I don’t see how the existance of abortions suddenly completely absolves men of all responsibility when a woman gets pregnant. I’m 100% pro-choice, but that doesn’t I think abortion is no big deal. And it seems like it would be a much bigger deal for a woman. I just don’t see how someone can so flippantly say “You’re pregnant? No big deal, just abort it. If you don’t want to, that’s not my problem.”
It’s not like paying child support is the tougher of the two jobs. A woman has to go through pregnancy and labor, and then spend 18 years raising the kid. The guy has to send a check once a month. He doesn’t have to spend ten seconds with the kid if he doesn’t want to.
That’s not to say paying child support wouldn’t suck (I too once had a pregnancy scare a few years back). I just don’t see how you’re the wronged party if you get someone pregnant, ditch them, and then have to help pay for your child. Being on the other end would be much, much worse.
When a woman finds out she is pregnant, if she wants the father to take partial responsibility for the child, she should be required to notify the father within the first trimester and file a form claiming that he is the father. When the man is notified of the pregnancy, if he does not want to be responsible for the child, he has to immediately sign a form stating so. If the woman still wishes to have the child, the only legal ties the father will have to the kid are records indicating that he is the biological father (in case this information is needed in the future, i.e. hereditary diseases) but he will have no responsibility for raising the child, and no right to see it. If she does not want to have the child after he has denied responsibility, he is responsible for 50% of the price of the abortion.
If the woman wants an abortion, even if the man is willing to take responsibility, she still has the right to it, though she will have to pay the full cost if the man claimed responsibility as a father. This way either parent can opt out of having a child, the woman having more choices available because she is the one that has to carry it.
If in the future we develop the technology to remove an embryo alive and transfer it to an artificial womb and it is as safe as an abortion, if the man claims responsibility but the woman does not, the man can pay to have it removed and raise the child himself.
A woman does not HAVE to spend 18 years raising the child if she chooses to have it. She can put it up for adoption and have no financial responsibility for the child from then on. A man does not have that option.
Badtz Maru’s solution is the one that I’ve always advocated. I’m not sure it’s workable, though, and I’m positive that such a law will never be passed.
Sorry, I see big problem with Badzu’s suggestion. There’s no provision for financial support of the child. Just because you sign a piece of paper saying you don’t want to have anything to do with the child absolves you from the responsabilty to provide financial support.
During the conception phase, there are two people making the decision to have sex, knowing that a child can be conceived (even with the best b/c methods, it can happen).
If that happens, why should the child be penalized (by having only one parent financially support them) because daddy signed a piece of paper before the child was born?
The situation after birth:[ol][li]A child exists. It will cost money to bring up. To lessen the burden to those who had the least part in its creation (the general taxpayer), those with the most responsibility should pay as much as possible.[/li][li]The mother and father are the obvious candidates[/li][li]Therefore they should pay as much as possible towards its upbringing.[/li][li]I repeat - The child exists. Whether it was not desired by either party is not relevant - it exists and must be paid for. It is unfair both to the child and the taxpayer for the reponsible parties to pass the burden.[/ol]The situation before birth:[ol]A woman is pregnant.[/li][li]Until a certain predefined point, the fetus is not seen as a human being. Rather it is a growth of tissue attached to the mother.[/li][li]As such it is the mother’s right to do with that growth what she will. To force her to keep it would be inconsistant with our attitudes towards e.g. cosmetic surgery. Similarly towards the removal of a tumor. To force her to remove it would be an even more unpalatable situation - this would be coerced surgery.[/li][li]The above places the rights purely on the mother’s shoulders.[/li][li]Note that men too have the right to have or refuse abortions. It just so happens that not many men get pregnant.[/ol]So there it is. There is a discontinuity in experience at the moment when the fetus becomes a baby. You must consider the two situations independently, for to do otherwise would be illogical in the above framework.[/li]
Suck it up, indeed.
I had many friends in high school whose birth fathers refused to take responsibility for them at all. Some had never even met their fathers, while others hadn’t seen them since they were little children. Most of these men paid little or nothing in child support. Often the mother didn’t feel it was worthwhile to take deadbeat dad to court and make him pay since he didn’t have much money anyway. I also knew of one deadbeat who was fairly wealthy but managed to keep finding legal loopholes to avoid paying child support.
It is bad enough that these children had to grow up poor. It is worse that they had to grow up poor with the knowlege that their own fathers did not love or care for them.
I do not feel the slightest twinge of sympathy for a man who is forced to pay child support for a child he did not want. We can’t force men to love their children, but at least we can make sure that they don’t let their children go hungry. I can’t understand how any decent human being could justify attempting to avoid this most minimal of responsibilities towards his own children.
For the record, I basicly support a system like LawMill proposed.
I’ve never said that abortion is “No big deal”. However, a woman consenting to sex knows the options she will have if a pregnancy occurs. If she does not like those options, she should not have sex.
It’s interesting to note how many people say things like, “If a man doesn’t want to pay child support, he shouldn’t have sex”. I say, “If a woman is not prepared to pay for and raise a child on her own, or have an abortion, she shouldn’t have sex.” This is because of the reasons I state above.
I know it sounds callous; I do not think this to sound that way, nor do I enjoy sounding like an asshole. Indeed, I’ll go so far as to say that, from a certain perspective, it would be callous to have a system based on that principal. I do not, however, pick my viewpoints based solely on which ones are less mean. I try to pick them based on what is fair, and what is logical. For example, I believe that if someone hits me for no apparant reason, I have a right to fight back. This is mean to the other person who is being mean to me, and so increases the overall meanness level of the world. However, I don’t think that it’s a bad idea to fight back just because it is prima facie mean.
Which job is the tougher of the two is irrelevant. As a nitpick, though, the woman does not have to spend 18 years raising the kid if she doesn’t want to; adoption, so far as I know, is usually an option.
Again, which side gets it worse is quite irrelevant. If a woman does not want to go through a pregnancy, she has the option of getting an abortion. If she doesn’t like either option, she should not have had sex in the first place.
I would like to note at this time that I am all in favor of men not “ditching out”. I have great respect for those men who stay with a woman and help raise her child, or even just pay child support, even if they’d rather not. However, I think that they should not be forced by any law to do so.
If such a system were implemented, I do not think it would be the anarchy that some envision it to be. Just as the repeal of prohibition did not make us a nation of drunks, I don’t think that all men would go out and boink everything with a pair of ovaries just because they would have no financial obligation to any potential offspring that might occur from such unions.
Oh puleeeze - the statement was why should they be penalized by having only one parent financially support them etc. As was nicely pointed out by kabbes, the child will have to be financially supported, and who better than the biological parents? (if they’ve both signed off on adoption, then the adoptive parents).
For the male parent to be able to impregnate a woman, decide he doesn’t want the responsability of his actions and merely sign off and not have any of the responsabilities is onerous. The female parent will have much, much more responsability than that regardless of her subsequent actions. The female either continues the pregnancy or undergoes a surgical procedure. If she decides to sign over adoption papers, she’s still gone through the pregnancy. So, I don’t see where male gets to simply get his rocks off, sign a piece of paper and move on does anything to achieve anything remotely like justice, fairness, rightness etc.
(and for stuffinb - and besides, there **should ** be more types of male birth control and if men didn’t rule the labs, there would be…)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by kabbes * The situation after birth:[list=1][li]A child exists. It will cost money to bring up. To lessen the burden to those who had the least part in its creation (the general taxpayer), those with the most responsibility should pay as much as possible.[/li][/quote]
The pregnant party, having total say over whether a child is born or not, bears total responsibility.
[quote]
**
[li]The mother and father are the obvious candidates**[/li][/quote]
Whether someone is an obvious candidate does not concern me nearly so much as who is the correct candidate. I have so far seen no justification for why a man bears responsibility towards a child that he might have never wanted in the first place, unless you count the genetic material argument, which was rebutted.
[quote]
**
[li]I repeat - The child exists.**[/li][/quote]
I repeat - because the pregnant party chose for it to be so.
Whether any party desired the child is not relevant to the fact that the child should be supported; it is, however, very relevant when deciding who does the supporting.
I assume, then, that you are also against adoption?
[quote] [li]Note that men too have the right to have or refuse abortions. It just so happens that not many men get pregnant.[/li][/quote]
Women also are not responsible for any children that men they have sex with give birth to. It just so happens that not many men get pregnant.
** 'scuse me? are you saying that the male parent has no responsability to the child? Wow. that’s truely an amazing position to take.
[quote] by kabbes
[li]I repeat - The child exists.[/li][/quote]
**
Not exactly hot shot. The child exists 'cause a sperm from the male impregnated the egg from the female. granted that the female, since she has to undergo all of the physical traumas involved in both the pregnancy or abortion has more to say than the male about if the pregnancy continues, but it remains true that without the males cooperation and assistance, the child would not exist.
You go on to state this (to which I agree) “Whether any party desired the child is not relevant to the fact that the child should be supported;” but then ruin the statement by continuing with this “it is, however, very relevant when deciding who does the supporting.”
When a person decides to engage in an activity that can have a result that they do not wish, why would you decide that the person should bear no responsability?
Now wait a second - if biology plays such a role, why allow adoption at all? And if adoption is allowed, what is wrong with giving up responsibility to a child? The only difference I can see is that in the senario I propose, it is men and not women making reproductive choices.
Unless it is illegal for a single person to adopt a child, then what standing is there for you to say that having one parent financially support that child is wrong, unless you are also against such adoption? I’m confused.
Also, are you saying that being raised by strangers is somehow preferable to being raised by one biological parent? I cannot see the logic in that.
Please explain why adoption is fundamentally different from what Badtz (sp?) Maru has proposed.
Calling it onerous means nothing. If you disagree, please explain where my (and others’) reasoning has gone wrong.
I must say that I am not surprised; in a thread I started on a very similar topic, many stated that they found the idea horrid, yet some of them offered no further argument. I’m sorry, but this is Great Debates. If you find something horrid and want to say so, post it in MPSIMS, or IMHO, unless you’re willing to back it up with some form of am argument.
If this is repugnant to a person who can get pregnant, then that person should not have sex.
Why not? Do you have something against men enjoying sex? This seems like you’re just saying “Onerous!” again, without explanation.
:rolleyes:
Riiiiight … I’ll ignore, for the moment, the charge that men “control” scientific labs, although that is a very serious charge. Explain to me why you think your statement is true. What logical connection is there between men "control"ing labs and there not being much male birth control? It seems to me that, from what I’ve been told numerous times by numerous people (that men would love to have sex with no consequences) that labs would focus their entire energy on creating reliable birth control for men.
First that last part about the birth control was a joking reference to stuffinb’s statement ‘gee all but #2 have been pointed out…’ It was not intended to be a serious arguement.
My position is that : twopeople have equal part in the creation of the embryo/zygot/fetus etc. By engaging in an act which can result in procreation, I submit that both are actively responsible for the results of that choice. The innocent child should not have less because one of the two abdicates their responsability (less financially, and in other ways). If both abdicate, then adoption can result. The child is then supported by the person who has specifically chosen that responsability. If only one abdicates their responsability, the child suffers. If both do, an adoption can result.
Now, the female (as has been pointed out) does in fact bear more responsability during the pregnancy, due to the biological factors involved. IMHO, because of this unalterable biological fact, the woman then would have the responsability/freedom of choice during this time. However, this does not absolve the male from assuming any or all of the other responsabilities for **his ** actions, either before or afterward. If you don’t like the word ‘onerous’ to describe your assertion that the male should be able to absolve all responsabilities, then, please by all means, come up with a defense of that position.
Your arguements such as ‘if biology plays such a role, why allow adoption at all’ - even tho’ you put it after a cut and paste statement of mine does not fit in the debate where you placed it. Adoption happens when both parents sign off, and is frankly off topic, as are the rest of you ‘what if’s’ about adoption. The topic was sharing the responsibility of pregnancy, not argueing the merits/demerits of adoption (single parent/cross cultural/or whatever other tangent you find).
What Badtz Maru seemed to propose was that the male would have the option of signing off parental responsabilities without the process of adoption being present - which would mean, then, that the female would bear total responsability for the mutual act. I found this to be unfair both on premise and in reality.
you then quote me here:
and respond here :
.
The response is ‘back atchya’ - if the male finds the possability of parenthood so abhorant, he should refrain from sexual contact with females. Period. Or assume the responsabilities for the effects if he chooses to proceed.
I agree this is debates. where’s your defense of your position??
and again here you quote me:
Then respond :
are you deliberatly misunderstanding? My position, once again, is that both parties should bear the consequences. not just the female. not just the male. both. what problem do you have with that?
Yes, it is, by modern standards, as blacks voting or abortion rights were at the time. But why ask what I’m saying? Was it not clear in the earlier posts?
And it wouldn’t exist if the diner they had dinner at earlier that night hadn’t served one of them, and it wouldn’t exist if her parents had never met, and it wouldn’t exist if … how far back on the chain do you go, and why? I suggest we stop at the first point we come to where a free decision is made. The person who gets pregnant has all legal authority over whether the child is born. Ergo, the responsibility is hers.
The male did not choose for his sperm to fertilize her egg, just as the female did not choose for her egg to be fertilized. However, she does get to decide whether to give birth or not.
If a woman does not want any chance at all of getting pregnant, I suggest she not have sex.
Did you read my example about donating blood? I think it applies here, but I’ll supply another analogy:
Suppose I walk alone, late at night, in a bad neighborhood. Obviously, one result of this might be one that I do not wish will come about. However, if I am mugged, am I to be blamed for the mugging?
One possible solution to this problem is to have that “piece of paper” signed prior to the “conception phase” instead of ex post facto. (i.e., make it a pre-coital agreement, roughly equivalent to a pre-nuptial agreement)
If both parties so choose, they may sign a pre-coital agreement indicating that they are partaking of recreational sex, as opposed to sex for the purposes of procreation. In the event of an unwanted pregnancy both parties agree to pay for one half of the cost of the abortion. The woman retains the right to keep the child if she so chooses, but in doing so, waives any right to child support from the man.
If, knowing this, the woman still chooses to have the child, then the financial responsibility for the child is hers alone, with the exception of a one-time only contribution equivalent to one half the cost of an abortion, since the man is agreeing to that much expenditure in the case of an unintended pregnancy according to the terms of the pre-coital agreement.
However, if either party refuses to sign the agreement, or if no agreement is discussed, and both parties still consent to having sex, then both parties are tacitly agreeing to comply with the current societal standards, which is to say, it is solely the woman’s decision whether or not to keep the child, and if she decides to keep the child, the man is liable for child support.
For those men who find the current societal standards are unacceptable, you have two options:
[list=1]
[li]Find sexual partners who are willing to agree to the above terms[/li]
[li]Join the Band of the Hand[/li][/list=1]
Similarly, women who find the terms of the pre-coital agreement unacceptable because it may leave them in the position of having to solely support a child always have the option of not having sex with a partner who requests one.
Note: I don’t realistically think this system would ever be met with widespread acceptance due to the influence of fundamentalists in American politics, but I think it is a rational, fair method of dealing with the inherent inequities of the situation.
Admittedly, there is a slight imbalance, since even with the presence of such a pre-coital agreement, the woman still has the choice of changing her mind and unilaterally deciding to keep the child, whereas the man does not, however the man always had the choice of not signing the pre-coital agreement in the first place, so it is not like he was caught unawares, either.
In most respects, this proposal is really not so far afield from the current state of affairs, which is to say, parties who partake of consensual sex are doing so in tacit agreement to comply with current societal standards, should a pregnancy result (since they haven’t signed a pre-coital agreement).
The exception is the situation where both parties chose to have sex with the understanding that no child was desired, a pregnancy occurs and the woman decides to keep the child – currently the man has no legal recourse under the current system (which seems to be the major objection being raised), whereas under this proposal, he is absolved from further responsibility, provided both parties explicitly agree to this beforehand.
One additional (slightly flippant) thought on the subject:
One of the things that has become apparent in this discussion is that the repurcussions of a pregnancy on the life of a woman are much greater than those on a man.
One could make the argument that this fact of biology is the underlying reason for the difference in attitudes towards sex between the genders (i.e., the fact that women are generally more selective in sexual partners whereas men will boink anything that moves).
I’m sorry I misunderstood this statement as a serious one. A smiley would have helped considerably, because I tend to be very serious-minded when debating something.
The result of that choice is a fetus, not a child. Current law recognizes a difference between the two. I don’t understand why a man must be held responsible for a child, when his actions only created a fetus.
The pregnant person has sole legal discretion over whether the fetus becomes a child. The decision to create a child is therefore hers alone.
While it is certainly difficult to raise a child alone (heck, I’m sure it’s difficult to do with plenty of help!) it can be done. Indeed, unless you count things like TV’s and VCRs as neccessities, financially it shouldn’t be terribly difficult. Will the child grow up with less than if he or she had two paying parents? Sure. So what? The child would have a heck of a lot more if Joe Shmoe down the street had to pay for him too, but nobody considers that a good argument for making him pay child support for 18 years. Either the person who gave birth to the child can afford to give the child the necessities, or they cannot. If they can, then your argument fails to have merit. If that person cannot afford to have that child their child should be taken by the same organizations that already take away children from homes that can’t support them.
I did not say that absolved him of anything. He has nothing to be absolved from. The fact that the woman decides whether to have a child is the reason she has the responsibility for that child.
By all means, please read the defense already given.
I have no idea what you mean by this. Please explain.
The subtopic that was being discussed involved legally giving up responsibilities to a child. Surely you see the justification for an analogy with adoption, it being a legal form of giving up legal responsibilities to a child.
You are free to feel that way. However, I have yet to see any reason why I should agree with you, and several reasons why I should believe otherwise.
If a man bears such responsibilities, your “back atchya” has merit; otherwise, it does not.
Nobody has convinced me that the male bears any such responsibilities; they take it for granted that he does.
I question this, and have yet to receive much more than people telling me they disagree, strongly.
It has been stated in previous posts, and repeated. I also started a thread on a very similar topic a while ago, but what is there is pretty much what is already here.
I know what your position is; I find it, for reasons already given in this and another thread, illogical.
What I am asking for is a reason why the man bears responsibility, preferably one that has not already been addressed. Or, if it has, show me where the rebuttal goes wrong.
Interestingly enough, much this same thing happened in the thread I started on a very similar topic: in the end, another poster said I was simply not understanding her, when the majority of what was posted was simply her strong disapproval of my view. I understand your view , as you have stated it several times; I do not, however, understand the reason(s) why you believe it.
(I appologize for the gratuitous quoting, but I found it somewhat neccessary for continuity.)
So let’s say you and I build a nice bonfire together. We try our best to keep that bonfire under control, but it still sets the local Wal Mart on fire (Bonfires being inherently risky things). Sadly you have no arms and have no way to stop the fire from consumeing the store. I can stop the fire but, for whatever reason, I choose to let the store burn to the ground.
The cops come. Do they blame you less for the fire because you couldn’t stop it? Nope! The store is still burned and the ones that started the fire have to pay. They haul you in as well as me.
There is an abundance of precedence for people being mutually responsible for the consequences of mutual acts, even when one person had the power to prevent those consequences.