Via Glenn Reynolds, we get this gem from Don Surber:
A 25-year-old computer programmer is ready to file suit to block a child support order to pay for a daughter he does not want. The National Center for Men plans to use the suit to establish that men, too, can choose whether they want to become parents.
Here’s a thought: Keep it in your pants, or use contraception. Once those boys are in that egg — which is in the woman’s body, not the man’s — you have lost your say in the matter.
Abortion rights for men? Use a condom. There’s your abortion right.
Despite the fact that I agree with you, I have to point out that you could substitute the word “women” and say “use a condom” or “take your pill” and say “There’s your abortion right.”
I am fervently pro-choice and don’t think that men should force their choices on the women; nevertheless I have to find a better answer than this…
No, because the “abortion rights for men” argument is actually neglecting an important fact.
Implicit in every act of intercourse is the chance that you might have a child. I agree that women should be using contraceptives. But men have to acknowledge that every time they have unprotected sex, or every time they take the woman at her word for it, they risk fathering a child. By not using a condom, they have assumed that risk and waived any right to protest about the outcome of their actions.
Sorry. If you don’t want to pay child support, make sure you don’t father a child. Not fair? Right. Neither is life.
Meryl, many women (before AIDS) would say that their men didn’t need condoms because they were on the pill. Why should the man have to pay support if the woman is the only one with the option to terminate the unplanned pregnancy?
If abortion were illegal (except in life-threatening pregnancies), then your argument holds. Otherwise, it is discriminatory and not just unfair. There is a legitimate 14th Amendment argument to be settled, IMHO.
chsw
Let me lay it out more clearly.
Implicit in every act of intercourse between men and women of childbearing age is the fact that it may result in pregnancy. This is an undeniable and utterly well-known fact.
It is incumbent, therefore, on both the man and the woman that, if they do not want a child, to prevent that result. Both of them. The man is not protected by the fact that a woman may be lying when she says she is on the Pill, though the woman is reprehensible for doing so.
If the man accepts the woman’s word and has unprotected sex with her, or throws caution to the winds and has unprotected sex with her, he doesn’t get to say, “But I didn’t know that having sex might result in a child!”
You play, you pay. Even if the woman lies. Sorry, but that’s the way the world is. Women have the children, and men must bear the responsibility for fathering them. But no, you don’t get to force a woman to abort them, because we have outlawed slavery in this nation. And not being able to force a woman to abort your child does not negate your responsibility for its conception — even if the woman lied about it.
Once again, life is unfair. Suck it up.
You play, you pay. Even if the woman lies. Sorry, but that’s the way the world is.
OK, then no paternity test, no child support.
If a woman makes a false accusation, she loses all legal right to future attempts to hang support for ANY of her children on another male and the court orders her tubes tied.
If a guy WANTS to support her brood, that’s his choice and it lasts as long as he can stand her. If she doesn’t know who the father is, she’s going to need to worry about playing the lottery and guessing which guy is the father. If she guesses right, she gets the support and if she guesses wrong, hey, “life is unfair”.
Better, legally require mandatory paternity tests before the infant leaves the hospital. She doesn’t get the kid unless she can prove who the daddy is.
Have you ever called making a man pay child support for another man’s child “slavery”? That’s up to 18 years of indentured servitude until the kid is legally independent. A woman who already has kids has no right to force another person to spend a dime on her kid. “Suck it up”, right?
Just checking if your goose/gander meter is properly calibrated.
No. That isn’t a goose/gander argument, that is penalizing the child for having the mother lie about the parentage. You want a paternity suit, then whover is the father pays.
I agree with you about not forcing a man to pay for someone else’s child, and yes, I’ve read about the cases where judges have done just that.
But again, this is about the consequences of having sex. A man does not get to shed his responsibility for a child that he created. Period. So the real father in your case does not get a “get out of child support free” card just because the mother is a liar.
You are obfuscating the issue. The issue is a man’s responsibility for the results of his actions. The woman’s responsibility is clear: She’s the one who bears the child, and she’s the one who has to raise it. The man must own up, too.
If he doesn’t want to pay child support, then he needs to make sure he doesn’t create one.
“She’s the one who bears the child, and she’s the one who has to raise it.”
Simply wrong. She can adopt it out, drop it off anonymously at the hospital, or raise it herself with no involvement from the father.
Men have none of these options, which is what this case is about. Equal protection under the law as guaranteed for all citizens under the 14th amendment. This case seeks to establish for men the same right to opt-out of parenthood that women have enjoyed for decades.
I agree with Meryl.
If you don’t want to pay child support, keep your pants zipped.
Six years ago my wife phoned me in near hysterics … and said through sobbing tears, “Con-, congratulations … you’re going to be a daddy.” After calming her down, I jokingly responded, “WHAT … sex makes babies?!?”
And once again, the problem with that argument is that once the semen has exited the man, it is no longer a part of him. However, if the timing is right, it becomes a part of the woman’s body, resulting in a child nine months later.
This case is not seeking equal rights for men. It is seeking the right to force a woman to have an abortion, or to waive all paternal rights to the child.
Once again, it is about men refusing to take responsibility for their actions.
Let me point out one last time: If a man does not want to take the chance on becoming a father, he had better not have sexual intercourse with a woman of childbearing age.
Nothing else matters. Yes, it sucks that accidents happen. Yes, it sucks that some women lie. Hey, life isn’t fair. Men don’t get to have equal rights in the case of childbirth, because they don’t have an equal share of the burden of childbirth.
When you’ve perfected an artificial womb, we can revisit this issue. Until then, sorry. Women’s rights trump men’s in the matter of children. Life is unfair. Tough.
A man does not get to shed his responsibility for a child that he created. Period.
But a woman does, if she chooses to.
If she doesn’t want to become an unwed mother, let her keep her pants zipped. Or have an abortion, since she gets to choose after the fact.
You want a society that destigmatizes extramarital sex? No problem, so long as you’re willing to accept the hard choices that go with that. Neither party can be handed an undue share of the ethical responsibility or material burden involved. Life is unfair, but that is no excuse for law, or society, to deliberately cultivate unfairness. That is the central underlying principle between every attempt at sexual, racial or social equality this society has attempted in the last 200 years.
The truth is that the quoted statement is meaningless due to an error of fact: men do not create children. Men and women create chilren. And when it happens, either both of them have a choice, or neither of them has a choice. Society isn’t allowed to favor one or the other.
No one believes, except for the most hardened feminists, that abortion is really about privacy. Ironically, in many third world countries, privacy is still the greatest hurdle to women’s safety because men could “abort” women inside men’s homes. Traditionally, third world laws don’t meddle in marital disputes because of or the primacy of the principle of privacy above all else.
Thankfully, the western world has already settled that the a woman’s safety is above the privacy of marriage. Additionally, it is a long settled moral principle that women are viable outside the social and political life of men. Most importantly, the recognition that women are humans is now fully entrenched in at least much of the western world.
The fetus unfortunately is still where women where centuries ago. Some of the most important early feminists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton analogized the fetus to women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton once said, “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” Today, the fetus is to women, where women where to men yesterday.
Abortion rights were invented to protect women from the economic, social, and emotional consequences of unwanted pregnancies. At least one would hope that that was the underlying principle of privacy. Without any means of escape, the consequences of unwanted pregnancies equally apply to equally unprepared parents. If a fetus is solely a woman’s property (or body part), it is solely her responsibility to carry or abort it.
Either women zip it up or pay for their own choices.
The problem is, nature is already unequal. The woman bears 99% of the effort of creating a child. The man’s effort is over when he has contributed his sperm.
I am not talking about child-rearing. I am talking about childbearing. You cannot ignore that part of the equation, which is what the “men’s rights” movement tries to do.
I am not disagreeing with you about the woman’s responsibility not to get pregnant. I am saying that men have always had the ability to say, “Not mine!” and walk away. (Yes, no longer due to paternity tests, move along.) Women do not have that ability. We aren’t starting out on a level playing field, so the equality argument is a red herring.
What I am saying about abortion and unwanted pregnancies is this: If a man wants to have a choice in the matter of whether or not a woman has an abortion, it is incumbent upon him not to get her pregnant in the first place. That is, in my opinion, the extent of what he can do.
Until scientists perfect an artificial womb and transplant the embryo so that women don’t have to bear the child, that is how things should remain. Men get the short end of the stick? Tough.
Society is utterly allowed to favor women over men in this case. Men don’t have children.
Women can’t pee their names in the snow. Are you going to legislate that men can’t stand up and pee, or are you going to legislate that all women must get artificial penises in order to have equal rights with men?
Stupid argument, isn’t it? But hey, society should allow both of us to have the choice to stand up and pee, shouldn’t it? We’re not allowed to favor either one.
Except that society doesn’t trump biology.
Meryl Yourish says: “Men don’t get to have equal rights in the case of childbirth, because they don’t have an equal share of the burden of childbirth.”
Right. That is why women are demanding that men only pay for child support in proportion to his share in the “burden of childbirth”.
I am against abortion, unless the mother’s health is genuinely at risk. But if we are going to grant women the right to determine thier reproductive destiny, then men should be able to decide whether they want to be fathers as well.
Well, guys, there is another option you have. It’s called a vasectomy.
The girl lied about being on the pill? No problem! The condom broke? Hey, go to the doctor to make sure you didn’t catch anything. At least you know that there is no way that kid is yours, and you can prove it even to the most dense judge.
One of my male friends did exactly that. He knew he didn’t want kids, and wanted to go “experience the fullness of what life had to offer” as he poetically put it. Yep, the Hollywood ideal of as many gorgeous women as you can rack up with no consequences to your behavior at all. No regrets on his part. And even better….no whining that “I shouldn’t have to pay, blah, blah, blah…it’s not fair….”
You want to be sure you don’t have to pay for a kid all the way through college? Pay a surgeon to get snipped. It’s cheaper. Maybe you can even come up with the money to reverse it someday (if/when you meet Ms Right and suddenly driving a minivan and picking out names seems kinda cool).
Until then, suck it up and realize that sex leads occasionally to babies unless you take responsibility for ensuring it won’t happen.
I’ll take on MR’s argument because I think it sums up the other side of this most succinctly–erroneously, yes, but succinctly:
Yes, she can. Yes, she is able to. We can take that ability as our sole point of agreement, but that is not what is at issue here. What is at issue here is whether the state may legally limit her options, to compel her to choose one over the other.
This case is about men not having uteruses?
Men have none of these options because men don’t get pregnant. They do not assume the risks of gestational diabetes, HELLP syndrome, or obstetric fistula (read that last one particularly and see if you’re still so hung up about being unable to experience the wonder of pregnancy yourself).
Anyway, you are going to have to talk to a much higher authority than the courts to rectify that injustice.
One may debate when life begins–whether it’s at the moment the egg is fertilized or when a heartbeat is first detected or at some nebulous moment later on–but there is no debating when the man’s role in creating life begins, and that is when the sperm leaves his body and takes up permanent residence in hers.
Past that point, there is nothing a man may do biologically to press “undo.” I do not then see why there should be anything he might do legally. To force an option legally that isn’t present biologically seems to be asking for special treatment, not equal treatment.
As for the farce of this argument being made so often by the same so-called men who urge women to embrace their biological differences from men and just accept that their physical forms make them uniquely suited for doing all life’s dirty work, sans paycheck, and how maybe that’s not fair exactly, but too bad, cupcake, ’cause life isn’t fair–well, I suspect Meryl’s laughing at least as hard at that irony as I am.
Damn shoe HURTS when it’s on that other foot, doesn’t it?
So, women get to abort because they can’t pee standing up. Yeah, right. Women have the uterus; until men grow their own uterus, women will have to take the full responsibility for their own choice – whether it’s to abort or not. Biology is unfair. Life is unfair. If women don’t like it, they can glue their uterus shut. Or they can abort, or they can work. It’s their body – they can do whatever they want with it. Men just drop the semen, women carry the baby. It’s in the woman’s body, it’s her problem.
I agree with Meryl. This issue is not about Abortion rights or right to privacy. This issue is about the rights of an individual. If a man gets a woman pregnant and he decides that he wants her to abort despite her wishes and if the law allowed him to pursue such action then she would be relegated to the status of property with no voice in her destiny or control over her body.
The very idea of this lawsuit is simply insane. If the man has concerns regarding becoming a bank account for a woman who keeps having children to collect child support then he has the following options:
No Condom : 100% risk
Condom : some risk
Trusting her : lots of risk. Exercise personal responsibility. Trust no one but yourself on this issue.
Vasectomy : 0% risk. Someone mentioned it before. That is always an option.
Abstain : 0% risk.
It’s easy. Pick the one that reduces your risks. Otherwise deal with the issue that you can not impose your will on another human being and get ready to write a child support check.
Life is unfair. If women don’t like it, they can glue their uterus shut.
Yes, and a man can put on a condom. Or get a vasectomy. If a man is worried about becoming a father, he can take precautions at his end. If he doesn’t and knocks up some girl, too bad.
I’m impressed with all the discussion this one generated. All I said at the first post was “if you don’t want a kid keep it zipped” could be applied to both genders and didn’t make a good arguement to support the POV we share. As we see from the above posts, that clearly is the case.
And for the record, vasectomy is more foolproof than tubal ligation [which when it fails is called tubal litigation] but it does have a failure rate; we have a medical term for people who rely on vasectomy, tubal ligation, etc and assume that risk of pregnancy is zero. We call them parents.
Yes, and a woman can take birth control pills or get an abortion. If a woman is worried about becoming a mother, she can take precautions at her end. If she doesn’t and get knocked up, too bad.
I can just as easily say “Women get the short end of the stick? Tough.”
Predicating the argument on the premise that one side has more rights than the other is special pleading. Won’t fly.
It’s not special pleading. It is acknowledging the biological facts of impregnation, pregnancy, and childbirth. The woman gets to say whether or not she wants to bear the child, and the man, legally, has to abide by that decision. When the man can bear the child, he gets to make his own decision.
This so-called “men’s rights” case is pure bullshit. It is another way of trying to avoid the responsibility for getting a woman pregnant. I say again: If a man does not want to be socked with child support payments, he needs to make sure he doesn’t make a child when he has sex with a woman. Implicit in every act of sexual intercourse between men and women of childbearing age is that act may create a child.
The 25-year-old man who doesn’t want to pay for the child because he thought the woman couldn’t become pregnant is a moron. This case is moronic.
You don’t get to call equal rights just because you think they apply. Biology trumps the issue here.
Equal rights consist of things like all genders being able to vote, because everyone has the capacity to vote, and should be able to vote. By not allowing a certain segment of society to vote, we are discriminating against them.
When a man can create and carry a child in his own womb, come back to me about equal rights for men in pregnancy and childbirth.
Ignoring the biological facts of this case is tantamount to sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “LALALA, I can’t HEAR you!”
Geez, Venture. Do you realize we first started arguing about this issue in 1986?
Let’s not use the phrase “women get the short end of the stick” in pregnancy discussions…
From above
You play, you pay. Even if the woman lies. Sorry, but that’s the way the world is. Women have the children, and men must bear the responsibility for fathering them. But no, you don’t get to force a woman to abort them, because we have outlawed slavery in this nation. And not being able to force a woman to abort your child does not negate your responsibility for its conception — even if the woman lied about it.
Once again, life is unfair. Suck it up.
Does this same rational apply to the “Glass Ceiling” in the business world?. It’s a man’s world, suck it up?. Life is not fair, suck it up? Women are “equipped” for child bearing, they should stay home and bear children while men work, suck it up?
Seems to me to be a whole lot of have your cake and eat it too on both sides of this issue.
Wow, how many different ways can I say it? Your example is as wrong as Venture’s. This isn’t a matter of equality. This is a matter of biology.
Men and women have equal potential to rise to the level of CEO. Men cannot have a child.
You can keep on bringing up these inane examples. I’ll keep on saying the same thing until you hear it: Men and women are not biologically equal. There is no such thing as biological equal rights.
Let me repeat that, because it’s going to become my mantra for this case:
There is no such thing as biological equal rights.
Deal with it.
I recall an episode of Spin City in which one of Mike’s girlfriends didn’t throw away the condom afterwards…
BTW, how many lines of Perl code would be required for an AI program that can participate in this debate?
I agree that men have no rights in regards to whether a woman can have an abortion or not since he has no rights over her body. A woman is the life support of their potential child until she gives birth to them.
Morally, one should be responsible for what they conceived and take care of them, but politically, I’m against the coercion of that, since, whether the parent is biological or not, they cannot be forced to raise a child. Raising and supporting a child is voluntary; to force someone to do so would be to negate ones individual right to their autonomy.
If a parent is so unwilling to support and nurture their child that they must be coerced to, then perhaps, they’re unfit to or are a horrible parent. A child shouldn’t be raised unwillingly anyways; it’s better for the child to be raised by someone who will want to, especially lovingly.
If both parents mutually do not want to raise their child till adulthood, then they are free to give their child up for adoption. If one of them wants to raise the child on their own, they cannot make the other support the child just because they can’t independently or feel like the other should. They must take responsibility for that decision, and if they cannot handle it, then they shouldn’t take on that responsibility and their child should be placed in the care of someone that could, for example, through foster care. But morally, I would say both parents should be responsible to support and nurture what they brought into this world.
If a parent should refuse to take part in supporting their offspring, then they should lose child custody and should not see or speak to them until they start supporting them.
Women have choices, men have responsposiblities. This difference derives from the biological difference between men and women. Women have uteri men don’t. Life’s not fair. It’s as simple as that. It would be unfair if women were forced to bear the entire burden of parenthood just because only they have uteri. Life isn’t fair. But it shouldn’t be so to women, especially in reproductive destiny. Then, life should only be unfair to men because even though both men and women didn’t chose to have a uterus, better to punish a man for not having a uterus than to punish a woman for having one.
A woman’s interest is above the interest of a fetus; but the fetus’ interest is above a man’s. So a woman should be able to forego motherhood if her pregnancy impedes her self-fulfillment. On the other hand, a man should pay for a woman’s pregnancy if pregancy leads to a woman’s self-fulfillment. If a man doesn’t like that, then he should have snipped it… before the fact…unless he has a uterus, then he can change his mind after the fact, just like a woman. Until then he must bear the unfairness of biology. Only when men grow their own uterus and women lose theirs can there be a legal right to freedom from involuntary child support…for women.
Starkovsky, in a perfect world, you are perfectly right.
Unfortunately, we live in this one.
If it’s simply biology, then aren’t men better equipped for the business world? Less mood swings? No PMS?? No hot flashes in the boardroom?? If you want to discount equality (which, btw, was the primary driver behind the Equal Rights movement) what about that biology? Since women have the biological ability to bear children and some “obvious” biological “drawbacks” to the work environment should they have a lesser place in the workplace?
You are absolutely right; this is not a perfect world. And, please understand me, I’m not advocating women out of the workforce. There is a need for a more equitable solution to this issue. Should a woman be allowed to force a man to support a child he does not want? A man cannot force a woman to bear a child he does want. Rightfully so. But saying that a man has no choices in the matter because of biology is a rather thin argument.
That isn’t what I said. What I said was, if a man doesn’t want to pay child support, then it is incumbent upon him to make sure he doesn’t create a child. Once it’s created, it is then his responsibility, regardless of whether he wanted it or not. You play, you pay.
I have been using the biology argument in response to those who claim equal rights trump the woman making the decision. There is no concept of equal rights in biology.
Surely the equal rights people see the fairness in this situation. It’s unfair to make the woman bear the costs of a child that was created by the two of them.
Yes, that last paragraph was sarcasm.
Pok’s premise: “Women have choices, men have responsibilities. This difference derives from the biological difference between men and women. Women have uteri men don’t.”
Actually, men and women have choices and responsibilities. Both could choose when faced with alternatives, and they can be responsibility as a result. This is derived from the fact that both alike have minds, not because of their sexual organs, which has nothing to do with conscious decisions at all.
“Life’s not fair. It’s as simple as that.”
By life, I presume you mean reality. Reality is neither fair nor unfair. It favors no one over anyone else. It just is. It’s as simple as that.
“Then, life should only be unfair to men because even though both men and women didn’t chose to have a uterus, better to punish a man for not having a uterus than to punish a woman for having one.”
This is backwards. Your argument is that men should be punished for his biology? Neither Men nor women could be punished for something they have no control over. They should be punished for their actions, particularly if it infringes an individual’s right, which I do not see here in this case.
“On the other hand, a man should pay for a woman’s pregnancy if pregancy leads to a woman’s self-fulfillment.”
In other words, a woman can wish for a man to pay for her whims.
Meryl: “…if a man doesn’t want to pay child support, then it is incumbent upon him to make sure he doesn’t create a child. Once it’s created, it is then his responsibility regardless of whether he wanted it or not. You play, you pay.”
It is not incumbant of a man to be responsible for the child, nor of the woman; maybe morally for both, but not politically. You didn’t give any explanation why either. But any explanation would merely contradict an individual’s right to their life, since individuals are an end to themselves, not of others.
What an individual earns belongs to them and no one else; if it does not, and it is expropriated to support someone, such as the child for example, then the right to their wealth and property is negated.
If humans are free and autonomous beings, then they can choose to support their child or not, regardless of the wishes of anyone else. In your world, apparently, they are not autonomous.
The choice to raise a child is a voluntary option, not a duty that could be enforced since no human being on earth can be forced to sacrifice themselves for anyone else, even if it is their child.
My argument is based on reality, particularly on human nature, and the individual rights that derive from it as a result. You overlook that as if need has primacy over rights.
“It’s unfair to make the woman bear the costs of a child that was created by the two of them.”
You’ve setup a strawman. No one “makes” a woman bear the cost of the child. That is her choice if she decides to have and raise the child, particularly on her own.
It all comes down to this: women who demand child support from the father want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to take on the burden of raising their child on their own while shifting that responsibility to someone else, the father, if they can’t do it independently. If they can’t handle that burden, then they shouldn’t take it on and either have the option of (1) an abortion or (2) giving their child up for adoption or to foster care or (3) do the best they can.
So, like, do you read my posts, or just skim them? Because two paragraphs in response to a statement of mine that I said was sarcastic leads me to believe the latter.
Your last paragraph is in error. The argument begins and ends with the creation of the child. If a man does not want to pay child support, he needs to make sure he doesn’t create one. This isn’t about the woman. It is about the man’s contribution to, and responsibilty for, that child’s creation.
This has been my argument all along. I understand all the “BUT…” scenarios, and still, the subject comes down to this: A woman cannot create a child via the act of sexual intercourse without a man’s assistance. (Please don’t start with the “what-if” scenarios; we are talking the usual way here.)
You can’t start the solution three steps after the problem has begun.
Please explain to me how a man is not responsible for a child he fathered when he knows full well that the act of intercourse with a woman of childbearing years might result in a child.
Unless you are trying to tell me that men are unaware that intercourse may lead to pregnancy, you’re still not answering my questions.
You may have intended your comment to be sarcasm, but a strawman was what I caught.
You’re argument rests on the biology of those that conceived the child. Biology necessitates responsibility is your premise. If two people conceived the child, they’re automatically responsible for them.
But that’s a fallacious premise because responsibility, as such, has nothing to do with biology, but with choice. To reproduce is a choice. So is giving birth. So is raising a child. So long as there is choice, the argument doesn’t end with the creation of the child.
And a person needn’t be the biological parent to raise the child; anyone willing to provide and nurture a child can be its parent, and in order for them to do so, they have to assume custody of them, which is a choice, and if they do, then they bear the responsibility of the child.
Therefore, the father and or the mother are responsible for the child if they assume custody of them. Birth of the child does not necessitate responsibility unless they decide to keep them. If you disagree with this, then you make the alternative for them to give their child up for adoption and foster care impossible. If one of them decides to keep the child, that responsibility shifts on them, not the other who gave up their custody of the child.
If they decide to give their child up for adoption who is then placed in the custody of foster parents, that does not mean the foster parents can demand child support from the biological mother and or father just because they conceived the child; their conception of the child does not mean they are indebted to them until they’re an adult unless they have custody of them. Responsibility is a matter of custody, and to assume custody is a choice.
Being responsible for the child does not rest on who conceived the child, but on who will voluntarily be the guardian of them; that could be either both biological parents, one of them, the relative, the foster parents, the foster home, or the adult sibling, if there is one.
Parenting and raising a child is not a matter of biology, it is a matter of who will make that choice and voluntarily take on that responsibility. The biological father and mother have no automatic responsibilities for their child; they have the option to take on responsibility for them or not.
A number of these comments have been on the sheer disaster of being a woman and having to carry the baby to term. However, what about the rights of the man to avoid pregancy? If you’re truly pro-choice, then give the man that choice as well. If he doesn’t want the baby, then he should be able to mandate an abortion, and then there is no financial responsibility going forward. The cost of the abortion should be borne jointly by both involved parties. If both parties are to be responsible, both parties should have a say in the outcome.
Two comments in a row that refuse to address the heart of the matter. What, again, is the heart of the matter?
If a man does not want to pay child support for a child he does not want, then he needs to make sure he does not create that child in the first place.
All other arguments are obfuscation of the point. My original post stands: Use a condom. There’s your abortion rights for men.
I beleive the heart of the matter is equal rights. I understand the point in comment 36 very well, but what if the same standard was applied to women. If abstinence and contreception alone are considered adequate and reasonable, and that standard was applied to women, then why would there ever be a need for any abortion except in caes of rape / incest / mother’s health? If we used your logic, and applied it equally, it would outlaw 90% of all abortions performed in this country. Is that your contention, or are you comfortable with promoting a double standard?
Now you’re talking, Jack. I absolutely promote a double standard in this case, because, as has been pointed out, men don’t have uteri.
The woman bears the responsibility of the child before, during, and after the birth. Yes, women can put their child up for adoption. Yes, women can abort. But can a woman simply abandon her child and walk away? No. She will be thrown in jail.
And yet, that is exactly what this case is about: A man wants legal sanction to abandon a child that he fathered because he thought his girlfriend couldn’t get pregnant.
Think about it: It’s not just abandomnment he wants. He wants the courts to legally allow him to abandon his child. A legal walk-away clause. The concept is so detestable that I can’t believe anyone is arguing for it, and yet, they are.
Equal rights? They have nothing to do with this. This is about legally-allowed lack of responsibility.
I say again: The solution to this problem: Make sure you don’t get your girlfriend pregnant. Because after you do, it’s your child, too. Deal with it.
Well, I actually feel some type of vindication since comment 38 has acknowledged the double standard that truly exists. That has been one of the key points of this debate is to point out the current inequities. However, I would ask 38 to truly consider where the logic stream leads her. It would seem to me to be dangerous to allow a double standard based solely on biology (read sex discrimination) whenever it conveniently supports your opinion. This could legitimately be used in reverse in many other situations
(qualifying for police / fire / construction type employment).
My last comment on this issue is to point out that the ramifications of this are not solely borne by men. Many times where a man is paying child support to a former partner, but currently married to a new wife, the new wife and possible new children are also victimized by a former partner who wants increased support based upon the man’s increased earnings. Many women (obviously the new wife)I know are the most vocal critics of this practice.
“I absolutely promote a double standard in this case, because, as has been pointed out, men don’t have uteri.”
You promote contradictions? This case has nothing to do with men not having uteri. It is about individual rights, which apply equally to both genders, not specifically one. No one can decide what another person can do with their body. That’s the standard. Period.
“If a man does not want to pay child support for a child he does not want, then he needs to make sure he does not create that child in the first place.”
This is a non sequitur. The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premise. I just demolished your premise and demonstrated that this isn’t a necessary consequence in my comment above, but either you refuse to see it, can’t rebut it, or you didn’t read it at all.
What evidence do you have to support your claim? That the only alternative for a man is to “use a condom”? So that means that once he creates the child, he must be coerced by the government to provide for it even though its life is no longer dependent on him if adoptive parents can and will ensure its survival? If there were no adoptive parents willing to support the child, then the father would have to support it, but that’s not the case since adoptive parents exists and are willing to. That’s a fact.
“But can a woman simply abandon her child and walk away? No. She will be thrown in jail.”
This is a strawman. I’m not arguing for this, nor do I know who else is. My argument rests on the alternative for adoption, which exists, and you’ve set this strawman up in attempt to undermine my argument, although you haven’t touched it.
“A man wants legal sanction to abandon a child that he fathered because he thought his girlfriend couldn’t get pregnant.”
Another strawman.
“Think about it: It’s not just abandomnment he wants. He wants the courts to legally allow him to abandon his child. A legal walk-away clause. The concept is so detestable that I can’t believe anyone is arguing for it, and yet, they are.”
Let’s make this clear. Is he abandoning the child? Yes. But is he leaving it to rot? No. He’s leaving it in the care of adoptive parents. You may not like it, but the child’s life will be protected since it is provided for by them.
“Equal rights? They have nothing to do with this. This is about legally-allowed lack of responsibility.”
What kind of argument is this? The government cannot enforce responsibility. It cannot enforce what it thinks or feels or wants people to be responsible for. That would be completely arbitrary. It can only protect rights and can do so by force. And nowhere in your argument have you shown that the child’s life is being endangered, except by knocking down a strawman.
You can throw all the strawmans you want. If you want to prove your point, try to prove that the father must support the child despite the alternatives that exists. Prove that it is a necessary consequence, and therefore, the only. But the fact is you can’t. Whenever you try, you just end up bypassing the facts, and we all know that facts can’t be ignored.
Okay, since you’re being a bit thick, let me put this in plain English:
I have said my piece. I am finished. I have already discussed every one of your points. Just because you don’t like my answers, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to change them. I’m done.
Go bother someone else now.
Men do have equal rights with their choices of contraception, they just don’t have the *same* rights due to what biology dictates. It isn’t a double-standard it’s just that different standards apply to things that are, indeed, different. In this case it is reproductive biology. But the outcomes will be equal. Other than that little semantic issue, I agree Meryl. The fetus gestates in the woman’s womb and she can choose to terminate it or keep it. However she can’t do any of that unless the man lets his sperm out; that is his cue, that is where his *choice* comes in whether to have a child. He can’t have a free-ride and expect the woman to be bound by his actions and then at the last minute, when she makes *her* choice, cry entrapment. That is just not taking responsibility but feeling entitled.
Yeah, also wanted to touch on this…
“If it’s simply biology, then aren’t men better equipped for the business world? Less mood swings? No PMS?? No hot flashes in the boardroom??â€
I know the point of saying this was but for the record? Men report having as many “mood swings†as women do – as well as food-cravings – throughout the year. Women do, too, it’s just that it is only noticed when they near their period. Plus it isn’t even true of all women . Also they have found nothing during the PMS time that causes moods swings or anything of the type.
Allow me to amend something…
“that is his cue, that is where his *choice* comes in whether to have a child.”
That is where his choice comes in to show whether he is willing to have a child. Again, you can’t take a free-ride and then cry entrapment.
There is a simple solution to cases like this: Liability for child-support payments was incurred by the father due to a misrepresentation on the part of the woman. So, why not allow a counter-suit so that he might recover his money from the woman? That would make the net payment between the two parties zero. And then, why not throw in some compensation for legal fees and emotional distress for good measure (men being so emotionally fragile, of course)?
I agree that birth control is both the man’s and the woman’s responsiblity. You can’t say, “Sorry. You should’ve used a condom, now pay up.” Things happen. Condoms break. Women forget to take the pill. Even vasectomies aren’t 100% reliable.
I do believe in a woman’s right to choose. I also, however, believe in a man’s right to disagree with that choice.
I think that if a woman knew that a man could legally say, “Sorry. Not my decision, not my responsiblity,” then there might be far fewer single mothers living in poverty.
And what about the scenario where a man wants the baby and a woman doesn’t? Should he be able to force her to carry it to term? Isn’t that the same as forcing him to support a child he doesn’t want?
I think there’s a lot of point-missing going on here. A person’s body and a person’s money are not the same thing. It’s meaningless to compare an unwanted pregnancy to unwanted mandatory child-support payments.
Pregnancy lasts only nine months, but they can be nine months of pure, life- and health-threatening hell in which the woman’s BODY, the shell that makes her life POSSIBLE, is changed to an incredible degree. It is not like growing hair or fingernails, where you just go on with your life and let it happen. It is a HUGE DEAL. For many women, their bodies are never the same again–not because they don’t lose the weight, but because they, for instance, didn’t get enough calcium during pregnancy and their teeth suffered for the lack. I thank my lucky stars my pregnancy was very easy and happy compared to many other womens’ experiences and yet it was STILL an ordeal. A woman should be able to end that if necessary. This is something that no man has ever gone through or will go through.
Child support lasts, presumably, 18 years. It involves money. Money is very important in this society. It is TERRIBLY hard to live without it and I thank those same lucky stars I have never had to try. Yet, giving up money every month for 216 months (lots longer than a pregnancy) to support a child you never wanted is not comparable to being pregnant. At best, it’s an annoying, galling, unrewarding but affordable bill to pay. At worst, it could cripple a man financially and lead him to make terrible choices, such as doing illegal things to get money or having to choose between paying child support and paying his rent.
A fair comparison to a man paying child support for his child, whom he didn’t want but the woman refused to abort, would be: a woman paying child support for her child, whom she didn’t want but carried to term anyway since the father wanted it and undertook to be the permanent, sole custodial parent. It’s not exactly the same since in either scenario, the woman carries and gives birth to the child, but it is COMPARABLE. Pregnancy and child support are not comparable. It’s not even apples/oranges. It’s apples/hockey pucks.
Another difference between the scenarios of a woman or a man paying child support for an unwanted child is that the woman had the option, while she was pregnant, of having an abortion. But from that, it does NOT follow that a man’s refusal to pay child support is the equivalent of a woman’s refusal to continue the pregnancy.
There is no experience a man can have that is comparable to a woman carrying an unwanted pregnancy. Being forced to donate a kidney? Having his body used to grow body parts for other people? Silly comparisons. There is NOTHING COMPARABLE.
This is really a tricky moral question and with all due respect to this being Meryl’s blog (and me having come here for the first time ever, today, starting with Bitch, Ph.D. and going through at least one other blog), I don’t agree that there is any answer that covers all cases. Nor can I agree that adoption is the easy way for all concerned, plus a second, infertile couple, to be satisfied. I really just can’t figure this one out but I wanted to point out how different the two things are: the right to end an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy, vs. the right to refuse to pay for the support of a child one did not intend to father. Not the same thing, or even close.
Hi, I’m new here!! I have read the blog with a great deal of interest as there are a number of perspectives that have been presented. I have to say that the most common disappointing aspect of the various opinions has been the lack of responsibilty from both the men and the women.
For the men, I beleive that you have to pay child support. The main point being missed is that it is not for the benefit of your previous partner, it is for the child. It should not be viewed as compensation for the women, but for the benefit of the child. Would it make it easier if the mom had to produce receipts proving that the money was spent on the child? I wouldn’t mind that as I am sure that there have been misspent funds.
For the women,I believe we have to take more responsibility for our own bodies. Because women have always had and always will have the closer biological relationship with the fetus and then the baby, and it is our body, we have to take a greater share of responsibility for preventing unwanted pregnancies. It will obviously affect us more regardless if we have the baby or an abortion. Neither one is any picnic.
Girls, let’s examine your choices. First, (barring rape) you always have absolute protection through abstinence (a little morals would help a lot here). Second, how about talking about the possibility with your partner, and making these decisions beforehand? If you can’t address these types of issues, try step number one until you can. Third, is contraception. The pill is 99% + effective today, AND can be used in conjuction with other contraception tools (male or female). This shoud be able to eliminate the overwhelming number of unwanted pregnancies. Therefore, in the event you disappointedly become pregnant, you should either be embarrassed by your lack of responsibility or proud in that your baby is virtually a freak of nature against almost impossible odds. Girls, shame on you if you are in this situation because it was absolutely in your control to prevent it (regardless of what the man did or did not do). A life depends on you (yes I am pro-life). Girls, you are completely capable of controlling your own destiny (without resorting to abortion). Get off your butt, and be responsible for your life, and for your potential children..! I’m done.