I never said that it didn’t work both ways stofsky. You were speaking about men so I used men to reply.
It really has nothing to do with the OP though. I am sorry if we have hijacked.
EJsGirl no I haven’t but I would say that compared to working and trying to take care of the kid it would be considered a luxury. Just because something is hard does not mean there isin’t something worse.
This is a little circular, isn’t it? Yes, your assignment of rights keeps intact your concept of a women’s unencumbered right to abort a “pre-viability” child. Can you explain why this right is inviolable, perhaps in terms that would make a father understand why his right to choose is a lesser one? “Because it’s occuring in the woman’s body” might not be consistent with your assertion that the baby belongs to both parents prior to birth but after “viability.” Or else I’m misunderstanding.
Satan, I’m afraid you didn’t answer my question.
Yes, which is why most people consider it “hers”. However, I want to know why this “ownership” changes once the baby is born.
Sure. But what I’m asking for is a justification for this.
**
Um… As I said, “ownership” changes because as a fetus, it is dependent upon the woman. When it is born, it does not need this one specific person simply to exist, does it? How does this not answer your question?
What exactly are you looking for here?
Yer pal,
Satan
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Classifying a fetus as “property” is personally offensive to me. Children are not property.
The duty of support is not a property consequence; it’s a consequence of having participated in the act of creating a child.
The right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy is not a consequence of her ownership of the fetus, but of her absolute right to bodily autonomy (a right which is even stronger than her right to life – the Supreme Court has long held that while the government may execute criminals, it may not mutilate them). Since the father has no bodily autonomy interest, he cannot force the destruction of the unborn child. If there was a way for a fetus to survive other than imbedded within a woman, there would be no right of abortion. Period.
Keep also in mind that the mother has an equal duty of support for the children she helps create. When the father gets custody of the child(ren) for whatever reason, the mother is obliged to pay child support to the father (unless her rights are severed entirely, which is relatively rare). There are a small number of “deadbeat moms” out there.
This argument becomes so damned tiring doesn’t it Kelly? Take abortion out of the equation then you have no debate what-so-ever. And like I said in the other thread it’s all about a WOMAN’S responsibility. And once again, tiring oh so tiring, it isn’t about parental responsiblity it’s about MONEY! Always about the money.
So here we go again…what if abortion is not an option. Then the rights are equal? Now we have an unwanted baby, but it’s coming none the less. Do any of you guys have a problem with this now that the woman has no choice but to carry it to term? And let’s leave out the “throwing the pill away” scenerio. That one really gets to me on a personal level. Because that issue is REALLY about INDIVIDUAL PERSONAL responsibility. (And if anyone else brings up blue balls again I think I’ll explode. Jack off jack ass you’ve been practicing since you were 12!) So what’s the verdict? If abortion were no longer an option, if a woman didn’t have a choice, would it then be a little more fair for you guys?
Needs2know
You don’t get it. Abortion will always be an option. It’s just a matter of whether it is done safely and is available for all people regardless of income, or if it is not.
Yer pal,
Satan
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David B used me as a cite!*
Of course his bodily autonomy is at issue, since his body would have to provide for that child after it is born untill such time as the child became viable to take care of itself.
Who are you telling I don’t get it!? What I’m trying to understand here is how men can bellyache about the little “rights” they think they’ve lost just because abortion is now LEGAL. (If that helps with your nitpicking.) Society has “blamed” the women, “punished” the woman and left the burden of birth control up to the woman for practically ever. Now that society has finally decided that it’s Ok for a woman to have and enjoy sex without ostracization, men are gonna whine because they have finally been given an equal burden to pay for their indescretions. Now that abortion is legal a guy wants to know why for a couple of months there he can’t force a woman to terminate a pregnancy. Isn’t that what these guys are asking? Of course they could hire a hit man to kill their girlfriend like that ball player did if she refuses.
This argument is really beginning to get to me. What they refuse to see is that when they had SEX they gave up their right to choose. Nothing should have changed now that abortion is legal. Take that out of the equation and we have no argument here. It is because women have been given this right that there is even a debate. And all of this smacks of the same old double standard bullshit that we have lived under for centuries. One way or the other the woman is deemed the evil doer. She’s evil for having sex, she’s evil for her right to choose, she’s evil when she chooses to terminate a pregnancy and now she’s even greedy and evil when she chooses not too. Doesn’t anyone see the inequity in that? Because she is the party that CARRIES the burden through biology. What pisses me off is that she also has been made to carry the emotional, financial, physical and moral burden through no fault of her own than a male dominated society and an act of nature.
I say keep your dick in your pants or quit whining and pay up fellas! I just can’t feel sorry for your plight. I think it’s high time that men starting having to think a little more strongly about their own sexual behavior.
Needs2know
Personal freedom is not the same as bodily autonomy. Bodily autonomy is the right not to have your body invaded, not the right to use your body as you see fit. Imprisonment is not a restriction of bodily autonomy. A better term might be “bodily integrity”.
The requirement to provide for the support of a minor child is not a constriction of bodily autonomy. It would only be a constriction of bodily autonomy if you were required to give up a kidney.
I’m simply looking for a justification of change of “ownership” of the fetus/baby.
You say that as a fetus, it is dependant upon the woman. True. When it is born, it is not dependant on that particular woman. Also true.
But where does the man come in? I haven’t yet heard a justification for the biological father of the child being forced to support that child.
The same rationale applies to both mother and father: you made it, you take care of it. I think fathers-to-be should have a legal duty to care for their impending child’s mother because the mother-to-be is providing care for his future offspring. This goes beyond what the law presently requires: the father’s duty of care doesn’t begin until birth.
I refuse to discuss the topic in terms of “ownership”. Children are not property. The duty of care is not a penalty for having sex, but a legal distillation of a fundamental moral obligation that only a completely amoral person could ignore. That some men think that they should be able to get out of it because “they didn’t want to have children” is offensive in the extreme. If you’re adult enough to make a child, you’re adult enough to support it.
I only used that term for lack of a better one.
Why do no decision-making rights also come with that act for men the way they do for women? That is, both partners perform the act, but one has control over the consequences and how those consequences affect her. The other does not. Or are you saying that although duty comes from the sex act, decision-making rights come from elsewhere?
The right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy may indeed come from her “absolute right to bodily autonomy”, but where does that right come from? From her “ownership” of her own body. The fetus, being part of her body, is therefore under her “juristiction”. Exclamation mark.
Also, keep in mind that nobody is discussing giving the man the power to destroy the unborn child.
Unless the woman is raped, how is her body “invaded”?
The same rationale emphaticly does not apply to both mother and father. Father: you make it, you take care of it. Mother: you make it, you decide whether or not to take care of it.
If it’s “his future offspring”, and therefore he must care for it (indirectly, by caring for the mother), then why doesn’t the same restriction apply to the mother?
Please suggest other, meaningful, terms with which to discuss this issue.
My! This well-water tastes a bit funny …
I’m sorry you feel that way. However, your personal feelings do not answer the OP’s main question, nor do they change the fundamental fairness issue that is being discussed.
Unless you’re an adult female, in which case you are adult enough to choose whether or not to support the child.
I take it, from your last statement, that you are pro-life?
See the latest discussions in the Are men getting the shaft? thread for some other relevant arguments, too.
Obviously you are a man, and thus never been pregnant. When a woman is pregnant, the developing fetus robs her nutrients, much like a parasite (not a nice comparison, but accurate), to grow and develop.
From Dictionary.com:
Oh, man. So you mean a pregnant women might have to eat more? Oh the humanity of it all!! :rolleyes:
All this adversarial who-gets-victimized-worse squabbling is exactly why I feel, as I said in the other thread, that we ought to regard explicit voluntary consent to parenthood as necessary for both men and women before we start mandating their legal responsibilities for support—and if that consent isn’t forthcoming, those responsibilities should be assumed by society as a whole.
Demanding that individual parental responsibilities be borne by people who don’t want to bear them and who never explicitly consented to bear them, even if they did choose to have sex, does not seem to be the most effective way to get everybody focusing on what’s best for the children. Not if the many whiny and vindictive it’s-just-not-fair arguments on both sides of the discussion in this thread are any indication, at least. Yuck, frankly.