 80s in non-adjusted, actual dollars, so the payment’s were around 8 times as high. As he couldn’t afford that at carpenter’s assistant rates in Florida, he skipped town.
Oh, and he did own a boat, but it was more of a canoe than a yacht. He shouldn’t have paid nothing toward the support of my half sister, but I can’t help but wonder if the payments were only $200 if he wouldn’t have stayed.
Horrifying frequency, really? I’ve used them for a while as primary BC and I’ve never had a breakage. Is that just if you’re not using them right? I know the 17% failure rate is the realistic, not the theoretical, number.
I’m having a hard time understanding why the percentage of his income being applied to child support is so much more than for your father. Isn’t there a straight formula used in these decisions?
My mom and dad were divorced in the late 70s in New York State, my mom and her second husband were divorced in Florida in the mid 90s, furthermore, there was a child support agreement between my dad and mom that was not forced by the state but rather by agreement, and furthermore the culture has changed in the intervening 20 years to increase the money to be paid when the formula has applied (I think, I’m not certain.)
If pregnancy took place inside a mechanical incubator instead of a woman’s body, SCOTUS would have been unable to rule the way they did. That makes biology of utmost primacy (i.e. “the only real reason”).