Nope. At least, not that I was ever aware of; it’s technically possible I at some point had a miscarriage without even knowing about the pregnancy. I was on the pill for about a year before I started getting superficial blood clots in my legs, and they pulled me off it because they were afraid I’d develop dvt’s or other conditions that might kill or disable me. By the time a lot of the estrogen-free methods came on the market, I didn’t have any insurance and was working an $8/hour job. Condoms (and self-control if we didn’t have any) were our sole birth control for about 8 years.
The thing I really don’t think you’re getting is that the financial responsibility of supporting a kid is pretty equally split between the parents. He’s not paying her to have a baby, he’s paying his half of the cost of the baby he made half of. That’s just splitting things even-steven straight down the middle as we can, which is apparently your idea of fairness.
But that’s as far as we can go with splitting the rights and responsibilities straight down the middle, because in the period between conception and birth, the burdens don’t fall equally. Carrying a pregnancy can kill a woman. Having an abortion can kill a woman. All the effective methods of birth control can kill a woman. (We won’t even talk about the more minor stuff like morning sickness or post-op pain or mood swings or any of that.) You’ll notice that a man bears NO risk of grievous bodily harm or death in any of this. NONE. And AFAIK a man has no legal obligation to pay for an abortion or for pre-natal care or for birth control, none of which are cheap. In other words, he bears absolutely no physical or financial burden right up until his child is born, while the woman bears a pretty substantial one.
The courts have decided that it’s fair and right to give a woman one extra right to help counterbalance some of the massively lopsided burden. No, it’s not fair in the “make sure both sides have exactly the same thing” sense of fairness, but until we come up with a way to make men take half the birth control, carry half the baby, or have half the abortion, there isn’t any way to make sure both sides have exactly the same thing. So we have to look for some other standard of fairness, and what we as a society have settled on is trying to make sure nobody is carrying an unreasonable burden with no extra compensation.
They do have a highly effective birth control method available to them - vasectomy. If it is unthinkable to a man that he be “trapped” by a woman who is unwilling to have an abortion and will have the gall to make him take responsibility for a child he donated half the DNA towards, he should do two things 1. Go to a fertility clinic and make a large deposit for his own personal use should he decide to have children in the future 2. Take responsibility for his own fertility by getting a vasectomy.[sup]*[/sup]
If he’s unwilling to do these things, he shouldn’t have vaginal sex (the lack of it will not kill him) or he should realize that he’s courting the possibility that he might impregnate a woman who is unwilling to have an abortion.
[sup]*[/sup] Men who are sterilized have three advantages over women doing the same. The first is that vasectomies are more successfully reversed than a tubal ligation. The second is that it’s a far less invasive procedure. And the third is that sperm can be preserved, while ova are still only not able to be preserved unfertilized except through a brand new method touted as being successful up to 20% of the time.
Again, my idea of fairness is both parties being involved in the decision of whether or not to take on any heavy financial burden, which includes whether or not a pregnancy should result in a child. Look at it this way - a woman cannot go out and buy a house and then stick her partner with half the mortgage unless he also signs the papers. Why should she have the right to do that with a baby? Simply because the baby is an “innocent bystander” and all that doesn’t really cut it, since the conditions the baby would live in without any support from the father don’t seem to enter into the equation.
Less likely than carrying the pregnancy. And it is all her choice.
So? Yes, biologically the woman is the one that ends up with any risks that come from pregnancy or trying to prevent/end it, but there isn’t much to be done about that. We aren’t addressing that here, we are talking about women who decide to have a baby against the wishes of the sire of that baby and then expect to recieve child support. Since the woman decided to have the baby, the dangers of pregnancy are kind of immaterial. If she is worried about the dangers of birth control, she can get sterilized or forego sex until she is married to a man who wants children.
But, evidently, the Hippocratic Oath was pertainant enough in 1973 that Justice Blackmun queried Sarah Weddington (attorney for Roe) as to why she chose to omit any reference to the oath in any of her briefs. (Her response basically was that it was outdated)
But then contradicts herself when asked if a doctor could refuse to give an abortion out of a sense personal consiousness, by responding “yes”, after previously building her case on a supposed “great, immediate and irreparable injury” of an unwanted pregnancy.
A doctor would seem to be vulnerable to a lawsuit for refusing to treat a “great, immediate and irreparable injury”.
You keep mentioning the low efficiency rate of condoms, but I really don’t think you have any clue what you are talking about. Condoms are 85%-95% effective. When used in conjunction with a spermicidal lubricant or film the likelyhood of unplanned pregnancy drops further still. Beyond that, there is anal sex, oral sex, and mutual masturbation, not to mention the many other ways of orgasming without a penis coming in contact with a vagina. Men have control of all of these options just like women do and should therefore be held accountable for the consequences of their actions. (“No glove, no love” is a mantra both sexes should share.)
Additionally, if men are held responsible for the other outcomes of sex why shouldn’t they be held responsible for the children? If someone should have consequence free sex shouldn’t they walk away from every encounter completely disease free and with no emotional damage? Why do these consequences effect everyone but babies should only effect women?
A 15% chance of pregnancy doesn’t seem like really good odds to me. OTOH, way back when I could still get pregnant we were told that the odds weren’t even that good. Apparently, condoms have improved over the decades.
Because no matter how it would be worded, no law can prevent a disease or an emotion.