Nonetheless, the necessary factors involved, and consequently the pressures, are different for men than for women. The man can (with the recommended changes in law) walk away from a pregnancy with essentially zero consequences for himself. The woman, on the other hand, must either undergo an abortion, or raise a child alone. And this in a situation where both parties were fully aware of the possible consequences of their sexual encounter.
But only one gets to walk away scot-free. This is fair?
And the woman suffers all the consequences of pregnancy, with its non-zero risks to her health, or has to undergo an abortion, with its non-zero risks. Those are her options. IOW, if she “decides to sign over her rights”, she suffers consequences that the man does not. This is what I meant by talking about biological factors.
No, for reasons listed above.
Not really relevant to the case, is it?
Again, see above. Biology is unfair; laws simply reflect this. Shoving the burden entirely off onto the women does not address the injustice; it merely relocates part of it.
And perhaps you would like to address my point about shifting the burden of unpaid child support onto the taxpayer, who is not at all responsible, instead of the father, who is.
Quite true, but I am not on his side, I am on my own side, tearing my own holes in your claims
Your amazing ability to hand waive his points means no one will get anywhere. (Que the irony.)
You still haven’t actually torn apart my claim, or shown why we should change the situation, aside from the fact that you don’t like child support, or abortion.
As can the woman. Yes, a pregnancy carried beyond a certain point poses health risks. However, that is biology, and those health risks are minimal.
Or, the woman can abstain from sex, use the morning after pill, or put the child up for adoption. The woman would have just as many choices as the man does.
Once again, both parties would be free to walk away scot-free if they desire.
But we are talking about one’s responsibility after a baby is born. This has nothing to do with biology. Once again, this has nothing to do with biology.
No, the laws don’t address biology. They address our value system. Society feels that the laws, as they currently exist, are the best way to provide for children. It is the most practical system. It has nothing to do with fairness or biology. I’m not talking about abortion laws, I’m talking about laws assigning parental responsibility. Nobody is shoving any burden. The woman can make the same decision the man does.
First, society is responsible in more ways than one; but that’s another discussion. Second, I would imagine that the vast majority of single mothers are not on public assistance. Thus, changing the laws would not necessarily mean every “abandoned child” would result in one more family on public assistance. Also, the woman always has the option of putting the child up for adoption.
I suppose it is. But there’s a big difference: as a taxpayer, you’d be paying a tiny fraction of what the man would be paying on his own. $500 a month is a huge burden on Mr. Unwilling Dad, but if you spread that out among hundreds of thousands of taxpayers, it’s next to nothing.
And as the original author of post #90, I think he said it better than I did.
I’d like to re-emphasize the final point of that post, though. Namely: Many people here are advocating letting men opt out of child support if they don’t want the child. Their argument is that “it’s not fair” that women get to choose not to become a parent after the pregnancy begins, whereas men don’t.
Of course, everybody agrees that that’s not fair. The point is, it’s an unfairness built into biology, not invented by the law. Pregnancy takes place in a woman’s body, not a man’s, so women get (limited) control over it and men get none.
All the people hollering that the law should artificially redress this biological unfairness of control that disadvantages the man are overlooking other biological unfairnesses that disadvantage the woman. If it’s not fair that a woman gets to control her pregnancy and a man doesn’t, why is it fair that a woman has to suffer the burdens and risks of pregnancy and a man doesn’t?
If the law ought to give men shared control over pregnancy, by allowing them to evade child support if they don’t want the pregnancy carried to term, then why shouldn’t the law give men shared suffering of the burdens and risks of pregnancy?
Why shouldn’t the law be allowed to inflict on an expectant father physical suffering equivalent to morning sickness and bladder problems and labor pains and all the other disadvantages of pregnancy? Why is the law supposed to redress only the biological unfairness that men resent, and not the biological unfairness that men benefit from?
If you’re really serious about wanting the law to neutralize the unfairness of basic biology, then let’s see you step up to the plate and accept legally-inflicted, and possibly fatal, equivalents of “male pregnancy” and “male labor”. It’s only fair.
I don’t know how you could’ve gotten that impression. The women involved would be free not to have kids they don’t want, just like they are now.
That’s a cute strawman, but no one is saying the law should artificially redress any biological unfairness. I, for one, just think the law should avoid making things worse through the artificial means known as mandatory child support payments.
Because the point is to ensure that no one has to support a child they didn’t want, not to create some Harrison Bergeron world where everyone suffers equally.
Of course it (I don’t know where you got the idea that that is what I’m saying). Pregnancy has its costs, too, but when it comes to deciding whether to abort or to carry to term, the amount of perceived baggage attached to either choice is going to determine which decision will be made. This will vary for the individual. For some women, nine months of pregnancy may carry more costs than an abortion. For others, abortion carries more costs. The issue is not as simple as an either or proposition–either you have the baby on your own (at great risk to you and your child’s well-being) or you abort it (again, at great risk to you).
But remember that the only argument that keeps abortion is legal is the one that has nothing to do with parenthood and babies. The right to control one’s own body–irrespective of fetuses–is the only relevant argument when it comes to abortion, and both men and women are entitled to this right. It just so happens that women get pregnant and men don’t.
It also just happens that abortion stops the chain of events that leads to parenthood. This is an indirect consequence of abortion, legally speaking. It is not its intended purpose. That’s why all this talk about what women can do that men can not is irrelevant. Women can have an abortion for any number of reasons, but in the eyes of the law, that reason has nothing to do with preventing parenthood. Men can not have an “abortion” in a comparable way, because control of their bodies is not what is in question. Their willingness to be parents is. Mr2001:
How do you define making things “harder than they need to be”? Have it your way and you end up making things “harder than they need to be” for people who had nothing to do with the baby-making in the first place (including the baby). How is this fair?
Yes, they are. They’re saying that it’s not fair that women get to choose or reject parenthood after conception—which is due to the biological fact that after conception, everything’s happening in the woman’s body—while men don’t. So they want to redress that legally by giving men the option to reject the legal consequences of parenthood after conception.
I say if you support that, then it’s only fair to make the law equalize the physical burdens of pregnancy too. Oh, and the physical burdens of abortion also. Otherwise, you’re artificially redressing the imbalance that’s disadvantageous to men but ignoring the imbalance that benefits them.
But that can’t be. Most people will always be able to avoid supporting a child they didn’t want, by successfully preventing conception. A few people will always be unable to avoid supporting a child they didn’t want, because their final decision point passed before they knew it or before they decided they didn’t want it.
(This happens plenty to women too, of course, who in many cases don’t know they’re pregnant or can’t afford or obtain abortion services while it’s still legal for them to have an abortion.)
Your complaint is that that final decision point occurs at different times for men and women, because of biological difference, so you want to artificially extend it for men by legal means. Again, you’re trying to compensate legally for the biological unfairness that disadvantages men, but ignoring the one that disadvantages women.
Yes, they are. They’re saying that it’s not fair that women get to choose or reject parenthood after conception—which is due to the biological fact that after conception, everything’s happening in the woman’s body—while men don’t. So they want to redress that legally by giving men the option to reject the legal consequences of parenthood after conception.
I say if you support that, then it’s only fair to make the law equalize the physical burdens of pregnancy too. Oh, and the physical burdens of abortion also. Otherwise, you’re artificially redressing the imbalance that’s disadvantageous to men but ignoring the imbalance that benefits them.
But that can’t be. Most people will always be able to avoid supporting a child they didn’t want, by successfully preventing conception. A few people will always be unable to avoid supporting a child they didn’t want, because their final decision point passed before they knew it or before they decided they didn’t want it.
(This happens plenty to women too, of course, who in many cases don’t know they’re pregnant or can’t afford or obtain abortion services while it’s still legal for them to have an abortion.)
Your complaint is that that final decision point occurs at different times for men and women, because of biological difference, so you want to artificially extend it for men by legal means. Again, you’re trying to compensate legally for the biological unfairness that disadvantages men, but ignoring the one that disadvantages women.
According to what you’re advocating, a man who doesn’t want a child after conception can just walk away from a pregnancy with no legal responsibilities and no personal inconvenience whatever. A woman who doesn’t want a child after conception has to go through either an abortion or else pregnancy, birth, and adoption procedures. I simply don’t see how you can consider that as making things fairer.
I dislike framing a debate like this as a fairness issue. I look at it more from an individual rights issue. However, the above point, I believe is incorrect. The “unfairness” of the issue was created by technology and law. Sixty years ago a woman became pregnant and the course of action was clear. Since that time, abortion has become a safe (and I concede, a physically and emotionally difficult) procedure, and one not without risks. The law has changed and given women the ability to choose whether to have a child or not. This has the unfortunate side effect of leaving the man with exactly the same options(rights) he had sixty years ago, while allowing women to have far greater flexibility.
Becaues this would address none of the underlying rights issues and ignore the first tenet of the hippocratic oath.
Another idea not discussed (that I have seen) is the possibility that a pregnant woman would have a child and allow the man full custody, thereby forfeiting all rights and responsibilities.
Whoops, sorry for the double post. And another point: I trust it goes without saying that we’re all agreed here that it’s certainly unethical for any woman to try to trap any man into fatherhood if she knows he doesn’t want it. Bad, wrong, despicable, dishonorable, unprincipled. No woman low enough to do such a thing deserves to get laid.
However, a child’s support should not depend on whether his/her mother is a sleazebag, so the “but she tricked me” argument isn’t adequate reason for letting men waive their paternal responsibilities.
I think you need to be careful about your arguments. The assertion that pregnancy is trivial can also be used to argue for removing the choice of abortion for women.
Men can use the morning-after pill?
No, as you mentioned above, this is not the case. In none of the cases can women walk away scot-free - either they give birth, or abort.
I doubt you are going to get very far denying in your fourth paragraph what you have affirmed in your first.
Not quite. The laws, as they currently exist, take biology into account. Offering men the option of opting out of child support for children their partners decline to abort does not take biology into account, and would therefore be more unjust than the current.
And most fathers don’t abandon their children. We are discussing those who would like to, and are using the argument of “fairness” - that is, disregarding the biological fact that women are inherently subject to costs that men are not. Which has the net effect of increasing injustice.
This is so well put that I thought I would repost it.
Because, according to the Scott Plaid rule, the minute he starts announcing that he has won an argument, the thread is close to over. If I am just repeating arguments that I have already posted, I doubt I have much more to add.
Before that, though, e.g., in colonial American times, many women did get abortions to terminate unwanted pregnancies. They weren’t as reliably safe and effective as modern clinical abortions, for sure. But it is simply not true to suggest that abortion is a purely modern invention of today’s law and technology that gives women previously unimaginable control over their own pregnancies, nor that the total abortion bans of sixty years ago fairly represent the average pre-modern pregnancy options for women.
As can many of the arguments you’ve made including the “if you don’t want to be a parent, abstain from sex” argument.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
Men can use the morning-after pill?[?QUOTE]
Very cute.
Relatively scot-free. The physical risks of pregnancy are minimal. You also forget that having someone you love have an abortion is emotionally difficult for the man too, and that plenty of women have abortion without much thought. As this site states, 47% of abortions are preformed on women who have had one or more in the past. That’s not to say that the experience was easy for all of them, but it wasn’t enough to change their behavior. I think you are vastly overestimating the number of women who are dramatically affected by their decision to abort a child.
Please read more carefully. The biological reality is that women have children, and thus should be responsible for deciding whether to have an abortion. The part that has nothing to do with biology are the parental responsibility laws.
No, they don’t. They exist as the practical way to provide for children. For example, many men are financially supporting kids that are not their biological kids, and would be forced to pay child support (if taken to court). A legal father may or may not be the child’s biological father. The reason for this is because the law is more concerned with a child being taken care of, then fairness. This has nothing to do with biology. Abortion laws do, child support laws do not.
No it does not. Explain to me how treating men and women fairly would increase injustice. I’m not saying women shouldn’t have abortions, just that it’s unfair to expect a man to be responsible for a woman’s unilateral decision.
Well, if you accept that the point of parental responsibility laws is to prioritize adequate care for children over ideal fairness, then why the heck are you advocating a change in the laws that would result in less adequate care for children?
I’m not really advocating we change the laws. I’m just saying that there’s no need to pretend the laws are fair, and to make such an argument is dishonest.
I don’t think anybody is suggesting that the laws as they stand are fair. We’re just saying that the basic unfairness you’re complaining about here (i.e., women having more choice than men about how/when to avoid parenthood) merely reflects a fundamental unfairness in biology that we can’t do anything about. And that there’s no realistic way to change the law to make the situation genuinely fair, rather than just being unfair in a different way.
No one is entitled to have someone else subsidize their choices. Having to pay out of your own pocket to raise the child only you wanted is no less fair than having to pay for the car or the house you wanted. It is a burden, but a natural one: if you want something, whether it’s a Mustang or a cute little baby, you pay for it yourself.
Again, the problem I’m concerned with is legal, not biological. Paying child support is not a biological process or a natural consequence of one, it’s an obligation imposed by law.
Nothing’s stopping them from giving the baby up for adoption if they don’t want it.
Sigh. No, the final decision point occurs at different times because of the law. Before abortion was legal, women and men both implicitly accepted the risk of childbirth when they chose to have sex. Sure, women could have illegal abortions, but that’s beside the point - men can skip out on child support illegally today if they’re that desperate.
Enough speculation about what I’m trying to do. I know for a fact that I’m not trying to compensate for any biological unfairness: if I were, I’d be arguing that abortion shouldn’t be solely the woman’s choice.
It’s the closest thing to fair we can get without radically altering human biology - and if that ever becomes possible, I’ll be cheering for it. But in the meantime, just because women have to go through the biological burden of pregnancy doesn’t mean we should place an artificial burden on men.
