Jodi very correctly points out that we obviously cannot allow the man to decide whether or not to carry out the pregnancy, otherwise the same decision is taken from the mother, which is simply wrong.
But that’s not what Black Knight is getting at. I think I see where he’s going with this, and I think I agree.
What he’s saying is this: if we don’t allow the man to have input into the decision, we can’t expect him to support it unless he happens to agree with it.
I’m actually currently in a situation where this has come up between me and my girlfriend (no, no pregnancies…just discussion). My position is: I do not intend to have any children. We are quite responsible and use multiple methods of birth control. However, I have sex with the knowledge that it’s still possible to have accidents, and I’m prepared to deal with the 0.1% chance of pregnancy by choosing an abortion. I do not consider abortion a substitute for my obligation to act responsibly.
I’m up front about this with her, and she doesn’t want children either. The problem arises if an accidental pregnancy does occur. Her choice (and it is her choice) is then: abort the child, or have the child. And this decision should be made while bearing in mind that I am not going to be a father. In other words, if she keeps the baby, she supports it on her own.
I am not a deadbeat. I have been very up front about this: I do not get myself into situations which do not have solutions. I have not been irresponsible. My solution is to not have the child. At that point in time, there will be a choice: baby or no baby. It is her choice. Why should I be bound by it? She knew what she was getting into.
“No long term effects” is not always the case with pregnancy-related health problems/concerns. Many women permanently lose teeth due to nutrient loss. Some women develop collapsed veins in their legs. There are many long term health effects of a woman being pregnant–regardless of whether she delivers the baby or not.
Also, we can never get to the bottom of this issue. While my personal belief is that there should be a legal way for a man to permanently revoke all future rights and responsibilities to a child sometime in the first trimester of the woman’s pregnancy (after paying a large, lump sum payment to the woman), I don’t really see this happening. The fact remains that women have more rights to decide what happens with the fetus because it is her body that has to house it. If there was a way around that, I would be all for implementing a fifty-fifty decision guideline. As it stands, this is the way it works and it is the only (somewhat) fair way.
I told you this is all about abortion, without the woman having a legal right to an abortion the point of abdicating responsibility would be moot. Then when a pregnancy occurs outside of some illegal act by the mother to terminate the pregnancy there is no choice. The choice was made at conception. This is an abortion issue and not separate.
Black Night is not asking for the right to force an abortion he is asking for the right to abdicate his responsibility barring an abortion. What he also does not seem to realize is that he does not have to lie down on some steel table in some clinic somewhere. Have a tube inserted into his body, a pump turned on that will suction tissue, blood, and other bodily fluids from his body. He won’t have to take a couple of tylenols for the next few days to cope with the cramps. He won’t have to wear a sanitary napkin for a couple of weeks, or even miss a day of work. He also will not have to face the protestors outside of the clinic waving their signs of mutilated fetuses and thrusting their living children in his face. No he gets to have a “paper abortion”.
Jodi: *But, as I said in the other thread, there is no indication the taxpayers want these children. *
As a general principle, taxpayers want there to be children in their society, and they want those children to be adequately cared for and educated, because they know that will be best for society (and their own future prosperity) in the long run. This is true even of taxpayers who do not want to bear the individual responsibilities of parenthood for any particular children. That’s what I meant by saying that “taxpayers want these children.”
*What the taxpayers want is for children to be supported by their parents, willing or not. *
Define “support”. I’m talking about a decision to create a child, which I would then be forced to pay for. If I do not choose to create the child and alternatives to its creation are available, I do not intend to pay for it.
I agree that this has the potential for really awful circumstances, such as the case of men who are not up front about this. However, I am quite up front about it, and there seems to be no way for me to have such an understanding with a woman which is not at the mercy of the woman’s choice. In other words, right now, the woman and I agree that there will be no children. No problem, since this is a situation we have control over. If the woman makes her own decision to have the child, despite our agreement, should I be legally bound? No.
The alternative is to never have sex. If there were no women who agreed with my position on this, I would gladly give up sex in order to insure that I am not going to be responsible for a child. Like I said, I don’t get myself into situations for which there are no solutions.
It’s a little sad that it would have to come to that, though, simply because some people are bitter about the great burden a woman can bring upon herself by making the decision to have a child against her partner’s will.
You are incorrect. Abortion is very closely tied to this issue, but the two are not congruent.
I am asking for the right for any man (not just me) to be free of supporting a child they did not choose to bring into the world.
(Oh, and it doesn’t bother me much, but the name’s BlackKnight.)
Part of me wants to snidely remark, “Blame God”, but I shan’t.
The fact is, you don’t have to have this happen either. You have a choice.
No, I don’t get to. I would like the option, however, even though I don’t think I’ll ever actually get around to having sex. More importantly, I think other men should have the option as well.
Because his actions contributed to the creation of the child, who then needs to be supported.
What do you mean, where does it come from? It comes from the fact that the man created the child.
When the fetus is inside the woman, it does not need to be “supported” as a separate entity. The woman eats, the baby eats; the woman breathes, the baby breathes. There is no independent obligation of “fetal support.”
When the baby is OUTSIDE the woman, SOMEONE must be responsible for its care. Who should be? The mother? Granted. But what if she can’t do it alone? Who next? The father, who brought the child into the world, or society, who did not?
What is so hard about this? The baby is entitled to parental support – from BOTH parents – because it morally MUST be supported and it is most logical and most fair to place that burden on the parents who are responsible for the child’s existence. Please, tell me that you disagree with this (as KIMSTU does) but don’t tell me you don’t understand the point, because I’ve posted it about a dozen times.
GALT says:
I know what he’s saying, but he is wrong (for the umpteenth time), because the BABY’S right to be supported outweighs the father’s right to be free from obligation. We cannot allow children to go without necessary support just because their parents do not want to support them. Society as a whole considers it more equitable to place the burden of financial support of children on the parties responsible for the existence of children – willing or not – than to assume that burden itself.
I have news for you: If your girlfriend has a baby – with or without your consent – and she cannot afford to support it alone, you most likely WILL be charged with the financial obligation to support that child. And your girlfriend cannot waive that obligation, either – why? Because the obligation you owe is not to her, but to the baby. Whether you would “be a father” in any way except financially is of course up to you – but if she cannot support the child, society will certainly expect you to do it. Unfair? Not nearly as unfair as leaving the child without support.
But you very likely will be, because the government does not concern itself with your agreement, but with the baby’s overriding need to be supported. Certainly, if she agrees to raise any child on her own AND SHE IS FINANICIALLY ABLE TO DO SO then everything is okay. But if she is NOT financially able to do so, the government will look to you next. They don’t care that you don’t want to support the child; they care that it needs to be supported and it is yours.
Again, you’re missing the point. The “burden” is not the mother’s, it’s the child’s. If the consequences of your non-support only affected the mother, and she had agreed to them of her own free will, the government would likely not interfere. But the lack of support punishes the innocent child, and that is what society deems unacceptable. And if there’s anything this thread (and the other) show, it’s that any “bitterness” on this issue comes from men who think it is unfair for society to expect them to support their own kids.
KIMSTU says:
This is not inconsistent with not wanting to pay for them. Society “wants” (in the abstract) a lot of things it is not willing to pay for. Where the rubber hits the road on this issue is when we are asking who must pay for these unwanted children.
And you never answered my point, which was not posted facetiously: If, in your mind, an unwillingness to parent is reason enough to allow people to abdicate responsibility (because the paramount concern is that parents raise children “voluntarily”), why is that position not consistent with abandoning parental responsibilities whenever you feel like it – when the child is three or seven or fifteen?
Oh, and GALT – if you are absolutely sure you do not want to be a parent – ever – I would respectfully suggest you consider having a vasectomy and thereby making 99.9% sure YOURSELF that you will never become a father (without relying on any woman for your reproductive safety). Because YOU cannot handle the situation of potential fatherhood by “having an abortion” – YOU would not be having the abortion and it is not your choice to make.
You forget that my actions, which I hold myself responsible for, would not bring an unsupported child into this world to be a burden on anyone. It is only because one and exactly one person (the woman) might make the decision to bring the child into the world that the child would exist.
If I choose not to have a child, but a woman chooses to have a child using my sperm, I’m effectively a surrogate father at that point, and I don’t expect to support it. Or would you suggest that surrogate fathers should have to support their children too?
This wasn’t directed at me, but I think the answer is that you can’t decide to have a child and then change your mind. In one case, the decision of whether or not to have a child came up, and it was rejected. In the second case, the decision of whether or not to have a child came up, and it was accepted. Once the child is born, there’s no going back. You wanted it, you keep it.
So you abstain from sex? Because if you have sex with a woman, you are choosing to engage in an action which might cause the creation of a child. If you think you can have sex without accepting the responsibility of the possibility of a child, you are deceiving yourself.
I’m sorry; I must have misread that. Please explain how an unsupported child, biologically your own, arrives in this world without your assistance. YOU got her pregnant; therefore, if a child results, its existence is obviously directly attribuatable to an “action” of yours – the action of sleeping with the woman.
No; it is the woman’s decision NOT to interfere in a natural process – pregnancy – that you BOTH are responsible for that leads to the existence of the child. Your position is that the woman’s decision NOT to terminate a pregnancy YOU are responsible for somehow absolves you of responsibility for it. As should be ragingly obvious by now, I do not agree with this at all.
A “surrogate father”? I’m sure you mean “sperm donor.” Except that you “donated” your sperm willingly and in full awareness that the chance existed – albeit a small chance – that a baby would result. If a child DOES exist and needs support, you WILL be expected to support it, believe me. And, again, once the woman is pregnant, YOU cannot CHOOSE not to have the child, because it is not your body and therefore not your choice.
If the child cannot be supported by the mother alone? Sure. You damn betcha. Better them than society as a whole. Bottom line: If you cannot ensure the support of your child (by yourself or someone else), then don’t have one.
Well, why ever not? If unwillingness to support a child is alone enough to absolve someone of a support responsibility, why isn’t it enough months or years down the road? The child is equally in need of support, and the parent equally unwilling to provide it.
It was not rejected by the both parents, it was only rejected by one. Therefore the child still exists, and still needs support.
This is incorrect. An unwanted pregnancy does not have to lead to the creation of a child. I’ve engaged in an action which might require further prevention of the creation of a child. If the mother and I have agreed ahead of time that an abortion is the way it would be handled, I won’t be held responsible for her actions which go against that decision.
In addition, I do abstain from sex with women who I don’t trust not to betray me in such a way. This is an agreement that a man and woman should be allowed to make on their own, without any legal entanglements. As it is, the law would dictate that I support the child, regardless of our agreement.
But, without affirmative interference, it most likely WILL. A car wreck may not always lead to injuries, but it still isn’t a good idea.
Which you have no legal right to demand occur.
You know, you don’t have to agree with it, and I respect your right not to, but make not mistake you WILL more than likely be held responsible. From 2 ALR 5th 337 (which has collected all the legal cases addressing this very subject:
[quote]
With regard to the propriety of consideration of such a misrepresentation [sterility or willingness to abort] as a defense or setoff to an award of child support, the courts to date have uniformly deemed such evidence to be inappropriate to the issue of support, under theories as diverse as the right to privacy, the exclusivity of criteria statutorily mandated for consideration in awarding support as precluding evidence of misrepresentation, and, due to the personal nature of a child’s right to support, the inability of a parent to waive the child’s right by virtue of the parent’s fraudulent actions. The courts have rejected claims that such a position is a denial of equal protection, equal rights, or freedom from gender-based discrimination, holding instead that to conclude otherwise would deprive llegitimate children of their equal protection rights. They have also rejected challenges based on claims of denial of due process under the Federal Constitution, and have recognized that, in light of the constitutional and other rights of the parties involved, including the child, equity may not enjoin a mother’s recovery on
behalf of her child, despite her own wrongful conduct.
Emphasis added.
. . . Which will be of no help to you in the case of accident, which you yourself admit could possibly occur.
That’s because the “legal entanglement” is the resulting child, who is entitled to support from BOTH its parents, wanted or not.
Just as support for this, I know one woman who was assured by her lover that he was sterile. He lied. She still had to take care of the kid she bore, and could not just hand him/her off to the father and walk away simply because he deceived her.
Right. Neither parent can walk away on the child. In most states, the only way to get out of parental duty is to find a willing substitute (adoption) or to have the parental right severed by a finding of manifest unfitness by the courts. The child has a protected right to a relationship with his or her parents – both of them – which cannot be severed without a clear finding that doing so is in the child’s best interest. The parent’s interest is not a factor except insofar as it loops back into the child’s interest.
If we let people sign away their children, deadbeats would do it all the time. We don’t, because doing so is unfair to the children and unfair to society. I find it hard to have sympathy to parents who have children – intentionally or not – and then refuse to support them. In the rather rare case where a man is made a father without his knowledge or through fraud, penalizing the child for the sins of the mother seems thoroughly unreasonable.
Finally, a rule which allowed the putative father to say “abort or I won’t support” would tend to encourage abortion, which I think is morally wrong. I tolerate abortion; I do not approve of it. Women should not be forced by anyone to have to choose between penury and abortion, and a legal rule of this nature would do exactly that.
I understand that the law agrees with you in this case. See my comment above. The point is that I disagree with it.
We are not talking about a case where the man is deceiving anyone. I’m talking about a clear cut case where the man and woman both say “yes, I agree that I do not want children and if, despite our responsible behavior, a pregnancy occurs, an abortion is the right thing to do.” I don’t wish to compel anyone to change their mind.
If my girlfriend gets pregnant tomorrow, she will not be forced to choose abortion. She’s already chosen it. That is what my actions are based on. If she changes her mind then, she’s on her own.
