Doc, I agree with almost everything that you’ve said in this thread, and your point about the partnership analogy is valid, but not for the reason you state.
Generally, one partner can bind another partner. If we’re partners in the Ranardo General Partnership, and I enter into a contract with a third party in the name of the partnership, you’re on the hook.
That doesn’t defeat your argument, though. While you may be on the hook to the third party, you’d have the right to come after me for your losses, assuming that I exceeded my authority/violated the partnership agreement.
I have a right as the father of the child to be involved with the child on some level, barring any contrary decisions by the courts. She can’t “decide” not to let me see the kid unless she can somehow prove that I’m unfit to do so.
If there were a good reason (I’m a junkie, sell Amway, or whatever) to make me unfit to be a parent, I would expect to continue to pay child support.
If there weren’t a good reason, then yeah, I’d have a problem with it, but ultimately I’d do whatever it takes to make sure I had some level of involvement with the kid, up to and including paying unjustly levied child support.
One may shirk one’s rights, but never one’s obligations. Taking an active, loving role in the raising of your child is a right. Making sure your kid doesn’t starve to death is an obligation that humanity, in its wisdom, has deemed cumpulsory.
The act of boinking implies understanding and acceptance of the fact that there is a chance, however small, that one may end up being a father.
That’s all I got time for right now… time to go jerk off in a garbage can next to some money-grubbing crack whores…
Once again, I would urge the participants in this thread to read the this thread, which I linked back on page 1. Because while it’s all well and good to go back and forth about irresponsible men and extra advantages granted to women, none of that has the slightest thing to do with the question of child support. As far as the child is concerned, he really doesn’t give a shit about either one of the useless twits. He just wants and is legally entitled to financial support from the people who created him.
Say it loud, say it proud: Child support is a right of, and benefit to, the child.
I HAVE read the thread you refer to, and I’m sure others have too.
Perhaps the fact that the discussion has not headed that way indicates that nobody else here feels it’s relevant to the OP (which I stated very clearly in terms of the male/female interaction, not the child support interpretation…)
I certainly think your opinion that the good of the child is the deciding factor is valid (I don’t agree), but I don’t think trying to thrust the discussion in a direction it’s not headed is.
It’s been already implied already, but nature set up things in an unfair way. Not laws. You’re attempting to make things “fair” when these is no such animal, not when it comes to mammalian reproduction.
And here’s a newsflash:Plenty of men already opt-out of their parental responsibilities. How will legalizing “opting-out” be any benefit to children? They stand to lose the most from all of this, not their mothers.
yosemitebabe and In Conceivable have made great points that probably bear repeating, but I don’t feel like going back to find them.
Think of it this way: When you skydive, it would be foolish not to consider death as a potential outcome. Right? It would be tragic if you died, but it would hardly be unfair, not unless someone forced you at gun-point to jump out of the plane.
Having sex inherently puts you at risk of being a parent. Even if the woman swears to God’s Momma that she’s using protection, the risk remains! If you have sex, be prepared for pregnancy, just like a skydiver prepares for death.
Women may be extra fortunate in that they can control whether or not their body produces a baby, but they are as much a victim of fortune’s fate that men are when it comes to pregnancy. They can choose to terminate that pregnacy or let it run its course, but that ability doesn’t make her “luckier” than the man. Why not? Because she is the one who gets pregnant in the first place, not the man.
by Debaser:
No, but pregnancy is the direct consequence of sex. If you don’t want to deal with that consequence, then don’t have sex. That can be said to both the ladies and the gents.
You objections over the status-quo seem to stem from the perception that women have an advantage over men when it comes to the baby-making process. If that is so, pretend asexual reproduction was the law of the land and that masturbation carried a 10% chance of producing a mini-you. If you took that chance and masturbated anyway, would you think it was unfair if a mini-you sprouted from you penis and said “Hi, Dad, how’s it going?”
Yeah, it may “unfair” that women can dictate what goes within their bodies–with the side-effect of indirectly affecting the financial status of the men who impregnate them–but it is also “unfair” that they have to get pregnant to begin with.
We all need to be adults and think about the frickin’ kids, and stop trying to making this fair 'n square. Because it ain’t. I realized that when I was 12 and starting bleeding from my vagina. Menstruation is proof that fairness is inappropriate in a conversation about gender-differences.
Oh, well if you want to go on arguing points that are logically and legally irrelevant to the issue of child support, be my guest.
Why not? The child bears no responsibility whatsoever for the decisions of her parents that led to her birth. Why, then, would you privilege the parent’s preference not to support a child over the child’s unquestioned need for financial support?
Actually I’d privilege the parent’s preference to not bring the child to birth. I’m happy to hear your viewpoint, but please try not to mischaracterize mine.
Given that one or both parties have brought forth a child, those as wanted it should support it. Those as don’t shouldn’t be forced to.
When, pray tell, does it happen that the father has the choice “to not bring the child to birth”? It’s a logical impossibility. Daddy cannot have an abortion. Mommy can. Short of committing an assault on the pregnant mother, there is no possible way for the father to “choose” not to bring the child to birth, any more than the mother can “choose” to have a prostate exam. Biology 101, dude. Thus, there is no “preference” for you to privilege over the rights of the child at all, any more than I can privilege my preference for a raise over the rights of my bosses to tell me to hit the bricks.
An analogy for you: I am walking down the sidewalk. You, while driving your car in an irresponsible manner, strike and injure me. You did not intend to strike me, but your passenger saw the accident coming a mile away and never did anything to prevent it. In fact, the passenger was happy to see that I was going to get mowed down, and affirmatively chose to allow it to happen. Hence, there I am, bleeding on the concrete. Do you get to walk away from financial responsibility for the injury because the passenger could have prevented the accident?
After re-reading the original post I guess what I’m really trying to say is that simply dismissing the choice made at conception is not any more sufficient an answer than simply asserting it. I’m just trying to justify the “keep it in your pants” argument that you dismissed so quickly.
If we remove all of the legal wrangling we are left with biology. Barring violence, the only choices men have regarding their children are:[ul]
[li]avoid having sex in the first place[/li][li]abandon the child before or after it is born.[/li][/ul] If we accept that child abondonment is imoral then the man is only left with one choice.
Saying this situation is unfair is like saying that it’s unfair that only women get breasts.
Attempting to “even the field” by creating a new right for the father sounds suspicially like trying to justify abandonment.
My modest proposal:
Parenthood becomes affirmative. If you want to become a parent, you fill out a form stating that you undertake the responsibility for raising the child. Dads don’t fill out the form, the fact that Dad is a biological parent don’t mean nothing via rights and responsiblities. And after the birth, Dad requires Mom’s permission (Or other way around, if Mom doesn’t want to be a Mom but changes her mind).
Q: Is it worth it to have a third thread floating around about whether or not child support should be enforced?
Indeed. Pregnancy is a direct consequence, but childbirth is not. Only one person has any control at all over whether childbirth will occur, so that person should be responsible for the consequences of childbirth.
The difference is that one of those inequities is caused by biology, and the other is caused by law. The law is a human invention and we have the power to change it.
It’s an analogy, not a metaphor. The part where I’m struck down and bleeding on the concrete is analogous to the birth of the child. I’ll let you work out the rest of it for yourself.
First, that’s nonsense. Two people have control over whether childbirth will occur. Neither has sufficient power to make it occur without the contribution of the other. Ya can’t get an abortion if ya don’t get knocked up first.
Second, it’s silly to claim, as you do here, that an actor’s responsibilities vanish if another person has the ability to prevent the consequences of the first person’s actions. If I tell you I’m on my way to Washington to beat up Dick Cheney, and you decide not to rat me out to the Secret Service, you bear moral (and possibly legal) responsibility for the Vice President’s broken nose, but that does not negate my moral and legal responsibility. Actions are attended with consequences, even when others have the opportunity to prevent those consequences from occurring.
Yes. And these threads always remind me of just how right the law is about so many things.
You can go back as far as you want - a child won’t be born if the mother has an abortion, or if she never becomes pregnant, or if she never meets the father at all, or if the father’s parents never met each other, etc. It’s an interesting thought experiment; there are even movies about it, like Back to the Future.
But the question is, if the father is responsible for setting things in motion, why not his parents? Why not his grandparents? You can say children are a forseeable consequence of having sex, but grandchildren are also a forseeable consequence of having children. The only difference is the number of other people down the line who have to make the “right” choice for it to happen.
It’s equally silly, however, to claim that someone who helps set a situation in motion is just as responsible for the eventual consequences as the person with her finger on the proverbial trigger.
For example, a car dealer is definitely out of line if he sells a car to someone who walks onto the lot reeking of alcohol. But for any given person who wanders onto the lot looking for a car, there’s still a chance that person is eventually going to drive drunk, no matter how clean they look or what they say on the lot.
The dealer isn’t responsible for gauging every single person’s likelihood of driving drunk, though; as long as they don’t give him a reason to believe they’ll drive drunk, he can sell cars with a clear conscience. Even though it was his choice to give the drunk driver a car, the dealer isn’t held accountable because he made that choice with the belief that the customer would obey the law. This is especially obvious if the customer explicitly assured the dealer he’d obey the law.
If a woman explicitly tells a man she doesn’t intend to give birth, but changes her mind later, she’s in the same position as the customer who tells the dealer he won’t drive drunk, but later decides it’s OK to drive after 6 beers.
The problem with that analogy is I’m just an innocent bystander, with very little direct control over whether your scheme actually succeeds.
If I may change it a bit: Suppose you figure out that Mr. Cheney will be in a meeting at my office building at 3:00 this afternoon, so you plant a time bomb in my car, and tell me the details of your plan before I leave for work.
At this point, the ball’s in my court–I can accept the consequences, park my car at work, and blow up the building, government officials and all; or I can remove the bomb. Obviously you’re still responsible for plotting the destruction of my car, and you owe me a new one, but only I can bear responsibility for involving the Vice President.
Because they didn’t conceive the child. Simple, huh?
So? You forgive all responsibility. That’s better?
If you tell me you intend to call the Secret Service, but change your mind later, I’m still responsible for smacking Dick Cheney straight in the nose.
The problem with your scheme to avoid inconvenience is that a baby is just an innocent bystander, with no control over whether or not it gets conceived and born. So once again, I could give a shit about mommy and daddy and their various decisions. Sorry, junior’s interests trump yours in every single instance, so long your participation in the act that led to conception was voluntary.
Huh? I did something with the knowledge that it could possibly lead to the death of Dick Cheney, and you ensured that outcome would in fact occur, and that negates my responsibility? Nope, sorry, that’s silly. We’re both responsible when the bomb goes off and Dick takes a chunk of shrapnel straight in the big toe.
What is the natural consequence of pregnancy? If it takes longer than 30 seconds for you to think of an answer, perhaps you need to either take Biology 101 again or stop scrambling so hard for loopholes.
Abortion is not on par with using a condom. The choice for a man to sequester his sperm or not is NOT equivalent in ease to the choice for a woman to terminate her pregnancy or allow it to continue. Not only is abortion life-threatening but it can cause sterility and serious psychological effects. Coercing a woman to have an abortion with the threat of abdicating all male parental responsibilities is simply foul. Not just to the woman but to the kid. You’re giving it two wonderful options: Death or Abandonment. Who could ask for more?
A woman faced with the prospect of an unwanted pregnancy may not want a child anymore than she wants to abort it; but because the man who helped get her pregnant doesn’t want a kid, she has to deal with it all, with no help. The man is free to disseminate his sperm to as many women as he wants, but as long as he signs on the dotted line, he doesn’t have anything to worry about. This scenario is more fair to you than the status quo is?
Hey, here’s an idea. Maybe the law in this particular case shouldn’t be all that conerned about men and women. Maybe it should be concerned about kids getting what they deserve.
Women are enticing men with their sexy bodies to extract men’s Precious Bodily Fluids™. How’d you like to get sentenced to 18 years of wage slavery for one ejaculation? Something’s got to change.
they had both agreed beforehand that should she become pregnant, she would have an abortion, but then she renegs on the deal and decides to have it anyway, then, YES, he should be free of obligation.
