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"Roe v. Wade for Men"

Thanz said:
I think that Luke was just trying to demonstrate that ramping up the rhetoric isn't useful, for either side. jj's "slavery" rhetoric is no more helpful than Luke's "holocaust" rhetoric.
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I certainly hope so.
 
I have only skimmed the thread, so i apologize if I am going over old ground. Generally, I agree with those that say that the bigger problem is people having to pay for kids who are NOT theirs than fathers paying for kids that are theirs - no matter what the mother may have said beforehand.

People, I think, are too focussed on the conduct/statements of the mother. Child support payments are the right of the child, not the mother, and it is not fair to punish the child for the sins of the mother. So men are not in complete control of their reproduction. They never have been, and they never will be.

If you father a child that you didn't plan on having, I don't care what the mother said to you beforehand: suck it up. Be a dad. The kid needs YOU, and not just your cash.
 
Yeah, yeah.

But this lady is doing what you would like. She's pregnant. She's not aborting.

What do you think the father's rights and responsibilities are in this case, Luke? I've not seen you address this particular facet of the unwanted pregnancy issue.
 
bluess said:
Yeah, yeah.

But this lady is doing what you would like. She's pregnant. She's not aborting.

What do you think the father's rights and responsibilities are in this case, Luke? I've not seen you address this particular facet of the unwanted pregnancy issue.
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I'm with TM. He should pay child support.
 
Luke T. said:
I'm with TM. He should pay child support.
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Maybe we've lost track here, and I'm as guilty as anyone else of it, if that's true. I'm going to posit a short list scenarios and questions, and you tell me whether the father should be *legally forced* to pay child support. The issue of whether he has a moral obligation to do so is entirely different.

A) This "Roe V Wade For Men" case.

B) Man who uses a rubber, whose girlfriend also uses birth control pills, but who are unfortunate enough to have an unwanted pregnancy anway, despite due caution.

C) Adult man who gets raped by a woman, and a fathers a child thereby.

D) Adult man who was a legally a minor at the time he was raped by a woman, and fathers a child thereby.

My responses are: A) Yes B) Yes C) No D) Hell no
 
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Please tell me the planets aren't aligning. Because I'm agreeing with both Luke and ImaginalDisk AT THE SAME TIME.

I'm heading into the bomb shelter.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Maybe we've lost track here, and I'm as guilty as anyone else of it, if that's true. I'm going to posit a short list scenarios and questions, and you tell me whether the father should be *legally forced* to pay child support. The issue of whether he has a moral obligation to do so is entirely different.

A) This "Roe V Wade For Men" case.

B) Man who uses a rubber, who girlfreind also uses birth control pills, but who are unfortunate enough to have an unwanted pregnancy anway, despite due caution.

C) Adult man who gets raped by a woman, and a fathers a child thereby.

D) Adult man who was a legally a minor at the time he was raped by a woman, and fathers a child thereby.

My responses are: A) Yes B) Yes C) No D) Hell no
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My answers are the same.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Well, I'm a wee bit offended that several posters have casually waved off the significance of female-on-male sexual assault, personally.
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Assault is assault. No means no. Gender is immaterial.

F**cking a guy who is incapable of making an appropriate decision is wrong. Unfortunately, we don't socialize our girls to understand this. Combined with misunderstandings of how the equipment works, its just assumed if the guy is good to go, he wants to.
 
Luke T. said:
I'm with TM. He should pay child support.
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Should, or must?

I'm confused about jj's "slavery" assertion myself, even though I agree with him about this issue in general. If it's "slavery" to make a pregnant woman legally responsible for the well-being of a fetus she chose to conceive, then I fail to see why it's not also "slavery" to make a mother legally responsible for the well-being of her two-year-old she chose to have.

I believe the former is ill-advised, while the latter is obviously appropriate, but I don't see how "slavery" comes into it in either case.
 
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Luke T. said:
It's easy to ramp up the rhetoric, jj. But you haven't shown how it is slavery.

Is being forced to submit a large portion of your pay to someone for the next 18 years because a single sex act slavery?
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You're confuting two issues, Luke. One of them is the woman's right to her body. I say it's slavery, plain and simple, to force a woman to bear a child when she wishes to elect not to do so EARLY IN PREGNANCY.

The issue of support is separate. The woman can always give the child up for adoption. The man can not. I submit that each should have an option, but then be bound by it, and the option must be stated at the start, no waiting a year and trying to dodge the bullet, etc.

In other words, all parties must be allowed to make an informed decision. The decision is binding.
 
toddjh said:
I'm confused about jj's "slavery" assertion myself, even though I agree with him about this issue in general. If it's "slavery" to make a pregnant woman legally responsible for the well-being of a fetus she chose to conceive, then I fail to see why it's not also "slavery" to make a mother legally responsible for the well-being of her two-year-old she chose to have.
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It's slavery to force the woman to take on the various risks, problems, and other physical issues of childbearing *if she is unwilling.* I would go so far as to argue that it's illegal to ask the woman to sign a contract agreeing to have a kid and not have an abortion, because it's illegal in the USA to sell one's self into slavery.

This says nothing about taking on the responsibility to support a child that she wishes to keep as her family. One supports one's family. I don't see anyone arguing otherwise, and I'm a bit tired of this straw man coming up over and over again. Such a point is simple emotional manipulation.

The point, as always, is still that in the case where the child is not wanted by the father (we must presume unmarried, unwilling father, etc, for these purposes), the woman has an option, the man has none. If she keeps the fetus, he pays, EVEN IF SHE DOES NOT KEEP THE CHILD. That's the facts, folks. She gets to bear the kid, which is certainly an imposition, and is then done with it, but he is not. Ever, unless somebody formally adopts the child rather than fosters them.

Luke would remove the woman's option to not have the child, and would require the man to support the child in all "normal adult" circumstances. This seems like nothing but coercion on all fronts.

And this all applies to a first-trimester fetus, so that's clear, not a born child, or even 3rd trimester fetus, which I will refer to as a baby.
 
jj,

With due respect, that's simply absurd. Your argument seems to rest on the premise that any sort of governmental interference with absolute personal liberty constitutes "slavery." But that's exactly what the government does; its very raison d'etre is to place limits on personal liberty, for the sake of the collective good. The government places all sorts of obligations on me that apply whether I consent to them or not. Every time I pay my taxes, obey the speed limit, refrain from doing drugs or mugging someone on the street, my behavior is constrained by the limits the government places on my freedom. Society rests on a social contract in which each member sacrifices a degree of personal liberty in exchange for the security of person and property that can only be provided by the collective enterprise of the state. We can debate whether particular laws (that is, particular manifestations of the state's right to infringe upon personal liberties) go too far, but the idea that legal restrictions on personal liberties per se are illegitimate is ridiculous.

Which leads to my next point.
I would go so far as to argue that it's illegal to ask the woman to sign a contract agreeing to have a kid and not have an abortion, because it's illegal in the USA to sell one's self into slavery.
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The idea that a legal obligation to abide by one's contractual promises constitutes "slavery" is equally baffling, and undermines the very idea of a contract. I imagine that a contract not to have an abortion would in fact be held void for policy reasons (because the courts would find it an excessive infringement on the woman's personal autonomy), but by your argument, no one could ever be compelled to honor any contractual relations. "What, you want me to pay my credit card bill? You can't do that! That's slavery!"

Edit: Speaking here as an ardent pro-choice supporter, Luke's Holocaust analogy, which you find "beyond contempt," seems more apt than your slavery one. If you sincerely believe that a fetus is a human life worthy of equal consideration as that of any other human being, then the argument can certainly be made that the ongoing practice of abortion is morally equivalent to the Holocaust. Personally I reject the foundational premise of that argument, but it's a lot more plausible than the idea that any sort of governmental infringement on absolute personal liberty constitutes "slavery." I think a better case could be made that your attempt to equate the outlawing of abortion with the tortures maliciously inflicted upon African Americans for generations is "beyond contempt."
 
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