First of all … if you are looking for a calm, clean, well mannared debate you are definatly in the wrong forum. Secondly i would like to respond to your statements here. Just becaseu after 2 months you are forming arm’s and legs and bones and such, does NOT make you a human being. The thing that makes us a unique species is the fact that we are SELF aware. I would say that at two months even though you have arm’s and legs you are NOT self aware. I mean think of all the animals that are killed every day from environmental effects. What about insects that are continuosly thwarted as pests? they all have arm’s and legs do they not? most even have bones and brains.
Simply put, my point is just becasue you are STARTING to develop features of a human being makes you no more a human being than losing those limbs would make you less of a human being. (pardon the pun). The real “BEING” in human being is self awareness … something that does not develop until the 8th or 9th month when the brain becomes fully developed. Bleh … just my 2 dollars and 58 cents.
So in other words, we should not take anything you post seriously because you may change your tune as soon as someone calls you on it.
What a crock of shit.
The world is full of irresponsible men who are not paying their child support, but there are numerous others who would not be providing support if Recovery Services was not garnishing payments from their paycheck. Then there are the others who are paying but given the choice would not.
Or maybe you really didn’t mean what you wrote?
>^,^<
KITTEN
He who walk through airport door sideways going to Bangkok. - Confucius
THOR – The legal doctrine of “last clear chance” is totally inapplicable in this hypothetical. It says, if two parties are negligent but one had a “last clear chance” to avoid an accident, then that party will be held responsible, because their failure to take the last clear chance was, in effect, the superceding cause of the accident. Not only is it not applicable here, it isn’t even applicable in your example, where one farmer INTENTIONALLY hits the other farmer’s cow.
Actually, that was the actual case that spawned last clear chance. I think you synopsized it pretty well, so I am puzzled by your logic. THis case fits it perfectly. (and please don’t take my use of the word damage here to mean that kids are damage. I love kids. What I mean is that an unwanted child born into poverty with one parent is not a good thing.)
Scenario 1:
Two people act irresponsibly. one has an opportunity to avoid the damage (an unwanted child). She decides not to avoid it. And you are saying that the person who chooses not to avoid the damage is not at fault? (true that intentional acts are uninsurable, but intentional acts are punishible by awarding damages to the defendant. In fact, if you intentionally caused the damages, tou would definitely be found at fault. The case is on point.)
Scenario 2:
Let’s say You are backing out of a parking spot. I am tooling along in my truck and I see you backing out. But, I am a jerk and I feel that you should look where you are going. So rather than step on the brake, I just coast right into you. I couldv’e stopped, but chose not to. I knew you didn’t want to get hit, but I didn’t care. I felt that if you back up into my path, you deserve what you get. So in your world, we should split the damages?
The whole entire point about last clear chance is that regardless of prior negligence, when one person can avoid the damage and CHOOSES not to, or fails not to, for whatever reason, That person is at fault and pays. Stoidela’s point was that the mother is the only one with the choice and CHOOSES the outcome. Prior sharing of negligence becomes irrelavent. But in the current system the costs are split.
I know this seems crappy to many women. I just am trying to get this into a logical framework.
And you are forgetting another option besides the father or the state paying. What about all of the people waiting to adopt? The baby can still have a home that can support him without using tax dollars or garnishing the wages of the father.
Responsibility lies with the person who makes the choice.
Not to change the subject or anything, but I most certainly wouldn’t trust a man if he said he was on the pill, and I don’t know a single woman who would either. I don’t want children, and the responsibility for making sure that doesn’t happen is entirely mine. It is my uterus, after all, that the thing would be housed in.
Are there any single women in this thread who, if there were a male birth control pill, would trust a man if he said he was on it? It’s like trusting a man who says he’s clean. Sorry, but I want to see the test results first.
“Responsibility lies with the person who makes the choice.” - Thor
You are absolutely right. Both the man and the woman make the choice to have sex. The responsibility for the outcome, therefore, belongs to both.
“And you are forgetting another option besides the father or the state paying. What about all of the people waiting to adopt? The baby can still have a home that can support him without using tax dollars or garnishing the wages of the father.” - Thor
Surely you aren’t suggesting that if a woman can not raise a child on her own (without the child support of the father) then she should give it up for adoption. This would mean that the father gets to give up his rights/duties to parenthood and the mother, due to financial contraints, is forced to give up hers. What a crock!
Drain Bead - heck no I wouldn’t trust a man if he said he was on the birth control pill. I don’t think a man should trust a woman who says this either. The point of the male birth control pill, in my opinion, would be for a man to be assured that he is protected from unwanted pregnancies, just as a woman on the pill is. (We have to take into account the failure rates, of course. And the pill doesn’t do a damn thing for STDs, but that’s another issue.)
THOR – I think we can agree that the “last clear chance” doctrine applies to cases of negligence only. (Or I hope we can.) Where is the negligence in two people having sex and the woman getting pregnant? Who is at “fault” for that? Her alone? No – both of them. So the doctrine is absolutely useless in this case, because there isn’t any negligence. Unless you’re saying the woman is negligent in not aborting or giving up the baby for adoption? Negligence is (loosely) defined as the breach of a duty that causes damages. She doesn’t have a duty to the man (or to anyone) to do either of these. She can keep the child if she wants. Not fair? I don’t think so – it’s her baby, and no one should have the right to take it from her if she has the desire and ability to raise it. The same is true of the father as well, BTW.
Your examples are equally inapposite because you are talking about accidents (negligence) that results in monetary damages. They are apples, and this is oranges. Here we are talking about the result being a child that must be supported. If the woman can’t support it – what? Tough luck? You say, well, she could put it up for adoption. But what if she doesn’t want to? What if she wants to raise the child and lacks the financial ability to do so on her own? Are you seriously suggesting that she should have to put her child up for adoption because the FATHER wants to be financially free and refuses to kick in support? I find the very idea repugnant. If a baby comes into this world, intended or not, and the parents have the financial wherewithal to support it, totally or in part, then they have an obligation to do so. Period. You cannot put the entire onus of support on one simply because the other wants out, because that is not fair to the BABY. The BABY is entitled to the support of BOTH its parents, and neither has the obligation to give up his or her rights to the child just because the other would prefer to walk away. Are you seriously arguing that they SHOULD have this obligation, or am I misunderstanding you?
But that was exactly my point! Everyone keeps talking about how giving men the out will rip apart the fabric of our society because so many men will take it! And I don’t think they will.
I wouldn’t. I think if the mother isn’t capable of caring for the child, she shouldn’t have it. Or if she has it, she should give it up to someone who will take care of it.
Because here’s another point that’s been missed: often it matters not the intentions of the men involved, in practical fact they cannot make a significant contribution to their childrens’ care. Lots and lots of men are dirt poor, in jail, whatever. It doens’t matter whether they have any responsibilities to anyone, if they are not capable of meeting them.
And I have always felt (having been raised by a woman whose husbands bailed on her) that no woman should have a child she is not mentally, emotionally, and financially prepared to raise alone. Even married women. Men die. They leave. If you don’t think you can do it alone, DON’T DO IT.
Diane:
Uh, no, that would be incorrect.
I always mean what I write, assuming I am not making a joke of some kind.
Oh I see… would it make everyone here fell better if I just said fuck off? You guys can whine all you want about what I say, that will not change the truth in my words. And no, PL, I know I cannot change abortion law but my opinion is still right for me. If you were as sharp as you seem to think you are you would have known that. Same goes for Diane, my views are just that - mine, which means to say they are correct just as yours are. You think you are right in your mind, I am right in mine, no amount of complaining on your part will ever change that.
I guess I shouldn’t have put in my 2 cents here, I don’t have time to follow the whole thing as closely as the rest of you seem to. I have to go to work to support the family that I adopted, the children of another man who had his fun and left to do it to someone else.
If they were up for adoption, then obviously the mother isn’t there either, so take your maile-bashing, attention-grabbing rhetoric elsewhere.
No, you made an assumption. I married their mother, and live with her. The fellow signed away his rights to the children to keep from having anyone after him for child support.
If you actually have some evidence that the presence of laws prohibiting an activity accompanied by harsh penalties does not deter large numbers of people from participating, post it; otherwise, I’ll have to assume you’re talking out of your ass.
Jodih, I am wasn’t trying to jam the square peg of liability into the round hole of this debate. YOu raise good points on this. I think we would have some good discussions regarding General liability issues.
I was trying to show that there are two decisions. 1) to have sex and 2) what to do with the baby. The problem with the situation is that both partners have a choice in the first one. But only one partner has a choice in the second.
I can think of about a million different scenarios in which a child is conceived. From a planned pregnancy to two 14 year olds to Rape. I am not saying that a woman (except in circumstances of perhaps mental retardation or abuse) should be forced to do anything with her child be it abortion, keeping it or adoption. I am just saying that she ultimately has the sole choice and as with all things, choices have consequences. And the bottom line is that teh man doesn’t really have a say in the second choice which is whether to keep and raise the baby.
I would like to add that my wife is a Dr. at a juvenile detention facility and there are many, many girls in their early teens who are with child. No means to support the child, dad is typically in his 20’s or 30’s and gone/in jail/good-for-nothing. The women for a myriad of reasons want to keep the child without the emotional or financial means to raise it. And, in fact, most of the kids in the jail were themselves born into these circumstances. Young tenn gang bangers produce a lot of young teen gang-bangers.
Okay, now maybe we’re getting somewhere. We started off by talking about whether men should be free of a child support obligation for a child they conceived if they are clear and unequivocal that they do not want the child. I said (and say) “no,” because once the child is born SOMEONE has to support it, and that someone should be the biological parents, not the state. Let’s just run it through step by step:
Woman gets pregnant – nobody’s fault or the fault of both her and the man.
She can have an abortion. This is HER decision, not the man’s, because it’s HER body. The man cannot make her have an abortion just because he doesn’t want the child. I assume we are all in agreement on this, at least for purposes of this argument.
She can have the baby.
Of those two choices, she decides to have the baby. Now she can keep the baby or put the baby up for adoption. She wants to keep the baby.
She lacks the financial ability to raise the child without assistance. The father has the financial ability to contribute to the child’s care, but doesn’t want to.
So here, in this hypothetical, is the situation: A woman has a child she wants to keep; the father is known; the father could financially support the child; but the father doesn’t want to. Here are the possible solutions:
The mother can be compelled to put the child up for adoption based solely upon her lack of financial ability to support it. This appears to be the solution Stodeila advocates when she says:
As a solution, this is a non-starter. You cannot compel someone to surrender their children solely on financial grounds. If people are poor, our society doesn’t take their kids away, it gives them public assistance to help them. And, remember, in this hypothetical, the father is known and could help support the child – he just doesn’t want to. Do you seriously believe it is fairer to make the mother surrender the child she wants to raise than it is to make the reluctant father cough up some support?
The mother can keep the child, but she lacks the financial ability to take care of it properly. Then there are three choices:
The government can take the child away based solely on the mother’s poverty. A non-starter for the same reasons given in the forced-adoption choice.
The government (and, through it, the taxpayers) can pay to take care of the child or pay for the assistance necessary to enable the mother to take care of the child. The burden is then shifted to parties (the government and the public) who clearly are NOT responsible for the child’s existence.
The father can be compelled to cough up support. The baby remains with its mother, who wants to keep it, and the taxpayers do not pay for a child that at least one of the biological parents have the desire and financial ability to support. (The mother has the desire, the father has the financial ability.)
Don’t you see that your concern for the rights of the father are leading you to violate far more important rights of the mother? The father does not want a financial obligation; the mother wants to keep and parent her biological child. The father has no right to shirk an obligation he is clearly responsible for (however reluctantly); the mother has the Constitutional and moral right to keep and raise her own child without regard to her financial ability. Rather than make the financially solvent father support the child, you would make the mother surrender it. He gets to keep his money, she loses her child. I really, honestly do not see how anyone can advocate such a trade-off – it seems so clearly unfair to me as to not even admit argument.
Stodeila also says:
This is irrelevant. This thread started out discussing whether fathers should be relieved of their obligation to pay child support SOLELY on the basis that they did not want the child. No, they should not; every father should have the financial obligation to support the children he creates – and every mother, too. If some of them, practically speaking, cannot do so – because they are dirt poor or in jail – that does not excuse removing the obligation from those who CAN pay.
Stodeila says:
I agree whole-heartedly, but we have to recognize that it happens every day, and the question of the fitness or readiness of either parent is also irrelevant to the question of who should be financially responsible for a child. The fact that the mother (or father) is unfit may be grounds to take the child away; the fact that she (or he) is poor is not, especially when the other parent can contribute to the financial support the child but simply doesn’t want to.
Thor says:
Yes, choices have consequences. They both chose to have sex and the consequence was a baby. She chose to keep the baby, but she cannot support it, so what do we do then? Make her give it up? Make the state pay for it? Or make the father pay for it? I’ve already said which of these is the only answer, and why. And, yes, it may be unfair to make the father pay to raise a child he didn’t want, but it is far less unfair than making the mother give up the child for financial reasons alone or making innocent parties (the taxpayers) pay for the child’s care instead.
Thor also says:
I think we must be very careful to distinguish between taking a child away on the grounds that the parent is unfit (too young, negligent, in jail, whatever) and taking a child away on the grounds that the parent cannot raise it without financial assistance. The former is acceptable, indeed necessary; the latter is not. The fact that there are many unfit mothers in the world (as Thor points out) and many mothers who should never have had children in the first place (as Stodeila points out) is not relevant to the question of whether a father should be relieved of his child support obligation solely on the grounds that he never wanted the child. The government imp
A long ways back in this thread, Kells phrased the question thusly:
{{{Hrmmm … my question is if a woman can choose NOT to parent a child by aborting her pregnancy, why can’t a man choose NOT to parent a child by abandoning the mother?}}}
Phrased this way, the answer is simple: in the first place there is no living child who is totally innocent and who is the product of the both the man and the woman, whereas in the second instance there is. Stop focusing on the man and the woman, and their so-called “rights” and focus on the right of the born child to be provided for by both of its parents.
-Melin
I’m a woman phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me
(Maya Angelou)
If we were having this discussion 100 years ago, or in a different country this conversation would be different. The outcomes that Jodih lists assume two things:
there is only a father and mother–no grandma’s aunts, uncles, etc. (My experience living in poor neighborhood is that there are few dads around, but usually tons of femal relatives. Poor babies often have more caregivers than rich kids.)
that single moms should and will get state financial support for their irresponsible decisions.
I would never advocate that the state have the ability to take children from parents based on income. That is too much power for big brother.
On the contrary, the state should stay out of it financially as well. If you are pregnant and you know that you can’t afford the child and you know that you wil be raising the child as a single parent, then go ahead. But be prepared to live with that decision.
I do not think that it is fair that the taxpayers who had nothing to do with the birth pay. And I do not think it is fair to have a father, who has no say in the decision to keep and raise the child (decision/choice number two from my above contribution) forced to pay.
Though if limited to these two choices, I would choose to have the father pay.
And it is certainly not fair to the child to start out with 50% of his parents not even wanting him to be there.
If the state pays, we all get shafted, if the father pays, he gets shafted, either way if mom keeps the baby, baby gets shafted.
If Stoidela’s idea is put in place and welfare is removed, Mom is forced to make a decision that has heavier consequences: Can I raise this baby all by myself with no financial support other than what I can get from my family?
I admit, this is harsh. Those of us planning pregnancies make this same decision: Can we afford this baby? But this is about the biggest decision anyone can make. It should be a hard decision and it should carry consequences.
I say we get rid of welfare AND allow Stoidela’s sytem to be put in place. It is about The freedom to choose AND the commensurate responsibility. You decide to go full term and create another human, you have the sole control of the choice, well then you also get all of the consequences. Not dad, not the state.
I wonder if those girls that my wife treats would make some of the same decisions they do were there no safety net.
Very, Very good point, Melin. The child should receive the greatest consideration. As an innocent, i would accord him/her the greatest rights. However, given a situation where dad is not going to be a parent to the child, is it fair to the child to bring him into what is know to be a bad situation?
Let me ask this. If you knew that you were going to be born into a situation where mom is broke and dad is AWOL, would you choose to be born AND be raised in the situation.
Note: I am not saying that you would choose to be aborted! My question is would you want to be adopted or raised by this mom, knowing the increased risks and difficulties inherent in this situation?
I posted the comment about wanting the male birth control pill. I agree with you totally- I wouldn’t trust a guy that said he was on it (and therefore I didn’t have to worry) either! Instead I was thinking that both parties could use the Pill (and condoms, of course), which would really cut down the number of unplanned pregnancies.
It would be great if men had some form of family planning available to them other than condoms, abstinence, and surgical sterilization.