It makes absolutely no sense to characterize abortion as 'wrongful death' in certain circumstances, while at the same time upholding the right to abortion in other circumstances.
You have to first of all decide whether or not an unborn fetus is a human being or not. If it is a human being, then wrongful death may be applicable but abortion surely isn't legal. If it isn't a human being, then abortion is legal but wrongful death surely isn't applicable.
There is no situation in which wrongful death is applicable to an unborn fetus and at the same time abortion is legal.
@ermir You must really live in fairy tale land. Fathers can have their paychecks stripped to the point of getting 65$ left to survive off of. And you can get incarcerated for not paying child support.
I'm not sure what exactly about your statements you think is a counterargument to anything I said.
I didn't say I thought the current system was perfect. I said that inherently women bear a greater burden from pregnancy and birth or abortion than men do. That's just biological fact combined with the fact that a woman can't pretend that baby isn't hers. And I said that the child support system should recognize that. That's just one of the basic facts you should start from when considering what the system should do.
That is a separate issue from whether it is overcompensating and now placing too harsh a burden on men with child support payments.
Im sorry but in the real world child support payments can ruin you financially or get you in put in jail. The women doesnt bear a harsher burden then a man who is hit with child support.
The woman who had to carry the child and has to raise the child and earn money to support herself and the child doesn't bear a greater burden?
A few unsubstantiated sob stories about dads who are in dire financial straits because of child support payments or who refuse to pay child support and thus go to jail doesn't prove anything about who typically bears the greater burden. And you can't exactly put a cash figure on how much the burden of pregnancy and raising a child is anyway.
But did you notice when I suggested lessening the burden on some men depending on the situation? Nope.
What I'm saying is that men should not get carte blanche to go impregnate women and give up their parental rights and have everyone else bear the burden of supporting their children. I didn't say that men should have all their money confiscated or that there should be no consideration for how much money the man makes or what have you.
But feel free to keep attacking that straw man.
As far as the issue at topic, I believe the father should have to be notified before an abortion can take place, and he should have to consent to the abortion and if the abortion happens with out this, he should be able to sue the women.
The very issue of child support throws out the whole idea of privacy, the government has their hands in the matter by the very fact that the father is financially responsible for the baby.
Edit: I also think whatever institution provided the abortion should also be liable to legal damages as well.
Yeah, but no.
You shouldn't be allowed to control women's bodies. A man's wallet is not equivalent to a woman's uterus and ******, and taking some money out of his bank account is NOTHING like forcing a woman to bear a child she doesn't want.
You complain that the child support system is awful to men and then you follow that up by saying a man gets to tell a woman what to do with her body if she gets pregnant? That's f'ed up. I have a recommendation for you: whenever you go on a date with a woman, tell them that right up front. You'll find you have a lot more free time.
You can take precautions to avoid the unwanted consequences of your actions, and these precautions can be 99+% effective, but if the consequences occur anyway then you remain responsible for them. If you drive carefully and defensively, but a deer jumps out in front of you and smashes up your car through no fault of your own, then you still have to pay to fix the damage. It's not even so much a matter of responsibility in the ethical sense as the simple fact that the damage is there, it's still going to be there no matter how much you say "not my fault!", and nobody else has any reason to pay for it (unless they're an insurance company and have agreed to do so beforehand).
Same deal with a baby. The baby may be unplanned, the result of failed contraception. Doesn't matter. It's here now, and it's not going to go anywhere. And it needs to eat. There are exactly two people in the world whose voluntary actions are responsible for this state of affairs, and if one person can't meet the baby's needs, the other has to make up the shortfall, because who else will?
Certain aspects of child support as it is implemented in the real world may be unfair, burdensome, or just plain inefficient - but the principle behind it is sound.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You can take precautions to avoid the unwanted consequences of your actions, and these precautions can be 99+% effective, but if the consequences occur anyway then you remain responsible for them. If you drive carefully and defensively, but a deer jumps out in front of you and smashes up your car through no fault of your own, then you still have to pay to fix the damage. It's not even so much a matter of responsibility in the ethical sense as the simple fact that the damage is there, it's still going to be there no matter how much you say "not my fault!", and nobody else has any reason to pay for it (unless they're an insurance company and have agreed to do so beforehand).
Same deal with a baby. The baby may be unplanned, the result of failed contraception. Doesn't matter. It's here now, and it's not going to go anywhere. And it needs to eat. There are exactly two people in the world whose voluntary actions are responsible for this state of affairs, and if one person can't meet the baby's needs, the other has to make up the shortfall, because who else will?
Certain aspects of child support as it is implemented in the real world may be unfair, burdensome, or just plain inefficient - but the principle behind it is sound.
Your analogy is completely flawed. "If you drive carefully and defensively, but a deer jumps out in front of you and smashes up your car through no fault of your own" - then that situation was beyond your control. "[A child] is here now, and it's not going to go anywhere, and it needs to eat" - this situation clearly wasn't beyond your control. You could have aborted the pregnancy (then it wouldn't be the case that the child is "here now") or you could have given it up for adoption (then it wouldn't be the case that "it's not going to go anywhere," and "it needs to eat" would be somebody else's problem).
So, the child being here now, not going anywhere and needing to eat is a result of two deliberate choices (choosing not to abort the pregnancy and then choosing not to give the child up for adoption). If mom made both of these choices without dad's approval, then why should dad have to suffer the consequences of these choices?
Your arguments seem to be from a rather sheltered view point of the world.
You simply dismiss a mans wallet as if its just some number, I don't think you realize what its like to pay for ones own way.
They represent food, rent, a way to get to work etc. If you truly felt these burdens I don't think you would so cavalierly throw them aside.
The whole idea of the current Child Support system is unjust because it places a financial burden on a party that is powerless to effect the outcome.
If the man had the right to influence whether a child that was conceived by to consenting parties is born or not, then the argument would hold validity.
The women's physical uncomfort is of her own choice, not his.
In regards to wrongful death, hogwash, much of the calculations in any wrongful death suit are often future earnings of a deceased person. Even if the "fetus" isn't deemed a person, do you really believe the fact that it will be a future person should be ignored.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Don't you see that the whole aim of Moderators is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make infractions literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
You shouldn't be allowed to control women's bodies. A man's wallet is not equivalent to a woman's uterus and ******, and taking some money out of his bank account is NOTHING like forcing a woman to bear a child she doesn't want.
Pregnancy is unquestionably more intrusive, but that doesn't mean the two situations are completely incomparable. In both cases a person is being required to bear some burden as an unintended consequence of their actions. We can certainly step back to examine such a state of affairs in the abstract before we begin a more detailed analysis involving the nature of the burden. After all, some common pro-choice arguments take the form that bearing a burden you don't take on voluntarily is unjust, and it seems these arguments would apply just as well to the man and his financial burden as to the woman and her biological burden. (Although, as I said above, they're wrong either way.)
Your analogy is completely flawed. "If you drive carefully and defensively, but a deer jumps out in front of you and smashes up your car through no fault of your own" - then that situation was beyond your control. If a baby "is here now, and it's not going to go anywhere, and it needs to eat" - this situation clearly wasn't beyond your control. You could have aborted the child (then it wouldn't be the case that the baby is "here now") or you could have given it up for adoption (then it wouldn't be the case that "it's not going to go anywhere").
So, the baby being here now, not going anywhere and needing to eat is a result of two deliberate choices (choosing not to abort the baby and choosing not to give it up for adoption).
Let's take abortion off the table right now. It may be legal, but it's still murder in the eyes of many women, and it's absurd to hold a woman responsible for her "deliberate choice" not to commit murder.
As for adoption, in that case you've found someone else who is willing to voluntarily shoulder the burden of the baby's needs. Good for you. But the availability of such a kind benefactor is not guaranteed and cannot be taken for granted in an analysis of financial responsibility. And, of course, adoption entails giving the baby away. Call me sentimental, but I really don't like the incentive structure where father can say "no, I won't pay", and force a mother to part with her child forever.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Pregnancy is unquestionably more intrusive, but that doesn't mean the two situations are completely incomparable. In both cases a person is being required to bear some burden as an unintended consequence of their actions. We can certainly step back to examine such a state of affairs in the abstract before we begin a more detailed analysis involving the nature of the burden. After all, some common pro-choice arguments take the form that bearing a burden you don't take on voluntarily is unjust, and it seems these arguments would apply just as well to the man and his financial burden as to the woman and her biological burden. (Although, as I said above, they're wrong either way.)
Let's take abortion off the table right now. It may be legal, but it's still murder in the eyes of many women, and it's absurd to hold a woman responsible for her "deliberate choice" not to commit murder.
As for adoption, in that case you've found someone else who is willing to voluntarily shoulder the burden of the baby's needs. Good for you. But the availability of such a kind benefactor is not guaranteed and cannot be taken for granted in an analysis of financial responsibility. And, of course, adoption entails giving the baby away. Call me sentimental, but I really don't like the incentive structure where father can say "no, I won't pay", and force a mother to part with her child forever.
Nothing is Forcing the mother to give away the child, we are only saying the father should have the right to choose to not take part in that child's life in any manor. Should she than CHOOSE to take on the burdon herself that is HER choice. The hardship she choose to bear, Just like it was the male's chose to choose to not have anything to do with it. She has no more right too force the male from his funds then he does force her to abandon it. I am pretty sure we have child services run by the government where you can do just that give the child up.
Also on a side note, WHo are these women who think that abortion is murder BUT pre marital sex is AOK? I was under the impression that Pro Lifers tend to be the religious crowd which if they were following their faith (in most cases) wouldn't be having sex before marriage.
Mom wants to have the child but dad doesn't want do. Should dad have any say in whether or not the baby gets aborted? If mom decides to have the baby against dad's will, should he be forced to pay child support? Why / why not?
Yes, too bad if he doesn't want to pay, that's part of the consequence of having unprotected sex. Even if it was protected sex, I would still say it is the father's responsibility to take responsibility for his actions.
Quote from beast89 »
Dad wants to have the child but mom doesn't want to. Should dad be able to prevent mom from getting an abortion? Why / why not?
This is a tougher question to answer. I would like to see men be able to have more power over this because the baby is 50% his, but then this opens up a whole new can of worms.
What right does a man have to force a women to carry a child she doesn't want?
Even if men were to have this right, there's nothing to stop a women from going somewhere else to have an abortion or to stop her from trying to hurt herself to get rid of the child.
So I think for this reason I would say no, even though I don't like it.
Yes, too bad if he doesn't want to pay, that's part of the consequence of having unprotected sex. Even if it was protected sex, I would still say it is the father's responsibility to take responsibility for his actions.
That is my first reaction but why should he NOT be able to have this right when the woman does? In the scenario the abortion is legal with no questions asked. The woman could simply be like
"Well I was stupid or the condom broke but its okay I can have an abortion" and thatas TOTALLY FREAKING FINE!
But no....no if a guy says..
"Well I was stupid or the condom broke but I'll have to pay for it in the form of child support for the next 18 years or more."
But yeah.....the second one is absolutly horrible but why should the girl be a ble to do it?
yeah yeah yeah I get the whole "her body is her choice" thing but its the EXACT SAME THING as what the guy is doing and it makes him a bad person. She simply doesn't want the child so she kills it. But they guy doesn't want the child he gets no say in if its aborted or not and is trapped paying for it or he goes to jail. How the frick is that fair?
Are men more innately evil for having unprotected sex and women are somehow immune to this?
Nothing is Forcing the mother to give away the child, we are only saying the father should have the right to choose to not take part in that child's life in any manor. Should she than CHOOSE to take on the burdon herself that is HER choice. The hardship she choose to bear, Just like it was the male's chose to choose to not have anything to do with it. She has no more right too force the male from his funds then he does force her to abandon it. I am pretty sure we have child services run by the government where you can do just that give the child up.
Also on a side note, WHo are these women who think that abortion is murder BUT pre marital sex is AOK? I was under the impression that Pro Lifers tend to be the religious crowd which if they were following their faith (in most cases) wouldn't be having sex before marriage.
Although I agree with you, I think that you're missing the point that Blinking Spirit is trying to make when you emphasize the fact that she is choosing to take on the burden of child bearing. Blinking Spirit's point seems to be that you can't really call this a choice when the only alternative is something that would be considered murder:
Let's take abortion off the table right now. It may be legal, but it's still murder in the eyes of many women, and it's absurd to hold a woman responsible for her "deliberate choice" not to commit murder.
Within a framework / world-view wherein abortion is considered to be murder, I really have no solid argument against fathers being forced to pay child support. If abortion is murder, then neither should the mother have the option of opting out (via abortion) nor should the father have the option of opting out (via non-payment of child-support).
However, I don't buy into this framework to begin with. My real argument is also against people who don't buy into this framework. I guess I mainly have a bone to pick with the extreme liberals and feminists who believe that the mother should have the option of opting out (via abortion) but the father shouldn't have the option of opting out (via non-payment of child-support). I think that this is a double standard and this is what I'm against.
Framework B:
Abortion is not murder.
Mom is allowed to opt-out (via abortion).
Dad is allowed to opt-out (via non-payment of child support).
So abortion is the moral equivalency of not paying child support in your moral framework?
In terms of fairness to the parents yes. However this is an imperfect world where stuff costs money. A better framework imo would be this
Framework D:
Abortion Is Murder Unless Rape/incest/health of the mother
Mom IS NOT allowed to opt out except in cases of *
Father IS NOT allowed to opt out
Also on a side note, WHo are these women who think that abortion is murder BUT pre marital sex is AOK? I was under the impression that Pro Lifers tend to be the religious crowd which if they were following their faith (in most cases) wouldn't be having sex before marriage.
First of all, tendencies are not absolutes. Logically speaking, it is perfectly possible for a woman to be pro-life or pro-choice, religious or irreligious, and pro-premarital-sex or anti-premarital sex, in any combination. There's no necessary connection between any two. And such people really do exist, in respectable numbers. You're not living in Stereotype Land.
Second, nobody is perfect. People don't always live up to their sincerely held convictions. That doesn't mean they don't have those convictions, or that they are willing to violate much, much deeper convictions. Taboo against premarital sex < taboo against murder.
Third, who said we're talking about an unmarried woman at all? Divorce and separation happen.
Within a framework / world-view wherein abortion is considered to be murder, I really have no solid argument against fathers being forced to pay child support. If abortion is murder, then neither should the mother have the option of opting out (via abortion) nor should the father have the option of opting out (via non-payment of child-support).
However, I don't buy into this framework to begin with. My real argument is also against people who don't buy into this framework.
And that's fine for your and your interlocutors' personal understandings of right and wrong. But the thing is that the law has to apply to everybody. It cannot assume that every woman will entertain abortion as a serious possibility, any more than (to take another topical example) it can assume that every voter will have a driver's license.
I guess I mainly have a bone to pick with the extreme liberals and feminists who believe that the mother should have the option of opting out (via abortion) but the father shouldn't have the option of opting out (via non-payment of child-support). I think that this is a double standard and this is what I'm against.
Don't even get me started on double standards in the abortion debate. Richard Mourdock's recent gaffe has been one of the few times I've actually heard a consistent position from either side in public discourse, and it was predictably misinterpreted and demonized.
So abortion is the moral equivalency of not paying child support in your moral framework?
They don't have to be precisely or even closely morally equivalent to fill the same slot in the logical argument, if all the logical argument is looking for is [insert responsibility here].
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
For those talking about child support percentages. Most states follow,
25%-first child
33%-second child
50%-third child
60%-forth child
75%-five or more children.
The father has to be left 25% of his paycheck to live off of, and they only hit the main (larger) paycheck. Also, the first child gets preference. If a man has 5 children with 5 different women, the mother of the first child gets 25%, the second mother gets 8% (the difference between 33% and 25%), the third mother gets 17%. I have heard of judges evening out the distribution but in most cases all the women have to play nice.
Does a man have rights over a woman's uterus? No? Then he can have all the rights he wants over the fetus. But unless you give a man rights over the function of the uterus, and subsequently the woman to whom it belongs, then he will have no say in what she does with said uterus (or woman).
I don't think a man should have any more right to tell a woman what she can do with her uterus, and anything in it, than a woman should have rights to prevent a man from getting a vasectomy because he is dooming millions of sperm to uselessness.
No person should have rights as to what someone else does with their body. I believe biological freedom is an inherent right for all individuals.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
Does a man have rights over a woman's uterus? No? Then he can have all the rights he wants over the fetus. But unless you give a man rights over the function of the uterus, and subsequently the woman to whom it belongs, then he will have no say in what she does with said uterus (or woman).
I don't think anyone has been arguing that a man should have those rights...
I don't think a man should have any more right to tell a woman what she can do with her uterus, and anything in it, than a woman should have rights to prevent a man from getting a vasectomy because he is dooming millions of sperm to uselessness.
No person should have rights as to what someone else does with their body. I believe biological freedom is an inherent right for all individuals.
It's also largely irrelevant to the discussion. The issue is not "can a man force a women to have an abortion"
It's about whether it is ethically correct and/or allowable for a man to say "it's purely your choice whether you have that child or not, but keep in mind in making that choice that the burden to raise the child will be solely on you."
I think the man should most definitely have to pay child support. A man shouldn't just be able to get women pregnant and then shirk all responsibility. If he didn't want to have a kid, he could have most definitely refused to have sex.
I am broadly pro-choice, but not because I believe in the morality of abortion - I don't have a strong read on the morality (or immorality) of abortion, and can't support government interference into it if I can't articulate why it's so evil that it must be stopped. I'd probably be more inclined to see the pro-life side if they'd stop spouting obvious hyperbole like "life begins at conception", though.
However, I'm inclined to agree with beast on this one. Under our current system, the woman has the ability to shirk nearly all responsibility (I know abortions can be traumatic, so there are some consequences for some women, but it's relatively light unless something goes horribly wrong). The man does not. We're not promoting equality; we're promoting women's rights at the expense of men's rights.
I don't think we can exactly even this up. Men can't have the right to tell a woman they can't abort - even if there's no other reason (and there certainly are other reasons), all pregnancy carries risk, and it can't be up to the man to decide what is an acceptable risk of death. So women are the ones who can choose to have a child or not, which is an imbalance that is just built into the system as an inherent property of the way our bodies work. Nothing much to be done about that.
With that said, there is a feature of the inequality inherent in abortion that we can do something about, and I haven't seen any great arguments why we shouldn't fix it. Why are women allowed to seriously impact a man's economic future without consent of the man? We've already theoretically given women the right to opt out if they can't bear it.
I am broadly pro-choice, but not because I believe in the morality of abortion - I don't have a strong read on the morality (or immorality) of abortion, and can't support government interference into it if I can't articulate why it's so evil that it must be stopped. I'd probably be more inclined to see the pro-life side if they'd stop spouting obvious hyperbole like "life begins at conception", though.
"Life begins at conception" isn't an obvious hyperbole... it's a scientific fact. The question is not, and has never been, "when does life begin". The question is when does that life become of enough value that preserving it overrides the rights the mother has to control her biology.
I am broadly pro-choice, but not because I believe in the morality of abortion - I don't have a strong read on the morality (or immorality) of abortion, and can't support government interference into it if I can't articulate why it's so evil that it must be stopped. I'd probably be more inclined to see the pro-life side if they'd stop spouting obvious hyperbole like "life begins at conception", though.
"Life begins at conception" isn't an obvious hyperbole... it's a scientific fact. The question is not, and has never been, "when does life begin". The question is when does that life become of enough value that preserving it overrides the rights the mother has to control her biology.
If you remove that zygote from the mothers womb at a day old can it survive to adulthood? Nope. At a week old? nope. I believe the date most doctors use is 30 weeks, and even then its iffy if the child will live. The closer to 40 weeks the better the survival rate.
Now if you want to contend, one organism (the female egg) meets another organism (the male sperm) and creates a completely different organism, you are correct. But that organism is not human or even a baby until it reaches roughly 30 weeks of gestation.
By the way, I am pro-choice. I believe its the womans body and no one, not you, not a priest, not a doctor, not a lawyer, no one, has the right to say that she has to carry the child or get rid of the child.
If the man really did not want a child he should not have had irresponsible sex. Unfortunately there is consequences to your actions and the consequence to having sex that results in a pregnancy is you having to put some money towards the child.
I am broadly pro-choice, but not because I believe in the morality of abortion - I don't have a strong read on the morality (or immorality) of abortion, and can't support government interference into it if I can't articulate why it's so evil that it must be stopped. I'd probably be more inclined to see the pro-life side if they'd stop spouting obvious hyperbole like "life begins at conception", though.
"Life begins at conception" isn't an obvious hyperbole... it's a scientific fact. The question is not, and has never been, "when does life begin". The question is when does that life become of enough value that preserving it overrides the rights the mother has to control her biology.
If you remove that zygote from the mothers womb at a day old can it survive to adulthood? Nope. At a week old? nope. I believe the date most doctors use is 30 weeks, and even then its iffy if the child will live. The closer to 40 weeks the better the survival rate.
That date is the date of viability, not the date when it becomes "alive".
Now if you want to contend, one organism (the female egg) meets another organism (the male sperm) and creates a completely different organism, you are correct. But that organism is not human or even a baby until it reaches roughly 30 weeks of gestation.
1) it is human -- because all it takes to "be human" is to have human DNA. The issue of whether its an independent person is what I think you are getting at here.
2) I never said it was. Even if it is not an independent person, it is alive. As soon as it becomes alive, life has begun. There is absolutely no scientifically correct way to formulate it where "life" does not begin at conception.
By the way, I am pro-choice. I believe its the womans body and no one, not you, not a priest, not a doctor, not a lawyer, no one, has the right to say that she has to carry the child or get rid of the child.
Good for you? I don't really care... I just stepped in to correct the blatant lie about "life begins at conception" being hyperbole.
Now if you want to contend, one organism (the female egg) meets another organism (the male sperm) and creates a completely different organism, you are correct. But that organism is not human or even a baby until it reaches roughly 30 weeks of gestation.
1) it is human -- because all it takes to "be human" is to have human DNA. The issue of whether its an independent person is what I think you are getting at here.
Sperm and eggs have human DNA.
Conception is neither the first point at which there are 'independent' organisms involved nor the first point where if we don't intervene, the normal course of events will lead to a human child (more zygotes fail to implant or are miscarried than are carried to term). It is certainly an important developmental stage, but the dogged defense of it as the point where life begins smacks more of mysticism than any kind of science.
If the man really did not want a child he should not have had irresponsible sex. Unfortunately there is consequences to your actions and the consequence to having sex that results in a pregnancy is you having to put some money towards the child.
Do you say the same to women who have children? I know you're against abortion, but do you believe that a mother should not have a right to give her child up for adoption or make use of safe haven laws? Women have the right to give up this responsibility, but men do not, and I have trouble seeing how this is not blatantly unequal.
I believe that a man should be allowed to not pay child support, if he did not want the baby and the woman did. I do, however, believe that he should share the cost of the birth itself with the woman, but that is where the responsibility ends. The cost shared should be in such a way that the amount of money the man had to pay would be equivalent to half the amount of what an abortion would cost.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Decks I play:
Legacy:
Pox
Demon Stompy
Black Knights
Modern:
Tainted Shadow
MBC
8 Rack
Casual:
Suicide Black
Old-school Nightmare Effect
EDH:
Anowon, the Ruin Sage
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
It makes absolutely no sense to characterize abortion as 'wrongful death' in certain circumstances, while at the same time upholding the right to abortion in other circumstances.
You have to first of all decide whether or not an unborn fetus is a human being or not. If it is a human being, then wrongful death may be applicable but abortion surely isn't legal. If it isn't a human being, then abortion is legal but wrongful death surely isn't applicable.
There is no situation in which wrongful death is applicable to an unborn fetus and at the same time abortion is legal.
BRG Loam Control (Assault - Loam) BRG
W Mono White Control (Martyr - Proc) W
I didn't say I thought the current system was perfect. I said that inherently women bear a greater burden from pregnancy and birth or abortion than men do. That's just biological fact combined with the fact that a woman can't pretend that baby isn't hers. And I said that the child support system should recognize that. That's just one of the basic facts you should start from when considering what the system should do.
That is a separate issue from whether it is overcompensating and now placing too harsh a burden on men with child support payments.
The woman who had to carry the child and has to raise the child and earn money to support herself and the child doesn't bear a greater burden?
A few unsubstantiated sob stories about dads who are in dire financial straits because of child support payments or who refuse to pay child support and thus go to jail doesn't prove anything about who typically bears the greater burden. And you can't exactly put a cash figure on how much the burden of pregnancy and raising a child is anyway.
But did you notice when I suggested lessening the burden on some men depending on the situation? Nope.
What I'm saying is that men should not get carte blanche to go impregnate women and give up their parental rights and have everyone else bear the burden of supporting their children. I didn't say that men should have all their money confiscated or that there should be no consideration for how much money the man makes or what have you.
But feel free to keep attacking that straw man.
Yeah, but no.
You shouldn't be allowed to control women's bodies. A man's wallet is not equivalent to a woman's uterus and ******, and taking some money out of his bank account is NOTHING like forcing a woman to bear a child she doesn't want.
You complain that the child support system is awful to men and then you follow that up by saying a man gets to tell a woman what to do with her body if she gets pregnant? That's f'ed up. I have a recommendation for you: whenever you go on a date with a woman, tell them that right up front. You'll find you have a lot more free time.
Same deal with a baby. The baby may be unplanned, the result of failed contraception. Doesn't matter. It's here now, and it's not going to go anywhere. And it needs to eat. There are exactly two people in the world whose voluntary actions are responsible for this state of affairs, and if one person can't meet the baby's needs, the other has to make up the shortfall, because who else will?
Certain aspects of child support as it is implemented in the real world may be unfair, burdensome, or just plain inefficient - but the principle behind it is sound.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Your analogy is completely flawed. "If you drive carefully and defensively, but a deer jumps out in front of you and smashes up your car through no fault of your own" - then that situation was beyond your control. "[A child] is here now, and it's not going to go anywhere, and it needs to eat" - this situation clearly wasn't beyond your control. You could have aborted the pregnancy (then it wouldn't be the case that the child is "here now") or you could have given it up for adoption (then it wouldn't be the case that "it's not going to go anywhere," and "it needs to eat" would be somebody else's problem).
So, the child being here now, not going anywhere and needing to eat is a result of two deliberate choices (choosing not to abort the pregnancy and then choosing not to give the child up for adoption). If mom made both of these choices without dad's approval, then why should dad have to suffer the consequences of these choices?
BRG Loam Control (Assault - Loam) BRG
W Mono White Control (Martyr - Proc) W
Your arguments seem to be from a rather sheltered view point of the world.
You simply dismiss a mans wallet as if its just some number, I don't think you realize what its like to pay for ones own way.
They represent food, rent, a way to get to work etc. If you truly felt these burdens I don't think you would so cavalierly throw them aside.
The whole idea of the current Child Support system is unjust because it places a financial burden on a party that is powerless to effect the outcome.
If the man had the right to influence whether a child that was conceived by to consenting parties is born or not, then the argument would hold validity.
The women's physical uncomfort is of her own choice, not his.
In regards to wrongful death, hogwash, much of the calculations in any wrongful death suit are often future earnings of a deceased person. Even if the "fetus" isn't deemed a person, do you really believe the fact that it will be a future person should be ignored.
Pregnancy is unquestionably more intrusive, but that doesn't mean the two situations are completely incomparable. In both cases a person is being required to bear some burden as an unintended consequence of their actions. We can certainly step back to examine such a state of affairs in the abstract before we begin a more detailed analysis involving the nature of the burden. After all, some common pro-choice arguments take the form that bearing a burden you don't take on voluntarily is unjust, and it seems these arguments would apply just as well to the man and his financial burden as to the woman and her biological burden. (Although, as I said above, they're wrong either way.)
Let's take abortion off the table right now. It may be legal, but it's still murder in the eyes of many women, and it's absurd to hold a woman responsible for her "deliberate choice" not to commit murder.
As for adoption, in that case you've found someone else who is willing to voluntarily shoulder the burden of the baby's needs. Good for you. But the availability of such a kind benefactor is not guaranteed and cannot be taken for granted in an analysis of financial responsibility. And, of course, adoption entails giving the baby away. Call me sentimental, but I really don't like the incentive structure where father can say "no, I won't pay", and force a mother to part with her child forever.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Nothing is Forcing the mother to give away the child, we are only saying the father should have the right to choose to not take part in that child's life in any manor. Should she than CHOOSE to take on the burdon herself that is HER choice. The hardship she choose to bear, Just like it was the male's chose to choose to not have anything to do with it. She has no more right too force the male from his funds then he does force her to abandon it. I am pretty sure we have child services run by the government where you can do just that give the child up.
Also on a side note, WHo are these women who think that abortion is murder BUT pre marital sex is AOK? I was under the impression that Pro Lifers tend to be the religious crowd which if they were following their faith (in most cases) wouldn't be having sex before marriage.
Yes, too bad if he doesn't want to pay, that's part of the consequence of having unprotected sex. Even if it was protected sex, I would still say it is the father's responsibility to take responsibility for his actions.
This is a tougher question to answer. I would like to see men be able to have more power over this because the baby is 50% his, but then this opens up a whole new can of worms.
What right does a man have to force a women to carry a child she doesn't want?
Even if men were to have this right, there's nothing to stop a women from going somewhere else to have an abortion or to stop her from trying to hurt herself to get rid of the child.
So I think for this reason I would say no, even though I don't like it.
That is my first reaction but why should he NOT be able to have this right when the woman does? In the scenario the abortion is legal with no questions asked. The woman could simply be like
"Well I was stupid or the condom broke but its okay I can have an abortion" and thatas TOTALLY FREAKING FINE!
But no....no if a guy says..
"Well I was stupid or the condom broke but I'll have to pay for it in the form of child support for the next 18 years or more."
But yeah.....the second one is absolutly horrible but why should the girl be a ble to do it?
yeah yeah yeah I get the whole "her body is her choice" thing but its the EXACT SAME THING as what the guy is doing and it makes him a bad person. She simply doesn't want the child so she kills it. But they guy doesn't want the child he gets no say in if its aborted or not and is trapped paying for it or he goes to jail. How the frick is that fair?
Are men more innately evil for having unprotected sex and women are somehow immune to this?
Although I agree with you, I think that you're missing the point that Blinking Spirit is trying to make when you emphasize the fact that she is choosing to take on the burden of child bearing. Blinking Spirit's point seems to be that you can't really call this a choice when the only alternative is something that would be considered murder:
Within a framework / world-view wherein abortion is considered to be murder, I really have no solid argument against fathers being forced to pay child support. If abortion is murder, then neither should the mother have the option of opting out (via abortion) nor should the father have the option of opting out (via non-payment of child-support).
However, I don't buy into this framework to begin with. My real argument is also against people who don't buy into this framework. I guess I mainly have a bone to pick with the extreme liberals and feminists who believe that the mother should have the option of opting out (via abortion) but the father shouldn't have the option of opting out (via non-payment of child-support). I think that this is a double standard and this is what I'm against.
BRG Loam Control (Assault - Loam) BRG
W Mono White Control (Martyr - Proc) W
Framework A:
Abortion is murder.
Mom is not allowed to opt-out (via abortion).
Dad is not allowed to opt-out (via non-payment of child support).
Framework B:
Abortion is not murder.
Mom is allowed to opt-out (via abortion).
Dad is allowed to opt-out (via non-payment of child support).
Framework B*:
Abortion is not murder.
Mom is allowed to opt-out (via abortion).
Dad is not allowed to opt-out (via non-payment of child support).
---
My claim is that framework B* is inconsistent.
BRG Loam Control (Assault - Loam) BRG
W Mono White Control (Martyr - Proc) W
So abortion is the moral equivalency of not paying child support in your moral framework?
In terms of fairness to the parents yes. However this is an imperfect world where stuff costs money. A better framework imo would be this
Framework D:
Abortion Is Murder Unless Rape/incest/health of the mother
Mom IS NOT allowed to opt out except in cases of *
Father IS NOT allowed to opt out
First of all, tendencies are not absolutes. Logically speaking, it is perfectly possible for a woman to be pro-life or pro-choice, religious or irreligious, and pro-premarital-sex or anti-premarital sex, in any combination. There's no necessary connection between any two. And such people really do exist, in respectable numbers. You're not living in Stereotype Land.
Second, nobody is perfect. People don't always live up to their sincerely held convictions. That doesn't mean they don't have those convictions, or that they are willing to violate much, much deeper convictions. Taboo against premarital sex < taboo against murder.
Third, who said we're talking about an unmarried woman at all? Divorce and separation happen.
And that's fine for your and your interlocutors' personal understandings of right and wrong. But the thing is that the law has to apply to everybody. It cannot assume that every woman will entertain abortion as a serious possibility, any more than (to take another topical example) it can assume that every voter will have a driver's license.
Don't even get me started on double standards in the abortion debate. Richard Mourdock's recent gaffe has been one of the few times I've actually heard a consistent position from either side in public discourse, and it was predictably misinterpreted and demonized.
They don't have to be precisely or even closely morally equivalent to fill the same slot in the logical argument, if all the logical argument is looking for is [insert responsibility here].
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
25%-first child
33%-second child
50%-third child
60%-forth child
75%-five or more children.
The father has to be left 25% of his paycheck to live off of, and they only hit the main (larger) paycheck. Also, the first child gets preference. If a man has 5 children with 5 different women, the mother of the first child gets 25%, the second mother gets 8% (the difference between 33% and 25%), the third mother gets 17%. I have heard of judges evening out the distribution but in most cases all the women have to play nice.
I don't think a man should have any more right to tell a woman what she can do with her uterus, and anything in it, than a woman should have rights to prevent a man from getting a vasectomy because he is dooming millions of sperm to uselessness.
No person should have rights as to what someone else does with their body. I believe biological freedom is an inherent right for all individuals.
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
I don't think anyone has been arguing that a man should have those rights...
It's also largely irrelevant to the discussion. The issue is not "can a man force a women to have an abortion"
It's about whether it is ethically correct and/or allowable for a man to say "it's purely your choice whether you have that child or not, but keep in mind in making that choice that the burden to raise the child will be solely on you."
For the record:
Sums up my view on the issue pretty well.
I am broadly pro-choice, but not because I believe in the morality of abortion - I don't have a strong read on the morality (or immorality) of abortion, and can't support government interference into it if I can't articulate why it's so evil that it must be stopped. I'd probably be more inclined to see the pro-life side if they'd stop spouting obvious hyperbole like "life begins at conception", though.
However, I'm inclined to agree with beast on this one. Under our current system, the woman has the ability to shirk nearly all responsibility (I know abortions can be traumatic, so there are some consequences for some women, but it's relatively light unless something goes horribly wrong). The man does not. We're not promoting equality; we're promoting women's rights at the expense of men's rights.
I don't think we can exactly even this up. Men can't have the right to tell a woman they can't abort - even if there's no other reason (and there certainly are other reasons), all pregnancy carries risk, and it can't be up to the man to decide what is an acceptable risk of death. So women are the ones who can choose to have a child or not, which is an imbalance that is just built into the system as an inherent property of the way our bodies work. Nothing much to be done about that.
With that said, there is a feature of the inequality inherent in abortion that we can do something about, and I haven't seen any great arguments why we shouldn't fix it. Why are women allowed to seriously impact a man's economic future without consent of the man? We've already theoretically given women the right to opt out if they can't bear it.
"Life begins at conception" isn't an obvious hyperbole... it's a scientific fact. The question is not, and has never been, "when does life begin". The question is when does that life become of enough value that preserving it overrides the rights the mother has to control her biology.
If you remove that zygote from the mothers womb at a day old can it survive to adulthood? Nope. At a week old? nope. I believe the date most doctors use is 30 weeks, and even then its iffy if the child will live. The closer to 40 weeks the better the survival rate.
Now if you want to contend, one organism (the female egg) meets another organism (the male sperm) and creates a completely different organism, you are correct. But that organism is not human or even a baby until it reaches roughly 30 weeks of gestation.
By the way, I am pro-choice. I believe its the womans body and no one, not you, not a priest, not a doctor, not a lawyer, no one, has the right to say that she has to carry the child or get rid of the child.
That date is the date of viability, not the date when it becomes "alive".
1) it is human -- because all it takes to "be human" is to have human DNA. The issue of whether its an independent person is what I think you are getting at here.
2) I never said it was. Even if it is not an independent person, it is alive. As soon as it becomes alive, life has begun. There is absolutely no scientifically correct way to formulate it where "life" does not begin at conception.
Good for you? I don't really care... I just stepped in to correct the blatant lie about "life begins at conception" being hyperbole.
Is there some particular reason to define sperm and egg as "not alive"?
Sperm and eggs have human DNA.
Conception is neither the first point at which there are 'independent' organisms involved nor the first point where if we don't intervene, the normal course of events will lead to a human child (more zygotes fail to implant or are miscarried than are carried to term). It is certainly an important developmental stage, but the dogged defense of it as the point where life begins smacks more of mysticism than any kind of science.
Decks I play:
-Friedrich Nietzsche