Men's rights in certain abortion cases

Great Debates
81

Wait a in minute. I don’t know this woman. I haven’t had sex with this woman. I didn’t chose to “trust” this woman. How am I and this impregnator similar? Why should I, as a random person pay the same in taxes as he? I have no problem carrying my own weight, I have no problem supporting those in our society that can’t support themselves. I do have a problem supporting another man’s child; because he decided to opt out or pay a convenience fee of 1/2 the price of an abortion and then walked away. Because then the burden shifts to society and that mean ME. …unless we’re talking private institutions, I going to be paying for this man’s child. Who pays for mine? You?

What if he keeps doing it? How many children can one man reproduce, if there’s NO compelling force to make him at least financial responsible? Abortion isn’t an option for all women and I’ve always had a taste for Catholic girls. Now what? Do we create laws, telling me that I can only create X number of children? What if I’m married find out she’s pregnant and skip, does my alimony include child support or can I opt out of that, even though we were married?

I do believe that it’s a limiting factor, if a man believes that the state will make him pay for any children he creates and we still have a problem in this country. Imagine a society in which any man regardless of circumstances can reproduce, say he doesn’t want it and walk away.

Even if the mother gives up the baby for adoption, again the in real world, it’s only certain types of babies are in demand. The rest get taken care of by the state…again ME. So the impregnator AND mother walks away and I still pay for it.

Even if a woman keeps reproducing “irresponsibly”, she’s bearing a burden; be it physical, emotional or financial; pregancy for a woman has a price. She can’t walk away from it, even if she terminates it; because that in itself contains risk and sooner or later she has to stop.

A man doesn’t…there’s that biology problem again. No matter how many laws you want to create, a man is never tied to baby; a woman is, at least until it’s born. Then it can either be their problem or my problem…I say it’s theirs.

Let’s be real here, even if the impregnator pays child support, most likely it won’t be enough to maintain the child, I will still have to support this man’s child. I fail to see however, why my burden should be the equal of his. Further the mother’s burden despite child support, despite my taxes, will still be the greatest of all.

Did she chose it, yes; but she’s paying for that choice and a fair greater price than 18 years of child support.

There is no way, this country will allow men to father children whether they meant to or not pay a nominal or no fee and walk away, leaving the majority of the burden on it’s innocent citizens. ME.

Not going to happen.

82

Here’s a hint. Read more than the phrase you sliced out–read the whole thread–and you’ll get your answer. I’m not going to respond to a rebuttal of 25 words of mine taken out of context, especially when the “quote” deliberately and conveniently omits the rest of the sentence they were in that clarified the position.

Wait, maybe I will, at least to this extent:

You realize that right now, today, in our society, taxes pay for children that parents cannot or won’t provide for, right? Do you believe this practice should cease, regardless of this particular application of it?

83

Diogenes, at this point I’m having difficulty believing you truly can’t understand the difference between arguing why ejaculation marks a physical point of no return related to conception and arguing why this must necessarily mark the boundary of where a man can decide his financial responsibility. I could understand your disagreeing with this notion, but I’m having trouble believing you simply can’t recognize the argument at all. Keep your biology lessons to yourself.

He would take responsibility, by paying for the abortion. Can you respond to this specific point?

She can decide whether to abort. That point is not in question. The question is whether or not her decision obligates the male in spite of his wishes.

Yes, and you seem to accept as a given that intrinsically linked to this “right” is the duty of the male to fulfill a parental obligation. Why must this be so? Hint: Saying he could have just kept his dick in his pants doesn’t answer the question.

84

Loopydude, your debating skills are just too much for me. You win. Ouch.

85

Fine.

Your posit ignores that abortion while legal, isn’t a practice that everyone can or will avail themselves of. Are you now promoting a “state” religion? Must I either turn my back on my Lord, care for my child on my own or give it up for adoption in order to be “fair” to a man, who can walk away?

I say again, I Joe Taxpaper have nothing to do with your choice in partners…we are NOT equal. If you decide to have sex with a person who may not avail herself of an abortion, that’s your problem not mine. I am the last line of defense, not the first. You are the first.

[quote]
You realize that right now, today, in our society, taxes pay for children that parents cannot or won’t provide for, right? Do you believe this practice should cease, regardless of this particular application of it?

[quote]

I think this as in the case of Welfare, people who can work should be required to provide some measure of their own upkeep. Whether that’s school, or work, I don’t care as long as the goal is help them get off of welfare.

I have no problem supporting children who’s parents can’t and I certainly won’t deny children support if their parents won’t. However if Mr and Mrs. Parents have a job, then the state should garish a portion of that for the upkeep. If the mother or the father for that matter has been abandoned, then the state has a right IMO to offset the cost of services, from the other parent’s pocket; before they come to me.

86

holmes, you and I haven’t to my recollection interacted to the extent that Diogenes and I have, so let me clarify my personal beliefs. I believe that abortion is not a right, that the unborn’s right to live trumps lesser rights, and that in an ideal society (that reflected such beliefs), there would be no need to reconcile these issues. Parents are responsible for their children to the extent they are able.

Unfortunately society does not reflect those beliefs, so I’m examining only how people reconcile what seem to me to be conflicting beliefs: (1) women have the right to avoid a financial burden if they choose, while (2) men do not. Again, ALL things considered, I don’t believe either should be able to avoid this. But given (1), how can someone support (2), short of a PC-ish appeal to “that’s just the way it has to be”? Not sure where you stand, but I want to clarify my position. I’m also not going to hijack the thread away from the specific question posed (not that you’re trying to).

I tend to agree with this. Again, just clarifying.

87

Such as the fact it is her body? :dubious: Get serious.

Well, then can always choose to wear a condom, or not have sex. Apparently, however, you claim this is not an option. I am at a loss as to why you believe that is so, in spite of all the past posters questioning you. Now, you have asserted that it, or something like it is the truth. Please elaborate.

88

Just out of curiosity, do the pro-choice people in this thread think abortion is a bad or morally wrong thing to do? If so, why?

89

We haven’t and thanks for the clarification…Your stance seems to be, that unless a woman must carry her pregancy to term (no abortion), then a man should be able to opt out of it’s support. No matter what. It doesn’t matter that he knew she found abortion not to be a right either; all that matters is that some women can abort?

How is that fair to all the women who don’t believe in abortion? You don’t find that a bit of a contradition? Since abortion is legal, you must either have one, or release the father of his financial responsibilty; regardless of your personal beliefs. Abort or swim. That’s a strange way to support the unborn, it sounds more like punishing women for having sex and getting pregnant.

Clarify this for me. Let’s say that there is no abortion and a woman must either care for the baby herself or give it up of adoption. Do I as the father still get to opt out of my financial burden? I mean I still don’t want the baby and she can still ‘get rid of it’, i.e adoption, why should I pay for it? She should give it to the state to take care of and I’ll pay my taxes like everyone else or she’s on her own. Yes?

Of course it’s conflicting; it has to be. That’s what the others have been saying for a while now; the nature of pregnancy can’t be overcome with law or rules. No matter what, the burden and decisions of reproduction will be the domain of the mother…up to a certain point.

The problem with your contradiction is that you’re concerned solely on finances and that’s the problem, pregnancy for women isn’t just a matter of money. Sure some women abort because of finances, and others because of their health…however there are real effects if they carry to term. It can mean anything from a lifetime of povery to death. What’s the father’s biggest concern? Money.

A woman has no choice but to be involved in responsibility of reproduction, once her egg is fertilizied. A man can leave at any point and all he has to do is pay money…maybe.

Is that fair? How do you fix that, force men to stay? Arrest them? Most likely we’ll do nothing.

No matter how you slice it, women still carry the brunt of the burden in having children. If you can show me how you level the playing field from conception to birth, you might stand a chance in showing me of the unfairness to men, in having to pay for their children.

If I had to chose paying a certain amount of money and doing whatever I wanted or be the primary care-giver of a child, my check’s in the mail.

90

Let me see if I can clarify this. The point is that a man has to take responsibility for any baby that is born that he helped to conceive. The last moment when he has any control over the process of conception, pregnancy, and birth is when the sperm leaves his body. (PSA: The phrase “moment of ejaculation” is a convenient shorthand for this, but of course a woman can be impregnated by sperm in pre-ejaculate too.)

Similarly, a woman has to take responsibility for any baby that is born that she helped to conceive. But the last moment when she has any control over the process of conception, pregnancy, and birth is some point in the second trimester, when the fetus’s right to life comes to outweigh her right to control her own body.

The “unfairness” of a woman having a later decision point than a man is simply the unfairness of biological difference. The conception and gestation take place in the woman’s body, which she has a right to have control over (until the fetus is at or near viability, at least).

The legal right to terminate pregnancy is not rooted in the issue of assuming responsibility for a child, but in the issue of controlling one’s own body. A man simply doesn’t have the right to make decisions about a pregnancy in somebody else’s body. And her decisions about controlling her body don’t affect his legal responsibility to support any child of his that gets born. No matter how dishonest, unscrupulous, or downright mean the child’s mother may be.

Yes, it is indeed unfair that pregnancy takes place only in a woman’s body and not in a man’s. It’s unfair that women have to bear all the suffering and risk that it entails, while men don’t have to bear any. And it’s also unfair that men have to lose control of the conception/gestation process earlier than women do.

But there’s no sense in expecting the law to redress those basic biological unfairnesses by allowing men to share control over pregnant women’s bodies. If pregnancy gives a man a legal right to control a woman’s body, why shouldn’t she be legally able to control his during that time? If he expects to share her decisions equally, why shouldn’t she expect him to share her pain equally? Why shouldn’t she be allowed to give him emetics to induce morning sickness, to strap twenty-pound weights to his abdomen for several months, and to have him painfully flogged during her labor?

When it comes to pregnancy, why should the law be expected to artificially equalize only the biological unfairness of control which disadvantages the man, and not the biological unfairness of suffering and inconvenience which disadvantages the woman? That’s exactly what you’re advocating if you argue that men should have a say in women’s abortion decisions, and I don’t see any fairness in it at all.

91

Speaking as a pro-choice person, yes, I think that abortion is bad. It’s a waste and a travesty of what ought to be a beautiful and happy thing. It’s destroying life that had potential to be beloved and happy and meaningful.

However: it is not as bad as pregnancy and birth forced on a woman who doesn’t want them. An early-stage fetus is “life”, IMO, and pretty special and wonderful life too (speaking as an anthropocentrically-biased human being), but it is not a person, and taking its life is not the equivalent of murder. The first prerequisite for making an embryo into a person, IMO, is the consent and commitment of the person in whose body that transformation has to take place. If it’s not what she wants, then end of story.

I would never call abortion an absolute good thing, any more than I would call divorce a good thing. But I believe that both are sometimes better than the available alternatives, and that that choice belongs exclusively to the people who have them. So I would never condemn anyone for choosing to have either one of them.

92

This seems to be the core of your argument so this is what I’ll respond to. You’re premise is false. Men and women both have the right to avoid being parents. They just have different commitment points. The fact that a woman has the ability to make her final decision at a later time than the man makes his does not in any way diminish the man’s own choice or make the outcome any less his own doing. Every man is absolutely free to avoid becoming a parent. He is not absolutely free to go around depositing his sperm in other people’s bodies with any right to expect that the other person is now obligated to respect his wish not to be a parent. His wishes cannot supercede either another person’s body or the needs of any children that he voluntarily created.

93

One more thing, I think that your implication that abortion for women is motivated solely by a desire to avoid a financial obligations shows an overly simplistic and unsympathetic understanding of the reasons that women terminate pregnancies. There’s a hell of a lot more to it than money.

94

I understand that my position is that the law and the public policy reasons supporting the state of law are both reasonable and appropriate – I’m arguing for the status quo. I don’t have any problem with requiring a man to make a decision about having a child before he has sex, and a woman to make her decision after pregnancy is confirmed. I also don’t have a problem with making rules that are for the general good of “everyone” that may have a negative impact on a handful of people. I get the impression that you, on the other hand, fundamentally have a problem with a man and a woman getting to make their decision at different times and with different amounts of information.

Your alternative I don’t like, because it places a man’s financial desires above a woman’s bodily integrity/autonomy. I think there is a hierarchy of values, and we (the collective, societal “we”) have agreed that Jane’s right to control her body trumps Joe’s finances.

Two things: the things you mentioned aren’t relevant, and while we may agree that it isn’t a de facto obligation associated with sex, it certainly is a de jure obligation, and an appropriate one. People are responsible for their actions: Joe’s action in having sex with Jane could result in the same “consequence” for both of them: a baby. Your objection seems to be, again, that because Jane gets to decide what to do after she gets pregnant, that’s somehow unfair to Joe. Maybe it’s the notion that sex is a right. We haven’t talked about that, but maybe that’s the issue: if both Joe and Jane have the right to have sex, the same restrictions ought to be put on them.

I think what I’m coming to is that I don’t have a problem with men and women being treated differently in certain circumstances. If you’re on the other side of this issue, I’m not sure we can reach a consensus.

No, society has the right to demand that Joe make his decision before he has sex. Jane isn’t demanding that he do so, nor is she demanding child support for his child. Society demands it.

You’re right: society could demand that the decision point be placed elsewhere. Why would it do that? To permit a handful of men to keep more money in their pocket while taxpayers support their children? Not a trade off I’m willing to make, and I haven’t heard an argument that persuades me that the line ought to be moved.

It shifts the burden of support from the person responsible for creating the situation to an innocent – either the child or society.

Okay: I’ve bolded our disconnect:

I think this means: If society cannot force Joe to support the orphans in the orphanage, it should not force Joe to support the child he fathered on Jane if he does not want to. To me, that’s illogical. The action Joe took to create a child created a duty to that child. Joe has no such duty to the orphans, so the fact that society doesn’t force Joe to support orphans is irrelevant.

I think your response is: but Joe only has a duty to the child if Jane decides to carry the child to term. Jane’s act – choosing to bear the child in the face of Joe’s objection – is an intervening act that serves to relieve Joe of responsibility for his action. If that’s your position, we’ll not agree on this. I think that someone has to bear responsibility for the child. I prefer it to be those that created the child – Jane and Joe – rather than me.

95

Then so is paying for an abortion. If she wants surf 'n turf instead of government cheese, she can pay the difference herself.

Yawn. “Once again, the girl chose to take his sperm inside her. She has no one to blame but herself.”

Surely you’re aware that no form of contraception is perfect, and unwanted pregnancies aren’t just caused by unprotected sex.

So, are you proposing an exception to the law for cases where contraception failed? That’s 15 out of 100 couples during the first year of “typical” condom use, or 2 out of 100 with “perfect” use (cite).

If one of them has twice as much input in the decision, it’s unfair for them to have equal obligations.

I have a hard time seeing how this rule is for the general good of everyone. Even if we ignore the impact on men who are forced to pay for someone else’s choice, how is it good to encourage women to have kids that no one else wants?

96

Let’s discuss, for a moment, the concept of implied consent. In the context of consensual sex, this has important implications for the party packing the sperm.

It goes like this: if you’re the party with the sperm, and if you have consensual sex with a party packing eggs, then as part of Terms of Use/Terms of Service, you’re accepting the potential liablilities of any and all reproductive consequences of said act of comingling your sperm and her eggs.

Period.

Your “choice” in the matter ends with the initial choice of having intercourse with her.

You see, the relationship is asymmetric: the person doing the actual gestating and delivery has the dominant vote: her body assumes the principle risks of the enterprise.

Yes, it’s not “fair,” but then again, why would you expect equal say when you don’t shoulder equal risk and investment?

If you don’t like the risk, use multiple layers of contraceptives. Or get a vasectomy. Or don’t put your sperm where it might encounter an egg.

97

Can you explain this? They each have the same “input,” they just get to give their “input” at a different time and in a different manner.

Two points: men are not “forced to pay for someone else’s choice,” they are required to support a child they created through voluntary sexual activity. Second, we’re not encouraging women “to have kids no one else wants.” We’re permitting a woman to retain bodily autonomy and integrity.

The unspoken assumptions running underneath all this are pretty bleak. Women are only out for money. They have children so they can sucker some man into giving them cash. Money paid for child support goes into the woman’s pocket for her “surf and turf” and provides no benefit for the child. There seems to be a refusal to recognize that these are the implicit assumptions, and that’s why people are arguing for a walk-away for men. That’s actually really depressing.

I think the bottom line is that people are going to disagree about what’s equitable. I think equity must take into account what’s fair under the circumstances, in light of biology, while it appears that others believe that equity requires everyone to have the same choices at the same time, regardless of their circumstances.

You know, I don’t think people would be very happy if they remodeled the public bathrooms and made them all identical. “But then everyone would have the same choices: a stall or a urinal! Isn’t that grand?” No, actually, it’s not. Because a urinal may work just jim-dandy for a man, but given a woman’s very different biology, putting a urinal in a women’s room acts to deprive women of opportunities. Yes, it’s a half-assed example, but I’m tired.

98

There are a few cases of “Hijacked Semen,” where a dad is rendered by the non-consensual/fradulent access to a man’s banked semen/sperm. In these cases, or in cases where a man is mis-identified as a bioDad, I’d say that he can’t be, must not be held responsible as a father.

But these cases are rare…

99

In a consenting sexual relationship, both the man and the woman have exactly the same input up to the moment of conception. Where does this idea come from that the woman is not involved in the sexual process? Do people still believe that sex is something that a man does to a woman?

100

Sex is not a point of no return for the woman, so that’s not when she has to make her ultimate choice. Nobody said the woman is not involved in the sexual process, but sex is not the demarcation of when a woman loses the physical ability to decide not to become a parent. This is really quite simple to grasp. I can’t understand why some of us are having such difficulty in communicating it. The man’s final choice is made at the moment of ejaculation. The woman’s final choice is made later. What’s not to understand? They both have an equal choice in the matter, the choices are just made at different times.