In the Baby M Surrogacy trial, the genetic father was portrayed as some guy whose only contribution to the child was “jerking off in a cup.” He and his wife’s anticipation of, hopes and dreams for, and preparation for the baby were considered insignificant and even mentally unsound. Some groups referred to Dr. William Stern as “Mr. Sperm,” and surrogate mother Mary Beth Whitehead went so far as to call him a “sperm donor.”
A quick Googling revealed a few verses that can be used by either side.
Of course, it depends on the bias of the websites’ authors.
Cool your jets. I don’t disbelieve you, and I’m not calling you a liar. I just don’t agree with the interpretation. Bearing false witness and lying are two different things. At least, IMO (and the opinion of the ex-seminary student who pointed it out to me). This is not to say I endorse lying; just that I don’t believe it’s the unholy sin it’s portrayed to be.
I wonder if, in some way, the women who come back and protest clinics after they have an abortion think they are doing penance for their “sin.”
A good biscuit can be made just about anywhere in the country. Why do southerners think they have a monopoly on them? We have low-gluten flour and pigs in California, too.
Personally, I prefer a fresh bolillo.
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Catholic Catechism teaches that it is an injunction against lying, in general, but there are other sources of that injunction in the Old and New Testaments.
Again, speaking within the context of Christian belief and assuming that the parties involved are Christians, abortion is addressed indirectly. We already know about “Thou shalt not kill” (or “murder”, depending on translation). Elsewhere in the Bible (I don’t have chapter and verse handy) God Himself speaks and says, “I knew you in your mother’s womb.” This is where we get the belief that life begins at conception, and thus the belief that an unborn child, as a human, is just as protected by “Thou shalt not kill” as one who has been born.
Sweet deal for the guys, eh? They get “ultimate” consequences–whatever that may be (and since we none of us KNOW if there is a hell/heaven, there’s as good a chance that there isn’t one as there is one.), but the women get immediate, longterm, permanent consequences. I don’t buy your argument because of this stance alone. Males are NOT held as responsible as females for unwanted pregnancies in our culture. I absolutely agree that they should be and that condoms should be given out like candy and their use encouraged, but that doesn’t happen–enough(or at all in some places).
A girl/woman I know (she just turned 20–she’s an infant when it comes to life) just had her baby. It’s hers because the father of this child didn’t mind fucking her in the least, but has made sure to tell her (and her family and his parents) that he plans to “never finish college so that she cannot collect a lot of money from him.”
She works part time as an usher at a movie theater and is in an AD program. Her schooling is now put on hold while she recovers from a C section. “Dad” has not spoken to her since she told him she was going to have the baby.
Clearly the guy has issues, and I believe strongly (as does her mom) that this girl/woman should have had an abortion. His parents want it all to go away. It’s a huge mess and I pity my friend (the girl/woman’s mom). I have watched over the last nine months as her world has gotten smaller (in terms of options and choices) and his has remained unchanged.
Yes, he’s a thoughtless, irresponsible prick, but he GETS to walk away. Even if they do manage to pin him down re money–they will have to fight for it, every step of the way. And then there is the baby girl, who is now raised without a father–not a dead father, but one who wants nothing to do with her. I’m sure that won’t effect her at all. Some people have had the nerve to say to this girl/woman that she should be grateful her family hasn’t kicked her out of the house! This is reality for “unwed mothers”(there is a place nearby that still calls them that), I don’t care how sentimental single parenthood is made to seem by the Hallmark channel.
I have no sympathy for this guy whatsoever. It’s one thing to be entrapped by a woman who has lied about her birthcontrol or something. But even then I have little sympathy for these guys. If you can’t trust her, why are you in bed with her? If you’re not absolutely SURE of her BC–use a condom. Better yet–use a condom anyway, it helps prevent all those pesky STDs. Maybe if a man stopped thinking with his dick about the next 7 minutes, and considered the next 17 years or so–that’d be a huge cultural shift. Like that’s going to happen anytime soon. :rolleyes:
I am starting to rant, so I’ll stop. Until we have a society where men are not casual about the consequences of sex (and where there is no fear of female sexuality), it will continue to be the women who “pay the price” for unwanted pregnancies.
(bolding mine)
So unwanted pregnancies are solely the result of men thinking with their dicks, eh?
So much for “fear of female sexuality”. According to you, it doesn’t exist…
Who said anything about heaven & hell? I was talking about consequences during his natural lifetime. I could have said “eventually” as easily as “ultimately”. He’s got the same risk of contracting an STD, experiencing feelings of guilt, and fear of getting caught, and any number of other possibilities.
To wit:
This shithead right here has openly stated that he’s opting for self-imposed consequences. He’s choosing to not finish college so that he’ll deliberately make less money for her to “collect” from him? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! As for her having to fight for it, that’s what court orders and wage garnishment are for. What’s the guy going to to - spend the next 18 years unemployed so that he doesn’t have any wages to garnish? See how long his worthless parents support that, and how long before he figures out that other women won’t want anything to do with an unemployed, irresponsible bum. Nope, no consequences there for him :rolleyes:
Also, what Really Not All That Bright said. Clearly, this young woman had no hand in getting herself pregnant.
13 years now, my ex has been working for cash under the table so he has no reportable income for the state to garnish. He’s lucky to work in an industry where he can (illegally) do that and support his wife and their children quite comfortably.
No, I haven’t seen any consequences for him, unless you count living with me and my mother for 3 years. *That *must have been uncomfortable. Perhaps that was why he stole $4000 from me for hookers and blow while we were still an item, bless his heart…
ETA: but yes, I agree that anyone playing the “he knew pregnancy was a possibility when he fucked her!” card is playing right into the anti-abortion trap: so did she. If she knew it was a possibility, even with birth control, then why should she be entitled to abort?
You have my sincere sympathy. In your ex’s case, he’s put himself in a situation where, come retirement, he’s going to have a painfully small Social Security check, since SS payments are based on lifetime reported income. And I would assume that an employer who pays somebody under the table is not providing its own retirement plan, or health insurance. And what happens should he happen to be injured on the job? State Industrial Insurance isn’t going to cover the bill, and such an injury would likely trigger some sort of investigation that would uncover what’s been going on. At which point the IRS is going to demand back taxes, and the agency in charge of collecting child support is also going to swoop down on him. At which point he’ll be officially screwed.
Consequences are not always immediate, and don’t necessarily always appear to be related to the original bad behavior.
Ahhhh. Am I a terrible person because the thought of all that makes me grin a little?
What industry is your ex in, anyway?
The only reason an employer would agree to pay an employee under the table is if the employer had a bunch of cash income that he isn’t reporting to the IRS, and he needs to spend it somehow. So it’s not just your ex that’s crooked, it’s his employer. It’s always in an employer’s interest to pay employees over the table, because wages are a business expense, and businesses pay taxes on profits. So the employer is getting paid in cash that he doesn’t report to the IRS, and one of the ways he spends that cash is paying your ex.
So why don’t you call up the IRS and explain the situation to them? Your ex and his employer are both tax cheats, and if your ex makes a comfortable living that’s called “no visible means of support”. The IRS will ask how he pays for his house and car and cable bill, and he’s going to point to stacks of cash, and the IRS is going to ask why those stacks of cash weren’t listed on his W2s.
Trucking/delivery. Local stuff. Yep, lots of bars and restaurants handing over lots of cash. Not all of it makes it into the ledgers, I guess.
Why? 'Cause I’m a pussy. Also, I don’t really *want *my son to have a relationship with him, to be honest (although if my son ever asks to meet him, I’ll arrange it.) I can’t see stirring up that kind of shit and not having him stir back, if you know what I mean.
Because it’s her body. Duh. The guy’s decision is final at the moment of ejaculation because that’s when the issue ceases to involve his physical body and involves someone else’s. It doesn’t stop involving the woman’s body until it’s born or aborted or miscarried. Biology dicates that the finality of the decisions be made at different times. If that doesn’t seem fair, well…the biology isn’t fair. It already isn’t fair that the man doesn’t have any physical consequences from pregnancy.
And depressing. I hope these women get some serious counseling.
You do know the IRS offers a reward of part of the back taxes collected (sometimes, it is after all the IRS) if you turn him in. Maybe you don’t want to for … three years or so?
(I hate tax cheats).
hiccup- delete the double
Diogenes and others could do a better job, but, just a couple:
In Exodus, when God is giving laws, He does not equate the killing of an unborn child with murder.
If the woman had been killed instead of just caused to have a miscarriage, the penalty for the man responsible would be death.
There is one interpretation which, not knowing Hebrew and not having studied the matter in depth, I can’t expound upon but only mention the theory- that in Numbers 5 the passages detailing how to treat a woman who has had an extramarital affair in order to ascertain her guilt and purify her may be suggesting that she be given a potion with abortifacient qualities. If she is pregnant with an adulterer’s child will cause her major injury and render her infertile (contrary to the historical romance novels, even the “safest” and most effective of the potions to end pregnancy made a woman violently ill). This is not the only interpretation, I remind.
However, the Bible never speaks against abortion specifically even though it deals with everything from menstruation to circumcision and all in between. Also, orthodox Jews, who have spent thousands of years studying the OT in its original language, regard life as beginning at birth. From Ask the Rabbi:
This is not to say that orthodox Jews all think alike or that none have ethical problems with abortion, for many orthodox Jews are pro-Life, but that their religion does not consider abortion on par with murder or miscarriage on par with death. Generally, abortion is a pragmatic matter to them, but with most abortions it is an ethical gray area and in some cases (the usual rape/incest/endangerment and others) it is even considered quite permissible.
I did not say this girl was not responsible for getting pregnant. She and he share equally in that. To me, it doesn’t matter how it happened–the fact remains that there are unequal burdens as soon as conception has occurred. Some, as has been said, are unavoidable, but some are not. Ultimate or eventual consequences–what are those? That a kid with his eyes and knobby knees is walking around on the planet somewhere? What a tragedy for him. I’m sure he feels it every day.
This college guy (who dropped out of Duke) obviously has issues. I don’t see his upper middle class parents letting him starve or (hopefully) allowing him to slack his life away. Apparently he was not reared to do the right thing. What I hope is that this family (the girl’s) gets some type of settlement or arrangement of some kind to provide for this baby girl’s future.
But even then, he does not share the burden equally or fairly. She is the one who has to rear this baby, guide it, keep it warm, safe, fed etc. He gets to do nothing–he gets that choice. Adoption is always thrown out there as an option, (and I know it is a viable one for some women), but like all of the women I know, this girl could not face giving up her baby after carrying it for nine months.
The more hardhearted will say that is her choice, so let the chips fall where they may. But it is not that easy. There is a child here, growing up now without one parent, with a young mother who only has a HS degree. This is a very tough row to hoe and I am royally pissed off that this waste of space guy gets to just walk away. He doesn’t have to deal with any of it–and this is OK with our culture, his family and him. This is not an anomaly–it happens every day.
I have taught my son (now 16; the 9 year old is bit young) to always use a condom, no matter what. I don’t care what the girl tells him re BC; I don’t care if they’ve been going out for 3 months–whatever–he is to always protect himself (and her) as much as he reasonably can. But if the worst case does happen, he is not shirk his responsibilities. I wonder how many parents have this convo with their sons (or their daughters?).
Since this baby girl is 3 days old, this is a hot button topic for me just now. I see two lives if not ruined, then massively effected, mostly negatively by this. And the third person in the triangle is scot free of any daily concern or care. That is just wrong, IMO.