No, don’t paint it that way, you have control over your sperm too, the rights that need to be gained are in family court, where the mother is the “default” in many areas, things are improving in that area.
As others have pointed out, mate selection, birth control and the right to deny sex are all within the power of a man.
The fact that you can’t command an abortion after you contribute your portion of the biological process is not a problem in my mind.
If I hit someone with my car we can agree to settle out of court, but that doesn’t mean that they are bound by that agreement.
Go bank some sperm and get fixed, improve your mate selection and or wear a condom.
I really don’t care what consenting adults do with other adults but EVERY action in your life has risks. The concept that you want to have unprotected sex with no risks is in no way compatible with my world view.
After two decades of adult life as a serial dater not once have I even considered trying to duck out of my responsibility to a child that may have been created.
But I also made a point to seek out smart women and I worked hard to keep communication channels open.
That is a far more productive line to follow vs. trying to screw over some kid just because you didn’t get your way in life.
If there truly is not enough adoptive and foster parents for the existing children out there, then I will concede my point. Where I live (not in the USA), all I ever hear about is how there are so many parents on so many waiting lists, that they have to adopt babies from overseas. It certainly seems to me that there are plenty of parents willing to take care of unwanted babies, and “not enough” unwanted babies for all the willing parents.
I have no figures, however, and haven’t looked at any studies or statistics in this regard, and so I will concede my point until I can prove otherwise.
If a single-parent wants a baby, but doesn’t have the resources to take care of it, then they shouldn’t have it. If they have it anyways… then fine, the state should support it. If the state doesn’t want to support such things… then it should reduce the incentives for having children, or start a licensing program for potential parents - but other than that I don’t know what else it can do, short of education. I do not believe the state should have the right to force a single person (aka the other biological parent) to help support this child - when this person NEVER consented to taking responsibility for this child. You can say “tough shit, it’s his DNA, so too bad”… but I fail to see how this is AT ALL ethically justifiable. I’d honestly rather (reluctantly) have the state help support the child.
I know someone right now who is fairly old and has a low income. She is getting an anonymous sperm donor, and through a fertility clinic, will get artificially inseminated. She is paying for this procedure herself. The problem is, she might not meet the minimum standards that society expects for child-care. 1) Should she have the child? – no. 2) Should the state help support the child, if she does so anyways? – yes. 3) Should the sperm donor be hunted down so that financial support can be extracted from him? – no. 4) Should we educate people in regards to parenting and the associated responsibilities? – yes.
I don’t know the situation, I suppose, so I can’t really comment.
In my contract example, I would allow a parent who gives up their obligations, to regain them before the child is born.
The kids in foster care are generally kids who have been taken from abusive and neglectful parents, NOT kids who were voluntarily put up for adoption by a birthmom.
There is a lot of resistance to transracial adoption among black people who think black kids should only grow up in black families and white people who are racist to some degree, but in spite of that, INFANTS of all colors that are placed for private adoption do find homes. Adoption agencies don’t dump the kids in foster care because they can’t find a home if the birthmother voluntarily relinquished the kid.
This isn’t really my concern though. It’s more about the fact that a man may not have a choice in bringing a new life into the world. A man can 1) wear a condom, 2) have his partner use the birth-control pill, and 3) have her affirm that she would never carry a baby to term in the case of an “accident”.
But if the woman get’s pregnant anyways (small chance, but it happens) and decides to keep the baby, he now has a responsibility that he never agreed to. Sure there are multiple solutions, as you point out, but none of those options involve surrendering his responsibilities (that he never agreed to) - unless the mother also agrees to such a surrender, through adoption. The point is that the man made a clear and obvious choice not to have a baby. But that choice is irrelevant (“her body, her choice”). The choice that is actually relevant is that of the mother. The mother chooses to maintain the pregnancy, and it’s the mother that chooses to keep the baby after birth. The man has no relevant choice in this situation.
I fail to see how it can be ethically justifiable to give certain responsibilities to the father, based on the choices of the mother. The man made choices too - but they are irrelevant from a biological and legal perspective. The only choices that matter are the choices that the mother makes.
My opinion on this issue is pretty simple at this point, albeit seemingly harsh: Her body, her choice, her responsibility.
Bad example. She’s still not forced into motherhood. She can give the baby up for adoption. If the father knows about it, she can leave his name off the birth certificate, and simply anonymously surrender the child over to the state.
Haha. Seriously? Okay, I’ll admit this is an example that I didn’t think of before. A man and woman can have sex, get pregnant, and the woman could decide to have an abortion because she doesn’t want a baby. The day before the abortion, she falls and hits her head, and goes into a coma that lasts 24 months. The baby is delivered, and the father was present, and so he is now a legal parent. If the father wants to keep the baby against the mother’s will, she can’t put it up for adoption, or really do anything about it at this at this point. To top it off, she recovers quickly, and goes back to her executive job. But while she was in a coma, the father has decided to abandon her, and take custody of the child (and perhaps get a divorce, if possible). He then gets her to pay child support. She’s effectively out of other options.
Hrmm. I will concede, and rephrase to say that it is nearly impossible for a woman to have a child against her will (in the civilized world).
This is irrelevant, however. I can’t go to a court and say I want to surrender my parental obligations because I’ve had a vasectomy and use condoms. This is the man’s choice - yes - but this “choice” is biologically and legally irrelevant if a child is born. The only choice that matters is still that of the mother.
Her body, her choice… her responsibility.
This is all well and good… but if you still get pregnant, you still have choices available to you. You, being a woman, can effectively surrender your parental obligations towards your potential child at any time (even after birth) without the need for the biological father’s consent. You always have a choice to have a child, or to not have a child (short of falling into a coma). A man - if he chooses to have sex - never actually has this choice in any meaningful way.
This is why I see the act of bringing a child into the world as a woman’s choice (short of falling into a coma, henceforth referred to as SOFIAC for brevity). Now, if having a child is a woman’s choice, then I do not understand how anyone can have - other than the woman herself - responsibility for this choice.
I know I’ve posted this numerous times, but I’ll link it again here:
This is a tough one, the woman theoretically leave the father’s name off and then hide the fact that she had a baby with him and then adopt the baby out. Not sure how this could be stopped int he real world but does not effect the majority of babies.
I agree that a man does have the power to prevent any unwanted children. The woman has this same power as well. In the most simplest solution, they could both simply abstain from sex.
However… The man lacks the power to (in civilized countries) make a woman bear a child against her will (SOFIAC). Even if they have consensual sex, the man still cannot make a woman bear a child against her will. The flip side - however - is not quite the same. If consensual sex has occurred, a woman can most certainly have a child against the man’s will.
I’m not suggesting a man should ever have such rights over the body of a woman. The present laws are appropriate in this matter.
But two race-car drivers on a track should be able to sign a contract before the races, that would remove their responsibilities, in case of an accident.
This is all well and good… but these choices are still irrelevant if your mate does get pregnant and does decide to have a baby against your will. These choices will not stand up in court if you were to request the surrender of your parental obligations. Thus, these choices do not matter. It is still solely the *mother’s choice *that matters. Men can make choices that reduce the odds, yes I agree - but I’m not talking about reducing the odds of pregnancy, I’m talking about having the right to surrender your parental rights towards a child that was brought into the world against your will.
You should not be responsible for a choice that you cannot make as a man.
So you are merely generalizing to say that “people should deal with the consequences of their choices”? If so, then I still stand by my above point of view: You should not be responsible for a choice that you cannot make. Why should one person be responsible for someone else’s choice? I find that absurd.
If the kid is gonna get screwed over… then the mother should choose not to have it. If for religious/health/other reasons she decides to give birth, then she can still adopt out the child. If there are willing parents looking to adopt new infants, then I fail to see how that situation would be worse than 2 parents forced to stick together for the sake of an unwanted baby.
I mean listen, it’s totally okay for a man to have an unintended pregnancy… and then decide to work with the mother, and keep the baby anyways. And sometimes it can work out very well for the child. But that said, I do not believe either parent should be burdened with a parental obligation, if they do not want it. They should have the right to surrender such obligations before the birth of a child. Preferably, I’d limit it to the first 2 months of pregnancy, so that if the father doesn’t want it, and the mother chooses to not have it, she can still have the option to legally terminate the pregnancy in the majority of states.
Like I’ve said, several times now, you can’t force another person into surgery at your whim - choosing not to face the known consequenes of your actions is just that.
If men faced the physical burden of pregnancy *they’d *have the choice of abortion.
It’s not fair that women face different choices than men when it comes to pregnancy, it’s not *fair *on either side.
That’s what I mean by saying it’s the worst system except for all the others. Borzo, you’re right to point out there exists an inequality. The system that we have in which a man has no say at all about wether his child will come into existence and a woman has all the control, followed by the fact that the man remains financially responsible is entirely unequal. The worst system.
But your alternative will lead to children being raised in poverty and children wanting to know who their father is etc. It’s not a perfect world where people for whom having a child is a financially (or socially) bad decision will abort or have the baby adopted. As a result it remains the child who will suffer. The other options are worse than what we have.
I would gladly strive for a system that is more equal than we have now, but it will have to be one in which it is not the child who ends up suffering.
Because that is not in the interests of the child. Thatis in the interests of the parents. The parents’ interests are irrelevant. What happens is what’s best for the child, not what’s best for the parents.
And before you repeat it - no, it’s not possible to have every child adopted. Adoption isn’t like selling your second-hand goods on eBay.
It seems clear that you have zero interest in the welfare of the child; your only concern is your own welfare. I’m afraid that’s tough shit; society disagrees with you. It doesn’t care if you feel ignored or wronged. The only welfare that matters here is the child’s.
Do you not think that a change in law might not have significant impact on the number of ill-prepared mothers carrying unwanted pregnancies to term? While this choice is a complicated one that involves familial mores, religious values, individual circumstances, etc.., A woman who knows that she will be on her own will no doubt evaluate her choice differently than one who knows she can always sue and collect child support. Those who continue on anyway are making a conscious choice that they are ready for children. They are taking full responsibility for their selfish decision to override the wishes and concerns of their partner. That outcome is certainly more ethical, if not as practical than the current system.
It’s not ethical, because it screws the child. Again, I say - the parents are irrelevant. Starving a child is not an adequate way to “punish” a woman for her decisions.
The system ensures that the child is protected. And if that hurts some adults’ feelings - tough. Better that a child is fed than some deadbeat doesn’t feel unfairly put-upon.
This issue really seems to come down to a more basic question: What should we do about parents who have children that they do not have sufficient resources for?
My suggestion was to take the children away, and put the children up for adoption. The counter argument presented was that there aren’t enough parents willing to adopt newborns - especially black or latino newborns. And that the result would be that state would have to subsidize these unwanted black and latino newborns. (I have no idea if this is true, or what the statistics say, but I will look into it if I have the time. If someone already knows this information, then a link/source would be appreciated.)
The only real other alternative would be abortion: Would mothers terminate pregnancies if they knew that the fathers would not be financially obligated to the child – or would they go ahead and have the babies anyways & hope to receive assistance from the state (assuming that adoptions are not feasible due to lack of willing parents looking to adopt)? I do not know the answer to this question, but it’s possible that the number of children born into poverty might actually decrease, and not increase - though obviously we have no way of knowing.
But I do think this raises the concern of what we should do when parents have children that they can’t adequately support (even with two parents in the picture). How do you discourage parents from having children if they don’t have the resources? Even if you were to license parentage, you couldn’t enforce it through forced-abortions, or infanticde… all the state could really do would be to take possession of the kids, and either put them up for adoption (if there are enough willing parents), or put them into a state-funded orphanage (which isn’t really a great solution). If there are no threads on this topic, I may start a new one to address this issue.
I agree that the best interests of the child are important. What I’m not so certain of is whether it is ethically justifiable to force the obligations of parenthood onto men without their consent. I’m not sure how much different this is from forcing the obligations of supporting a child onto the state/society instead.
If a mother makes an informed choice to bring a child into the world that she does not have the resources to support… what then? Once the child is already born, there’s not much we can do, and it ultimately comes down to: 1) Letting the child suffer, 2) Getting the state to subsidize the child, or 3) Getting the genetic father to subsidize the child. Obviously #1 isn’t a reasonable option… and so I’m debating if it should be #2 or #3.
Even if we accept the fact that it’s purely the mother’s choice and responsibility - once the child is born, and it is determined that the child needs support, something has to be done, I agree. For now, I’m leaning towards the state helping with the support, and not the genetic father. (I’m running with the assumption that the father effectively signed away his paternal responsibilities before birth, through a legal document/contract similar to what has been proposed on the previous pages.) If the state doesn’t want to take on this burden, the it should be the state’s responsibility to reduce the numbers of women choosing to give birth into circumstances that lack the resources sufficient to support a child.
The only reason I mentioned adoption was because I was under the impression that there were large queues of willing parents waiting years and years to adopt newborn babies in North America. This is what I’ve heard in the media since I first heard about the situation. If I turn out to be wrong, and this is not the case, I will obviously take back my suggestion.
No need to make it personal. You do not know my age, sex, parental status, views on children, reproductive capacities, or anything else for that matter. I am merely here to ask questions, and test the strength of certain arguments. For me this is more of a philosophical exercise on a subject that I find interesting – the results of which may or may not help form my decisions in the future.
I believe that the welfare of the child is important. But in general, the state upholds people’s rights, provided that they don’t infringe upon other people’s rights. Or at least that’s what I remember from my American history/government courses from back in high school. Forcing a non-consenting individual to provide financial support for a child seems to be an infringment of rights. In this case, I’d prefer that state pick up the slack.
My own welfare is irrelevant, since I do not have children, nor am I the genetic parent of any fetus or child that has been brought to my attention. Given my sexual history, it is extraordinarily unlikely that any such fetus or child presently exists.
“Tough shit, society disagrees with you” (aka “majority rules!”) isn’t a good enough argument for anything. Society disagreed with human rights for black people too. I’ll stop at that example before I eventually Godwin the thread.
I am aware that society may or may not care about me, my feelings, or my rights. I could be a black man, struggling for basic human rights in the 1860s, and it’s possible that no one would give 2 shits. That doesn’t mean that the struggle for ethical treatment and justice isn’t a worthy cause and should be abandoned, however.
The welfare of the child is the most important thing, but not the ONLY important thing. My question in this thread is: Is it okay to infringe upon someone’s rights, in order to provide rights to someone else? Is there any other way to solve this problem, without having to infringe upon anyone’s rights at all? If so, we should examine those options and possibilities.
It doesn’t “screw” anyone. At the point we are discussing there is no child. There is a fetus that has no rights or needs at all. What we are discussing is a change in law that would correct a gross inequality in our system, should encourage better use of birth control, and discourage unwanted pregnancies from being brought to term and thus creating the need for support in the first place.
After a child is born, it has the right to support, I agree. However, the current system is inadequate. It usually allows the mother the total control over the entirety of the choices. Not just those that concern her body, but those over naming a father and the legal ramifications that entails. A change in law would allow the mother to make an educated choice, and provide fathers with additional options. The choice need not be binary, nor should we confuse the choice to carry a child with the one to keep it and demand support. They are two different choices and should be considered differently by the legal system. The laws as currently written encourage the production of children at all else. This is nothing more than a holdover from puritanical nonsense wishing to punish a man and woman from enjoying the sexual act. We should be writing laws to encourage the production of children by willing capable parents, providing for true equality, and discouraging unwanted or ill prepared mothers from bringing infants to term.
You consented when you injected your genetic material into her vagina. If your genetic material doesn’t end up in some random skank’s vagina, then you won’t have a child without your consent.
Pay attention. Babies happen when the sperm meets the egg, and the baby grows in the woman’s tummy. You with me so far?
This is a biological fact. I’m sorry you think it’s unfair that men can’t get pregnant, but they can’t, and if they could then they’d be women, not men.
The only law that is asymetrical here is that only people who are pregnant can have an abortion. And so?
The other simple option would be to just make abortion illegal, and hey, every single one of your “fairness” complaints vanishes, and now the sexes are completely equal. Then everyone is equal. Well, that won’t work, because criminalizing abortion is a terrible idea.
You want to be able to force a woman to have an abortion, or if she won’t have an abortion you’ll be able to discharge your parental duties. But why the fuck should the rest of us give a crap about whether you don’t want to be a father or not? Guess what. We don’t give a fuck, unless there’s a baby out there that needs to be taken care of. Who’s going to take care of the baby? Me? Or the guy that fathered the goddam baby? I don’t care that you don’t feel like taking care of the goddam baby, you’re taking care of it one way or another. If you don’t like it, so what? Stop injecting your goddam genetic material into the vaginas of random skanks.
And this is because, your feelings are less important than taking care of the goddam baby that you made. And you made it on purpose, because remember the spoojing in the vagina part? I know you probably weren’t thinking about poopy diapers when you picked up that drunk chick at 2 AM, but you should have been. The fact that you didn’t think you were going to make a baby when you fucked her is irrelevant, just like the fact that you didn’t think you were going to plow your car into a preschool when you drove drunk is irrelevant.
Don’t want to plow your car into a preschool? Then don’t drive drunk. Don’t want to be a father? Then don’t inject your genetic material into random vaginas.
So we discourage unwanted motherhood by punishing the children? Nice.
Thing is, your way requires that we step over the bodies of starving children in the gutters on our way to work, all in the name of fairness to the poor fathers who didn’t want to be fathers. Or, we taxpayers support the kids, and let the poor fathers go on with their lives.
Nuh-uh. The baby needs to be taken care of. If the choice is between the baby starving and me paying for it, then I’ll pay for it. But there’s a third choice, and that third choice is making the goddam father of the goddam baby pay for it. Don’t want to pay for a child you don’t want? Then don’t father it in the first place.
The fact that the mother could have an abortion and the father can’t force her to either have an abortion or not have an abortion is irrelevant. We didn’t legalize abortion because it was fair, we legalized abortion because criminalizing abortion doesn’t work. Abortion is unfair, but so what? We didn’t decriminalize abortion because we enjoy giving women special rights, so the fact that a man can’t get pregnant is irrelevant. Anyone who can get pregnant is treated the same, and so the law is completely fair.
Given that it would be unfair to allow the father to either force or deny an abortion, now what? Aside from this abortion issue, then there’s no bias in favor of men or women. You want to address the abortion imbalance by allowing men to not take care of the babies they created.
But life doesn’t work that way. We aren’t going to make up for the fact that men can’t have abortions by punishing babies, I mean “discouraging ill prepared mothers”.
So there is no question that a pregnancy can only be the result of a woman’s decision, period. No one but her can decide this issue. Any responsibility before the fact hits this wall beyond which no one can cross.
Any complicated options on the table? Or do only simple ideas appeal to you?
If that desire is irrelevant, then it is irrelevant. But you don’t want it to be irrelevant. You want it to swing exactly one direction: support.
This would be a good analogy if there were never any cause to fault bartenders because they had no choice in the matter of serving customers. But they do. So they have culpability. People with choice have responsibilities. In the case of birth, the male’s choice is singular, and overridden without question at any continuing point by the female. The wishes of the man can be ignored at any point over a considerable period. The situation offered for comparison is not related in critically important ways.
This is a solution. A totally degenerate solution. Don’t want to be robbed? Don’t own anything! Don’t want your rights violated? Don’t consider anything a right!
