If a woman was deliberately getting pregnant without her partner’s knowledge because she wanted to be a mom, then I would (mostly) agree with you. That’s not what’s happening. When faced with their own baby, many women will find they can not give it up for adoption. That is legitimate, and shouldn’t be dismissed as an irresponsible whim.
Child support is not fair. Your situation (the woman either gets rid of the child or supports it all by herself) is less fair.
Well, as a guy, I don’t tend to think of myself as a male basher. However, I also don’t want to live in a society where men can father children and then abandon them without a second thought without a single negative consequence.
Because as the risks currently stand, she’s at risk for birth or abortion. No matter what happens, she’s taking responsibility. Being pregnant doesn’t just magically go away when you sign a paper, you know. No matter what happens, she’s got to go through an expensive, painful, and risky medical procedure. It’s her expense, her pain, and her physical risks. And yes, by taking off her pants, she accepted the risk of having to go through either pregnancy or abortion. So she doesn’t get to piss and moan about having to make that choice, or about the expense, pain, and risks of the choice she makes. Because she knew the risks going in, and freely chose to go ahead.
I’m not saying that men shouldn’t be able to opt out, just that they don’t currently have that right. As it stands right now, they don’t have any control over whether or not the pregnancy gets carried to term. And they know that. They know it full well, just like they know full well that they’re going to be held financially responsible for any children they father. If they choose to go ahead anyway, they don’t get to piss and moan about then having to pay child support. Because they knew the risks going in, and freely chose to go ahead.
:rolleyes: Yeah Catsix, it’s the men who get the short end. Either you are very young or you are very sheltered. (or maybe just a simpleton) but if you can tell me how a man, living life as he pleases, going where he wants, seeing who he wants, unfettered by a child, is getting the short end. He’s getting short end when the woman is trying to work, find childcare, raise the child, feed the child, clothe the child, denying many of her own wants and desires to be a good mother for the child. I’d love to hear how this works. Perhaps in your world that is how things function but in reality here on Earth, it just ain’t so, mate.
catsix, I want to suggest that you are missing the big picture here. You seem to have gotten caught up in the notion that the laws as they exist are somehow unfair to men. I’m not going to get into that with you.
What I will point out is that a new person is coming into the world. That new person is going to be completely helpless, and need love and resources to thrive. That is all that matters. Period. A man, a real man, will step up and take his lumps to do the right thing.
In the mean while, the law says that he pays, and it is moral that he help to support the get of his seed. If you guys don’t like it, call your fucking congressman.
This is not some chess game where you can sacrifice the queen to save the king.
And how is this any different from adoption? If she did this, I am sure that hauss would be off the hook for child support as well.
While I appreciate your impassioned defense of us poor, put upon men, please, don’t. I happen to think men would be better served by accepting responsibility for the consequences of their actions, and not shirking it because biology is “unfair”.
I’m just curious, how come a crusader for equality such as yourself wasn’t testifying in favor of the child’s father? It seems to me that he could have used it.
Not wanting to deal with it as a woman means not wanting to deal with a year of physical and emotional turmoil.
Men don’t get nauseous for months at time. They don’t get stretch marks or heartburn or leaking breasts or backaches or exhaustion or weight gain. They sure as heck don’t go through hours and hours of severe pain to give birth.
I’ve seen it once - possibly twice. (The second one - I don’t know the age of the young child at divorce) And both of these single fathers are in the service no less.
catsix, some of your arguements are great in theory. In fact, in a theoretical world, I agree with you - in my perfect world, there would be no unwanted pregnancies, and nobody would be forced to support, financially or otherwise, an unwanted child.
But we don’t live in that world. We live in the real world, where contraceptives fail even in the best of circumstances.
How would we enforce this thing you propose - that if a woman chooses to have a child, she raises it with no government support? What if that woman is young and doesn’t have the skills to get a job? What sort of system ensures that the parents of a child make enough money to raise those children? Is $20K/year enough? That would provide a low level of food, housing, and clothing in some areas of the country. Or should it be more? What if the parents made $50K/year at the time the child was born, but then the primary bread winner became disabled and the income went down to nothing? Should the children be taken away at that point? What government authority gets to decide who is rich enough to have children and who isn’t? Do only the rich get to reproduce?
If said unskilled young woman is pro-life, and thus does not believe in abortion, what happens to the baby then? Is it forcably taken from the mother and put up for adoption?
I’m really curious. Please expand upon your ideas. I would love to see a workable system in which both parents are given an equal choice in whether or not to raise a child, without the taxpayers as a whole given the burden of raising low-income children.
My brother, who has had sole custody of his now-11 year old daughter since she was born. It took three years of legal action to terminate the biological mother’s rights.
My friend Monti, whose wife left him with a six-month old baby, then came back and tried to get custody of their daughter. The ex-wife’s parents testified on Monti’s behalf.
Right, women have abortions in vast numbers because they want to avoid the physical aspects of pregnancy.
Give hauss the option of taking on all the physical aspects of pregancy for 9 months in exchange for letting him off the hook financially for the next 2 decades, I’d bet dollars to donuts that he’d take it without hesitation.
While I’m sure some (even many) women choose abortion purely because of the impending 9mo pregnancy, I think the vast majority choose abortion because they don’t want what will come AFTER the pregnancy. Do women who abort and later have children choose to do so because they’ve come to grips with the 9mo terror that is pregnancy, or do they choose children because they’re finally able to deal with having a child?
My problem with the father just being able to walk away is this question: Is there a time limit on making this decision? What if 4 or 5 years down the road Daddy of the Year decides, “You know what, this just isn’t for me. I’m outta here.” Is he still able to walk? Mom has made the decision to still be mommy, so why shouldn’t he be off the hook? Or as someone stated somewhere else (could I be anymore vague) what if daddy said he’d help incase of a pregnancy, but 2 weeks before birth changes his mind? Is he still off the hook? I’m sorry, but there are too many issues this raises to make it viable.
If you can’t afford a kid, don’t have one. If you can’t afford to have a kid nobody else wants, then don’t have one.
Then pay for it. But don’t expect someone who never wanted the kid in the first place to kick in just because you (generic) really, really wanna keep that baby. Keeping the kid is a choice and the responsibility, financial and otherwise, for that choice should rest on the person who made it.
Why is it less fair to say ‘If you are the only person who wants this kid, and you want to keep it, you get to take care of it all by yourself.’?
They don’t legally have that right now. Does this mean they shouldn’t fight for that right? Women didn’t always have the right to abort, either. Were they wrong to fight for it?
If they choose to go ahead anyway, they don’t get to piss and moan about then having to give birth. Because they knew the risks going in, and freely chose to go ahead.
She made the choice to do all those things. If that’s not what she wanted to get herself into, then maybe she shoulda thought of that before deciding to be a single mom.
I suppose you stay out of abortion discussions?
I found out about it after the whole thing already happened. In fact, I didn’t meet him until about a year ago - well after all the shit she pulled. I found out about the shit she pulled at a family dinner, and thoroughly let her have it.
Why don’t you bitch at the people who agree with what I said on this topic instead of just me? I’ve got every right to my opinion, and I’ve got every right to lobby my elected representatives to support my opinion. You don’t have to agree with it, but you don’t have to be a fucking drive by bitch about it either.
It’s what, end of first trimester for unfettered abortion access to women? Would be fair to me if he got say, 8 weeks from the date he knows of the pregnancy (to account for the fact that most women won’t know they’re pregnant the instant implantation happens).
Well if she can’t afford to keep it, looks like she needs to give the kid up for adoption. Wasn’t that fairly common during the Depression?
Of course he would be, and no, it’s not functionally different from placing the child for adoption. There’s one fundamental difference, though- she can do this (take the child to Safe Harbor) without his permission. At least with adoption, she at least has to pretend to get the father’s permission.
Should Hauss be allowed to take the child to Safe Harbor, against HER wishes?
Is there ANY justification for this sort of inequity? And if anyone parrots “Well, he shoulda kept it in his pants!” or “He made his choice when he fucked her!”, I swear, my head will physically explode. It’ll be messy, and my employer will send you the bill for cleaning my desk.
Yeah, Hauss is being a jerk about this. But he’s just a kid, and he’s scared.
Seventeen years ago, I went through exactly his situation. My ex got pregnant, we agreed to put the kid up for adoption. She changed her mind, though- and suddenly got to make all the decisions. We got married, and less than two years later, she left me for my best friend- and I went from being a full-time dad to being strictly every-other-weekend. I paid (am still paying) child support- to, effectively, pay someone else to raise my son for me. I love my kid, but, dammit, it’s a terrifying situation for someone that age to face- that, suddenly, someone gets to make decisions for you that could keep you in the poorhouse for the next eighteen some-odd years.
Yes, I’ve seen it too, and it was a guy in the Navy that I worked with. He got custody of his two young daughters. He decided to fight for it, and he got it. And the mother was not unfit, though she was considered at fault for the divorce, which helped his case. The kids stayed with her when he was at sea.
I know this is the pit but cite? I know a few women who’ve had abortions because they were unable to cope with the physical consequences of pregnancy.
Why a woman chooses to have an abortion is not as important as the fact that she is the one physically responsible for the pregnancy. If men got pregnant abortion would never be illegal.
If Hauss can’t be bothered to copulate with a woman who is agreement with his baby making time table the least he could is support the kid.
It disgusts me that anyone would feel sympathy for him. I reserve that empathy for his poor child who will not only likely grow up facing increased odds of poverty but also apparently fatherless.
catsix, I’ll try one more time and then give up. You seem to have no problem telling a woman to give away her baby if she can’t pay to support it, while you recoil in horror at the idea of telling a guy not to have sex if he can’t support the children which may result. Why is the injustice of an undesired financial expense so much graver to you than the injustice of raising a child alone with no financial support from the other person who helped make the child?
The situation is inherently unfair. No matter what. I can’t understand why you seem so outraged by a man facing any undesirable consequences of a mutual action.
Please elaborate. I have difficulty understanding how a woman who may be financially (and possibly effectively) incapable of raising a child, still choosing to do so, is a legitimate decision.
While I agree with everythingcatsix is saying, I wonder how she would feel about the situation I found myself in about 5 years ago.
My ex wanted an abortion and I wanted to have the child. Naturally, I was fucked. I could not have the child and there was nothing I could do about it. How would it work if the man wants the child, but the woman doesn’t? I agree with your stand on the man not wanting the child, but the woman does; but I am curious how you feel or how you would suggest it be handled if the roles are reversed.