Me stuffn…I’m no victim and I’m teaching my daughter not to become one either. I and I alone am responsible for my own reproductive rights. You should be too. But yes, I do believe you guys should be crying out for a more effective method of birth control. Or perhaps one that doesn’t interfere with ones “sensation” quite so badly. After all that’s what it’s all about isn’t it “sensation”? Gee, now that the shoe has dropped and landed on your foot it all just seems a little unfair doesn’t it? After all why not get a little taste of what it’s like to have your hormones fucked around with? Why not guys having to remember to take a pill every night, or go in for a shot every three months, or have some copper contraption inserted into your body? What ever happed to those little gold valve things, didn’t they work? Might be something to look into instead of whining after it all too late.
Needs, men do have their hormones “fucked” with when it comes to reproduction: steroids (sort of a reverse-birth control, eh?). Causes sterility for some, all in the hopes of having a killer body that babes will die for. But that’s his choice, just as taking birth control pills is a choice.
It seems to me that you should feel fortunate to have so many options. If you had only 1 (or none) you would be screaming slavery over not having the ability to prevent pregnancy.
But soon men might have their own birth control pill. Cool. But that won’t protect you if he doesn’t take it and you agree to a one-nighter with a hitchhiker. What would you like to use to prevent pregnancy? I’m sorry all options might not all be perfect, but if you want to have sex (and it is your body and your right to have sex, right?), and you’re not sure about the moral integrity of your partner, don’t you want as many options as possible? If I were you I would.
Needs, as I suspected there has been research into various forms of male contraceptives for the last 30 YEARS. I can’t link them so please cut and past these into your browser
I am not anti-male. I am simply trying to make you see the inequities in your reasoning. I also do not have a problem with monitoring my own birth control. I’ve been doing it for years. Although it would have been nice 10 or 15 years ago to have known that my constant and daily headaches might have been caused by the estrogen in my pills. I use Depo now and the chronic headaches are gone. What I am trying to make you understand and no one seems to want to address this particular aspect of my opinion…men DO have control over their reproductive rights, but they should not attempt to exercise them a day late and a dollar short. The notion that women have the final say in birth control is long rooted in a prevailing double standard that women hold the main responsibility for birth control. It goes hand in hand with the old idea that a boy is man when loses his virginity but a girl that loses hers before marriage is a slut.
I’m not man bashing or spouting some feminist bullshit jargon. And if men don’t wake up and smell the roses about all of this then they will be the ones to suffer. Gone are the days when a boy can impregnate a girl, go off to college, marry and start a whole new life while she is sent away to some “girls school” in Vermont to have her baby in shame. Things don’t happen like that anymore. Is it fair that when a woman gets pregnant a man cannot force her to abort, put the child up for adoption or disallow his parental responsibilities, perhaps not. But the hard truth is he cannot get away with simply walking away from that kind of “mistake” anymore. And the reasons have already been explained and quite eloquently so, I believe. So in light of this then he must take action to ensure his reproductive rights before he has sex. That’s all I’m saying really. The idea that the ball is landing mostly in the woman’s court is outdated and promotes a terrible double standard. One that has caused hardship for many women and children. And it is the children who finally are to be protected here.
** Needs** I believe we are in disagreement, go back and rea your post. Each and everone of them keeps making it out that the men are trying to duck responsibilities, even the last. Furthermore, it’s dishonest to keep turning the argument around to suit your way of thinking.
Here is what I keep saying and you still don’t want to see.
Timeline:
The Night of Sex (Parental choices Equal)they can both decide not to have sex, protectetive sex, abstain.
The next 90 days (Parental choice UNEQUAL) Female can decide if to have, not have, adopt, Male NO CHOICE AT ALL!
The Night of Sex (Immediate consequences roughly equal. Risks Equal) STD, bad sex, social consequences of behavior, etc.
The next 9 months (Consequences UNEQUAL) Female experience: radical alteration of hormonal balance, physical deformation, potential long term consequences for skeletal health, risk of reduced sexual responsiveness, risk of death, additional financial costs.
I don’t think anyone here would disagree with the notion that if you have consentual sex you must be willing to accept the responsibilities. That means even if you use birth control, because birth control can fail.
Where the problem lies is in cases where the situation is NOT consentual, either through rape, drunkenness, or deliberate misrepresentation by one of the parties. This is not a wild scenario, it happens all the time.
First, we now have it accepted as law that if a woman is drunk and a man has sex with her, it is rape. That means the woman did not consent, even if she said ‘yes’, because she’s not mentally capable of giving informed consent. If you agree with that, how can you say that the situation is different if the male is drunk? If a woman is sober, and takes some half-passed-out guy to bed and managed to get him to perform enough to impregnate her, should he still be held accountable?
What about cases of deliberate fraud? What if a woman wants to get pregnant, so she goes out and trolls for a man. The man agrees to have sex with her, but being the responsible type refuses to have sex without serious birth control. So she says, “I hate condoms, and you don’t need one because I’m sterile.” So he throws out the condom, she becomes pregnant, and he’s on the hook.
These are the grey areas. Consent was not given. The man had no intention of having a child, and may have even took responsible steps to avoid such a situation. But he was either intentionally deceived or raped.
I’m not sure it’s reasonable to say, “It doesn’t matter, because the child comes first.” As I pointed out before, children are rarely used as an excuse under the law. If the rights of children always came first, we’d never lock up mothers who commit crimes, and we’d amend bankruptcy laws to treat people with families different than people without children.
Thank you Spiritus…I just couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to address that.
I think what he is saying is that it isn’t fair that once a women is pregnant he has no say so over the final outcome of the pregnancy. (I’m getting punchy and confused, I’m tired now.)But for the life of me I still cannot see why my argument for responsible birth control does not make sense here. Is it because abortions are legal now? I know some of the others don’t like to have this brought into the argument but barring adoption and abdication of financial culpability then what are the alternatives?
Please explain Stuffy…I’m lost on the reasoning. Believe me I am not unsympathetic to the plight of men in this situation. It’s just that I don’t think we should allow men or women to just say oops! and walk away.
I agree, of course. It’s clear they’re connected, and to my mind people have a moral duty to attend to these issues when they make decisions concerning sex, contraception, abortion, and children. But to my mind, the issues must be kept separate on a legal level, and that’s what I interpreted the OP as asking.
I would never suggest for a moment that legalities can determine morals. But morals but be excluded from legalities, if you see what I mean.
And it should bother you. These are bothersome decisions. I didn’t want to address the thousand issues a woman must face when she decides to abort/not abort because I think those issues are separate from the absolute nature of parental duty, but I know they’re significant issues and that a man and a woman must consider them in context. I mean, I think that goes without saying. But I see those as being morally and ethically connected, not legally connected.
There are some problems the law cannot solve. As The Tim has wisely pointed out, situations like these are going to hurt people no matter how we construct the law. One of the worst errors of social polity you can make here is to change the law to address a problem the law cannot address, and I see this as being one of those problems.
Sure. But saying a thing does not make it so. Your point has consistently been that the man and woman should have an equal voice in the decision because they faced an equal choice beforehand and an equal consequence in parental responsibility.
I have simply pointed out that the consequences of actually carrying a pregnancy to term are not equal.
That directly refutes your implied premise (equal choice beforehand + equal consequences --> equal right to choose whether to bring pregnancy to term).
Yes. Absolutely. The only truly innocent party – and the party unable to care for itself without assistance – is the baby.
Sure. And society does this all the time – and rightly so. Once you have children, you have the responsibility to raise them and support them. You’re “right” to be “free” does not outweigh your obligations – neither for men nor for women.
Automatically and in all cases? No. But in this case – two people have sex, a baby results, the baby needs support – they certainly do.
Well, obviously. If there’s no child, there’s no problem.
She CAN, but she doesn’t HAVE to. No one can MAKE her do that. Not society, and not the man who is just not interested in being a father.
Wrong. The woman decides to have the baby or not. Society only has “to foot the bill” if BOTH she and the father are unable to support the child.
Because we don’t have to. We are REQUIRED to allow women to foist their children on society (should they decide to have them and should they be unable to support them) because we CANNOT make them do otherwise – i.e., abort their babies. We are not required to extend the same “decision-making power” to men, because we are not talking about something as elemental as a man’s right to do as he chooses with his own body. Because we do not HAVE to let men have a similar choice, and because letting them have a similar choice would not be in the best interests of society, we don’t.
Talk about a jump in logic! Just because we have existing children on the rolls does not justify adding more if we can help it. Just because we refuse to add more (because other alternatives exist) does not justify kicking off the ones who are legitimately there already.
I don’t know why she didn’t, but for purposes of this hypothetical, she didn’t. Before you suggest withholding support to “punish” her for that, let me point out that we can’t do that, because the support is for the baby’s benefit and the baby didn’t do anything wrong. And, yes, we may already foot part of the bill. How is that an argument for footing all of it?
Because if she chooses not to have an abortion (which she certainly can), then the baby must be supported. The person responsible for that support should be the father.
FURT says:
I totally agree. The bottom line is that while people (men in particular) may think the current system is unfair, there is no fairer way to handle it. The alternatives are to leave the baby without support (immoral as well as unfair) or make the baby the responsibility of society (unfair to society, which is in no way responsible for the child’s existence).
MILROYJ says:
Thanks! Too bad your analogy doesn’t employ it. Look, only woman can have babies. Yes? This is an unavoidable biological truth. Therefore, IMO, only women should have the right to decide if they are going to have babies – no one should be able to force them NOT to do so if they want to. (I don’t think even pro-lifers would disagree with this.) Men are just stuck with whatever decision the women make, and that may seem unfair, but there is NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE that is not LESS fair. Marriage, on the other hand, is a legal institution. There is no biological reason why you could not marry a man, a woman, a pig, or a log – so long as society allows it. So it’s not an analogous example at all.
If you think I’m going to go THERE, you’re nuts. The topic of THIS thread is whether men should be financially responsible for their children – children in existence – not whether abortion is or is not defensible.
Then STUFFINB nicely brings us back squarely on-topic:
But we can’t, and the reason we can’t is that it potentially leaves the baby without a means of support – a shortfall that society must then make up. And it is MORE unfair to place that burden on society than it is to place it on the parents – BOTH the parents. And, again, while the woman may have the sole right to decide whether or not to BECOME a parent (because she is the one who is pregnant and it is her body), once that decision is made and the baby is actually born, she has no more right than the father does to disavow her obligations to her child. They are BOTH equally responsible.
KIMSTU says:
That’s because our society is (rightly, IMO) committed to rectifying what you call “biological inequalities” when possible.
Surely you can see that we as a society have the ability to make people equal as a matter of law (and in the eyes of the law), but that we do not have the ability to make them truly “equal” in fact. Men are, by and large, stronger than women. Society does not attempt to make men physically weaker in an impossible attempt at true physical equality. Women can get pregnant. Society does not take away from them that right and ability simply to make them truly physically “equal” to men, who can’t.
That’s because this is a situation that is recitifiable. Equality should certainly be sought out where possible. How do you make equal the fact that women can get pregnant and men cannot? Take away a woman’s right to govern her own body once she is pregnant? Not as far as I’m concerned. The bottom line – again – is that from conception to birth (or wherever you want to draw the “no abortions after this point” line), the decision to have or not have the baby is the womans – must be the woman’s because she is the one, and the ONLY one, who is pregnant. Once the baby is born, however, she is every bit as responsible for it as the man is.
And I don’t. The fire department requires applicants to be able to consistently lift and carry 100 pounds. It is a BIOLOGICAL FACT that men will find this easier to do than women. I do not think it is slighting to either sex – nor discriminatory – to acknowledge this reality. Of course, if women CAN meet that requirement, they have just as much right to be considered for the job as men. And, similarly, the day a man gets pregnant (meets THAT requirement), he ought to have the same right to govern his pregnant body that a woman does. And the same responsibility should he have the child.
BTW, as I think someone already pointed out, if a woman is raped and decides to have the child, she is responsible for that child, even though she didn’t want it. Where’s the outcry about how unfair that is?
Actually, yes, although they likely use a fancier name–vasocongestion of the testicles, perhaps. But even I am aware that arousal without release can be painful for both men and women, and a habit of it may lead to more serious medical conditions–albeit, not as serious as horny young men in the back of cars might like us to believe. I remember reading that prostitutes can have trouble with chronic vasocongestion without orgasm.
I think pro-choice women are encountering an argument that they would like only to apply to men.
‘You don’t want to be a father? You should have thought of that before you had unprotected sex with this woman. Now you are on the hook to support the resulting child to age 18, and you don’t have any other options.’
‘You don’t want to be a mother? You should have thought of that before you had unprotected sex with this man. Now you are on the hook to give birth, and you don’t have any other options.’
SHODAN, are you saying that because a woman has the right to end a pregnancy by having an abortion because she doesn’t want the child, a man should be able to force a woman to have an abortion because he doesn’t want the child? Please clarify whether this is in fact your position (as it appears from your last post), and if it is not, why not.
Thanks!!
I kinda like that, thanks Needs