Do you say that any man who does not use his own birth control (meaning, usually, condoms) should be liable for shild support?
But if he did responsibly use BC, and it failed beyond his control, and the woman decides to have the child despite his wishes, then what is your stance on his duties wrt child support? What would you fnd reasonable then? Does it make a difference for you if the guy used condoms or any other imperfect method, or a more failsafe method like a vasectomy?
Yeah, I completely disagree with everyone saying that because women can have an abortion, that means men should have an option too.
Women can have an abortion because it is their body. That’s it. The same reasoning that supports the availability of abortion cannot be used to support an option for men. Different reasoning would be required.
And that reasoning, in my view, is that if it is possible to offer more choices, then that would be a good thing. If a woman or man knows they don’t want kids, and takes responsible precautions, but those precautions fail, it would be nice if we could allow them a way out (in the case of a woman, a way out that does not involve abortion).
It’s purely a money issue. It would be great to offer options, but then we would all be left holding the bill if money was required. Having said that, I think we could come up with a set of conditions under which a person could be deemed immune to child support.
My first thought is vasectomy and tubal ligation. If someone undergoes one of these treatments, and most definitely never wants kids, I don’t think it would put too much burden on society to help pay for the child in case of the very rare combination of sterilization failing, one parent wanting the kid but not having the money for it, and the other parent wanting to give up all contact with the kid forever. It would happen extremely rarely, so the benefit of the option existing would outweigh the costs imo.
What if instead of paying for 18 years, the man simply covers the cost of her pregnancy?
Both men and women can raise children, but only women can have children. So the only difference between men and women is the duration and act of pregnancy.
If the man takes appropriate precautions, he should not have to pay for the child until 18. Because women have an “out”, men should get one too. It is unfair to allow one party to beholden the other one to raising a child if the other one doesn’t want to. Suppose a man can impregnate a women despite any birth control on her part, it would be wrong too.
Men and women are different, but no need to exacerbate the differences. Pregnancy is the only difference between men and women, that should be the only period a man should be forced to cover if he doesn’t want the child. She can end it anytime, but if she chooses to keep it, then it is her choice and her responsibility
Absolutely, because the alternative is to place the blame, responsibility, and expense for the care of the resulting child on another person/people who did not take part in the sex act. I do not want to pay for my neighbor’s failure to ensure that he or she did not prevent conception. Do you?
Are you willing to pay for the unplanned children of careless men/women? How many children? And how many times will you allow a careless man or woman give birth to children dependent on others for care before you say enough?
Since when is life fair? The guy who drives well should never end up in the hospital because of a drunk driver hitting him, but this happens. The guy who is on the good side of the war should never have his legs blown off by a landline, but to happens. Sure, if you use birth control you shouldn’t have kids, but that happens too sometimes.
You don’t always get to script your life. Risk is an inevitable part of living,
Luckily, in actual reality (not crazy hypothetical) land, most guys are at extremely low risk of accidentally knocking up a pro-life lady. It’s an amazingly easy thing not to do.
I mostly agree with you, but a woman doesn’t have to be pro-life to not have an abortion. I probably wouldn’t, but I’m honest about that. I have to admit that it hasn’t come up with every guy, but if it’s something he’s worried about then he needs to ask and I’ll be happy to tell him.
A lot of guys are at a medium to high risk of having kids they don’t want, but that’s mostly their own choice.
My comment meant that the pill isn’t 100%, and sometimes even women who take it responsibly get pregnant. Yes, the pill is a lot better than most other birth control. That’s why I was taking it. I’m saying that sometimes even responsible people can have a birth control failure. I mean, I got pregnant on the damned IUD, while it was still in place. I had to have it removed after my miscarriage.
Most women who use those four birth control methods aren’t going to get pregnant. But sometimes, the methods fail. And I don’t think that women who get pregnant should always be shamed or blamed for it, if they’ve been using the method as directed.
Actually, you, Dopers, and everyone reading this already does that. The poorest parents may get handouts, but *every parent gets tax breaks to help with raising kids. *
What difference does it really make, if I’m a parent and I either get handed 300 bucks every month, or I don’t have to pay 300 bucks tax that the childfree DO have to pay? It still means less money for the community, so, either way the childfree pay for the ones raising kids.
And if, as said here, 40 percent of kids in the USA are unplanned, that is a LOT of kids the taxpayer pays for because of “careless” birth control.
Lynn it most certainly was not my intention to shame or blame anyone who has a birth control failure. And I’m…not entirely sure why you replied to me with that sentiment. I didn’t shame you. I’m sorry if other people have. Tell them. Not me.
You can use birth control to reduce risk of pregnancy to a minimum =/= it’s your own fault if that birth control fails.
I fail to see why stating the former implies the latter.
Because we hold people responsible and liable for the accidents they cause. Because allowing careless men to walk away from their unplanned children without consequence will result in more unplanned children. We don’t reward irresponsible behavior by making it easy to get away with. If a driver causes a wreck, the driver is held responsible. Gun owners are charged if there is an accidental death caused by carelessness or negligence. Why would you exempt careless parents?
I was responding to the implication that a responsible woman won’t get pregnant if she doesn’t want to be. My point was that birth control fails, and when it does, it’s not necessarily because of irresponsibility, which seemed to be what you were saying.
It’s not just carelessness. Accidents happen even to the careful sometimes. But that doesn’t mean you get a free pass on responsibility.
Anyway, I think 99% of this whole debate is moot. I can’t think of a single person I know who pays child support for a child that was a pure out of nowhere accident that they have nothing to do with. I think most break ups and divorces happen when the child is out and about, and then mommy or daddy realizes that being a parent is a lot of work, and being single and childfree sounds like a lot of fun…and that cutting a check once a month is actually a lot easier than actually taking card of the kid and dealing with how having physical custody gets in the way of “starting over.”
Frankly, child support sounds like a pretty sweet deal. I’m going to pay $1,300 a months just to send my kid to daycare. Getting full time daycare, and still being as to party and not having to take time off work when the kid is sick and stuff? And I still get a taste of the parent experience on my terms, and a chance to have a relationship with the kid when they are grown and the work is done? If I were wildly irresponsible and a terrible person, it’d look like a pretty economical choice.
“Carelessness” inasmuch as “Even though I admit to putting sperm near a fertile egg, I didn’t intend to help make a baby; just wanted to copulate with no repercussions.”
I really think the double standard regarding abortion here borders on hilarious. “It’s not fair; she has a choice to abort if she doesn’t want to raise a child but I can’t have a medical procedure to terminate the pregnancy.” But you can have a medical procedure to prevent pregnancy. “Yabbut I don’t wanna. I want her to take care of all my needs and wants regardless of her own health, safety, and morals.”
When I was in college, I had the misfortune of working with several men who said that they planned to treat their wives poorly after the kids arrived, so he would be a divorced dad. One of them said that his family had to live in a homeless shelter briefly after his father left, and I asked him, “Why would you want to do that to your own kids?” His reply? “Dad had a 17-year-old girlfriend.”
:rolleyes:
And then there was the man I dated for a while who said he wanted to be reincarnated as an inner-city black guy, so he could willy-nilly impregnate women (white women, of course) and abandon them without consequences. :mad:
I disagree extremely on that premise. Far fewer women would choose to continue bad idea pregancies if they knew beyond all doubt they could not force an unwilling father to pay for them. You say. “We don’t reward irresponsible behavior by making it easy to get away with.” Well, that is exactly what forcing a man to pay child support for a baby whose birth he never agreed to is. The woman is being grossly irresponsible by choosing to have a child without a willing partner or safety net, but instead of condemning her for it, she is rewarded by giving her part of someone else’s salary.
There is no double standard except the one in your mind about reproductive responsibility. Abortion is a medical procedure that results in a temporary change: the termination of a pregnancy. Vascetomies are permanent sterilization. The situation would only be a the same if abortion meant a woman could never again have a child.
That money is for the child! NO ONE ANYWHERE is giving money to women for being irresponsible.
Children need money to live. If you are a parent, you must pay for your child, whether with time, or money, or both! Both parents must do this. Because childrearing is a gendered avocation in our culture, it tends to be women who do the bulk of it, leaving men in the position of paying with money more often, but this is not the law, and it is changing. In most places, joint custody is the default now, and I (and other feminists who support this) am glad for it.
When fraud is used to obtain child support it is wrong. I do not support it, nor does any feminist I know. When rape occurs it is VERY wrong, and I support prison for rapists. Rapists should not have custody of children, and victims of rape should not be help responsible for children conceived in rape, unless they choose to. I support the state taking custody in those cases. I want those laws to change, and I personally have donated time and money to causes that are trying to bring about that change. It’s a moral tragedy, but truthfully, it accounts for a tiny fraction of child support cases, and acting like it’s an epidemic doesn’t lend credibility to anyone’s argument.
But we don’t, that is my point! There is really not that much difference, from the taxpayers view, between a “normal” middle class couple, be they married or divorced on the one hand, with their 300 dollars tax benefit, and on the other hand, a poor single parent who gets her 300 bucks from Social Security. The latter may feel more outrage-worthy, but that is really irrational nonsense. The taxpayer funds both, and I really don’t see why the poor parent should actually get less financial support then the middle class couple/single parent gets. She sure needs it more. Or should we punish her for…well, basically, for being poor and still raising a child?
Maastricht, you’re missing the point a little bit. The point isn’t that the taxpayer is already paying for both, the point is that many single parents wouldn’t be on public assistance at all if they were receiving child support payments. Taxpayers pick up the tab for unpaid child support obligations to the tune of billions and billions of dollars.