Hypothetical Sex Morality Question

The BBQ Pit
21

Even though you said he should sue the clinic to get the money, why do you say he should pay in the first place? He wasn’t choosing to have sex, and therefore wasn’t taking on the responsibility of it’s consequences. When semen is donated to a fertility clinic, the donator’s repsonsibilities to any future child that might be conceived with his semen are gone.

As far as proving the woman did steal it and they didn’t ahve sex, well, it’s probably not that ahrd. Investigators can tell from interviews who is lying and woh isn’t, most likely. That, and some of his donation will be missing, adds up to the bitch stole the sperm.

22

Wow. This IMHO could be the most entertaining, important and enlightening thread I have ever opened.

But after I come back all day it only generates 20 posts ?

But I enjoyed each and every one.

Its one of my most intense peeves.

I really think young men are getting the shaft these days.

And nobody cares (20 posts all day)

According to

lno, Ferret Herder, WhyNot, Mangetout, eleanorigby, they say " tough, the sire should accept any consequence as the result of the choice of the dam". I’m afraid most dopers feel that way. I’d be very interested to find out if any one of these posters would consider themselves as conservatives. I’m expecting not one.

But as the thread appears to be pretty much against the OP, a few “conservative” dopers chime in and provide more ballance to the issue. I’m talking wiggumpuppy, Shodan , bouv, and Bricker I think.

Why is this a conservative-liberal issue? Why can’t you liberals give the boys the same due consideration to girls when you support their right to kill fetuses if they do so to improve their financial future? So secretly giving a woman a pill that most likely is safe(FDA approved), is bad, but outright killing a fetus is a right only attributable to mother, that must be protected at all costs.

I certainly don’t advocate a retreat vis a vis the abortion issue. It just amazes me how little sympathy most dopers are prepared to offer our young sons who are extremely vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

23

My reasoning is roughly as follows:[ul][li]The child as conceived is entirely blameless, and deserving of support. Thus the only one in the situation should not suffer would be the child. []The default on “who should support a child” is, in my opinion, his parents. []The mother is apparently willing to support the child. Thus, her bad acts in stealing the sperm and violating the father’s privacy should be allowed to interfere with supporting the child. []The father, however, is a more complex case. He wanted to proactively renounce his responsibilities for supporting his children by donating his sperm to a sperm bank. []He knew or should have known, however, that his sperm was going to be used to produce children. []The circumstances under which his sperm was so used were clearly not those to which he agreed when he donated. []This does not allow us to shift all the onus of child support back to the woman, because that would cause the innocent child to suffer. It is, or should be, difficult to renounce the responsibility for supporting your children, regardless of the bad acts of its parent. [/li]
The situation is somewhat like a birth control failure. I perhaps took reasonable steps to try to prevent myself from being on the hook for child support. If those steps fail, even under unusual conditions, I am still responsible. [li]Therefore, the (very minor) factor of implied consent in knowing that the sperm could have been misused means that the father, even unwillingly, is responsible for supporting his child.[]The clinic, however, allowed the receptionist access to the sperm and records such that she could pull this off.[]This was a violation of the trust between them and the father, and a proximate cause of the whole situation.[*]Thus the clinic must make good the damage to the father they allowed.[/ul] The key element here, in my opinion, is the semi-implied consent of a sperm donor that his sperm is going to be used to create children, and my belief that his renunciation of responsibility for his children can be overcome by an indication that sustaining it would harm the child. [/li]
I grant you it’s a tough hypothetical. Bricker is good at that.

But if the father pays, and turns around and collects from the clinic, the child is supported, and justice is upheld. The woman would have to be punished separately, in some way that does not harm her child.

IANAL, so I am arguing about morality, not law. I haven’t any idea how it would play out in the courts.

Regards,
Shodan

24

Uh, no. WhyNot (and probably the others, but I won’t speak for them) thinks he or she should have another condom, go get another condom, or not have sex. What the (breathe - not in the Pitt) blazes is double-standardish about that?

I have great sympathy for those who use birth control and get pregnant anyway. I was one of them. I have ZERO NONE NADA sympathy for those who don’t use birth control and then are shocked when they end up pregnant.

I have great sympathy for men who were under the impression (whether true or false) that their partner was using birth control, and they end up pregnant anyway. But the way our social contract is set up, she has the choice to abort or not and he must go along with her decision. It’s one of the few things that really sucks about being a man. I’d trade it for female genital mutilation, work pay inequity, less accurate medical research, higher rape chances, cervical and breast cancer and death in childbirth.

25

Well Shodan, I think you should consider the fact that the sperm donor did not actually insert the sperm.

I think perhaps the techie who inserted the sperm should be liable for paternal obligations with no consideration for the origin of supply.

And WhyNot admits our legal system favours women over men in order to provide ballance against nature’s inequity towards women.

26

Grienspace, in your example, the man is certainly obligated to support the child, and certainly cannot drug someone without their consent. She ripped the condom? She told you she was on the pill? Doesn’t matter. You put your penis into her and injected your genetic material into her. If you didn’t want to run the risk of making her pregnant, you shouldn’t have put your penis in her. Simple. Case closed. You cannot assault her, or drug her, or force her to undergo medical procedures later, just because she talked you into depositing your DNA in her vagina.

The sooner we get over the notion that you can have sex without risking pregnancy the better. Pregnancy is a predictable consequence of sex, even if you take steps to try to minimize the risk. Sex makes babies. I guess they don’t teach that to kids anymore…

27

No, what I’m saying is that it’s painfully, amazingly, mindbogglingly stupid to screw some chick without a condom on - especially if she (oops) put her nail through the first one you whipped out. Did you miss my comment above about “the pill” not being protective against STDs? HIV is on the rise among American teenagers and young adults, and there are other STDs out there that can mess up your reproductive system or that can hang around with you the rest of your life!

But hey, thanks for jumping to conclusions. I doubt you’d like it if I characterized your position as saying it’s OK to maybe kill your sex partner by slipping her some morning after pills.

28

Exactly. Birth control isn’t foolproof, so even if several methods are used simultaniously, pregnancy can occur. (This happened to someone I know.) There is no 100% guarantee that sex between two fertile people won’t result in pregnancy.

This whole liberal/conservative thing is also bogus. I’m centrist with right-leanings and I think that it’s too damned bad—if a guy willingly has sex with a fertile woman, he’s taking the risk of being a daddy, no matter how many forms of birth control they use. There’s always that risk that birth control will fail.

29

I understand and agree. I’ll go even further along with yosemite and say it is stupid to screw some chick even with a condom, if you don’t want parental responsibility.
But you and WhyNot have not challenged my assertion that you are quite content with allowing a woman to take full advantage of a boy to ensure a partial slavery for a couple of decades.

In my example I stipulated that the woman claimed it was her first time.

:rolleyes:

30

Well, maybe 'cause you didn’t assert any such thing until now.

(Would someone PLEASE move this to the Pit?)

Frell you. I never, ever said any such thing. The only way this could possibly happen was if the woman raped the man, which is NOT the case in your OP. If the woman raped the man - and rape includes coersion, force or the administration of mind-altering substances, then he should not have to pay child support. Sure. I’ll give you that one. But that’s not what you suggested in the OP. In the OP, your hypothetical sorry ass was overcome by hormonal urges and seduced by a pretty girl. There’s no excuse for that.

Take some fucking personal responsibility.

And, before you go there, yes, I think having an abortion if you’ve used birth control and it fails IS taking responsibility for some women. For others, having the baby is taking responsilbility. It’s her choice.

Who the hell cares? Why would you believe her? Was it *your *first time? Did you think it was okay to infect her with something from your dick just because she was feeling randy? Not every STD has symptoms, you know. Wear a condom to protect other people, not just your selfish ass.

Stop putting words into my mouth. The next time you do so, I will report you.

31

And believing that is pretty stupid too. Not to mention that you might realize she’d have to not care that you might have STDs.

You haven’t replied to the part that yes, you would be breaking laws by dosing her.

If you don’t want to risk getting a disease or producing a baby, don’t have sex. Hell, with my exclusive boyfriend for the first few years (maybe longer, I forget) of our relationship, we used condoms and the pill, reliably.

32

True. But both in your example and in Bricker’s, the sperm donor willingly ejaculated in full knowledge that his semen would or could be used to make babies.

My suggestion that the father should pay child support first and recover from the clinic second is based on my belief that the child deserves support. In Bricker’s example, the woman inseminated herself. In yours, the father inseminated his partner personally. Thus in both examples there was a degree of implied consent.

Semen makes babies. That’s what it’s for. Birth control and abortion and so forth are all imperfect attempts to break that connection. I am not arguing that breaking that connection is immoral, I am saying that it cannot be guaranteed to work. And when it fails, both partners are responsible, and cannot evade that responsibility by simply wishing to do so.

I don’t see that either, at least in your example, and not very much in Bricker’s.

It’s like the joke about involvement vs. commitment. In a bacon and eggs breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. Women get pregnant; men don’t. Women are always committed, in that sense. Men don’t get to disavow their involvement just because they want to.

The legal system isn’t unfair. Life is unfair, the legal system reflects that. If you don’t want to pay child support, don’t get a woman pregnant. Uncoerced sex always carries the risk that you might be supporting children.

If you want to posit an example where I am walking down the street, and I am kidnapped, drugged into unconsciousness, and some deranged woman uses a probang to collect my semen completely without my consent and impregnates herself, then fine, I shouldn’t have to pay child support.

But “she lied to me about the Pill, and she won’t have an abortion” is not a good enough excuse. If you are grown-up enough to have sex, you should be grown-up enough to realize to what you are making yourself liable.

Sex causes babies. Babies need support. Deal with it.

Regards,
Shodan

33

Oh, Go take a pill.

I suppose you feel Vili Fualaau, Mary Kay Letourneau’s lover should be responsible for child support ?

34

What’s to reply? I asked a question and you simply said yes. Is there a question on your part there?

35

Your skills at debate, sir, are beyond mention. Thank you for taking the same time and care to reply to our arguments as you do to invent them. Your ethical constancy is sure to be rewarded. :wally

Why ask the question if you didn’t want answers? This thread is not a hypothetical, it’s a platform for your unsupported and unsubstantiated beliefs, disguised as an honest discussion, created to decieve posters. We have a word for that around here.

36

Not any longer. My question about the thought behind this question has been answered - you were more interested in a Great Debate than a General Question (or an IMHO, IMHO).

37

Good manners would dictate that you wipe her off afterwards.

38

This thread has veered into Pit territory.
Off it goes…

TVeblen
Pit/IMHO mod

39

I’m moving this from IMHO to The BBQ Pit for obvious reasons, but I’d like to say something first.
I’m very disappointed in more than one of you for the direction this thread has taken. It’s pretty damn obvious that this thread was started in IMHO, but you were too willing to drag it into Pit territory without a second thought. I’d ask why, but all I’d probably get back are variations of “Well, [s]he started it!” Instead of passing out official warnings to all who played this childish and petty game, I’m simply going to advise you that

  1. Nothing forces you to respond to a post you find offensive with an equally offensive post except your own ego.
  2. If you must respond to such a post, try using the “Report This Post To A Moderator” button.
  3. Grow up.
40

It looks like the thread was moved while I was writing my response.
Thanks, TVeblen.