Proposals like the OP’s for this sort of bogus “equalization” of abortion rights are just perpetuating fundamental misunderstandings about what abortion rights are. It’s not about “the consequences of having a child”. It’s about the bodily condition of pregnancy.
Once a baby is born, or even once a pregnancy has passed the legal cutoff date for elective abortion, both contributors to the pregnancy are equally responsible for parental support of the baby resulting from the pregnancy. The parental-responsibility playing field is already level as far as legal rights and duties are concerned (and in practical terms, of course, the duties are disproportionately borne by mothers).
People with testes and people with uteruses don’t have, and can’t have, “equal abortion rights”, because they don’t have equal pregnancy burdens: in fact, those burdens are completely asymmetrical. Only people who can get pregnant can have an abortion.
If you can’t physically get pregnant, then you personally are not entitled to any form of abortion rights, by definition. And you are also not entitled to some made-up “equivalent” right involving other aspects of parenthood as a way to “compensate” you for not having abortion rights.
(JFC. Considering how much various transphobe ideologues whine about support for transgender rights being “denial of biological reality”, you’d think there’d be more widespread awareness of how advocacy of so-called “abortion rights for men” is REALLY denying biological reality.)
Not necessarily. So-called “sodomy laws” in many cases also prohibit other forms of non-PIV sex (such as oral) along with the main, er, bugbear of anal sex.
This. The persistent unwillingness of people to understand this infuriates me. They are just handwaving away this nearly-year long hijacking of your body as irrelevant. It’s ignored, or treated as a pretext. And I think that’s because even pro-choice literature focuses too much on “unwanted children” as the only reason men would accept as relevant.
Look, if two women concieve a child through a donor, I think the pregnant woman should be allowed to abort, and both women are on the hook for responsibility for the child, should they be born. Children deserve support from both parents. No one should be forced to go through pregnancy against their will. Those are not in opposition to each other.
I do think there is a real debate to be had about the very edge case of purely elective abortions past the point of viability. I can see an argument that if the pregnancy can be ended and the life of the fetus preserved, there’s a legal basis to protect that life.
Democrats should push for mandatory organ donation bills. If a clump of cells can hijack my organs, why can a corpse keep his organs, even at the cost of someone’s life?
This is a far more interesting thought experiment if we tweak it, In order for a man to have sex and opt out of any responsibility for a potential pregnancy, he must first get the woman to sign a form and submit it.
Or even expand them to living potential donors, not just recently deceased ones. If some incontrovertibly human person is going to die for lack of a functioning kidney, and you have two functioning kidneys, what “pro-life” justification is there for refusing to transfer one of your kidneys to them?
There are lots of reasons that individuals may not want to donate an organ: they don’t want the risks of major surgery, they want to keep their “extra” organ in case they need it themselves someday, they have religious beliefs about bodily integrity, etc. Their right to bodily autonomy doesn’t depend on their particular reason(s) for not wanting to donate.
Similarly, there are lots of reasons that individuals with functioning uteruses may not want to be pregnant. Yes, not wanting to have the responsibilities of parenthood is an important and very common reason for not wanting to be pregnant, but that doesn’t mean that abortion rights are in essence about “dodging” the responsibilities of parenthood. In essence, they’re about not being forced to continue a pregnancy, which is a bodily-autonomy issue.
I would support a cap on child support you receive for each child (not a cap on how much you pay) that was enough to have all their needs met, but not live in luxury just because you got pregnant by a rich guy.
? On what grounds? AIUI, it’s a basic principle of child support decrees that children should receive a level of support commensurate with their parents’ financial ability to provide it.
So what justification is there for punitively limiting the level of support just because you (generic wealthy you) don’t want the, quote-unquote, “gold-digging bitch” who bore your child to benefit from said child’s luxurious lifestyle?
If (generic wealthy) you don’t want any, quote-unquote, “gold-digging bitches” to, actual-quote, “live in luxury” as your child’s primary or significant caregiver, then don’t impregnate any of them in the first place. Problem averted.
You mean, the “grounds” of “it’s okay to punitively deprive my child of the financial abundance that a child of mine would ordinarily be considered legally entitled to, solely because I consider the child’s mother’s motives to have been mercenary and I disapprove of her behavior”?
If so, then no, I don’t agree with those “grounds”, for reasons that should be obvious. Neither, AFAICT, do the courts.
?? again: You think that “if you were still a couple”, you would be “absolutely free” to cut down your kid’s support to punish your kid’s mother, and “nobody would bat an eye”?
IANA family court lawyer, or any other kind of lawyer, but I REALLY don’t think that’s true.
AIUI, you are partly correct to the extent that you’re saying that the law lets non-litigating couples make their own family decisions about how much to spend on their kids’ lifestyle. (Assuming that parental parsimony doesn’t reach the level of actual deprivation or neglect, as you noted.)
But that’s because, again AIUI, the law’s default assumption is that both parents want what is best for the kids and aren’t trying to use financial support for the kids as a weapon to attack or punish the other parent.
Now that (generic wealthy) you have come right out and said that you do want the ability to use your financial support for your child as a weapon to attack or punish the child’s mother, you really can’t expect the courts to back you up on that.
This compromise is terrible because Child Support exists to help the child, not punish the non-custodial parent or reward the custodial parent.
I appreciate that it can be tricky to live with the idea that mom gets a second chance to decide what to do, and dad doesn’t. The reality is that when mom decides to keep the baby, she isn’t taking on pregnancy and a lifetime of parenthood to punish dad for having sex with her, but when dad decides to withhold CS, he’s absolutely punishing mom for keeping the baby, and punishing the baby for existing.
Agreed. Many people routinely although illogically assume that pregnancy is just a subset of more general parental responsibilities, so if women are allowed to “dodge” the former after conception has happened, then men should be allowed to “dodge” the latter once the baby is born.
On the contrary, for example, there are plenty of women who want to be parents but don’t want to be pregnant, or for whom pregnancy would pose too much of a health risk. Pregnancy and parenthood are separate issues.
The only reason that “mom gets a second chance to decide what to do” is because “mom” is the only person in this situation whose body is going through pregnancy, so “mom” is the only person who gets to decide what to do about that pregnancy.
It’s my understanding, that if the woman ever applies for public assistance (Section 8, food stamps, welfare), she must identify the father(s) of her children.
Child Support, which is big, powerful agency, will contact the men and require DNA testing.
Once identified, a portion of the support will be paid by the father. A quasi-contract won’t help him.
Men have finagled for years to avoid paying. That’s one reason Child Support is such a big ass agency.
There is no compromising responsibility once there is a child.
(If I have the info wrong or bass-ackwards, please correct!)