Sorry for the vague title but couldn’t possibly cram it all in the title. And please read fully before reaching for the flamethrowers.
I am having a hard time reconciling how is it that a woman can at the same time decide whether or not a baby she is carrying lives, and also exact child support from a man who cannot make that decision.
Please notice that I am not supporting any thesis, I am just asking to get my ignorance fought. I am sure that smarter people than me have thought this harder and longer than I have and will be able to explain this to me.
And let us limit this discussion to consensual sex and keep the cases of rape out of this.
Why does the woman have the option of opting out of the burden of child rearing but the man does not?
I have further thoughts about this that I will want to share, but for now I will leave it at this so as not to influence responses too much.
Abortion and child support deal with two separate situations - child support kicks in once there is a child; abortion determines whether there is a child. Once said child is born, then the parents have a responsibility for its support.
Once there is a child, the mother cannot avoid responsibility for the support of that child any more than the father.
Adding to what **villa **said, the short answer is that abortion involves an invasive medical procedure peformed upon the woman. So the woman can decide that it be performed upon her, but the man cannot. Informed consent, and all that.
It is my personal opinion that, where abortion is available, if one parent wants the abortion and the other does not, the former should not be financially responsible.
IOW I’d bet there’d be a lot more abortions or adoptions and a lot fewer single mothers if they had to bear the full financial burden themselves.
This is a good alternative way of expressing what I had in mind.
I was thinking that the father should have a way of saying “I don’t want that kid, I vote for an abortion” to which the mother could reply “I do want that kid, you get lost and I will have the baby all on my own”.
More so since the “opposite” case of the father saying “I want that baby and I will want to raise it all on my own” is blocked by the mother being able to say “I am not having the baby anyways. Abortion it is”
The man made his decision when he accepted the risk of possibly fathering a child by inserting Tab A into Slot B (birth control does fail). His potential “loss” (in your scenario) is financial.
The woman accepted the risk of becoming pregnant when she allowed the man to insert Tab A into Slot B. Her potential loss (again, in this scenario) is the wear and tear of pregnancy on her body AND 18 years of raising the child (and probably also financial loss as well, since child support is likely not comprehensive, and there’s the risk that the father won’t pay). Assuming she and the father are not together, she is also still likely to bear some “stigma” as a single mother (Scarlet Letter and all that).
If men could bear children, the roles would be reversed (and birth control would be free and abortion would be considered a fundamental right, but that’s another debate.)
But women bear the lion’s share of the risk, so they get the lion’s share of the choice.
Exactly. It is never a mystery who will get pregnant if a sexual encounter results in conception. My body, my choice. You (guy) knew that when you opted to boink me.
The other important aspect of this issue is that if a man could force me to carry and have his baby, what would prevent him from being able to force me to abort?
Once a child is born, all the DNA contributors have an obligation to provide support for him/her. If a man doesn’t want to risk paying child support, he should avoid sexual situations with people he doesn’t have a relationship and an understanding with in terms of an eventual pregnancy.
Personally, were I not to have a relationship with the father I’d probably terminate the pregnancy or have the baby and absolve him of all responsibility if he didn’t want to be involved in the child’s life in all respects but, again, that’s my choice and I reserve the right to change my mind.
Personally, I think “you play you pay” should apply to everyone or no one, and I put my money where my mouth is. I never asked for child support from my daughter’s father. If he’d wanted her and I hadn’t, he’d have been shit out of luck. Why should I be able to force anyone into parenthood?
Not true. Once she had been born, he would have had parental rights had you, for example, chosen to give her up for adoption.
Now, if you had decided to have an abortion, then he could not have prevented that, but as stated early, that is a different situation. Once there is a child, both parents have rights and responsibilities.
I think she refers to abortion being the decision she’d have made if she hadn’t wanted her. I would do as you did Diana but I don’t believe that should be the legal position. Children are not responsible for the choices their parents make and should have rights to support from both parties.
I know that is what she was referring to. But again, the question posed presents a false dilemma. Once there is a child, both parents have legal rights and responsibilities. The mother, given that she is the one who carries the risks of pregnancy, has the right to determine whether there will be a child.
The decision for the abortion is no one’s but the mother’s, as it is her body and at that time there is no child involved. However, by having consentual sex, the father has implicitly agreed to support any child that is born from the sexual encounter.
There was a divorce case Davis v. Davis, where a lower court ruled that Mrs. Davis could have the couple’s frozen embryos implanted into her uterus. A higher court reversed the ruling, saying that Junior Davis should not be forced into fathrhood against his wishes.
NO right-to-life group harassed Mr. Davis about his going to court to “kill” his “children.”
True, but that is just a statement of the facts as things stand. There is no point in arguing that. The law says that is the case, and that’s that.
That doesn’t mean it makes sense to me, which is the point of me asking the question.
As I see it, at the point where a couple stands looking at blue lines on a peed on piece of plastic, they both had equal responsibility in getting to that point. One of them has the opportunity of saying “Nah-ah, this is not what I want” while the other has to go along with whatever the first one chooses.
This, to me, looks like an injustice and it is what I would like to see debated/explained.
While I understand what the law says, my question is about the logic and morality of what we already agree that law says.
I disagree with that line of thought in the sense that, if you apply it across the board, then you are anti-abortion. It could be argued then that a woman, by having consensual sex, has implicitly agreed to bear and birth any child that is conceived from the sexual encounter.
It is a slippery slope.
The issue at hand is, we are arguing entirely different rights. A man has a right to chose who he has sex with, and so does a woman. A woman has a right to chose if she wants to go through with a pregnancy or not. Once a child is born, the rights cease to be of the parents. The child is the one who has the right to demand support from both. The child is not responsible for the sex, the choice to go through with the pregnancy, etc., and therefore is not punishable in the sense of being denied support (of every kind). The mother and father one way or another, exercising their own rights at a moment prior, are “punishable” with that responsibility.
So there is no point in discussing if a man has a right to opt out. He did, before he had sex. Even if a man could prove he was “framed” (she said she was using the pill, but wasnt - or she poked holes in his condoms while he wasnt looking), which would be very difficult to prove - even so, the child is not guilty and shouldn’t be a victim of circumstance.
Both partners can’t be pregnant with the child. Therefore, the one who IS pregnant is the sole decision maker on whether to take the child to term. But every time you have sex with someone, you are taking a chance of creating a pregnancy. It’s not the child’s problem that one of its parents doesn’t want to take part in raising it. So…barring any sort of relationship with the mother that would include discussion regarding the future of the embryo, it’s tough noogies for the father. Pay to play.
Forgot to add that your heart and time cannot be forced. This is only a financial responsibility. It could be worse.
Nobody has denied this, and I think the core of the OP’s question was, should this always be the case? Should the father not have the option (in lieu of having the right to determine whether there will be a child, which the mother reserves) to terminate his own parental rights and responsibilities during the pregnancy?
Similarly – while I agree that nobody should be forced to go through with an unwanted pregnancy – if the father wants the baby and the mother does not, should she not be allowed to (by choice) have the baby and hand it over to the father with no further strings attached?
Scarlett67’s pronouncement that “biology is not fair” works both ways. Shouldn’t the legal system help smooth out the unfairness a bit?
(edit): Sapo got there first with a clarification of his own OP, but I’m letting my post stand as it is a question I happen to share.
No. Because the two situations are not different sides of the same coin. Once there is a child, that child has rights, including the right to be supported. The father had the right to determine whether there would be a child earlier in the situation. The only difference between the mother’s right and his is that the mother’s right runs a little longer than his does.
And your edit got in while I typed my agreement with what you said, so all is good.
If the law said that pregnant women should always wear green and put a shoe on their heads, then one could say “well, women knew that’s how it was before they had sex, so now deal with it”. That wouldn’t make it right, though, nor would it disqualify women from asking if that is how it should be. Remember that not long ago black people had to use a separate restroom and women couldn’t vote.