I, In Conceivable do hereby choose to carry any and all agreement conceived by DrLizardo and myself to full term. I am petitioning the court for $400 a month to house, feed and cloth said agreement until he reaches twelve years of age. At that point he can go live with his father. 
Hey, no skin off my back! I’ve successfully copped a walk, got a free ride, shirked my responsibility and otherwise protected my sacred wallet!
Sorry, couldn’t resist… Think we’ve killed this one DEAD. I’ll check back on the morrow to see if anyone felt like adding overnight.
Nytol
Whenever I read one of these “male abortion” threads, which never fail to dredge up the old “keep it in your pants if you don’t want to pay child support” slogans, I’m always reminded of the past thread Pro-Life - Is it about compassion or punishment.
From what I can tell, the difference seems to be that a woman’s right to decide what happens to her body is valued more than a man’s right to decide what happens to his finances, and by extension his limited time on this Earth. A woman can avoid “moral responsibility” for the pregnancy because the sanctity of her body is at stake, but a man cannot because he’s “only” risking a couple decades’ worth of time and money.
Personally, I find it hard to take either side of that argument. Any thoughts?
I’m a guy, and I’d like to think that if I were to knock someone up, I’d take an active role in raising the child.
On the other hand, if I were such a lout that I’d abdicate my parental resposibilities, I’d think a few hundred bucks a month is a small price to pay for not having anything to do with the child.
My rights end when the torpedo leaves the tube. I have absolutely no claim over the woman’s body. To force a woman to have an abortion (directly or indirectly) is as barbaric in my mind as preventing her from having one.
The only hypothetical situtation I can think of where compulsory child support would be “unfair” is if momma wanted my money, but didn’t want me to be involved with the kid. I want an active role in raising any mini-mes.
The woman has the POWER to force a lifelong obligation on a man.
But a man CAN’T force the same obligation on a woman under our current system. How can this POSSIBLY be balanced?
And besides that, how can it be proven where the sperm came from? What if she was a stalker who dug the sperm out of a condom in a trashcan? Why should the guy have to make 18 years of child support payments because of that?
Damn straight Blarron! This thread had me worried for a minute there with all of that understanding and middle of the road stuff. 
WTH? Does this happen to you often? How many people do you personally know that this happened to?
These rare events about women scrounging garbage cans for sperm or raping guys at gunpoint can be handled on a case by case basis in the court system.
Now, What does this have to do with guys that, um, actually have sex with women and get them pregnant?
I’m standing by my original opinion that if the man wants to ‘abort out’ of the whole deal, he should have no more than six months from the time he knows about the pregnancy/child to decide whether or not he wants to have a kid.
If he doesn’t, he walks away without dedicating a couple decades of his finances to someone else’s choice to raise a child and abdicates any right he might have to any type of role in the child’s life.
If he does, then he can be a father, send money, and have a kid, with all the rights and responsibilities of parenthood.
I don’t think it’s in any way right for one person to say ‘I want to have a kid, so I will force you to pay for my choice to raise a child.’ Two trimesters for the guy to ‘abort out’, and after that, either decision is final.
Thanks for playing. The parting gift is clothing for the your strawman.
He shouldn’t. No one has said he should. If you read the thread you would know we are talking about consensual sex.
Well said.
However, it’s not so much that I believe that all people are logical and forward thinking.
I liken it to economics. If the cost of a bag of sugar goes up by $.10 in the supermarket, then x number of poeple will not buy sugar that week. You would be hard pressed to actually find someone that admits or even realizes that they made the decision not to buy sugar based on price, but it does happen.
I think the same thing would happen if you forced responsabliity on pregnant women. Not all of them would be affected, but some would. If they knew that the responsibility of raising the child would fall solely on them, that would factor into the decision whether or not to keep it.
Of course, one of the assumptions that I am making here is that it is better for women not to have fatherless children if they do not have the ability to support them. Also, that abortions are legal.
Sure, under my plan, there would be probably more welfare paid out to these specific women. However, I believe that less women would be having children they couldn’t afford which would have the overall effect of lowering the need for government assistance.
This discussion actually grew out of a separate thread on just that topic - male “rape”…
In any case there’s this issue:
So yet again we see the discrepancy. The woman holds all the cards – why on earth should SHE be able to decide that you shouldn’t be involved in the kid and don’t have to pay, but YOU cannot make the identical decision? We’re no longer talking about her “body” here… Why is it that you feel it’s “forcing an abortion” for the man to opt out of obligation and rights, but somehow it would be merely a “decision” for the woman to decide the SAME THING. However you slice it the bottom line remains that a BOTH parties know the possible outcome of sex – “keep your dingo in your drawers” just doesn’t cut it folks – but the man remains the only person who can be unwillingly saddled with the result against his will.
You are talking about two totally different issues. Comparing apples and oranges.
The women shouldn’t be the one to decide if a man can be involved with his child. The courts should be the ones to decide that. The only true injustice you have hit upon is the favor the courts often show the mother at the expense of the father having any relationship with his child. That injustice is a completely different issue and should be treated as such. I am not sure what the fix should be, but debating that would be a completely different thread.
I think you may be missing an aspect of this analogy. The problem, in the context of this discussion, is that the rewards or punishments are most decidedly not immediate. For instance, what if the price of sugar became deffered next week. That is, you could buy it at the same price as yesterday, but you had to promise to pay an additional $0.10 in 9 (or 3 or 6) months? Certainly many people are able to use deffered gratification in their thinking process, but I think this aspect puts this portion of the issue back in the “most people would be unaffected” situation.
Arrrg.
On preview, pervert beat me to it.
I agree economics is a strong driving force for many things but not so much in this case.
How about this. A business partnership. One partner can saddle both partners with debts without the consent or knowledge of the other. I realize that for this to happen both had to sign some papers. But consider that they met in a bar, had a little too much to drink, and signed some papers without reading or understanding them completely and the analogy might stand up.
Seriously, though, I must put forward that having sex (read: engaging in procreative activity) must be considered in the light of the fact that it can produce children. For instance if the female did not go through a protracted pregnancy we would not even have this discussion. If any sexual encounter could result in a fully term baby in say, 2 hours instead of 9 months, there would be very little angst reagarding the “keep it in your pants” method of avoiding child support. As that would be the only choice.
The fact is, however, that females do go through a lengthy gestation period. This period is frought with <opportunities> for the procreation to be aborted. Some of these are natural (diseases, accidents, and so forth) and some are <artificial>. None of these opportunities releive the male of his rights or obligations to the product of procreation.
IMHO adding a new artificial opportunity for the male to “opt-out” of the procreation has no basis. In other words, having sex is agreement to care for any children that result. I realize that many people don’t view their sexual activity that way (I didn’t for a long time). But IMHO they are wrong. Sex, when engaged in voluntarily by fertile adults, is biologically an act of procreation. And, if that is not controversial enough, I still think both parties are responsible if precautions were taken.
I do have a proposal. How about this for extreme? Any sexual act which results in an unwanted pregnancy should impose sterilization on BOTH parties. :dubious:
I realize that it is a somewhat silly analogy.
I think it does illustrate the idea that some people are affected by cost. I don’t expect that if males had an “opt out” option then no women would ever continue a pregnancy that they couldn’t afford. But, I do think it would make a significant difference in the decision making process of whether or not to keep it.
Also, it isn’t just financial. By “opting out” or requesting an abortion, the father is making it known that he doesn’t want a part in raising the child. This would have significant impact on her decision. Under the current laws a man declaring this is shouting into the wind. Both he and she know that it is a meaningless gesture.
This is where the line is drawn. Having sex is not an agreement to care for children for 18 years.
The morning after sex a woman could take a pill and terminate the pregnancy. For months after that she can have an abortion and terminate the pregnancy. At any of these points, there is a decision being made to continue or not continue with the pregnancy.
At the moment of intercourse, no such decision is being made.
If we need to pick a set time where the decision to have a child is made, I think it makes more sense to pick the moment that the female decides to carry the baby to term, rather than the moment of passion in which the baby is conceived.
Actually, if that’s how partnerships worked, you would have a point. Unfortunately, they don’t.
As someone who is 1/2 of a business partnership at his moment, I can assure you that unlike pregnancy, the paper they both signed, as well as overall partnership law (even if they were drunk and signed a really badly conceived agreement), imposes future constraints on their choices, requires that both continue to provide consent for major decisions, and if those terms are violated it DOES provide the other party with protection. The reality is it’s actually a great example TO my point. If one partner went out and ran up debt, etc. the other partner WOULD have recourse and WOULD be able to abjure many if not all of the consequences of the other partner’s act.
As to your “extreme” proposal… Wow, that’s even better. So a woman and man have sex, she gets pregnant, decides she wants an abortion (regardless of his view which has no legal bearing) and HE ends up sterilized. Definitely an improvement!
I think I understand this position. As I said I used to subscribe to it.
But I can’t seem to justify it anymore. Sex is in fact an action which can result in children. Many things can happen to interrupt that consequence. But IMO the essential action which resulted in the consequence was the sex. Without it none of the other questions are relevant.
And since we are talking about a consensual act engaged in by responsible (OK, responsible might be a bit strong) adults, They BOTH have to bear a share of the responsibility. In the case of the female that includes gestation and delivery af any offspring. In the case of the male that includes support of the female in these activities. And of course both parties are responsible for supporting the child.
All of the choices (abotion, contraception, adoption… ) simply defer or limit, or reduce the liability of the underlying responsibility. And that responsibility stems from engaging in procreation.
Pervert:
While I tend to agree with you, this rather violates the initial premise. The initial premise had the status quo (abortion is legal) as a given, and even indicates specifically that as soon as abortion is not legal (i.e. the woman has an obligation to bear any child conceived) the question is moot.
Basically, you gots a whole new thread there – and if you wanna put it up there for discussion I’ll be happy to join you there.