“Choice For Men” Is Another Way Of Saying “Screw Children’s Interests”

I don’t know who created it, but I’ve seen this table going around reddit and tumblr:

Maybe it’s hard to grasp because it’s not true?

First, it’s not “how it is” that if a woman wants an abortion, that means an abortion will happen. I wish it was, but in reality, pro-lifers have worked hard to put barriers (some legal, some practical) between women and abortion. (And that’s limiting discussion to the USA; in some other countries, abortion is outright banned.)

Secondly, it’s not true that “the rights of the child are untouched.” In scenario A, the child has the right to be financially supported by its father. In scenario B, the child does not. (The table doesn’t say whether or not child support is also going to be banned for non-custodial mothers, so I’m not sure if the born child still has the right to the financial support of its mother in the “how it should be” column.)

So what this table’s author is actually calling for is an increase in father’s rights at the expense of children’s rights.

This is particularly troublesome because research shows that child support laws provide an incentive for some men to use birth control. In the absence of any legal right of children for financial support from their fathers, some men will use birth control less (and some will be more likely to insist on “bareback” sex with their girlfriends), and the number of children born to single mothers will increase. (In contrast, there is no evidence that child support laws effect how likely women are to give birth; my guess is that the disadvantages of pregnancy already provide a strong disincentive for women but not men, so the child support effects are larger for men.) How are these children going to be supported, in “how it should be” land?

Third, in the status quo, the laws are equal – or at least, they should be. Both men and women should (in the feminist POV) have an absolute right to do anything they want to their own bodies to maximize their odds of having sex while avoiding reproduction. And both mothers and fathers are legally required to provide support for all their born children. That’s legal equality.

(It’s true that we don’t have biological equality. But that’s a sword that cuts both ways; there are massive advantages for men in being the sex that doesn’t get pregnant, which this table ignores.)

In this table’s proposed system, we also have legal equality, IF mothers are also allowed to opt out of supporting born children. But that legal equality comes at an enormous cost to children and society, because child poverty would be increased. I don’t think that’s a moral solution, unless we’re going to switch to a full-blown Swedish Socialist economy, in which child poverty is substantively solved through expensive government interventions.

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170 Responses to “Choice For Men” Is Another Way Of Saying “Screw Children’s Interests”

  1. 1
    Copyleft says:

    You’re right that the child’s ‘rights’ are affected by this change… if you assume that the child has a ‘right’ to two-parent support that overrides any consideration of the parents’ right to consent.

    Whether that’s a legitimate ‘right’ is the real question. And in my view, it is not. And as a tip for those debating the point: “If you didn’t want a child you should’ve kept it in your pants” wasn’t a great argument when it was used to deny women reproductive choice…..

  2. 2
    Eytan Zweig says:

    Men have exactly the same rights as women, right now.

    Any time a man becomes pregnant, he has the legal and moral right to terminate the pregnancy early on, and the woman involved does not get a say in it.

    Once a fetus is past the stage when an abortion is legal, neither parent should be able to abdicate from their responsibility unless they both agree to (in which the child will be put up for adoption). There are exceptions to this (when the sexual act itself was not consensual), but otherwise, that’s the case. Note that this means that if a mother wishes to give up the child and the father decides to take care of it, she should be responsible for child support, regardless of her wishes. I don’t know if that’s the law everywhere, but if it isn’t, that’s an inequality worth fighting, not the false one that the table lays out.

  3. 3
    JutGory says:

    Eytan Zweig:

    Any time a man becomes pregnant, he has the legal and moral right to terminate the pregnancy early on, and the woman involved does not get a say in it.

    This reminds me of a quote (which I paraphrase) often used by progressive/lefty types (and, now by me, I guess): “it is just as illegal for rich people to sleep under bridges as it is for poor people.”

    Amp:

    I don’t think that’s a moral solution

    Another favorite of progressive/lefty types (and me, I guess): “quit trying to legislate morality!”

    -Jut

  4. 4
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Eh.

    It’s clear that any man who has sex with someone without discussing consequences is an idiot, and bears the risk.

    Any man who has sex with someone knowing that they want the kid is an idiot, and bears the risk.

    Arguing against CFM on those bases is like burning a straw man. The only position which is even potentially viable would address the very limited # of situations where a woman makes a promise to abort and then changes her mind AFTER she is pregnant, IOW:

    1) A woman who states (before sex) that she will have an abortion if she gets pregnant;

    2) A man who relies on that promise and who would not otherwise have had sex/dated/etc.;

    3) A use of high level birth control (pill, condom, or equivalent;)

    4) Accidental pregnancy;

    5) Available of free abortion/adoption services (or abortion/adoption services to be paid for by the man;) and

    6) A subsequent refusal to abort/adopt.

    If there was some way to prove all of that out, then I don’t think it’s unethical to have the mom and kid end up in the same situation which they would be in for a sperm donor, single-parent adoption, dead father, out-of-jurisdiction father, unknown father, and/or mother who knows who the dad is but says she doesn’t.

    Obviously those alternatives are NOT inherently unethical; they happen all the time.

  5. 5
    Eytan Zweig says:

    This reminds me of a quote (which I paraphrase) often used by progressive/lefty types (and, now by me, I guess): “it is just as illegal for rich people to sleep under bridges as it is for poor people.”

    That’s the opposite of what’s going on here. The quote makes reference to a scenario where poor people don’t have the (legal) right to sleep under bridges, but they may have no choice. So the poor get prosecuted for something that’s also illegal, but irrelevant, to the rich.

    Here, men do have the same legal rights as women whenever they themselves are pregnant, but biology means they don’t get the exercise those rights. So the law is giving men more freedoms than they can use, but that’s hardly unfair. What is unfair is that men seem to think that the fact that this right is impossible to implement means that they should get other rights instead.

  6. 6
    Eytan Zweig says:

    G&W – those are all red herrings. Yes, there are cases which involve actual fraud or deception where an argument may be made for allowing the man to step away from the situation. But those cases are extremely rare and – though some of the “men’s choice” activists like stating that that’s what they care about – are not really the issue here. The issue is men who have either had a willingness to have a child and then changed their minds, or men who did not want to have a child but have also were not willing to take any (effective) preventative steps beforehand, for whatever reasons. Those men don’t – and shouldn’t – have any say on the outcome of the pregnancy (unless, as I stated above, they happen to be the one who is pregnant), and they should be entirely responsible if a baby is brought to term.

  7. 7
    Grace Annam says:

    Eytan Zweig:

    Men have exactly the same rights as women, right now.

    Any time a man becomes pregnant, he has the legal and moral right to terminate the pregnancy early on, and the woman involved does not get a say in it.

    This is like saying that gays and lesbians have exactly the same rights as straights, because any time they want to marry someone of the opposite sex, they can.

    Outcome matters. It doesn’t control, because other factors may be important in a given case (as in the topic at hand). But it matters.

    Grace

  8. 8
    JutGory says:

    Eytan Zweig, I disagree that it is a bad analogy. It is not perfect (and some of the thought process is convoluted), but Grace’s example is clearer, so I will go with that.

    But, when you say:

    Here, men do have the same legal rights as women whenever they themselves are pregnant, but biology means they don’t get the exercise those rights.

    Are you saying “Biology is Destiny”?

    And, I suppose the lawyer in me must ask: Exactly where do I find legal authority for the proposition that men have the right to abort their children while preganant?

    -Jut

  9. 9
    Ampersand says:

    Much as I hate to contradict Eytan, I think the original quote is “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” (Anatole France, in the 1894 novel The Red Lily.)

    Also, might as well point out that there are men who can get pregnant.

    But the truth remains – everyone should be legally able to do whatever they want to their own body, in order to prevent reproduction. That’s true for all men and for all women.

    Copyleft:

    You’re right that the child’s ‘rights’ are affected by this change… if you assume that the child has a ‘right’ to two-parent support that overrides any consideration of the parents’ right to consent.

    I don’t “assume” it; it’s a fact. In the status quo, in the society I live in, children definitely have a legal right to be supported by both parents. It’s not an absolute right, any more than (say) free speech is an absolute right, but it exists.

    It is a right. And C4M would take that right away. Now, maybe taking that right away is the right thing to do; but to claim, as the table I reproduced claims, that the child’s rights are not affected at all by the change is a flat-out lie.

    Whether that’s a legitimate ‘right’ is the real question. And in my view, it is not.

    Great, that’s your view. What are your arguments to support your view? Do you have an answer for how we prevent child poverty from increasing if your view becomes law?

    And as a tip for those debating the point: “If you didn’t want a child you should’ve kept it in your pants” wasn’t a great argument when it was used to deny women reproductive choice…..

    Where in my post did I say that? Did someone in this thread say that?

    I mean, it would be nice if you at least attempted to address my actual arguments, rather than bringing in arguments I haven’t even made to rebut.

  10. 10
    Eytan Zweig says:

    This is like saying that gays and lesbians have exactly the same rights as straights, because any time they want to marry someone of the opposite sex, they can.

    Not sure how it is like saying that, except in the sense that equality is never about how many rights someone has. But that’s the exercise that the people who drew up that table were engaged in, and my point (apparently not well communicated) is that both sides of the argument can play that game, not that my argument is inherently more equative than the other side.

    Just to express my view explicitly without the silly framing:

    1. I believe that once a child is born, it deserves support from both parents.
    2. I believe that with very few exceptions (such as rape or specific instances of deception), the right of a child for support outweighs the rights and desires of the parents.
    3. I believe that during a pregnancy, the decision of whether or not that pregnancy should be terminated or not belongs solely to the person whose body is hosting the pregnancy.

    It is true, of course, that the third point (but not the first two points) discriminates towards women. In that, I am unapologetic. I agree that there’s a sense in which that equates me to the people who believe marriage should be limited to heterosexual couples and are unapologetic about that. I am fine with that. Essentially, just because I support some causes other people disapprove of, doesn’t mean that I need to approve of everyone else’s causes.

    Outcome matters. It doesn’t control, because other factors may be important in a given case (as in the topic at hand). But it matters.

    I’m sorry to say that I really don’t understand what you mean by the above, so I’m not sure whether I agree or disagree with it.

  11. 11
    Eytan Zweig says:

    Much as I hate to contradict Eytan, I think the original quote is “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” (Anatole France, in the 1894 novel The Red Lily.)

    Not sure how giving the proper quote addresses the issue, but perhaps that’s because I have not read the novel and am unaware of its context. I believe that every time I have seen it used it was in a way that is consistent with the interpretation I gave above (i.e. pointing out that this law is seemingly equal but unfair to the poor).

    Also, might as well point out that there are men who can get pregnant.

    Thank you for this. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I had not considered transmen when I posted above, and I feel that in that, I was participating in the cultural bias to keep transpeople invisible, which is something I clearly still have work to do on. However, I am glad to say that once I do take transmen (and transwomen) into account, my view does not change at all.

    If a transman gets pregnant, he has the right to choose whether or not to abort. If a transwoman gets another woman (or a transman) pergnant, she has no such right. The right to abortion is about body autonomy, not gender.

  12. 12
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Eytan Zweig says:
    Yes, there are cases which involve actual fraud or deception where an argument may be made for allowing the man to step away from the situation. But those cases are extremely rare

    Well, I don’t know HOW rare, but I did refer to then as “very limited” in number. You saw that, right?

    and – though some of the “men’s choice” activists like stating that that’s what they care about – are not really the issue here.

    Let me get this clear:

    If some people say that’s what they care about,

    and if I write a post saying that is what I care about,

    and if I affirmatively reject the other issues as pretty much a lost cause,

    and if I refer to this one as “the only position which is potentially viable“,

    then… what? You get to redefine the issue as one which you would prefer to argue against? That’s bloody ridiculous, man. To put it mildly.

    The issue is men who have either had a willingness to have a child and then changed their minds, or men who did not want to have a child but have also were not willing to take any (effective) preventative steps beforehand, for whatever reasons.

    Those men are not an issue in any realistic and ethical CFM system. See, also, my paragraphs #2 and 3.

    Those men don’t – and shouldn’t – have any say on the outcome of the pregnancy

    Sure.

    Men who want to actually force a woman to have an abortion are scary types who are probably more rare than the “forced pregnancy” types though they may actually be some of the same folks. Those positions are no different from the ridiculous positions taken by people in other areas.

    Why take them at all? Well, other than the crazy ones, some CFM folks are probably arguing for their position to move discourse their way. This is common.

    Similarly, some choice advocates for women may argue that an abortion choice can never be freely made unless the woman has complete freedom from every single possible negative consequence, irrespective of the fact that this would usually just shift the lack of freedoms onto someone else. I doubt such folks really believe that we should promise free health care, child care, support, housing, food, and education just so that an abortion choice can be made without what they (incorrectly) refer to as “coercion,” but they rationally make the argument to move discourse.

    Oddly enough, both the rational CFM folks and the abortion activists share an interest in more widely available, cheap/free, safe, abortions. The irony is that the more available/cheap/free/safe they GET, the more reasonable it is to assign them as rational choices.

    Hell, we’ve fought for Plan B to be available OTC to people all over the country, including minors. It’s safe; it’s cheap; it works pretty well.

    Nobody should have to be physically forced into taking Plan B, but puh-lease: there is no way in hell that you can reasonably equate “consequences of taking Plan B once” with “consequences of being an unwanted parent.” And there’s no logical or ethical reason to categorically prevent adults from being able to include “take Plan B if available” as ONE ELEMENT of a contract.

    IOW, “she can have the baby or not, but she can’t lie about her desire to procreate or change her mind after she’s pregnant, refuse to use Plan B, refuse to accept $$$ for an abortion/adoption, and thereby radically restrict my life choices for the next 25 years as a result of an entirely unpredictable broken condom. She can certainly do that for HERSELF; nobody is stopping her. She just can’t do that for ME.

    What’s the alternative? Don’t have sex before grad school? Don’t make a life plan which requires me to use all of your earned income, if you might have sex at some point? Don’t have sex with until I’m married? Don’t rely on any future plans, unless I’m celibate?

    After all, I might “lose the lottery,” via a combination of BC failure and the choice/changed mind/misrepresentation of my partner. Bully for her that she ends up with her preferred choice at that point; bummer for me that all my choices from that point out are made under the requirement of support.

    If it was anything else feminists would be lining up to call this “financial coercion” and to help me get out from under it. But here they pretend the reverse.

    Tell me: is it more “coercive” to tell someone UP FRONT, PRE-SEX that their decision to have sex, abort, take plan B, adopt, or have kids should be made assuming that there’s no support for any resulting kid? Or is it more “coercive” to grant them the ability to make an unfettered choice–as if I don’t exist–and have me bear the consequences for the remainder of my life?”

    (unless, as I stated above, they happen to be the one who is pregnant), and they should be entirely responsible if a baby is brought to term.

    This repeated statement reminds me of an old Dilbert cartoon:
    Dilbert: “No vote means no right to complain. that’s how I live my life.”
    Dogbert: “you live your life by bumper stickers?”

    Let me try:
    “Unwilling parents whose obligations stem from a partner’s post-conception change of mind regarding children, or deception prior to the sexual act regarding willingness to terminate, will not be held liable for support. That also applies to women.”

    As a practical matter it’d be impossible to prove absent some sort of prior statement: Bob signs a statement “doesn’t want kid; won’t pay for childcare.” Sally signs a statement”wants kids” or refuses to sign at all. if Bob fails to check Sally’s registration, well, pity on him. The degree to which Bob is willing to bear the risk of parenthood will control how much effort Bob is willing to take to verify things. And the degree to which Sally is willing to bear that risk of accidental pregnancy with a “doesn’t want kid” father will affect her as well, just as it does today.

    But if Bob is careful, then he’ll check before he fucks around. And if Mary signs a statement “no kids; will abort/adopt/single parent” then things change. (As with Bob, Mary may have incentives if she’s attracted to the careful type, or for any other reason.) I don’t see any compelling reason that we must PREVENT Bob from relying on that promise to Mary.

    The beauty of some sort of “prior contract” scenario is that:
    1) It puts the burden on the people who give a shit. Don’t care? OK: don’t sign, and don’t check. Do you really care? OK: get to contracting, then, and make sure you carry a thumbprint kit with you.

    2) It’s relatively rare. Most people probably won’t bother: if the legal standard is “signature and thumb print on official government form” then it’ll be too much of a pain in the ass for most folks. OK, then, so be it. But rareness is a feature and not a bug, because:

    3) By selectively removing only the worst-case scenarios, it provides an immense benefit to the overall rate of “how can this be fair?” outcomes, and therefore radically improves the perception and overall ethics of the system. With this in place, the common “oh, it’s so unfair that I end up paying child support” mantra is GONE. Dead. Pointless. If you pay it because you forgot to check her form, then it’s not unfair. If you do things right, after all, you’ll be free and clear. If there’s a simple and straightforward way to avoid liability, then we can rest a lot easier when we impose it.

    4) Not incidentally, this would also be useful for the reverse scenario. The system could accommodate promises of parental support (“trust me baby, if the Amtrak method fails then I’ll marry you and make you rich!”) which could significantly EXCEED the support available through the court system.

  13. 13
    Myca says:

    I really like the way Amp frames this:

    1) Both parents have the right to do whatever they like (legally) to their own bodies in order to avoid having a child.

    2) Neither parent has the right to do stuff to the other parent’s body to either compel or prevent the birth of a child.

    3) Both parents are responsible for the care of any actually born child.

    4) Neither parent has the right to unilaterally refuse to provide for an actually born child.

    That all seems pretty reasonable to me, and balances the rights of the parents both with each other and with the rights of any born child.

    —Myca

  14. 14
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Ampersand says:
    to claim, as the table I reproduced claims, that the child’s rights are not affected at all by the change is a flat-out lie.

    That’s not the problem, though.

    The question isn’t whether the kids are worse off (though who knows, really, in the long run?)

    The question is whether the kids are worse off AND below some de minimis standard of existence.

    Apparently we think that it’s OK to have poor kids who attend bad public schools, wear second hand clothes, and live in a rented doublewide in a shitty area, with a single parent that holds down a second shift job and who almost never sees their kids. After all, we don’t raise taxes to solve the problem, and we don’t punish or disenfranchise parents who voluntarily make that move, and we don’t put people in jail who do that even if they could (if pushed) provide “better” living circumstances.

    If something is within the social and legal norms of the country, there’s little reason to prevent two competent adults for contracting about it. Saying that it affects the children is… well, so what? Everything we do as parents affects our kids, and this is not categorically different.

  15. 15
    Eytan Zweig says:

    then… what? You get to redefine the issue as one which you would prefer to argue against? That’s bloody ridiculous, man. To put it mildly.

    Ok, I’m clearly not at the top of my communicative game tonight. Let me try to break this down:

    1. Amp made a post arguing against a particular viewpoint on an issue.
    2. You chose to respond to his post with a list of conditions under which it would be possible to justifiably take a position that shares its outcomes with the viewpoint Amp is arguing against. You then pointed out that unless those conditions hold, the position Amp is describing is not viable.
    3. I agreed with you on both above points, then proceeded to state that the people Amp is arguing against are not, primarily, concerned with the cases that conform to your conditions.

    I’m not sure how this counts as an attempt by myself to “[redefine] the issue”. If you think that the position Amp is arguing against is not part of a ” realistic and ethical CFM system”, then we are in agreement. But that doesn’t make the people advocating that position do not exist, so I’m not sure why you are trying to say I shouldn’t be arguing against them, or pointing out that the position you outlined is different from the one expressed by the table in Amp’s post.

    It is true that I did question the motivation of some CFM advocates. So let me clarify – anyone who believes that CFM should be restricted only to cases which fall under the “viable position” you describe are not the people I’m arguing against. I’m arguing against the people who state that they are concerned about cases of deception/rape/etc., and then state that because of those cases, CFM should apply universally to any pregnancy regardless of circumstances. I do not believe you are one of those people.

    That said, I do think we have a fundamental disagreement about the circumstance when a the woman has a post-conception change of mind regarding children. I accept that that is less ethically clear-cut than the cases I mentioned in my post; but I do think that that is a case where I value the needs of the child more than the rights/desires of the father. If he also wants to sue the mother for breach of contract that is fine; but his responsibility for the child is a separate issue, as the child did not sign any contracts.

    Hope this clarifies what I was trying to say, and my apologies if I was unclear.

  16. 16
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    …I mean, clearly kids don’t have the “right” to their parent’s bodies, or organs, or breast milk, or attention, or job choices, or love, or partner choices. My kids can’t prevent me from divorcing my wife or moving or quitting my job or being a horrible-but-just-over-the-“not abusive”-line parent or radically changing their life for the worse.

    There’s no sense in assuming at the outset that a child—much less a blastula whose viability is not yet determined–should have a “right” to any of those things. If you WERE going to assert a right of the child to support, it would logically be only the minimum of support needed to get the child to the minimum level of social standards. And the primary obligation would still be on the primary parent.

    Or, maybe this is just one of those “bodily autonomy trumps all” arguments? Where it’s Medical and Bodily and therefore everything else (including your ability to live and work and move and eat and clothe yourself and have sex) gets trumped? Where it’s a Violation of Bodily Autonomy to put any incentives on the abortion option, but it’s just plain old normal for someone else’s choices to result in Joe trading a potential life as a school principal for a mostly-uninsured life working in a chemical plant? Because yeah, right, that has no effect on Joe or his body at all, right? If Joe dies 10 years earlier because he was poorer and less healthy you can rest secure that hey, at least you didn’t allow his potential outcome to even influence the woman’s choice. All is well in the end, albeit not so much for Joe.

    The astounding thing to me isn’t that you take your position. Minds can easily come to different conclusions. The astounding thing is that you don’t even seem to be able to see the problems. You don’t seem to really be conceding that a grant of rights to person A means that the obligations are transferred to person B. Instead, you seem to maintain that this is somehow “obvious.” (Deleted by G&W’s request.)

  17. 17
    Eytan Zweig says:

    G&W – I can’t argue for Amp, but as someone taking a similar position – I see the problems. I also accept a lot of what you say. And I don’t have a problem with anyone influencing a woman’s choices about her body, as long as no coercion is involved. But I believe there is a fundamental difference between making choices that impact a child and completely opting out of responsibility for the child. You may make the choice to divorce your wife – and she may make the choice to divorce you. But the law does insist that if you do so, you are responsible for child support. You may choose to quit your job, but if you willingly put yourself in a position where you cannot provide for the basic needs of your child (such as food or education), then you will be guilty of child endangerment.

    The same holds in the cases of a pre-conception contract. You are free to establish all sorts of parameters, as long as they meet the minimum requirements of care required by law. If you want to make it clear in advance you will never buy a potential child a pony on their birthday, you have the choice to do so. But as you point out yourself – for something to be contractable, it must be within the legal and social norms. I personally am of the view that child abandonment should not be within the legal and social norms of either of our countries. You can contract yourself out of anything optional, but the bare minimum, as established by law, remains.

  18. 18
    Eytan Zweig says:

    And the first line should clearly have read “I can’t argue *for* Amp”

    [fixed!]

  19. 19
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Ignore that last paragraph, it’s mostly snark. Or better yet, delete it….

    It is true that I did question the motivation of some CFM advocates. So let me clarify – anyone who believes that CFM should be restricted only to cases which fall under the “viable position” you describe are not the people I’m arguing against. I’m arguing against the people who state that they are concerned about cases of deception/rape/etc., and then state that because of those cases, CFM should apply universally to any pregnancy regardless of circumstances. I do not believe you are one of those people.

    Ah. Thank you; I am not. Those people are whacked.

    That said, I do think we have a fundamental disagreement about the circumstance when a the woman has a post-conception change of mind regarding children. I accept that that is less ethically clear-cut than the cases I mentioned in my post; but I do think that that is a case where I value the needs of the child more than the rights/desires of the father.

    Even in my preferred scenario I might support certain exceptions: if the kid’s standard of living is below some sort of objective line, and if that can’t be fixed by other realistic means, then the absentee parent might get dinged for some sort of support to bring the kid up to that line.

    But that is a presumption of “no pay” with an available and limited exception, rather than a presumption of “pay.”

    Also, the “responsibility” argument is a bit of a tretch and pretty unlike most of the folks. You’re responsible for taking all reasonable steps to avoid a kid. But unless you want to take a “shoulda kept your legs shut” position, then using birth control meets the responsibility criteria.

    Sure there is always something more you could have done, but that’s always true. And we don’t apply that standard to cancer victims or accident victims or those who get the flu and so on. Or, for that matters, to poor mothers. Right? because once you have done all that you reasonably can (which I think DOES include “contract and use BC” and which DOES NOT require “being celibate”) then you have to choose: do we want to stick people with the outcome costs for things which they can’t realistically control? Do you want Bob to die in the street because he failed to predict his health care needs and didn’t like to go to the doctor? No? Well: Why should we pay for Bob’s bad choices w/r/t health insurance and well-medical visits, but refuse to give Bob a break if he does everything possible to avoid a kid, but first the condom breaks and then his girlfriend changes her mind?

    Hope this clarifies what I was trying to say, and my apologies if I was unclear.

    Yes it does; sorry if I misread.

  20. 20
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Eytan Zweig says:
    I personally am of the view that child abandonment should not be within the legal and social norms of either of our countries.

    How do you mesh that with adoption?

    From the child’s perspective there is not really a material difference between one parent and another. Adoptive parents are as motivated to be good parents, if not even more so (“adoptive parents who never wanted kids” doesn’t happen because adoption is such an active process, and “parental interest and involvement” is an enormous factor in child success.)

    So:

    Let’s imagine that Unwilling Usef and Fertile Freida have contracted no-kid sex,* after which Freida changes her mind and gives birth to a hypothetical Healthy White Newborn, which is (in the US at least) the #1 most wanted, years-on-the-waiting-list, kind of infant.

    Now, things change. A set of adoptive parents are going to be at LEAST as likely as Freida alone would be, to keep that kid above the minimum standard. After all, the kid would have two parents who wanted her instead of one.

    Frieda doesn’t want to give the kid up for adoption. The “better for the kid” mantra doesn’t apply. If Frieda wins, Usuf gets stuck. Should Frieda’s choice prevail?

  21. 21
    Copyleft says:

    There’s a wide gulf between saying “every child deserves three square meals and a place to sleep” and saying “…so he’s moving in with you.” Children’s rights, like anyone’s rights, cannot be unlimited and cannot trump every other consideration.

    Remember when women rejected the use of their bodies as government incubators? Yeah. Kinda like that. “But that fetus has a RIGHT to live!” And how does that align with the host’s right to choose what happens to their own bodies?

    The point of the above being that saying “children have a right to X” is not a final trump that defeats all other arguments. The decision of whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is up to the woman, 100%; therefore the responsibility for the consequences of that decision are also hers, 100%. Now, responsibility for the pregnancy is shared; therefore, I’d be quite amenable to discussion of how the costs of ending the pregnancy could or should be shared. But no man should be responsible for the consequences of a decision he has no say in, period. Taxation without representation, and all that.

  22. 22
    Yvain says:

    I think this simplifies things a little bit.

    Suppose that a father dies while the mother is still pregnant. The child is going to be denied its “right to two parent support”. Yet it is clearly unethical to conscript a random male from the population and force him to pay child support for the baby.

    So the argument in support for the father having to support the child is not the child’s “right” to two parents worth of support, but a theory that the father has implicitly consented to supporting the child by having sex: “If you didn’t want to support the child, you shouldn’t have had the sex”. Indeed, many people in these comments make this specific argument.

    But this is the exact same argument used by pro-life folk: “Didn’t want a kid? Then you shouldn’t have been sleeping around, or you should have taken better care to use contraception. Now that you’ve slipped up, the child’s rights trump your own and you can legally be put through any inconvenience it takes in order to ensure that’s good for the child.”

    I think there’s a good way to get out of this apparent analogy – namely to say that abortion does near-zero harm and so is a false “children’s rights” case, but that not supporting a born child does significant harm and so is a real children’s rights issue. But I suddenly gained a lot more sympathy for the pro-life case and a lot less tolerance for people who attribute those kinds of arguments to “slut-shaming” or “wanting to punish people for having sex”.

  23. 23
    Myca says:

    There’s a wide gulf between saying “every child deserves three square meals and a place to sleep” and saying “…so he’s moving in with you.” Children’s rights, like anyone’s rights, cannot be unlimited and cannot trump every other consideration.

    Absolutely! Which is why the right to financial support that children have would apply to the people who took affirmative action to bring them into the world, rather than random people on the street.

    —Myca

  24. 24
    Hypnogaja says:

    “Remember when women rejected the use of their bodies as government incubators? Yeah. Kinda like that. “But that fetus has a RIGHT to live!” And how does that align with the host’s right to choose what happens to their own bodies?”

    No, it isn’t “Kinda like that”. One involves pregnancy happening which puts their body/brain at physical and/or mental strain and risk. The other doesn’t.
    I used to be of the opinion that the sperm donor should have the ability to give up in totality their rights and responsibilities for the same limit of time that abortion windows are in. I’ve since changed my mind. Now I think of it like baseball. If I say Johnny can use my backyard cuz he doesn’t have one and Johnny cracks the glass of my basement window wayyyyyy over there in the lower corner where no one thought that a ball could possibly connect and besides, it was covered with weeds so we both forgot it was there, he’s still responsible for what the ball did. Now, I could wave liability because hey, I didn’t think it could happen – but unlike a cracked window pregnancy often produces a kid. Child support is for the child, not the cusodial parent. Since the child cannot care for itself or take maximum responsibility until the majority age in your state whoever created the child (or adopted the child) is responsible for them. Kids need upkeep and maintainance. Unlike a window, which in my experience does jack-all and will last for the rest of my lifetime.

    You’re responsible for the things you create or help create. For the most part people are responsible for what their bodies do. That’s why abortion is based on who is carrying the possible kid. For the nine or so months that the pregnancy is carried, it’s the pregnant persons’ responsibility. After that, hey, the kid is born and (apparently) still alive and contains both your genetic material.

  25. 25
    Ampersand says:

    Suppose that a father dies while the mother is still pregnant. The child is going to be denied its “right to two parent support”. Yet it is clearly unethical to conscript a random male from the population and force him to pay child support for the baby.

    No, but it wouldn’t be unethical to give the child “two parents worth of support” via the government stepping in and providing the extra parents’ worth of financial support. Which is what the US government does, if a single parent has a low income or no income. (The government will do this for a child with two low-income parents, as well – but it will also insist, in that case, that both parents contribute.)

    So you haven’t persuaded me that children do not, in our country, have a right to support from any and all living parents. It’s true that the right to support is not absolute, but that isn’t determinative. The right to free speech isn’t absolute, either, but that doesn’t make it nonexistent. (I should mention, I define “rights” in a slightly peculiar way.)

    That said, it’s true that both parents – not only the father – take a chance of becoming parents when they consent to have PIV sex. (Not all sex, just that one kind of sex). Admittedly, that risk is less for the mother than for the father – but “less than” is not “nonexistent.” There are many cases in the US where a woman or girl could want an abortion and be unable to get one.

    But this is the exact same argument used by pro-life folk: “Didn’t want a kid? Then you shouldn’t have been sleeping around, or you should have taken better care to use contraception. Now that you’ve slipped up, the child’s rights trump your own and you can legally be put through any inconvenience it takes in order to ensure that’s good for the child.”

    Yes, if we accept the idea that there is no difference between an embryo and a born child, then these arguments are pretty similar. (ETA: Although there’s still the huge difference of the mother’s right to her own body.) But as you correctly said, we don’t need to accept that premise.

    Regarding the motivations of pro-lifers, I’m seriously torn on this issue. On the one hand, I don’t like going to motivations, for obvious reasons.[*] But that attitude, taken too far, can lead to a refusal to discuss issues of misogyny at all, and it’s important (I think) that they be discussed.

    I think the similarity of my position and the positions of many leading pro-lifers disappears with closer examination. For many pro-lifers – Robert George, to pick a very prominent example – being pro-life is part of a general matrix of approving of sex only in the very narrowest of circumstances. His views on abortion are inseparable from his disapproval of non-reproductive and non-marital sex.

    I don’t think you could say the same about my views on child support. Indeed, as I’ve said many times, I could accept choice-for-men if we were in a society in which the government provided generously for the material well-being of all children and parents.

    [*] Not that I don’t slip up sometimes.

  26. 26
    Ampersand says:

    Eytan Zweig says:

    I personally am of the view that child abandonment should not be within the legal and social norms of either of our countries.

    How do you mesh that with adoption?

    Adoption is not a case of the birth parents abandoning their child. Rather, it is a case of the two birth parents agreeing to take action to make sure that the child is provided for. That’s the opposite of abandonment.

    In your example, it’s not the case that the two parents agree. So, alas for Usef, Freida’s view should prevail. Except in the most extreme instances, I don’t think a free country is compatible with the government taking children away from unwilling parents.

  27. 27
    rimonim says:

    Copyleft wrote,

    There’s a wide gulf between saying “every child deserves three square meals and a place to sleep” and saying “…so he’s moving in with you.”

    But he’s not moving in with you. In the type of situation in this thread, the child is living with one parent (who wanted him) and the other parent (who did not want him) is living separately, paying child support. You don’t get ordered to pay child support if you are living with, housing, feeding, clothing, etc. your child. So far from “he’s moving in with you” the issue is “you don’t have to live with him, but you can’t leave the other parent solely responsible.”

    It’s an unreasonable intrusion to force a person to continue a pregnancy, to force a person to marry their child’s other parent, and perhaps to force a person to change a diaper. But is it unreasonable to require a person to provide monetary support so their child does not grow up in poverty (or in worse poverty, as the case may be)? If women (and occasionally men; thanks for mentioning that, Ampersand) could pay a tax to support a fetus instead of supporting it in their own body, reproductive rights questions would be totally different.

  28. 28
    alex says:

    Except in the most extreme instances, I don’t think a free country is compatible with the government taking children away from unwilling parents.

    Dude, the whole CS edifice was put in place to fund children being taken away from unwilling parents.

  29. 29
    Hypnogaja says:

    “If women (and occasionally men; thanks for mentioning that, Ampersand) could pay a tax to support a fetus instead of supporting it in their own body, reproductive rights questions would be totally different.”

    I’d gladly support everyone paying a ‘childcare’ tax – it would help make the whole child support whining issue moot.

  30. 30
    mythago says:

    I find it interesting how many people are carefully avoiding discussing the framework Myca repeats in #13, which seems to me to be eminently reasonable.

    C4M doesn’t simply give men rights at the expense of children, but gives them more rights than women possess. Women who can’t get abortions, are prevented from getting abortions, or who find out too late that their male partner has a habit of sneaking off the condom before sex, are not granted a legal right to hand the baby over to the father and walk away. A woman whose partner changes his mind after the birth about giving the baby up for adoption does not automatically get to ‘adopt off’ her ‘half’ of the child support and parental rights.

    Let’s also consider how C4M would work in the real world, rather than as a MRA thought experiment. What’s the last day a man could exercise this ‘choice’, and how does that match up with the woman’s ability (and right) to seek an abortion? What if she can’t get an abortion because she can’t afford it, or lives in a rural area? Is the time to opt out extended if the father didn’t know about the pregnancy? What if he’s the reason the woman did not seek an abortion or didn’t abort in time? What if he exercises his choice and then changes his mind?

    It’s also a bit surprising that the same people who complain about the feminist-run court system think C4M would somehow operate outside of that framework. It’s not difficult at all to see how C4M could be used to deprive willing fathers of their rights.

  31. 31
    KellyK says:

    Alex @28, that’s what the first words in the sentence, “Except in the most extreme instances” are there for.

  32. 32
    KellyK says:

    I think G&W’s proposal would be workable, with a couple caveats.

    One is that any legal agreement waiving support becomes null and void if the child’s standard of living falls below the poverty line, or falls to the point where he/she is eligible for government support. I think it’s reasonable to say that you could sign away your child’s right to a higher standard of living, since parents aren’t legally required to take the highest paying jobs they can get, or to give up expensive hobbies when they have kids. There’s nothing forcing you to maximize your child’s standard of living in general. But you should not be able to sign away your child’s right to food, shelter, clothing, or medical care. And this caveat, would, presumably, address Amp’s biggest concern, child poverty. It would also, hopefully, still provide some incentive for men to use birth control, because even with a legal agreement in place, he would still be on the hook for child support if she lost her job or some similar event.

    Another is that use of condoms should be the default. If both parties sign “don’t want kids, won’t pay for kids, adoption or abortion” agreements, and the guy then chooses not to use a condom, he’s just accepted the risks if she similarly changes her mind about a resulting pregnancy. (If they really want to, they can stipulate in their agreement whether that’s a requirement, but absent anything spelled out, it should be the expectation.)

    The third is that signing such an agreement is, in and of itself, consent for any potential child to be put up for adoption. You don’t get to block an adoption *and* not pay child support. For that matter, if you’ve signed such an agreement and then choose to block an adoption, you shouldn’t expect to receive child support either (with the same caveat as before about not letting the child fall into poverty).

    The major sticking point I still have, though, is what happens when she *wanted* an abortion, but wasn’t able to get one? Because I can see sticking her with full responsibility for the kid if she initially wants an abortion and changes her mind, since that’s her decision. What I can’t see is her being solely responsible for the child because she wasn’t able to jump through all the hoops required by an anti-choice state. Things like 24-hour waiting periods and multiple visits when the only clinic is 400 miles away.

    So how would you address that?

  33. 33
    Copyleft says:

    “Absolutely! Which is why the right to financial support that children have would apply to the people who took affirmative action to bring them into the world, rather than random people on the street.”

    Quite right… which is one person only: the woman who made the decision.

  34. 34
    Ampersand says:

    Copyleft, unless the man was raped, he made a decision too. They both did, and they both share responsibility.

    What you’re pushing is “hot potato” morality; instead of splitting responsibility between all decision-makers, the last person to make a decision gets 100% of the responsibility.

    To see why hot potato morality doesn’t work, consider the meat industry. Bob’s meat plant sells Jane’s meat shop meat – even though Bob knows the meat isn’t 100% safe. Jane’s meat shop then sells the meat, even though Jane also knows it’s not 100% safe. Then, several consumers eat the meat and go blind. According to your hot potato morality, only Jane is responsible for that outcome, and those blinded folks may sue Jane but not Bob. After all, the decision to sell the meat to consumers was “made solely by Jane”; once the meat had passed out of Bob’s hands, Bob “becomes an innocent bystander” and bears no responsibility for his own decision.

    But that’s ridiculous – Bob made a choice, why shouldn’t he have any responsibility for it? Both Bob and Jane are legally and morally responsible for the choices they knowingly made; that Jane’s decision came later doesn’t let Bob off the hook. We don’t ask “did Bob choose first or second,” because that’s not relevant. Instead, we as “did Bob make a choice? Should he have known the possible consequences of his choice?” If the answer to both those questions is “yes,” then Bob shares responsibility for what happens.

    Furthermore, hot potato morality creates what economists call a “moral hazard,” which means that when people aren’t held responsible for the risks they take, they’ll take dangerous risks. Hot potato morality encourages Bob to sell tainted meat, because Bob would know that he can’t be held responsible for the consequences.

    So what happens if Bob and Jane are lovers? Similar logic applies. Although Jane makes her final decision later than Bob does, both of them freely choose. The only difference is that the final choice comes later for women than for men.

    Hot potato morality doesn’t make sense, and is not how we ordinarily parse questions of responsibility, and encourages bad behavior. It is, in short, a bad good idea.

  35. 35
    JutGory says:

    How I find myself on the same side as Copyleft, I don’t know. I suppose either one of us is getting smarter, or one of us is getting dumber. Opinions on that point may vary widely….

    Anyway, three legal analogies to support Copyleft’s apparent “My Body, My Choice, My Responsibility” argument.

    Assumption of Risk: Both parties assume the risk of pregnancy by having sex, but the risk assumed does not equate with parenthood.

    Superseding and Intervening Cause: though there is a pregnancy, it is the decision of the mother (or pregnant person, if you will) that determines whether a birth occurs. That decision is a superseding and intervening cause of the outcome (i.e. whether a birth takes place). The pregnant person bears the responsibility for that outcome.

    Last Clear Chance: An antiquated negligence counter-defense that has all but been eliminated by comparative fault analysis, but it goes like this: Party A is responsible for damages to Party B that result from Party A’s negligent act, but Party A is relieved of that responsibility if Party B was also negligent (i.e. contributory negligence), unless Party A had the LAST CLEAR CHANCE to avoid causing damages to Party B. In this example, Party A is the pregnant person, who has the last clear chance of avoiding “damages” to Party B as a result of their respective negligent acts.

    -Jut

  36. 36
    JutGory says:

    (Sorry for the multiple posts.)

    Amp, the moral hazard argument can cut both ways. The entire child support system creates a moral hazard by encouraging single mothers to bring children to term who “should” be aborted, or by encouraging them to keep babies that, perhaps, should be placed for adoption. In many cases, it can give a false sense of security (creating a moral hazard).

    -Jut

  37. 37
    VK says:

    With respect to people changing their minds after agreeing to abort if pregnant, I think it’s important to remember how much the hormones of pregnancy can affect your thinking. Particularly if you have to go though a lot of emotional intensifying hoops to get hold of an abortion, like looking at an ultrasound. Someone who is pregnant may go through sudden changes of personality or opinion – it’s not that they were lying before.

    I’d be very against any law wrt rights of children to parental support that were written entirely gender neutral. If the father can sign away his rights, why not the mother?

  38. 38
    Copyleft says:

    Let’s try another analogy: suppose you and a friend concoct a fantastic cookie recipe. You haven’t decided whether to keep it to yourselves or go into business.

    Then you have a huge fight and storm out, telling your friend “Do what you want with the recipe. It’s your choice, 100%.” Fine; the friend goes into business… and then fails miserably, going heavily into debt.

    Now… who’s responsible for paying that debt? After all, you had a hand in creating the original recipe he/she used to start the business….

  39. 39
    VK says:

    I doubt anyone would agree that you own part of your friend’s debt, but I bet a lot of people would sue for their share of the money if the recipe was successful.

    What is the equivalent of deciding to go into business here? If it’s deciding to keep a pregnancy, it’s a really bad equivalent – at that point, both choices have possibly massive consequences for the women’s health. It’s more like the partner has stormed out in the first year of the business, saying do what you like with the result but I want to pretend I have no responsibility for this because I don’t want the responsibility for it.

  40. 40
    Lauren says:

    JutGory, all those anaologies aren’t actually applicable to the question at hand. They ask wether the mother would be entiteled to support, when she made the decision that caused her to need it.

    But child support is not for the mother, it is for the child. You need to come up with a scenario in which two people make decisions that cause a third person to need help. If the second person could have made a decision that caused the third not to need help, does that mean the third person can not ask for help from the first, who also caused the third to need help? That’s what you would need to argue to get to the point where men don’t have to pay child support if women don’t have abortions.

    Like in the analogie Amp made. Should the people who went blond because of the meat be only allowed to sue Jane, not Bob? Should Bob get to say: Yes, I was negligent and becasue of it , you were harmed. But someone else failed to protect you, so I don’t have to pay squat.

    (BTW, am I the only one uncomfortable with analogies that refer to children as a kind of damage? Because they feel very, very wrong)

  41. 41
    Myca says:

    Then you have a huge fight and storm out, telling your friend “Do what you want with the recipe. It’s your choice, 100%.” Fine; the friend goes into business… and then fails miserably, going heavily into debt.

    The difference, of course, is that in this scenario, the cookie recipe isn’t a fucking person.

    The mistake you make is in thinking that child support is something you owe to an ex. It’s not. It’s something you owe to the child you helped create.

    Your ex cannot excuse you from support any more than you and I can make a deal that you don’t have to pay your brother back the money you borrowed from him.

    —Myca

  42. 42
    Myca says:

    Several times now, Ampersand has discussed the “Woman? What woman?” argument against abortion, in which the argument runs perfectly smoothly just so long as you ignore the inconvenient fact that women exist.

    I like to think of this reducto ad cookium as the “Child? What child?” argument. Because kids are just like cookie recipes! If you don’t want them, you can ball them up and throw them in the trash, and then they’re somebody else’s problem!

    —Myca

  43. 43
    Lauren says:

    The 2child support is for the child, not the mother” aspect, which CFM advocates often love to ignore, also means that “If she agreed to have an abortion in case of unwanted pregnancy and then changed her mind, the man shouldn’t have to pay support” arguement doesn’t work.

    Ignoring for a minute the fact that I question the legality of a “contract” to have a abortion: The right to child support does not belong to the mother. Therefore, she can not legally give it up. Such a “contract” might make her liable for damages to the father (he might, theoretically, get to sue her for reimburment of the child support, sort of like those horrible “wrongfull birth” cases). But it would not change the fathers obligation to the child.

    So even that “small percentage of cases”, as argued above, does not justify C4M. You could pass laws that allow for such claims of damages by the father (I would advice against it, because I find “wrongful birth” morally repungnant and don’t think it should be possible to contractually promise an abortion, never mind the fact that actually being pregnant is quite different from imagining being pregnant, and a pregnant person might have reasons for changing their mind about abortion other than hormones and should get to make that choice). But you could still not justify taking away the childs right to support because of a contract between the mother and father.

  44. 44
    JutGory says:

    Lauren @40:

    JutGory, all those anaologies aren’t actually applicable to the question at hand. They ask wether the mother would be entiteled to support, when she made the decision that caused her to need it.

    I disagree. The analogies may not be perfect but they all address whether the action or decision of a party (the mother in carrying the baby to term) relieves another party (the father) of responsibility. The legality of abortion muddies the water. The decision or action to abort relieves the mother and the father of responsibility. The decision not to abort (or to carry the child to term, however you want to phrase it) is a decision by the mother to assume responsibility for the child, but it is one that also imposes a responsibility on the father.

    In the absence of the right to abort, I have no problem saying that both parents could and should be responsible for their offspring. The right to abortion creates an inequality between the parents without an adjustment of their respective responsibility. C4M attempts to rectify that by providing a different analogous right (i.e. paper abortion) (not more rights, as Mythago suggests, but a right similar to the one women have that men don’t, notwithstanding Eytan Zweig’s contention that men have a right to abortion that they are unable to exercise).

    -Jut

  45. I have two questions:

    1. Since when does pregnancy (or the risk of pregnancy) not, by definition, carry the possibility that a birth will take place? Indeed, it seems more than conveniently disingenuous to try to draw a clear and unambiguous line between the two where both people responsible for the pregnancy stand on one side and only the person who is actually pregnant stands on the other.

    2. Consider a country where—unless things have changed—abortion is entirely illegal, like El Salvador, where there are “forensic vagina inspectors,” whose job it is to determine whether or not a woman has had an illegal abortion. In such a country, would C4M advocates still argue the same position?

    I ask because I get, on an emotional level, the feeling of “gotcha” that women’s reproductive rights can give men. I once had a lover who did in fact deceive me about what she thought she would do if she got pregnant. Initially, she said she didn’t know; then she told me she thought she would have an abortion; then, after we’d been together for some years, she told me that she’d known all along she would never have an abortion but that she’d said those things because she thought I would leave her if she told the truth. (The whole story is not worth telling here, and the sexual decisions we made along the way are not really relevant to my point, except that we used birth control.)

    Thankfully, she did not become pregnant while we were together, but I was, as you might expect, furious, and I felt betrayed, thinking that I’d been risking an unwanted fatherhood for years, and I hadn’t even known it. And I remember trying to think my way through what I would have done if we’d unintentionally conceived a child and my girlfriend had given birth. For a while, part of me felt very strongly that I ought not to be held liable for support, and that feeling was absolutely tied to the fact that the decision about what to do with her pregnancy was, ultimately, legally, in my girlfriend’s hands, and I would have had no legal recourse to avoid the consequences of her decision.

    Ultimately, I came to a very different position, the one argued here by Amp and others, but that experience has given me some sympathy for the emotional logic of men who sincerely feel C4M is a matter of fairness given women’s legal right to an abortion. Those men, I would imagine, would agree that in a country like El Salvador, where women legally have no choice, men should legally have no choice either—despite the fact that the same kinds of deceptions, accidents and what-have-you can take place.

    In other words, even in El Salvador, a woman could promise a man she would find some way terminate a pregnancy and then renege on that promise, etc. and so on. Should that man, from the point of view of C4M, be able to opt out of supporting the child he helped to conceive?

  46. 46
    Sebastian says:

    I frankly have not thought too much about this, so I do not have a firm opinion. My instinct is “The way the law works right now, by having sex with a woman, a man assumes the risk that he will be liable for child support. Act accordingly.”

    But here is a car analogy (yeah, yeah, I know this is not Slashdot)

    Alex is late in seeing a stop sign, and places the front of the vehicle into the intersection, which is a clear violation of the California Vehicle Code.

    Brook has the right of way, and ample time to break or swerve, but does neither. Brook’s vehicle hits Alex’s, they bounce apart, and one injures Cailin the pedestrian.

    Assuming that there are enough witnesses to make the facts absolutely beyond dispute, California law is very clear on where the liability lies. And it is not 50/50 between Alex and Brook.

  47. 47
    Ruchama says:

    But, in that car example, Brook was supposed to stop. Rule number 1 of driving is don’t hit another car. The only way that would be analogous to the pregnancy situation is if a woman is supposed to have an abortion if she gets pregnant out of wedlock, and has done something wrong by not doing that.

  48. 48
    Sebastian says:

    As for Ampersand’s tainted meat analogy, let me combine it with gin-and-whiskey’s point, as I see it.

    Bob sells days old catch to Jane, with the understanding that it is to be used to breed fish bait. Bob sees Jane placing the meat on her stall in the fish market, and tells her that it is not safe for human consumption. Jane tells him “You got your money, this is my meat and my decision”.

    People go blind. Jane wants to share liability with Bob, because he sold her the meat fully knowing that it could be ingested by humans, and that would be a health hazard. Ampersand are you still with Jane?

  49. 49
    Myca says:

    not more rights, as Mythago suggests, but a right similar to the one women have that men don’t

    No. As it is, both men and women have the right to do whatever they like (legally) to their own bodies in order to avoid having a child. There is not a right here that women have that men do not.

    There IS an inequality, based in biology, in how men and women are able to express that right, but I don’t think that we’d call that an ‘additional right’ in any other circumstance.

    Consider:

    We all have the right to work for pay. Does someone very tall have an additional right I don’t have, “The right to play in the NBA?”

    Does someone very strong have have an additional right I don’t have, “The right to be an Olympic weightlifter?”

    I think it’s clear that in both of those circumstances we recognize that there is a basic right that’s being expressed differently because of personal difference. The same is true here.

    I think making a special exception to our general principles about rights in a way that hurts children is an extraordinarily shitty and irresponsible idea.

    —Myca

  50. 50
    Sebastian says:

    Well, I guess the place were we differ is (1) how ‘wrong’ it is to bring a child in the world when you cannot properly raise it by yourself, and (2) whether the cost should be assumed by society or a man who did not want it.

    In my case? According to my friends, I am sometimes more totalitarian than them, and they include Evil Commie Secret Policemen (Technically, counter-intelligence and counter terrorism agents, but close enough)

    So my opinion: (1) wrong enough to have the child taken away (2) the cost should be assumed by whoever wants to adopt the child.

    So, did I manage to disagree with everyone?

  51. 51
    Copyleft says:

    “The mistake you make is in thinking that child support is something you owe to an ex. It’s not. It’s something you owe to the child you helped create.”

    Except the men didn’t help create a child; he helped create an unwanted pregnancy. It was the woman (and ONLY the woman) who decided to turn that unwanted pregnancy into a child. Her choice; ergo, her responsibility.

  52. 52
    Myca says:

    how ‘wrong’ it is to bring a child in the world when you cannot properly raise it by yourself

    This isn’t the issue at all. Whether or not a mother (or father) can properly raise a child on their own, that child is entitled to the support of both parents. It’s not like child support is (or ought to be) something that only kicks in in the case that the custodial parent can’t manage.

    Additionally, ‘the support of the child’s other parent’ is something that is (and ought to be) figured into whether or not you can “properly raise a child.”

    Luckily, I think that the internet MRA movement magnifies this problem out of proportion. For all the talk about it, I work in a family law law firm, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve encountered the kind of filth who would refuse to provide for their own children.

    —Myca

  53. 53
    Ruchama says:

    Except the men didn’t help create a child; he helped create an unwanted pregnancy. It was the woman (and ONLY the woman) who decided to turn that unwanted pregnancy into a child. Her choice; ergo, her responsibility.

    Pregnancy frequently leads to a child. Unless we’re at a point in society where the basic assumption is that every unplanned pregnancy will be aborted, and that a woman who chooses to have the baby is doing something completely and totally against everything that would be expected, then anyone who helps create an unplanned pregnancy also has a chance of having helped create a child.

  54. 54
    Jake Squid says:

    For all the talk about it, I work in a family law law firm, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve encountered the kind of filth who would refuse to provide for their own children.

    Oh, how I envy you. Working in HR in a smallish (I think) company, I’ve encountered that kind of filth in a substantial portion of Child Support & Medical Support orders. So often, in fact, that I question the decency of humanity.

  55. 55
    Arpa says:

    Jake,

    As I understand it, non-custodial women are ordered to pay far less on average, they are not subject to “imputed income” for the most part and … they default on CS payments far more than non-custodial men. Something like 29% for men (even 1 missed payment) to over 50% for women.

    Do you call women on hard times “filth” as well? Or do you have men in mind? Or do you really keep it gender neutral?

    I have some empathy for men and women, because I have seen in a close male relative what happens when you get fired. It is difficult to get a downward adjustment (“imputed income”) and your life can just spin out of control.

  56. 56
    Myca says:

    Oh, how I envy you. Working in HR in a smallish (I think) company, I’ve encountered that kind of filth in a substantial portion of Child Support & Medical Support orders. So often, in fact, that I question the decency of humanity.

    Oh, don’t get me wrong, we get a lot of, “I want to pay less child support” calls, but most of those folks would like more custody to compensate. I’m talking about the “I want nothing to do with this kid, and I don’t want to pay any money either,” folks … the ones who just want to shirk their responsibilities utterly. Those are pretty rare, maybe because they recognize that in a civilized society, we try not to let people get away with that kind of shit.

    —Myca

  57. 57
    Jake Squid says:

    That’s exactly who I’m talking about, Myca. Guys who want nothing to do with the kid, don’t want to pay money or put them on their health insurance and have a history of avoiding payment. There have been a couple of guys who obviously do care about their kid(s) and that is so refreshing. Vanishingly rare, but a ray of hope in the darkness, nonetheless.

    And I know this will only go to ugly places, but…

    I’ve avoided falling into that mud pit. Yay, me.

  58. 58
    KellyK says:

    Except the men didn’t help create a child; he helped create an unwanted pregnancy. It was the woman (and ONLY the woman) who decided to turn that unwanted pregnancy into a child. Her choice; ergo, her responsibility.

    Nope, not actually true. It may have been that the woman actively chose to turn the unwanted pregnancy into a child. It may also have been that she couldn’t afford an abortion, didn’t live remotely near a clinic, or otherwise wasn’t able to obtain one.

  59. 59
    JutGory says:

    Myca @49:

    No. As it is, both men and women have the right to do whatever they like (legally) to their own bodies in order to avoid having a child.

    There IS an inequality, based in biology, in how men and women are able to express that right, but I don’t think that we’d call that an ‘additional right’ in any other circumstance.

    Fair enough, if you want to phrase it in terms of bodily autonomy. So what do you propose to do about that inequality?

    It’s okay to be intellectually honest and say you support that inequality, even though it probably leads to more children being born into poverty, and leads to the impoverishment of men (primarily) and some women, as well. But, to use your words, that’s an

    extraordinarily shitty and irresponsible idea.

    -Jut

  60. 60
    La Lubu says:

    To be perfectly blunt, what these guys (C4M) are asking for isn’t new; they want a return to the old days of just being able to deny paternity, and thus responsibility. What threw a wrench in the works was DNA testing that establishes paternity.

    Gee, wonder why all these guys moaning about why women can’t just have an abortion aren’t agitating in the streets for more, and more affordable, surgical abortion facilities? There are two, count ’em, two, abortion facilities south of I-80 in Illinois. Many states have zero abortion facilities. Meanwhile, vasectomies are cheap, available everywhere (without having to run a gauntlet of protestors), covered by most insurance plans (including employer-provided plans that don’t cover prescription contraception—hormonal, diaphragm, or IUD), and there is no stigma to vasectomy. It’s the closest thing to fail-safe available, has a rapid recovery period (considerably shorter than that for surgical abortion), and…..completely under the control of the man who chooses it.

    Vasectomy—still an option.

  61. 61
    Myca says:

    Fair enough, if you want to phrase it in terms of bodily autonomy. So what do you propose to do about that inequality?

    Make birth control cheap (or free) and ubiquitous.

    This isn’t Harrison Bergeron. We don’t need to directly equalize every biological difference.

    But, to use your words, that’s an extraordinarily shitty and irresponsible idea.

    Holding people responsible for the care for the children they create is irresponsible now? Ah, I see the party of personal responsibility has had another visit from the Orwellian Redefinition Fairy!

    Please do go on. I’d love to hear more about how requiring child support means that more children will be born into poverty. This is fascinating.

    —Myca

  62. 62
    Tamen says:

    Richard Jeffrey Newman @45:

    Those men, I would imagine, would agree that in a country like El Salvador, where women legally have no choice, men should legally have no choice either—despite the fact that the same kinds of deceptions, accidents and what-have-you can take place.

    In other words, even in El Salvador, a woman could promise a man she would find some way terminate a pregnancy and then renege on that promise, etc. and so on. Should that man, from the point of view of C4M, be able to opt out of supporting the child he helped to conceive?

    How about linking the two “rights”? In US states where access to abortion is restricted the possibility for “paper abortions” are equally restricted or even voided.

    Myca @56:

    This isn’t the issue at all. Whether or not a mother (or father) can properly raise a child on their own, that child is entitled to the support of both parents.

    Does that mean that mother’s who chose not to put the child father’s name on the birth certificate for a number of reasons shouldn’t be able to do so?

  63. 63
    Arpa says:

    1. One remedy to fraud would be to have the non-custodial parent still pay child support, but then have a cause of action when the child reaches the age of majority.

    2. It sounds like many of you here think that money is very important for the child. Why is there such a stress on the father paying, but no stress on the mother getting a job, for instance, when the child is in school? I certainly don’t see the name-calling (“filth”) about mothers who don’t earn money for the child while it is in school.

  64. 64
    JutGory says:

    Myca @61:

    Please do go on. I’d love to hear more about how requiring child support means that more children will be born into poverty. This is fascinating.

    Here is a thought experiment for you: if unmarried women understood that they the child would have no right to claim support from the father,

    a) would the number of abortions go up or down?

    b) would the number of out of wedlock births go up or down?

    -Jut

  65. 65
    Harlequin says:

    Does anyone know where to find poverty statistics for providers of child support (as opposed to receivers)? My gut feeling based on the poverty rate of single mothers (30%, as opposed to something like 20- 22% for all single adult women) is that this quote of Jut’s

    even though it probably leads to more children being born into poverty, and leads to the impoverishment of men (primarily) and some women, as well.

    is wrong to say that two-household parenting disproportionately impoverishes men, but I can’t find any data to back that up.

  66. 66
    Harlequin says:

    I certainly don’t see the name-calling (“filth”) about mothers who don’t earn money for the child while it is in school.

    You’ve never heard the phrase “welfare queen”?

  67. 67
    Myca says:

    Does that mean that mother’s who chose not to put the child father’s name on the birth certificate for a number of reasons shouldn’t be able to do so?

    I’d say that it depends on the reasons, but in general, yes, I think that fathers ought to be on the birth certificate.

    From your link, two of the three “reasons not to list the father” have to do with being unable to locate the father, and I’d agree that that’s a potential problem, but it seems insufficient to deny someone their parental rights.

    The third reason is, “father can assert parental rights at any given time,” which I hope you’d understand I consider a feature, not a bug.

    —Myca

  68. 68
    Myca says:

    Heya, Arpa. I wanted to draw your attention to, and hopefully correct, a misunderstanding you seem to have.

    Back in comment #55 you wrote:

    Do you call women on hard times “filth” as well? Or do you have men in mind? Or do you really keep it gender neutral?

    Then in comment #63:

    I certainly don’t see the name-calling (“filth”) about mothers who don’t earn money for the child while it is in school.

    When I used the term ‘filth’ (which I stand by) in comment #52, it was in the context of a parent flat-out refusing to provide for their kids. Not someone having hard times who needs to have their support reduced (which I certainly understand), but, as I clarified in comment #56:

    I’m talking about the “I want nothing to do with this kid, and I don’t want to pay any money either,” folks … the ones who just want to shirk their responsibilities utterly.

    Those folks are filth. And yes, I’ve seen both men and women do it. It’s just much much less common for women for some reason.

    —Myca

  69. 69
    Arpa says:

    “It’s just much much less common for women for some reason.”

    Is it? It’s probably less common for women in absolute numbers, because women overwhelmingly get custody and are the payees, not the payors.

    But default rates (as a percentage) seem to be a lot higher, income is not really imputed to women, and lots of non-custodial women pull the living-with-the-new-boyfriend-or-husband routine and don’t work. They are simply not ordered to pay anything more than nominal support, and they just are not going to get a job.

    I don’t find the “I would pay something if I had a job” story much better than “I’m filth and am not going to support my kids”. Same result.

  70. 70
    Myca says:

    Here is a thought experiment for you

    Okay, so you’re guessing. That’s cool, I guess.

    Do you have any evidence? I would imagine that across the length and breadth of human history, there’s got to be an example of this in practice.

    —Myca

  71. 71
    Arpa says:

    “You’ve never heard the phrase “welfare queen”?”

    They’re not even supporting themselves.

    The contempt for men who fall behind on child support is stronger, though, than the contempt for women who not only don’t pay any child support, or support anyone else, they don’t even support themselves. And they’re doing it in style, driving up to the welfare office in a Cadillac, and getting out of the car in a mink coat (if I remember my 1980’s stereotypes correctly).

  72. 72
    Myca says:

    But default rates (as a percentage) seem to be a lot higher*, income is not really imputed to women*, and lots of non-custodial women pull the living-with-the-new-boyfriend-or-husband routine and don’t work*. They are simply not ordered to pay anything more than nominal support*, and they just are not going to get a job*.

    *Citation needed.

    I don’t find the “I would pay something if I had a job” story much better than “I’m filth and am not going to support my kids”. Same result.

    As I also clarified in comment # 56:

    Oh, don’t get me wrong, we get a lot of, “I want to pay less child support” calls, but most of those folks would like more custody to compensate.

    I do not think that that support must necessarily be in the form of a monetary payment. Caring for the children is fine.

    —Myca

  73. 73
    Arpa says:

    “*Citation needed.”

    I agree, but my Google finger is broke.

    Aside from the fact that there are a lot of assertions flying around here, not just from me, that could use a cherry-picked link or two.

  74. 74
    Myca says:

    Aside from the fact that there are a lot of assertions flying around here, not just from me, that could use a cherry-picked link or two.

    Sure. Feel free to ask for backup whenever you like.

    —Myca

  75. 75
    Elusis says:

    Gee, wonder why all these guys moaning about why women can’t just have an abortion aren’t agitating in the streets for more, and more affordable, surgical abortion facilities?

    This bears highlighting, I think.

    Also, it bears mentioning that another reason a woman might not get an abortion is that it’s against her religious or moral beliefs. Which, though I don’t share them, I respect.

  76. 76
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    La Lubu says:
    December 11, 2013 at 6:00 am
    Gee, wonder why all these guys moaning about why women can’t just have an abortion aren’t agitating in the streets for more, and more affordable, surgical abortion facilities?

    They might if you made it beneficial to them. Otherwise it’s probably just another priority which benefits someone else–which is probably why you don’t agitate for their priorities.

    Which is why a very very limited CFM, of the type I propose, would IMO have a net benefit because it would motivate a lot of people to do good things.

    There are two, count ‘em, two, abortion facilities south of I-80 in Illinois. Many states have zero abortion facilities. Meanwhile, vasectomies are cheap, available everywhere (without having to run a gauntlet of protestors), covered by most insurance plans (including employer-provided plans that don’t cover prescription contraception—hormonal, diaphragm, or IUD), and there is no stigma to vasectomy. It’s the closest thing to fail-safe available, has a rapid recovery period (considerably shorter than that for surgical abortion), and…..completely under the control of the man who chooses it.

    Well, sheeit. If you put it that way, the solution is obvious: Let’s replace most of those abortion clinics with sterilization clinics, and ban voluntary abortion entirely. It’s a predictable consequence of sex; if they don’t want it then people can stay celibate or keep their legs shut.

    We ARE treating permanent sterilization as equivalent to birth control, right?

    Right?

  77. 77
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Myca says:
    Do you have any evidence [for the relationship between economics and abortion]? I would imagine that across the length and breadth of human history, there’s got to be an example of this in practice.

    Women obviously consider the pros and cons of abortion versus delivery. If you change the cost/benefit ratio so that delivery becomes MORE appealing (“we’ll do our best to make the father pay for some or all of the costs of child raising, don’t worry!”) then MORE women will deliver children. If you change the cost/benefit ratio so that delivery becomes LESS appealing (” you’ll never get a dime from that father no matter how rich he is!”) then FEWER women will deliver children.

    We haven’t done a double blind test AFAIK, but we do ask women why they are getting abortions, and we do study their characteristics. And we know that “lack of money” is already one of the absolute most common reasons to abort. Ergo, an increase in potentially available money will reduce some of those, and increase births. We also know that lower income women make up a higher percentages of abortions, though there are surely many reasons for that, but it fits in with the available data.

    Similarly, we know that married women abort far less often. This clearly has quite a bit to do with the emotions and mutual NON-financial support involved in marriage. But it also probably includes some effect of finances.

    We also know that bad economic times tend to reduce the birthrate. Make of this what you will.

    In the end, there doesn’t seem to be much of a debate that
    1) A woman’s predictions about the future affect her decision to have kids;
    2) “predictions about the future” includes predictions about finances.

    With that in mind, it would be very strange to suggest that there wouldn’t be an effect of “knowing whether or not you are likely to obtain child support.”
    Here are two links which were quick to find, though these things are available in many places
    http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/facts/women_who.html
    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/health/fertility-rate-stabilizes-as-the-economy-grows.html?_r=0

  78. 78
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Myca says:
    I’m talking about the “I want nothing to do with this kid, and I don’t want to pay any money either,” folks … the ones who just want to shirk their responsibilities utterly.

    Those folks are filth.

    Jeez, that’s fricking harsh.

    Why the freak would someone want to bear responsibility for a kid that they never wanted, tried to avoid, and–sometimes–resulted only from what thy would consider a horrible accident

    And yes, I’ve seen both men and women do it. It’s just much much less common for women for some reason.

    Drumroll as I explain the “some reason….”

    BECAUSE THEY CAN ABORT.

    My god! It’s almost as if giving parents a way to avoid a situation which they detest and have little control over will… reduce incidents of bad behavior that result from said shitty situation.

    Imagine that!

  79. 79
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    To clarify:

    People who make decision to have kids and them reject them, are assholes.
    People who take no preventive measures to have kids and who then seek to reject them, are assholes.

    People who take reasonable preventative measures (condoms; offering to pay for an abortion; and having some sort of “what-if” conversation) and who then seek to reject the wholly-unwanted, tried-your-best-to-avoid-it, wholly-accidental, result… are not assholes. They are human.

    They are just like the women I know who got abortions “because I’d be a horrible mother right now” except that they can’t fix the problem. But they’d like to.

    In many cases they have done everything reasonable to try and avoid the problem other than permanent sterilization and celibacy, but they have “lost the lottery.” In some cases, they have relied on a promise which has been broken or withdrawn. In most cases their lives have been irrevocably changed for the worse by something they tried to avoid.

    They deserve your sympathy, not your insults. If you can’t distinguish between those folks and the folks who want children and then change their mind when they’re two… well, I don’t think you’re especially qualified to be making moral judgments here. The world is not black and white, and the rules don’t fit on a bumper sticker.

  80. 80
    Myca says:

    gin-and-whiskey:

    Women obviously consider the pros and cons of abortion versus delivery.

    The reason I was asking for a real-world example (of which I’m sure there are many) rather than more economic theorizing (though thanks for that I guess) is that I am unconvinced that the “number of children not born because the mother knows she won’t be able to collect child support” will be so much greater than the increased number of children born into poverty since their scumbag father refuses to provide for them.

    Jut Gory’s original comment, after all, was about how the current child support regime leads to an increased number of children born into poverty as opposed to the “men don’t pay if they don’t feel like it” system y’all seem so enamored of.

    What I’m looking for, then, is a comparison. I’m a pragmatist. If this proposed system leads to better overall outcomes, I’ll support it.

    —Myca

  81. 81
    JutGory says:

    g&w @70:

    the rules don’t fit on a bumper sticker.

    Well, let me give it a shot:

    “Want support? Get married.”

    “Want Visitation? Get married.”

    Absent a marriage, neither mother nor father should feel entitled to look to the government to fix their problems. Of course, that does not prevent unmarried people from voluntarily agreeing about these things and submitting to the Court’s jurisdiction in the event of a dispute.

    Sadly, there is less money to chase if these rules were in place.

    And, yeah, my rule might be harsh. (And, yeah, it sucks for the kids, who have such irresponsible parents.) But, it is a bright line. And, using your economic analysis (thank you, by the way, for saving me the time), my rules would likely result in fewer children being born out of wedlock and, given the ample evidence of the positive impact father’s have on a child’s well-being (YMMV), my rules would probably create a net-benefit for children.

    -Jut

  82. 82
    Myca says:

    To clarify:

    [1]People who make decision to have kids and them reject them, are assholes.
    [2]People who take no preventive measures to have kids and who then seek to reject them, are assholes.

    [3]People who take reasonable preventative measures (condoms; offering to pay for an abortion; and having some sort of “what-if” conversation) and who then seek to reject the wholly-unwanted, tried-your-best-to-avoid-it, wholly-accidental, result… are not assholes. They are human.

    To clarify:

    Speaking only for myself and in my experience, in the ~3 years I’ve worked here, the number of people ‘I can count on one hand’ I made reference to in comment #52 and called filth all fall into categories 1 or 2. Literally 100%. That’s part of what I was talking about when I said that, “I think that the internet MRA movement magnifies this problem out of proportion.”

    That having been said, I certainly don’t hold it against the people in category 3 that they’d resent supporting their unwanted kids. I totally understand that resentment. But we all have unchosen obligations and responsibilities, and if you’re unaware of that, I don’t think you’re especially qualified to be making moral judgments here.

    —Myca

  83. 83
    Myca says:

    Absent a marriage, neither mother nor father should feel entitled to look to the government to fix their problems.

    Ah yes. “Child? What child?”

    The moral (and legal) obligation is not to your ex, it’s to your child.

    —Myca

  84. 84
    Ampersand says:

    There is evidence available. In an earlier post, I discussed the evidence regarding child support laws and births to single mothers.

    Not all states have the same child support laws. In some states, the child support laws are relatively weak; noncustodial parents don’t pay much, and can relatively easily get away with defaulting on child support payments – or can depend on never being identified as the father at all. Other states have higher child support awards, laws that aggressively establish paternity, and collection techniques that make defaulting unlikely (such as garnishing child support from paychecks).

    If the MRAs are correct, then states with strong child support laws will have higher rates of single motherhood, due to more women – tempted by the prospect of well-enforced child support awards – choosing to trick men into getting them pregnant.

    If I’m correct, however, then states with weak child support laws will have higher rates of single motherhood, because while women’s incentives aren’t changed much by child support laws, a significant number of men are less motivated to avoid pregnancy if they think they can get off the hook.

    So what do studies comparing how weak and strong child support laws effect single motherhood find? It’s men, not women, who have their incentives changed by child support laws. The stronger child support laws are, the lower the rate of single motherhood.

    Robert Plotnick, of the University of Washington, published a study in 2005 which included a brief review of the literature.

    Five studies are particularly relevant to the argument that child support policy is likely to have empirically significant effects on nonmarital childbearing. Sonenstein, Pleck and Ku (1994) find that a substantial proportion of adolescent males are aware of paternity establishment and may modify their sexual behavior and contraceptive use accordingly, especially if their peers are doing so. Case’s (1998) analysis of state data reports that, net of economic and demographic conditions, states that adopted presumptive guidelines for setting child support awards or allowed establishment of paternity up to age 18 had lower out-of-wedlock birth rates. Garfinkel et al. (2003) also analyzes state level data and find that effective child support enforcement deters nonmarital births. The effect is robust across all models and specifications.

    Huang (2002) and Plotnick et al. (2004) use micro-data to examine the effect of child support enforcement on nonmarital childbearing. Both use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to analyze the likelihood that a woman’s first birth is premarital. Focusing on the teenage years, Plotnick et al. (2004) finds that young women living in states with higher rates of paternity establishment are less likely to become unwed teenage mothers. Because of the nature of the NLSY and the focus on teenage behavior, the study examines behavior during 1979-1984. Huang (2002) examines 20 years of data and different indicators of support enforcement. He reports similar relationships when women are age 20 or older but, unlike Plotnick et al., not when they are teenagers.

    Plotnick’s 2005 study (which is described, and available for download, here) replicated the earlier studies’ findings.

    What does this mean?

    It could mean, as I believe, that women already have such strong incentives to avoid pregnancy, that child support awards (which are, typically, not all that generous) don’t significantly alter the equation for most women.

    However, it is also possible that Ed is correct, and that child support laws do strongly increase women’s incentive to get pregnant. However, this is only possible if we assume that men’s incentives to avoid pregnancy are even more strongly increased – so that even though women are trying harder to entrapt men into paying child support, men are nonetheless successful in preventing pregnancy, despite women’s increased efforts. So the MRA belief that women are motivated by child support payments into trapping men, ironically can only be rescued by giving up the MRA belief that men are not able to prevent pregnancy from happening.

  85. 85
    Ruchama says:

    ]People who take reasonable preventative measures (condoms; offering to pay for an abortion; and having some sort of “what-if” conversation) and who then seek to reject the wholly-unwanted, tried-your-best-to-avoid-it, wholly-accidental, result… are not assholes. They are human.

    Yes. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, things don’t work out the way you wanted them to. And you end up with responsibilities that you didn’t ask for. Whining about them a bit is human. Trying to avoid the responsibility entirely, when doing so deprives another human being (one who cannot support him/herself) of care, is being an asshole.

  86. 86
    Myca says:

    Ampersand:

    So what do studies comparing how weak and strong child support laws effect single motherhood find? It’s men, not women, who have their incentives changed by child support laws. The stronger child support laws are, the lower the rate of single motherhood.

    Thanks for the evidence, Ampersand.

    I’ve already said, in post #80, that if I was wrong, and “this proposed system leads to better overall outcomes, I’ll support it.” I’m still open to evidence (not theories) in support of your position.

    Since it’s clear that the empirical evidence that we’ve got so far actually runs the other way, Jut and G&W, are you prepared to embrace intellectual honesty and abandon your support for your system of increased single motherhood and child poverty?

    —Myca

  87. 87
    Robert says:

    @72 –

    My wife had worked in the past as a graphic designer (effective income, $20k per year or so) and as a licensed cosmetologist (typical income, $30k per year or so). She was instructed by the court implicitly (as was I) to provide income tax returns for the three years prior to our divorce; she did not. She was instructed by the court explicitly to provide cost and income statements; she filed a facially fraudulent document that identified income as expenses (free rent from her stepdad), double-counted expenses, and invented tuition and fees for education that she wasn’t actually participating in. She flat-out lied on her paperwork and said that she had no trusts or inheritances; under cross-examination my lawyer got her to admit having those, but she “didn’t know” the amounts.

    She was not so much as chastised verbally by the court, and ended up with an imputed income of: minimum wage. My scrupulously documented three-year income history was basically ignored, and the court-ordered support used a three-month income-only statement compiled by my wife’s counsel. It’s going to turn out ok; the child support bureaucracy, which my ex dragged into play to recover the payments which in most months subsequent to the divorce have been higher than my income, ironically enough, is a lot less able to play ignore-the-data games than family court judges, and you don’t need a lawyer at $300 an hour to pursue process with them. (If my ex’s parents were not vastly wealthy, and if my parents were not reasonably wealthy, I would suck it up and make the support payments so that my kid would not go hungry; as it stands, my kid would not go hungry or indeed have the slightest material want, were my ex and I to both disappear into the holds of Barsoomian slave raiders tonight, so I’m going to stick it to the ex.)

    But in this state, in this court, ‘citation needed’? Not by anyone who’s been in there.

    @83 –
    “The moral (and legal) obligation is not to your ex, it’s to your child.”

    Morally, yes. Legally, no.

    Disagree? Get divorced and write your support checks to the child, or create a legal trust with authority to spend freely on the child’s welfare as directed by the custodial parent, and direct all your payments to that trust.

    See your ass in jail, if you stick to your guns long enough.

    Children cannot generally be the recipient of support or a party to a court order; they are children. The money goes to the ex. I do not dispute the need for this system, though in cases of families with means a trust would be a perfectly reasonable mechanism of transfer, but the ‘oh you legally owe your child not your ex’ thing is 100% pure grade-A high-quantum bullshit, and you should stop spreading it. I don’t have a single court document saying I owe jack shit to Stephanie Grace Hayes; I have a sheaf of them detailing my obligations to Tamara Grace Hayes nee Deegan.

  88. 88
    mythago says:

    gin-and-whiskey; “She gets a choice, I should too” and Allow paper abortions” are pretty much the definition of black-and-white bumper sticker thinking.

    JutGory: Do you also want the government to keep its hands off your Medicare? Getting married IS “looking to the government”. It is requesting that the government approve of your legal union and impose a certain package of rights and responsibilities on both people. So why is looking to the government so awful “absent” marriage?

    “Last clear chance” was discarded along with contributory negligence because it is an awful doctrine. It allows complete blame-shifting by a bad actor. In the case of pregnancy, your augment would allow a man deliberately sabotage birth control, agree to support the child and then change his mind a day before the end of the first trimester, and refuse to pay in any way for the abortion – and then walk away because the woman had the legal right, at least in theory, to abort. Really?

  89. 89
    KellyK says:

    [3]People who take reasonable preventative measures (condoms; offering to pay for an abortion; and having some sort of “what-if” conversation) and who then seek to reject the wholly-unwanted, tried-your-best-to-avoid-it, wholly-accidental, result… are not assholes. They are human.

    Resenting the obligation is understandable, sure. But claiming that it shouldn’t exist and wanting to reject it regardless of the harm it causes, that’s something else.

    The guy who wants to avoid child support or have it reduced because he’s truly broke, that’s totally understandable. But the guy who can afford it and says, “Well, I didn’t want the kid, so I shouldn’t have to pay. What’s it to me if he starves?” is being an asshole. (Note that I say *being* an asshole, because he may be a stand-up guy in other areas of life, but in this specific case, not so much.)

    Sometimes things happen that you couldn’t predict or prevent, that are still your responsibility. That’s not to say that you were *ir*responsible by getting into the situation—you may have done everything reasonable to avoid it.

    If I’m driving down the road at a safe and reasonable speed, in a car that’s in good condition, paying full attention to what’s going on, and I slip on an unseen patch of ice and hit someone, that’s not my *fault*, but it’s still my *responsibility*.

  90. 90
    KellyK says:

    People who take reasonable preventative measures (condoms; offering to pay for an abortion; and having some sort of “what-if” conversation) and who then seek to reject the wholly-unwanted, tried-your-best-to-avoid-it, wholly-accidental, [child] are not assholes. They are human.

    I’m emphasizing this because I think saying “result” sort of buries the idea that this supposedly non-assholish behavior involves harm to that person’s child. Not just monetary, but the emotional “Dad doesn’t want anything to do with me.” Wishing that the kid had never been born doesn’t negate any of that. (Probably makes it much worse, if the kid hears you say that, or figures out that that’s what you think.)

  91. 91
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Myca says:
    Jut Gory’s original comment, after all, was about how the current child support regime leads to an

    increased number of children born into poverty

    Ah. I missed that part: while it’s clear that choices are affected by economics, I hadn’t intended to take a position about the overall # of people born into poverty.

    My argument focuses on morality and social mores. By addressing an unusually limited # of poorly-served parents and granting them an exception, we increase the morality of the system; AND provide incentives for folks to work towards beneficial goals like “available BC and “available abortion clinics;” AND provide enormous incentives to increase overall communication regarding procreation; AND manage to combine the interests of two groups who are often at odds. In the end I think it would be a significant benefit and I believe the overall effect would act to reduce overall child poverty.

    The benefits don’t come because some poor woman is forced to have an abortion. The benefits come because 20 rich men build an abortion clinic to “qualify” for the exception, therefore giving benefits to everyone else.

    as opposed to the “men don’t pay if they don’t feel like it” system y’all seem so enamored of.

    You realize that’s a gross misrepresentation of my position, right?

  92. 92
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Ampersand says:
    December 11, 2013 at 1:07 pm
    If the MRAs are correct, then states with strong child support laws will have higher rates of single motherhood, due to more women – tempted by the prospect of well-enforced child support awards – choosing to trick men into getting them pregnant.

    This is not true.

    States with strong (“liberal”) child support laws are also more likely to have better (“more liberal”) available health care/BC options and better (“more liberal”) abortion availability. And that is only a few of the factors which ultimately affect that sort of thing

    The MRA belief that women are motivated by child support payments into trapping men, ironically can only be rescued by giving up the MRA belief that men are not able to prevent pregnancy from happening.

    technically they are not. If everyone in the world started perfect condom use there would be fewer unwanted pregnancies, but not zero.

  93. 93
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Myca says:
    Since it’s clear that the empirical evidence that we’ve got so far actually runs the other way,

    Um. Except it’s not. My point was “this will change the behavior of women.” Your response–to the degree those studies are accurate–appears to be “it changes the behavior of men more.” That’s not the “other way,” since I’ve been saying that men should be incentivized the entire time, and it’s not a disproof of the effect on women, either.

    Jut and G&W, are you prepared to embrace intellectual honesty and abandon your support for your system of increased single motherhood and child poverty?
    —Myca

    That’s your point and not mine.

    If you look at my position in this thread, I’ve been very consistent. I never even addressed an overall issue with child poverty and single motherhood per se. Since I didn’t rest my argument on those things then no. (I think that over the long term my system will improve things. But that’s not why I support it.)

    Moreover, there are multiple ways to address “child is hungry” other than “hey, let’s find the genetic father and toss him in court until he gives some food up.” If we’re all going to start slyly implying that our opponents have intellectual honesty issues (seriously? nice way to downgrade the thread…) then perhaps we can start by avoiding false dichotomies.

    mythago says:
    In the case of pregnancy, your augment would allow a man deliberately sabotage birth control, agree to support the child and then change his mind a day before the end of the first trimester, and refuse to pay in any way for the abortion – and then walk away because the woman had the legal right, at least in theory, to abort.

    Actually, I think Jut has supported my system, which is pretty much the opposite:

    The default is support, but there’s a safe harbor. The man has to use BC; has to clearly state his unwillingness to procreate pre-sex (no changing your mind later); and has to be willing to pay for an abortion and related costs.

    Anyone who FAILS to do that loses their “safe harbor” and is stuck with the results. All of the “safe harbor” provisions are socially beneficial and help both sexes.

    Regarding the “it’s your personal responsibility to personally bear the consequences irrespective of your prevention” people: out of curiosity, do y’all support the health care bill?

    If so, how do you reconcile these two scenarios?

    1) Joe is medically stupid and doesn’t take care of things, so when he gets injured/sick he is wholly uninsured and would lose tons of money…. But we avoid many of the consequences to joe by providing medical care and treatment. After all, we don’t want Joe to lose his house just because he got sick/hurt, even if it was mostly Joe’s fault. So he’s OK.

    2) Bill is a cautious and thoughtful guy who does everything possible to avoid having kids he doesn’t want. Unfortunately for Bill, it doesn’t work. So we collectively act to place those consequences directly on Bill. If he loses his house and much of his money as a result, well, that’s just his fault. Life sucks; he should have remained celibate.

  94. 94
    Ruchama says:

    I don’t think anybody has been arguing for the father to become homeless. The question has been about fathers who are able to pay, but unwilling.

  95. 95
    Ampersand says:

    It’s tempting to go into a discussion of Obamacare, but I think that Obamacare may be one of the few subjects that would lead to a C4M thread being digressed away from the original subject. :-p

    G&W:

    Moreover, there are multiple ways to address “child is hungry” other than “hey, let’s find the genetic father and toss him in court until he gives some food up.”

    Indeed, as I said in the original post, one way to make C4M moral (or at least, less immoral) would be to switch to Swedish-style socialism, so that child poverty would be essentially eliminated. But I don’t think you should just handwave this point away. What specific means are C4M advocates proposing so that C4M won’t increase child poverty?

    Since most (not all) C4M advocates seem to be right-wingers, I think it’s notable that the Republican party has made its commitment to cutting food stamp funding clear. They’ve also made clear their commitment to doing everything they can to make abortion unavailable. So if the idea is “C4M, plus food stamps” or “C4M, plus abortion clinics,” then I really doubt most C4M advocates would actually make or hold to that commitment.

    The man has to use BC; has to clearly state his unwillingness to procreate pre-sex

    What prevents him from simply lying? Verbally or in writing? Does it require a notary? Does the person he has sex with have to countersign?

  96. 96
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Ampersand says:
    December 12, 2013 at 6:40 am
    It’s tempting to go into a discussion of Obamacare, but I think that Obamacare may be one of the few subjects that would lead to a C4M thread being digressed away from the original subject. :-p

    I don’t need to discuss Obamacare. But I think it’s notable how the concept of “personal responsibility for negative outcomes beyond your reasonable control” is almost flipped on its head here. If you aren’t willing to say “should have planned for the results, sucker” to someone who decides to start smoking and ends up with cancer, why are you so willing to say “should have planned for the results, sucker” to someone who involuntarily ends up liable for child support?

    What specific means are C4M advocates proposing so that C4M won’t increase child poverty?

    Well, speaking for myself:
    1) Limiting the safe harbor significantly, so the potential # of problems goes way down;
    2) Adding incentives to promote, provide, and pay for abortion and BC, so the potential number of jointly-unwanted pregnancies goes down, further reducing problems; and
    3) potentially adding an exception to the safe harbor which (unlike standard support calculations) would require even a “safe harbor” parent to cough up some funds to provide a minimal level of support temporarily, only to the degree it was needed.

    After all: once we decide that “___ level of support” is acceptable, then the morality of demanding additional support above that level declines rapidly.

    Now, is the “minimal” level of support high enough? Nope, not in my opinion: society doesn’t do a good enough job. But that’s an issue for us to fix more universally. There’s not a great moral reason to selectively apply different standards and demand a higher level of support just for noncustodial parents of unwanted kids.

    So if the idea is “C4M, plus food stamps” or “C4M, plus abortion clinics,” then I really doubt most C4M advocates would actually make or hold to that commitment.

    Of course! Because generally summarizing your opponents as unreasonable; refusing to engage in discourse with them because you claim it’s a waste of time; and therefore preventing them from either demonstrating their point or disproving yours; is a great idea. Sigh. Have the MRA “all feminists want to castrate men” folks gotten ahold of your quote yet?

    The way to call a bluff is to say “OK, let’s trade clinics for some CFM” and see what happens, not to say “you’re lying lalalalala I won’t talk to you lalalala.”

    Heck, look at this thread. I can be a pain in the ass, but
    (a) I am strongly anti-conservative;
    (b) I am an extremist with regard to abortion rights (which should be unlimited until birth, IMO) and am one of the more pro-civil-rights people on this blog;
    (c) I am proposing a severely limited plan which represents the extreme left wing boundary of what you can call CFM, which is to say that you won’t get anything better that this; and
    (d) my plan is specifically designed to enhance communication, enhance availability of abortion for those who don’t want kids, and enhance BC use in general.

    Yet even so, many folks can hardly get past their incredulity. some folks can hardly get past their snark. Few folks are willing to make even a single and minor concession, or to actually defend their own position rather than simply expending all their energy attacking mine.

    If you can’t engage with me and come to accept this, then accusing the CFM folks of being the problem is, politely, bullshit. It’s not THEM who is unwilling to make a compromise. It’s YOU.

    What prevents him from simply lying? Verbally or in writing? Does it require a notary? Does the person he has sex with have to countersign?

    I’m confident that functional details can be worked out by those who have an interest in the system. I think that discussing them in detail, now, with you, would be a serious nit picking side track. Also, discussing “how to implement ___ system” requires at least a temporary willingness between the planners to try and implement the system in good faith. You don’t seem willing to do that right now.

  97. 97
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    If you can’t engage with me and come to accept this, then accusing the CFM folks of being the problem is, politely, bullshit. It’s not THEM who is unwilling to make a compromise. It’s YOU.

    That is poorly stated on my part.

    I don’t mean to suggest that you have a moral obligation to accept my position. I do think that you cannot simultaneously refuse to accept it; refuse to provide realistic or viable alternatives; and claim that the discussion fails because your opponents are extremists.

  98. 98
    Myca says:

    If we’re all going to start slyly implying that our opponents have intellectual honesty issues (seriously? nice way to downgrade the thread…)

    To be crystal clear:

    1) My reference was a callback to JutGory in post #59, saying “It’s okay to be intellectually honest and say you support that inequality, even though it probably leads to more children being born into poverty.” I would assume that you would get the reference, since it was, y’know, specifically the fucking sentence we were discussing. Not even the post. The sentence.

    1) If you were the slightest little bit concerned about downgrading the thread, you wouldn’t start talking about how I’m unqualified to be making moral judgments.

    Regarding the “it’s your personal responsibility to personally bear the consequences irrespective of your prevention” people: out of curiosity, do y’all support the health care bill?

    Ampersand has said, and I’d agree, that I would support C4M as part of an overall framework of generous social services and guaranteed government child support. I am not at all interested in ‘sticking it to men,’ being a man myself. I am interested in seeing that kids are provided for.

    Um. Except it’s not. My point was “this will change the behavior of women.” Your response–to the degree those studies are accurate–appears to be “it changes the behavior of men more.”

    No, it’s more that we don’t know whose behavior it changes. The study points to outcome, not cause. I’m not overly concerned with pinning blame on men or women here. I’m concerned with whether ‘C4M’ would increase or decrease the overall level of child poverty through more children being born to single moms out of wedlock & etc, which is the original claim Jut made.

    You & Jut were claiming that more child support = more kids born to single moms out of wedlock & etc.

    The evidence is that more child support = less kids born to single moms out of wedlock & etc.

    I could give a shit whether that’s ‘because men’ or ‘because women,’ as I’ve said, I’m concerned with overall outcome.

    Ah. I missed that part: while it’s clear that choices are affected by economics, I hadn’t intended to take a position about the overall # of people born into poverty.

    I’ll admit I’m surprised, since that’s 100% what this series of exchanges has been about.

    —Myca

  99. 99
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    You & Jut were claiming that more child support = more kids born to single moms out of wedlock & etc.

    What’s the “& etc.?”

    I claimed that economics are more likely to affect the mom’s decision to bear children or not. Which is true. In other words, ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL the mother is more likely to give birth if there’s more money available. The available data supports that: I don’t know how you could look at the statistics of people who give “too poor” as a reason to abort and fail to conclude that removing that reason would result in a few # of abortions. hell, if new moms listed “couldn’t get to clinic” as the reason they had a kid, would you fail to agree that increasing clinics would result in more abortions?

    Of course, child support affects both sides: it affects the behavior of the man as well. The fact that CS increases = overall reductions doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think I’ve been anything less than crystal clear about a man’s obligations to use BC and to contribute to termination costs, and I’ve argued that incentives there should work, so I don’t know why you think those studies “disprove” my argument at all.

    I have also claimed that over the long term, my proposal (given that it trades a tiny potential reduction in support for an enormous improvement in ways to prevent unwanted kids, who are at a high risk of poverty) will end up reducing the # of impoverished children. But I have never said that reducing child support OVERALL is per se likely to reduce the # of impoverished kids–I don’t think that’s true.

    I could give a shit whether that’s ‘because men’ or ‘because women,’ as I’ve said, I’m concerned with overall outcome.

    Well, you don’t seem willing to distribute the shit around. There are three people with tradeoffs (women, men, kids) and you seem to want to protect kids first, women second, and men last. “This kid has less money” is a cost, but not necessarily an unacceptable one.

    For example, you have yet to give a clear answer to the poverty-line issue: are you insisting that we prevent kids from dropping below a government-mandated minimum poverty standard, whatever it may be? Or are you trying to make the dads give a “reasonable share” irrespective of whether or not the kid’s at the minimum? Those have very different results and very different moral bases.

    For the current support system, “having a kid be impoverished” isn’t actually the datapoint; support isn’t linked to poverty prevention per se. And of course the current support system fails to account very well for a whole host of competing rights, including some rights of the father, which I would like to attend to and which you seem willing to pass over.

  100. 100
    Doug S. says:

    I may have linked to this before: What is Special About Genetic Paternity?

    unless we’re going to switch to a full-blown Swedish Socialist economy, in which child poverty is substantively solved through expensive government interventions.

    Sounds like a good idea to me! If we’re going to make people give money to support children they didn’t want to conceive, we might as well make everyone who pays taxes do it, instead of imposing a special tax on non-custodial, unmarried sperm donors. ;) So we might as well add “basic income guarantee” to the list of politically improbable things we’re fantasizing about, right along with “C4M”.

    Personally, I’d be happy to see courts honoring a “no forced child support” contract, signed by both parties before sex, along the lines of what gin-and-whiskey proposed way back in comment 4. Even if opting out is hard, it should probably be at least theoretically possible, as it would give more moral authority to child support obligations that are imposed.