Quite a while ago, regarding the “Choice for Men” debate, Cathy Young asked me:
Yes, but the comparison is misleading; it implies that the disparity is caused by hypocrisy in the feminist position, when the disparity is actually caused by differences in male and female anatomy. (No pro-choicer would deny men the right to abortion, if men were physically capable of pregnancy.)
When pro-lifers say women’s chance to decide about parenthood is before pregnancy happens, what they really mean is, “I want to deny you one of your medically viable options.” There’s no reason, except for pro-life laws, that women can’t get an abortion after pregnancy begins.
In contrast, when I say men’s chance to decide about parenthood is before pregnancy happens, that’s a statement of biological fact. It’s not an argument in favor of denying men viable medical options; it’s an observation that men physically lack those options.
Although the statements look similar on the surface, the substantive difference between the two positions is enormous, and can’t fairly be overlooked.
Pingback: Glaivester
Pingback: Rainbow's Ramblings
Pingback: lompyville
Although the statements look similar on the surface, the substantive difference between the two positions is enormous, and can’t fairly be overlooked.
Let me start by accepting your conclusion. (Hah! Argument judo. Take that!)
I want to go back to one of your premises.
(No pro-choicer would deny men the right to abortion, if men were physically capable of pregnancy.)
And no pro-choicer would deny men the right to bear a child, if men were physically capable of pregnancy, I (safely) assume.
But of course, men are not so capable.
What if they were to hire someone, or find a volunteer, who was so capable? Obviously that person would be a biological woman. What would be the implications?
Well, it can certainly be argued that many married and commited heterosexual couples have already reached such an arrangement, either tacitly or explicitly. Whether for fiduciary consideration, or emotional consideration, or any of a number of other arrangements, many women have in effect made a contingent womb commitment. If Jane gets pregnant, even unintentionally, she already knows she will keep the child.
And, of course, many other couples or transient heterosexual pairings do not have such an understanding.
(One wonders about the relative success rates of such varying relationships. There would certainly be a stress on women who do agree to such terms; there’s definitely a burden in knowing that another obligation (however joyous) could drop in. On the other hand, I would assume that men would be more devoted/commited to a woman who had made such a promise. Perhaps that evens it out; I don’t know.)
You could, therefore, argue from a pro-choice point of view that men’s rights types who demand the right to bear a child already have it; they merely need to exercise their prerogative in the marketplace and acquire (through whatever means) the necessary cooperation. Men of inadequate material means might console themselves with the thought that genuine kindness and attention are currency in and of themselves in the emotional marketplace.
I keep thinking this:
When have you actually made your choice?
The moment that, if you get kidnapped by UFOs and never return, other people still have to deal with that choice.
Once you’ve done that, there’s no take back. Other people can’t take back the effects of your choice on them, so you don’t get a mulligan.
Rebecca
Well, but wouldn’t that imply that a man has absolute control over his ability to impregnate women? I mean, if it’s an “accident” for her, it is for him too, right?
Except, Amp, that no one is suggesting that men should be allowed to force a woman to have an abortion. The point is simply that the man’s responsibility should be commensurate with his ability to make the choice. That is, he should be allowed to choose to pay for the least expensive option in return for giving up all rights toward the child.
As far as the “biolgical fact” argument, this would impress me a lot more if government wasn’t already involved in working around biolgical facts. The Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, requires business owners to go out of their way to accomodate biolgical disabilities, rather than simply never hiring disabled people under the rationale that it is a biolgical fact that it is more expensive to use them for labor. I also suspect that most of you believe that businesses where possible should be made to accomodate pregnancies, instead of firing any women who gets pregnant and declaring that it is a biolgical fact that pregnant women have a harder time, e.g., standing on their feet for long periods and they have no obligation to accomodate this.
This, by the way, is one thing I was referring to when I said that some feminists believe in feminine supremacy rather than equality. When a women gets pregnant, you want her to have all the choice, and yet be able to stick the man with a share of the financial consequences of her choice rather than of the financial consequences of what his choice would have been.
So it’s your opinion that virtually all heterosexual sex is a case of the man being raped by the woman? Because that’s the only way your argument makes sense.
If you can’t acknowledge that men have some choice (albeit not all the choices) and thus bear some responsibility, then I’m not sure there’s much for us to talk about. Someone who thinks that men never, ever volunteer to have sex does not live in anything I recognize as the real world.
Audrey H: Well, but wouldn’t that imply that a man has absolute control over his ability to impregnate women? I mean, if it’s an “accident” for her, it is for him too, right?
As Ampersand points out: men have fewer choices than women because men have fewer biological abilities. A man can’t decide whether or not to have an abortion because a man can’t get pregnant. Simple as that.
Glaivester Writes:
December 13th, 2005 at 3:05 am
Except, Amp, that no one is suggesting that men should be allowed to force a woman to have an abortion. The point is simply that the man’s responsibility should be commensurate with his ability to make the choice. That is, he should be allowed to choose to pay for the least expensive option in return for giving up all rights toward the child.
Glaivester: As far as the “biolgical fact” argument, this would impress me a lot more if government wasn’t already involved in working around biolgical facts.
Not, however, by requiring people who have two kidneys to give up one to someone on dialysis: or even by ordering everyone who’s capable to be a regular blood donor.
I often feel a little bit , because I sympathise with the argument that either parent should be able to give up their parental rights and responsibilities in an adoption like way, whether or not the other parent wishes to do the same . While the arguments that men make a choice to risk becoming a parent when they have sex, are the truth at the moment, I don’t believe that is ideal.
But I do think this is a result of my different background. I come from New Zealand where we have a domestic purposes benefit, which isn’t much, but it’s more than you’ve got. It also means that for low-income women child support often doesn’t go to her directly, but goes to the government, which pays out the DPB.
It bothers me the way this debate is framed in absolutes. The current American system is not the only system. I understand why feminists in America now would see child support as a more viable option than a decent social welfare system, and I respect their decision to try and maintain that. But I’d understand it better if it was presented that way, and not the only alternative.
I don’t think that the parents being the sole people financially responsible for children should be our goal – I believe children deserve financial support not just from their parents, but the community as a whole. I don’t think feminists should abandon that as the long-term aim.
I wrote a little bit more about this on my blog a while back.
It’s interesting that these men’s choice discussions always focus on the fairness of child support in the case of an unwanted pregnancy and never on men’s responsibility for birth control. Men have been doing medical science for centuries but they’ve never developed male contraceptive methodologies to match those they’ve developed for women (birth control pills, iuds, diaphragms, cervical caps, patches, contraceptive rings, sponges, depo-provera, female condom, tubal ligation vs. condoms and vasectomies). I guess that they just didn’t see it as their problem since men had always been able to walk away (and I’m not saying that no men stayed or were forced to stay but the fact remains that the choice to walk away was always there).
It’s the combination of DNA for proving paternity and computer systems for tracking delinquent fathers that has changed everything by making it much more difficult for men to abrogate their responsibility. But even with this change, most men seem to prefer to ignore the issue of male contraception and just talk about on how unfair women are.
For the record, I’m an MRA…
The solution for men, to me, is simple: take care of your own stuff. If you don’t want to impregnate a woman, take steps to keep that from happening. Yes, this includes not having sex.
I don’t think a man can reasonably be “allowed” to have a say in whether a woman aborts or keeps a baby. Yes, this can result in the man being responsible for the child, but we all know that, don’t we, so why do we always act like it’s some big unfair thing?
And no, I don’t think a man should be allowed to “sign away” the responsibility for a baby if she decides to keep it. We MRA’s always crow about how responsible we are; well, then, be responsible.
There is no way to make this “fair”, by the standards of those in favor of choice for men. It is not “fair”. The woman has the control of the pregnancy. You help make it, you’re gonna be responsible for it if she decides to keep it.
Therefore, knowing all that, this whole discussion can be avoided if men would take care of their own outcomes and not put them in the hands of the woman.
Yes, this can leave you powerless if you want her to carry the baby to term and raise it, and she doesn’t. And vice versa. Too bad. You now know the rules of the game, and you now know what to do. Go do it.
I’ve been reading these conversations for a while now, but this is my first time posting here.
I think that both Scarbo and Amp are basically saying the same thing here. The fact is that the whole situation of an unintended pregnancy is inherently “unfair.” The term unintended pregnancy sums it up- neither the man or woman was planning for a pregnancy. Ideally, we can hope that the man and the woman can agree on what is the best decision for them both, but the unfortunate reality is that often they do not agree.
Whichever decision is made- to raise the child, give it up for adoption or abort- are all decisions that will affect both of them for the rest of their lives. Though it is not “fair” that the man has little say in a decision that will effect his life, neither if is fair for the woman to have to have to make such a deeply personal and stressful, both emotionally and physically, decision, but that is the reality of the situation.
The fact that the woman is the one who is actually pregnant allows her the right to the final decision. It seems to me that these two facts facts cancel each other out on the “fairness” scale. Being biologically forced to choose vs. Having the final say in that choice.
Either way, it is hardly a situation to be envied, even for a man who wanted a different outcome.
Are you sure you’re an MRA? That was downright reasonable!
What if they were to hire someone, or find a volunteer, who was so capable?
Then the privacy right in control of their own bodies doesn’t exist, and we’re off in contract law and assignation of parental rights. Whole different planet.
and yet be able to stick the man with a share of the financial consequences of her choice
Again and again: whether or not she has a choice, she, too, is stuck with the financial consequences of being a parent. Parental responsibility for both parties is not contingent on whether you agreed to sex or whether you had a chance to get an abortion. If a pregnant woman is kidnapped on the way to an abortion clinic by radical anti-choicers and imprisoned until she goes into labor, she is still obligated, financially and legally, as a parent.
I’ll note that fathers have zero responsibility during the pregnancy. There is no obligation for fetal child support.
It doesn’t work around biological facts by trading the rights of the non-disabled for the rights of the disabled. No non-disabled person is legally required to drop everything he’s doing to push a wheelchair-bound stranger around the mall and pick up everything they want that’s out of their reach. Nor are the safety rights of everybody on the road endangered by allowing blind people to drive.
No premise of government involvement in “working around biological facts” ever provides for the abilities of a disabled group by taking those abilities away from those who already have them. For men to have the “choice” these people are advocating,
That’s business owners—you can avoid such expenses by choosing one of the many career options that do not involve owning a business.
It has been argued that it is unfair that women get “more choice.” I think it is equally unfair that women have more burdens. Consider: both men and women have the choice to abstain from sex to avoid pregnancy (rape aside). Both men and women have access to either medication or devices that greatly reduce their risk of pregnancy when they have sex. And if a baby is born, both men and women have obligations to that baby. If a man is supposed to pay child support, it is the child, and not the mother, who benefits from that money, and it is paid to the mother because she is responsible for caring for the child. If the situation is reversed and the father is the one caring for the child, he can demand child support from the mother.
The only difference is, for there to be a child, the mother has to go through pregnancy and childbirth. This is never demanded of the father, only of the mother, and therefore the mother is the only one who is entitled to make the decision. It is not right that one person should make a choice and leave all the work to the person who did not make the choice, and this would be the case if men had veto power either way over their significant other’s reproductive decisions. He could decide, baby or no baby, and she would be forced to create that baby, risk her health and possibly her life doing it, and suffer pain and/or injury to give birth to it, or to undergo a medical procedure to take away something that she wanted, a procedure she might find morally wrong, while the person who made the choice suffers not at all because of it. This is not right. Whereas, as long as the choice is firmly in the hands of the woman, the person who makes the choice, also suffers whatever consequences her choice carries. This is right.
No one demands pregnancy from men, therefore no one should demand it from women.
(It should be pointed out that the entire point of this argument is not “choice during pregnancy about whether or not to have a child and responsibility for it;” it is “choice during pregnancy about whether one wants to suffer an invasion of one’s body.” The MRA’s who push for “choice for men” are ignoring entirely the pregnancy aspect of things in order to focus on the child-and-child-support aspect. Their argument, condensed, is something along the lines of “things need to be perfectly fair for men, no matter how unfair that makes things for women.” Men don’t suffer that invasion of their bodies, women do, so women get to make the choice about which sort of invasion they want to suffer, and which they don’t.)
Kyra wrote:
Bingo.
Since so many MRAs are obviously misogynists, they really don’t understand the concept of “burdens,” which gets translated in their brains to “That bitch is getting free money from me for life to sit on her ass and do nothing !”
Redecca’s post also reminds me of how many MRAs combine hostility toward women with hostility toward the welfare state– which makes no sense if you have any feel for logic. If individual MRAs don’t want to pay for the individual costs of supporting babies and children, they should, by rights, be ferocious lobbyists for the revival and expansion of our social safety net in the U.S. This would mean that all of us would help pay for raising the kids. The supposed crushing burden of child support upon the individual man would be lessened by spreading it out amongst the entire citizenry– Male and female.
I, for one, am not waiting up for them to make this mental breakthrough to the other side. :/
JacobPunkt: thanks, I was hoping you’d think so. Often times I hear nothing but crickets chirping after I express my opinion. As far as being an MRA, I do find myself in agreement with many MRA issues, but after weighing this one, I find myself not agreeing with the choice for men movement.
I guess it’s because nowadays we seem to be searching for fairness and equality in EVERYTHING under the sun, as if it’s un-natural for equality to not reign everywhere. Everything HAS to be 50:50 everywhere, or so it would seem. Apparently it’s not good enough for it to be 70:30 in some places and 30:70 in others. Nope, 50:50 all around. But is that “natural”?
The structure of life balances out in the whole, but not necessarily for the individual. In the instance of pregnancy, in a natural sense, the woman rules, plain and simple. She’s carrying the thing, for Pete’s sake. In other areas (although I can’t think of any right now!!!), in a natural sense, perhaps the man rules.
Look at other species on the planet. Sometimes the male does all the work, including taking care of the eggs before they hatch. Sometimes the female does all the work (lions?). Do they stress about things being “equal”? No, they just live. Nature, even though perfectly balanced, is not necessarily perfectly equal.
Perhaps we need to look to that as we tussle with these interesting but difficult questions.
Um, what about the CHILD? You think you should just be able to abandon it and force the woman to pay for everything?
Again, I don’t see a way out of this that doesn’t hurt the child. Selfish. What are you suggesting the solution be?
Also, I shall make the point that we are constantly making here, choosing abortion is NOT the same as choosing no responsibility for a child (that would be adoption), it IS choosing to not be pregnant. therefore talking about financial responsibilities after a child is in the picture seems to completely derail the subject of abortion and pregnancy, where there is no child.
alsis39, your post makes excellent sense. I completely agree with you.
And Scarbo, I wish there were more MRAs like you, you seem very reasonable. Although I do think we should fight for equality where possible, but until men can be pregnant (which sounds like a great idea to me, I would rather get my boyfriend pregnant so we could have kids than have to go through it myself) there isn’t much we can do.
This passage makes me nervous, though.
Are you suggesting humans should just accept the fact that most women do all the child rearing and we shouldn’t try to balance it? Seems to me we can’t compare ourselves to lions, considering lions can’t complain about anything since they don’t really talk and they certainly aren’t writing blog posts on the subject to debate w/ other lions all around the world.
Casey wrote:
As Reddecca pointed out, another way out would be to have a generous social welfare state that guarateed that all children would have all their material needs well met.
If we had that sort of system, then I could imagine supporting “choice for men.” (However, my impression is that most C4M advocates oppose generous welfare policies.)
First off, I wouldn’t say I’ve got a total philosophy on this all worked out and ready to present to the masses. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.
I just wonder if we need to work the concept of inherently unequal into our equality discussions more. Food for thought, that’s all.
Putting this another way, perhaps: doesn’t the complaint about inequality come from the assumption that inequality is wrong? So, where does that assumption come from? In some cases, it’s pretty obvious. But maybe it really doesn’t apply in all cases. Again, since men can’t get pregnant, there’s one right there. Perhaps there are more, many more.
Yes, if we had this sort of system, I would definately support “choice” for men in terms of financial responsibility. In fact, I would prefer a generous social welfare state for many reasons.
Well, in terms of women and men, I believe women got fed up with doing all the work and not being able to get the benefits of society, like education and such, so we fought to gain equality. Not sure that inequality is “wrong” per say, but if one group of people is benefitting and ruling over another, and the second group is not happy with it and there is no obvious reason why it HAS to be that way, then that seems wrong to me. Perhaps instead of thinking of inequality being wrong we should think of it as being not the most enjoyable situation, and if we can rectify things to be more enjoyable for society, then we should. I’m all for enabling men to get pregnant if the science allowed it and a man wanted such a thing.
I’m glad you said this. One line of feminist theory stresses the unequal treatment that women face in matters of law, medicine, employment, etc., because the delimiting factor is the male body. For example, this very argument about men’s and women’s choice is thinly posited in believing that the source of that choice is identical and the only missing ingredient is the individual’s capacity to make an autonomous choice. In reality, men do not and cannot have an equivalent choice in matters of pregnancy and abortion because they lack the capacity to be pregnant. The social inequality that feminists object to is when this fact is ignored and legal and medical decisions are made founded on a false belief that men can have an equivalent and autonomous decision-making capacity as women in terms of pregnancy. I would certainly hope that men do have the autonomy. I reject outright that they will ever have an equivalent decision-making process — and laws and medical practices should reflect this by favoring the unique nature of women’s relationship to her own pregnancy, rather than attempting to create a false equity.
My sense of equality is one in which there is no discrimination in law, medicine, economics etc., **despite** differences between men’s and women’s experiences.
oops. Can you fix that Amp? Pretty please?
[Fixed! Hope that wasn’t too wrong, I was away from the computer dealing with stuff in the meat world…. –Amp]
To jump back a bit,
AndiF said:
Actually, a lot of work has gone into it. The problem is, for men, a vast majority of the systems that CAUSE fertility also are requisite for normal sexual functioning. A male version of the pill would most likely result in importence, and while that would, in fact, prevent pregnancy, I personally wouldn’t want my partner to use such a method. And the relative physical complexity of the female reproductive system and the fact that much of it is easily acessed means there’s a lot more room to play, so to speak, with prevention of conception.
And it may just be that I’ve been lucky, but the vast majority of men I know are, in fact, concerned about contraception. But that may be because I am blessed to know a lot of men with a strong sense of their responsibility should one of their sexual partners get pregnant.
I’d love a male contraceptive pill, especially if it would “result in importence”!
Sorry, I just had to jump at that one…
Of course, there is nothing in the current system to prevent some guy serving his girlfriend with legal papers regarding custody while she’s still in the hospital recovering from labor either (shades of Newt Gingrich’s divorce). Just as there is nothing to prevent a guy from hitting her up for child support after she has gone through a pregnancy with all the medical expenses and related expenses either, without the father paying for a dime to support her up until then. It may not be common, but the option exists.
Certainly not. His chances of success would be at best quite slim unless he could show that she had two heads and a drug habit, of course.
Then again, how many of these fathers want custody? Of an infant? Goodbye sleep, forget having a life of your own (ha ha you were joking maybe, no?). From the father’s point of view, I’d think the biggest hazard of suing for custody would be that you might win.
I wish Amp has bulked the post out a bit more. I’m not really sure what’s being got at.
Isn’t the suggestion that “pro-choice” activist say that a woman should have a choice over whether she becomes a mother – and this justifies abortion in order to enable her to make that choice. (For the record: I support abortion, but think this is a bad argument in favour of it.)
You could maintain that men should have the same “choice”, but since this couldn’t be effected though termination, it should be effected though being able to disclaim parental rights. I’m not sure you can say that it is a biological fact that men’s chance to decide about parenthood is before pregnancy happens. We could easily give them a say afterwards though insituting a new social policy (by letting them disclaim parenthood). This has been done in the past.
Actually, a lot of work has gone into it.
According to what I’ve read, the work is mostly quite recent (one article refers to male contraception as the “poor relation in family planning” and noted that research finally “may have acquired the critical mass needed to make the transition from academic research to pharmaceutical development.” Some new male contraceptive products have been successfully tested (at least in Australia and India).
The point is that there is no long history of attempts to develop male contraception, there is almost no coverage of any of current efforts, and there doesnt seem to be any great demand from men to have it.
No. Pro-choice means a woman should have a choice over whether she is PREGNANT. If it meant over whether she becomes a mother, then pro-life people would be pro-choice, because even they believe in adoption.
Scarbo,
Interesting posts. As far as your thoughts on equality/inequality, I’m wondering if what you are really getting at is sameness/difference. In other words, do you think that men and women are or might be inherently unequal in some ways (which suggests varying moral or perhaps legal status) or that men and women might be inherently different in some ways (which suggests varying natures/preferences/abilities)?
The one does not presuppose the other. For example, even though people who are more rational (stereotypically men) are different from people who are more emotional (stereotypically women) that does not mean that as a result, men or women should have different rights, which are generally premised on being a person, not on what kind of person you are. I’m good at math and logic puzzles, but I don’t think that should get me more rights even though it puts me in “rational-land.”
I’ve thought a lot about sameness/difference, and my current thought is that we don’t really know much about “inherent/natural” differences between the sexes because our culture treats men and women so differently. Also, even if the average man and the average woman are different in certain ways, there is so much more variation within the groups men and women than between the groups men and women that gender is a poor proxy.
I hope this has something to do with your posts. :)
And here I was so excited that I had figured out how to use blockquotes… *headdesk*
Ismone,
Well, as I said, this is far from a thought-out philosophy. I’ve started and stopped at least four responses to your post and I find I just don’t know where to go with it from here.
I was just trying to expand on the thought of men and women having obvious different options when it comes to reproduction, because the system is designed for the female to be the baby oven and the male is not. And a logical person accepts that. A person searching for “fairness” won’t find it. And that person should then realize that perhaps “unfairness” can be perfectly workable in a natural system. Again, lions, bluebirds, that fish that keeps the eggs in its mouth, etc.
I was then wondering if there was perhaps reason to expand on that as we search for fairness between the human genders in all the other aspects of life. What other differences, physical or otherwise, should we acknowledge and then be satisfied that “fairness” can’t happen?
Or is reproduction the only one?
It isn’t about the rights of the father or the mother – when a child is born it is about the rights of that kid.
Only a woman can have the right to decide whether she’ll allow her body being used to host a parasitic fetus.
When a child is born the father and the mother should have equal responsibility – even though the mother thus far has made bigger sacrifices to allow that child being born. If they feel unable to care for their child the responsible thing to do, as well as their duty to the child, is to try and find good adoptive parents.
It is all about the rights of the kid. If you don’t want to fulfill your obligations to the child you will have to either adopt it away or pay child support and leave the other parent with all the work.
Personally I, as a woman, would much rather prefer that the men had to do all the childbearing and labour. How wonderful to be able to become a parent without having to go through all the pain and bodychanges!
How wonderful to be able to become a parent without having to go through all the pain and bodychanges!
Be careful what you wish for, because you know darn well that the men who do this will use the pain and body changes to lord guilt over you and stick you with child support while only letting you see your kid every other weekend.
I get tired of the argument about the choice to not get pregnant. Face it. We get knocked up. For 8.6 billion reasons.
How is it best for the human race to cope with reproduction?
Women have attempted to terminate pregnancies for as long as getting knocked up existed. And died in the attempt. White Fathers had the say in the abortion then, through law, they said you couldn’t have one.
Women died trying to get them because the risk was so much better a prospect than having the child.
Abortion Saves Women and only a woman knows if it’s what she needs.
Amp: There’s no reason, except for pro-life laws, that women can’t get an abortion after pregnancy begins. In contrast, when I say men’s chance to decide about parenthood is before pregnancy happens, that’s a statement of biological fact.>>
It’s a statement of biological fact that a man can simply walk away. There’s no reason, except for child support laws, that it is otherwise.
After birth, women can just walk away, too. There’s no reason, except for child support laws, that it is otherwise.
In other words, in this way, the law is exactly equal. So what’s your point?
.
AndiF wrote – The point is that there is no long history of attempts to develop male contraception, there is almost no coverage of any of current efforts, and there doesn’t seem to be any great demand from men to have it.
Not denying that the lack of male contraception is probably due, at least in part, to men (in general) finding it more convenient to let the women worry about it. HowEVER —
As a woman, if I were involved in a non-committed sexual relationship (anything from a one-nighter to a few weeks), if the man said, “Oh, don’t worry; I’m on the Pill,” no way would I feel secure . If he’s lying, and I don’t take my own precautions, I’m the one who gets pregnant. (I’m ignoring, for this argument, the benefits of condoms for preventing STDs.)
So this factor could lead to a lack of demand from women to develop a medical male contraception; if there’s no belief that it will be used, why push for its development? And if the women aren’t pushing, there’s no reason for the men to care.
After birth, women can just walk away, too. There’s no reason, except for child support laws, that it is otherwise.
I don’t think so. Are there women who are emotionally capable of bearing a child for nine months, with all of the physical intimacy that is necessarily entailed in pregnancy, and then walk away? Some, no doubt (otherwise, who the heck are all these adoptees). Many? I doubt it.
I’m not making a gendered observation here. I don’t think there are (m)any men who could spend nine months in an intimate and growing bond with their unborn child and then walk away, either. My wife and I didn’t go to any particular lengths to ensure that Stephanie and I bonded while she was in utero, but it happened nonetheless. There’s no f-ing way I could have abandoned that child when she was born after having spent nine months in a steadily increasing lockstep of emotional connection – let ALONE if she had actually been in my body and with me 24/7 instead of in someone else’s body and with me physically only when I was in proximity to my wife.
But if I was a man not in an emotional bond to the mother of my child, there’s nothing that particularly would have built up that connection between me and the baby, until the baby was born. Walking away at birth (or more commonly, at the news of a pregnancy that isn’t going to be aborted) would be trivially easy.
Emotional constraints are perhaps less easy to quantify than economic or legal constraints, but they are no less real.
Robert, emotional complaints are less real than biological constraints.
The fact is, some women are capable of abandoning their children, just as some men are. Yes, there are many more such men than women (due to the factors you mention), but the women still exist – and child support laws treat them identically to male abandoners.
In contrast, no man, ever, has been capable of being pregnant.
[First, let me state that I am not actually in favor of “choice for men.” I just do not believe that you can have a consistent “pro-choice ethic” without it.
If you can’t acknowledge that men have some choice (albeit not all the choices) and thus bear some responsibility,
I am not denying that men bear some responsibility. Where do people get that idea? My suggestion was that in order to be consistent with the pro-choice ethic, the man ought to be able to choose to be responsible for paying for the least expensive choice.
I have NEVER said that men should bear no responsibility under a pro-choice ethic. You just think that the level of responsibility should not be commensurate with their level of choice.
When pro-lifers say women’s chance to decide about parenthood is before pregnancy happens, what they really mean is, “I want to deny you one of your medically viable options.” There’s no reason, except for pro-life laws, that women can’t get an abortion after pregnancy begins.
In contrast, when I say men’s chance to decide about parenthood is before pregnancy happens, that’s a statement of biological fact. It’s not an argument in favor of denying men viable medical options; it’s an observation that men physically lack those options.
That is a misleading statement because very few people deny this in terms of biological parenthood. Very few people actually believe that the man should have a right to determine whether or not he becomes a biological parent of a born child (i.e. that he should have the ability to determine whether or not the woman brings the pregnancy to term). People who would push for spousal consent laws are usually people who are actually trying to ban abortion rather than give the man “choice.”
The hypocrisy is here:
When feminists say that a man’s choice as to whether or not to obligate himself to be partially financially responsible for a child for eighteen years is before pregnancy begins, they are echoing the pro-lifers who say that a woman’s choice to have a child should be before pregnancy begins.
When you say that the man’s choice whether or not to become partially financially responsible for another human being for eighteen years is before pregnancy begins, that is not a statement of biological fact; it is a statement that you want to deny men a viable legal option (i.e. of claiming responsibility for the option they would have chosen rather than for the option the woman chooses, and paying the woman for that option).
It’s not an argument in favor of denying men viable medical options; it’s an observation that men physically lack those options.
Because, of course, medical options are the only options where choice should be protected.
The main reason I see hypocrisy here is that I doubt that you would have the “ho-hum, the sitaution may be unfair, but life is unfair, and we don’t always have to fix that” attitude if it were women rather than men that the situation were unfair to.
[…] Amptoons points out […]
Glaivester:
The “pro-choice ethic” you refer to isn’t an ethic of the real-life pro-choice movement. Pro-choice has never meant “she who has less choice should bear vastly, vastly less responsibility.”
The real pro-choice ethic is “my body, my choice.” Meaning that every person, male or female, has the right to control their own reproductive system.
So when you say I’m being contradictory, all you’re really saying is that I’m contradicting an “ethic” that I never subscribed to in the first place.
You wrote (emphasis added by me):
Do you understand the difference between “is” and “should be”?
No feminist is saying – and I’m certainly not saying – that a man’s choice as to whether or not to obligate himself should be before pregnancy begins. I don’t think that’s the way it should be. I didn’t create the two-sex reproduction system, and I don’t think the two-sex reproductive system is fair or just. (If it were up to me, we’d all be intersexed.)
I agree with you – in a perfect, ideal world, men and women should be able to have all the sex they want (with consenting partners) and nonetheless never risk unwanted parenthood.
But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world in which “choice for men” is another way of saying “screw children over, because all that matters is what’s good for dad.” As I said earlier this thread, I can’t even begin to consider C4M a reasonable policy until children’s material needs are much more fully provided for.
Even then, I have doubts about C4M, simply because I think the effect of C4M, in practice, would be to discourage men from using birth control, leading to a rise in single mother families among women and girls who aren’t really prepared to be mothers. So even if children’s material interests were covered, I’m still not certain that the increased unfairness to children would be justified by increased freedom for men.
Being pro-choice doesn’t mean being in favor of abandoning children. Saying “if you’re pro-choice, you have to favor abandoning children or you’re a hypocrite” – which is what your point boils down to, Glaivester – isn’t a fair summary of the pro-choice position.
So this factor could lead to a lack of demand from women to develop a medical male contraception; if there’s no belief that it will be used, why push for its development? And if the women aren’t pushing, there’s no reason for the men to care.
That pretty much goes along with the point I was making — that men have always put the responsibility for pregnancy on women, whether it is getting pregnant or not getting pregnant. And even in a discussion about “choice for men”, male contraception never really gets on the radar because men still think in terms of a pregnancy as being the woman’s responsibility.
If C4M supporters were really concerned about causing pregnancies they don’t want, they’d be screaming for better male contraception. But they seem to care very little about avoiding pregnancy, the women they might get pregnant, or the children they might father. Instead they just want to make sure that having “gotten” someone pregnant, they won’t be “gotten” for, as Glavister wants to be sure we know, 18 years of child support.
It is hypocritical to be pro-biological-choice and anti-legal-choice.
And while you’re thinking about the possible results of c4m, think about this possible result of no-c4m: some men may well feel that the best remaining option for them is to physically force miscarriage, or to murder the women they have impregnated.
And here comes the threats!
That wasn’t a threat. It was speculation based upon observation of other common human behaviors. Some people turn to terrorist actions when they feel powerless to affect change in normal political ways. I don’t think it’s such a stretch to imagine that some men might turn to violence to escape legal entanglements they feel they otherwise could not get out of.
The only reason I said “is” for males and “should be” for females is because choice for women is legally enshrined while choice for men isn’t.
The “pro-choice ethic” you refer to isn’t an ethic of the real-life pro-choice movement. Pro-choice has never meant “she who has less choice should bear vastly, vastly less responsibility.”
What I am saying is that the “pro-choice” movement is not really all that pro-choice. They are, more accurately, pro-abortion rights.
And even in a discussion about “choice for men”, male contraception never really gets on the radar because men still think in terms of a pregnancy as being the woman’s responsibility.
If C4M supporters were really concerned about causing pregnancies they don’t want, they’d be screaming for better male contraception.
To be honest, contraception has never been something I have thought about much in my personal life, because I hve abstained my whole life.
Buyt as a principle, I definitely think that male contraception is a good idea. (And when I get married (if I get married) I would love to have the option. Anyone have any ideas as to what I can do to support it?
But as a principle, I definitely think that male contraception is a good idea. (And when I get married (if I get married) I would love to have the option. Anyone have any ideas as to what I can do to support it?
This site has quite a bit of information.
This assumes that a woman isn’t a “parent” when she is carrying an unborn child.
Couldn’t an advocate of abortion choice for men parrot the exact same kind of rhetoric?
“When those against allowing men to decide if a woman should have an abortion say a man’s chance to decide about parenthood is before pregnancy happens, what they really mean is “I want to deny you your medically viable options (like forcing a woman to have an abortion).” There’s no reason except for laws against forced abortion, that a man can’t force a woman to have an abortion.”
To me it seems to assume what it is trying to prove.
Justin,
Men already kill their pregnant wives and girlfriends. Also, some women who feel that they lack the financial resources to raise children are known to kill them within 24 hours of their birth.
It simply isn’t logical for a man to be able to tell a woman to keep or abort a baby, because either option is invasive and affects her health, not his.
As far as legal rights to child support go, those rights belong to the child, not to the woman. Why should she be able to waive the child’s right to support by the simple act of giving birth?
Word, Ismone. You beat me to the punch on that point.
In fact, the more restrictions there are on abortion and the more legal tools a woman has to leav an abusive relationship, the more men murder the women who are pregnant with their (putative) children. I don’t have the stats at my fingertips right now, but the Washington Post did a series in 2003 or 2004 about the uptick in murders of pregnant women, and I think one of the stories had a timeline (availability of the pill, anti-stalking laws, etc.) on there that showed spikes after different woman-empowering events.
Uh oh. Now we’ll have the prolifers coming here to tell us abortion leads to murder.
Why is it that no matter how many times we say things like this
No one pays any attention and still spews out shit like this?
You are NOT paying the woman for some option she chose! Why is this so hard to understand?! You are paying CHILD SUPPORT, that is, taking care of the child you created!!!!
Part of my problem with ‘c4m’ is that I don’t believe that men/courts will actually ‘enforce’ paper abortions, and I’m not even sure the should:
What if a man chooses to have a ‘paper abortion.’ What if the woman gives birth and then he changes his mind and wants to be a father?
(And say, for the sake of argument, that he’s really a decent guy and not a complete asshole.)
Should the mother then close him out of the child’s life on principle? Even if it’s not good for the child? Would society (let alone the courts) really support her in that? What if she wants him to be involved? Would the courts force her not to let him know the child? To not accept support for the child?
The absolute most that any court could require from him is back child support. If he could afford to pay it. And say he couldn’t?
And then say the child grows up happy and strong and one day either or the child or the father seek each other out? Should that be forbidden by law?
My hunch is that all a paper abortion would end up meaning is a right to defer any form of child support (emotional/financial/logistical) until/unless the man ends up wanting to be part of the child’s life.
As opposed to a real abortion, which has real, irreversible consequences.
It just doesn’t make sense…
Ismone;
I wasn’t addressing the issue of men legally forcing women to get abortions.
As I understand it, that’s exactly what she does when she decides to have a baby without the involvement of a man beyond acting as a sperm donor (or at least that seems to have been the original plan, lawsuits to the contrary notwithstanding). It’s not exactly precedent, but it’s similar.
Lee;
Undoubtedly, but (A) I am not arguing in favor of restricting abortion rights or the ability of women to leave relationships (any), and (B) when it comes to pregnant women being murdered as they try to leave abusive relationships it’s not clear to me that the man murders her with the primary intent of evading child support obligations. Did he kill her because she was pegnant, or because she left? Different motivators.
Some arguments are similar to pro-life arguments, but that doesn’t meant that they are wrong. By having sex, we do accept that pregnancy is one possible result. If that is the result, then there are three options available; abortion, adoption, or raising the child. Men obviously don’t have the option of abortion, since they are not the pregnant one. I believe that, in most states, both parents have to give their consent to adoption. If the father wishes, he can deny permission, sue for custody, and then get child support from the mother.
It seems to me that the C4M argument treats this as merely a dispute between a man and a woman. It isn’t. There’s a third party involved–the child. As a society, we believe that children are entitled to support from their parents. I don’t think that the financial hardship of child support outweighs the rights of the child to support from both parents.
Justin,
Sorry if I mischaracterized your argument about men’s choice. But if the man can choose to withhold child support, that does give the woman an incentive to get an abortion because he wants one, which is also problematic if she is poor.
About the murder point, I thought you were arguing that men would murder women for not getting an abortion. Even if that is true, I don’t see why that matters. Men who murder usually do it because they want to control the woman’s actions–that is the profile of DV perpetratros–but that is a psychopathology, not a justification for social policy.
You’re right that the woman is choosing to give birth, but the child had no part in the decision. So why should the child’s right to be supported by biological parents be affected by the mother’s unilateral decision? I guess it’s an agency question.
Amp: So what’s your point?”
In an earlier thread you stated your position more concisely (3-17-05), “Both men and women should have every reproductive choice biologically possible.” Clearly it is biologically possible for a man to walk away and clearly you don’t support that; in fact, you file the very idea under “anti-feminist zaniness.”
To answer your question, I don’t have a point but I didn’t start the thread. Society already gives you what you say you want. Was it your goal to mock the illogic of it while feigning support? Just curious.
I guess I think of “reproductive choices” as those that happen before the child is born; after the child is born it’s a question of caretaking choices, not reproduction.
You’re interpreting “every reproductive choice biologically possible” to include what’s done after birth takes place, but that’s a ridiculous interpretation of what I said. “Clearly it is biologically possible for a woman to murder her born child”; but it’s no contradiction to say that I support women’s rights to all their biologially possible reproductive choices, but nonetheless don’t support her right to murder her one-year-old.
A fairer reading than yours would acknowlege that I didn’t mean “every reproductive choice biologically possible” to include things done to the child post-birth. There is no contradiction in my position; you’re just playing wordgames.
By the way, studies tend to show that women who have more options for leaving an abusive mate are less likely to be murdered. I don’t know if that’s true of pregnant women or not, however.
Studies also show that the more child support non-custodial parents have to pay, the lower the rate of single motherhood. So I wasn’t just speculating about that; it’s a known fact that reducing (or, as C4M advocates would prefer, entirely eliminating) child support will increase single motherhood.
Ismone;
I know this will sound insensitive, but I don’t particularly see this as a problem. To me that’s like saying she has an incentive to abort if she can’t force someone to pay who never wanted the child in the first place.
Now that is problematic, in the sense that the poor have terrible health care options all around, and that health care coverage must include a full spectrum of reproductive procedures to be good enough. But that’s another issue.
Only if they could not legally avoid paying child support. And I was presenting it as something to consider, not necessarily saying that it would justify social policy.
Well as I said, the child’s rights are already affected when the father is a sperm donor. Also, I think that a unilateral decision made to have a child should not be able to force another person into being responsible for that child and therefore places the greater responsibility for the child upon the mother.
How about this: a child is entitled to be supported by any parents willing in its creation. This premise would place responsibility directly on those who make or positively contribute to the child-having decision.
It would allow for men unwilling to become fathers to opt-out of responsibility for the child, since they do not contribute positively, whereas men who willingly become fathers would continue to be responsible after the dissolution of the relationship by virtue of the fact that they did.
It covers the issue of single mothers beoming pregnant through sperm donor procedures. It’s also more gender-equitable in the case of, say, two lesbians who want to become mothers. As it stands now, the non-impregnated woman generally is not legally liable for child support, which would change under my proposal since she would have been complicit in the creation of the child, even though she did not give birth to it.
“How about this: a child is entitled to be supported by any parents willing in its creation.”
All heterosexual intercourse carries the risk of pregnancy; we haven’t found a foolproof method of contraception yet. Given that the hypothetical men in question were willing in the creation of the child, the child is then entitled to financial support from the non-custodial parent.
Well, at least not a reversible method.
Justin,
Here’s sort of the inverse of your position. What if a woman could have a man sign papers before his biological child was born giving up any parental rights (visitation, custody rights, legal support obligatoins) and threaten to abort the child if he didn’t sign them? Would that be fair? (Notice I said “sort-of” inverse–it isn’t really the inverse but I’m trying to create a Hobson’s choice for the dad who wants to be a dad.)
I can see how you don’t consider the lack of social programs a problem. On the other hand, right now our society tends to put a lot of responsibility on the individual, not social services, so I don’t see why one genetic parent should be able to opt out of that responsibility if the child is born. If we wanted to change the system, such that single parents had access to affordable health and childcare, and public education was adequate, I would have much less of a problem with no child support. Basically, the buck has to stop somewhere, and I don’t see any moral reason why it should stop with pro-life women or other women who are unwilling to abort a specific pregnancy.
I’ll leave out the murder discussion b/c I think we’ve both covered that point enough.
I’m not sure what you mean by “the child’s rights are already affected when the father is a sperm donor”–if you could elaborate, I would appreciate it.
The fact is, these “sperm donor” men aren’t unwilling when it comes to having sex, and we all know children are a natural consequence of that act. If a man never wanted to become a parent, ever, and chooses not to have a vasectomy I have no sympathy for him. If a woman committed some kind of fraud to get pregnant, I don’t think the father should have to pay child support. But men shouldn’t be allowed to treat an abortion as a default position that they are entitled to (or are entitled to the financial consequences of.) Most women give birth.
Amp: you’re just playing wordgames>
Amp, you adamantly support a woman’s choice (as do I) but then say that a birth “takes place” as if the choice had nothing whatsoever to do with the birth. Then you suggest that murdering a one-year-old and opting out of fatherhood are both “things done to a child post-birth” and I would understand that had I given you a “fairer reading.” And you accuse me of “wordgames?”
Let’s be more thorough and complete the timeline. First conception, then the woman’s choice, then birth. True, the man is equally responsible for conception but that action is entirely superceded by the woman’s choice.
That’s only true if you accept abortion as the default position, and the birth of the child as some other option the woman has. I can’t believe we have to say this, but pregnancy naturally ends with the birth of a child; abortion is only an option because the woman’s bodily autonomy is at stake, and it’s only available for a limited amount of time. Even when done early in the pregnancy, it still involves physical risks for the woman. In the eyes of most people, a 12 weed old fetus is not equivalent to a child. I don’t see how it is morally defensible to abandon a child that your actions helped to create, because you “don’t feel like it”.
People have responsibility for the children they create. People should have the bodily autonomy to control their own reproductive system (including abortion, vasectomy and abstinence). This is the pro-choice position.
The right to unilaterally renege on ones responsibilities towards children one creates has nothing to do with the pro-choice position.
The right to mutually agree that one (or both) partners will be considered to have nothing to do with the child doesn’t have anything to do with the pro-choice position, but it seems like a possibly valid right. It currently exists in sperm banks (in which the father abandons all rights to any children produced, and the mother agrees to this by purchasing the sperm) and in adoption (in which both parents agree to abandon all rights and responsibilities). Having both parents agree that one parent is unfit, and that that parent will abandon their rights and responsibilities does not seem like a completely unreasonable proposal, although it would likely tend to be unfair in practice (since it would almost always be the mother who gets stuck with the child, and all it would likely require to compel agreement would be that the potential father become a sufficiently intolerable bastard that the potential mother would agree that she and the child would be better off without his further personal or financial participation). Possibly, such an agreement should only be possible if arranged prior to potentially reproductive sex (in which both partners agree before hand that any resulting children will be the sole responsibility of one or the other parent). Possibly, there are sufficient problems with that as well that it shouldn’t be allowed either. I don’t know if such a contract would currently be permissible. Presumably something similar is used in known-donor sperm donation arrangements, but those probably use the third parent adoption rules. I don’t know if you can voluntarily abandon your parental responsibilities without another party agreeing to pick them up.
A mutual agreement to deprive one parent of all rights and responsibilities already exists in sperm bank arrangements, so for consistency, one should probably be willing to support additional types of equivalent agreements so long as they are well designed and lacking in negative side effects. However, this is entirely tangential to the reproductive bodily autonomy issues involved in a pro-choice position.
Justin said — To me that’s like saying she has an incentive to abort if she can’t force someone to pay who never wanted the child in the first place.
Excuse me? If a man ‘never wanted a child in the first place’, he can abstain from sex, or use a condom. True, condoms are not 100% effective – but of all the children born that the male does not want to help support, those that are the result of condom failure are probably a fraction of 1%. It takes two people to make a baby; he can damn well take steps to prevent that occurance.
And before you shout ‘entrapment’ – as in, “she claimed to be on the pill but she lied” – that can also be prevented if Mr. Not-Willing-to-be-a-Father takes a bit of responsibility and uses a condom.
You seem to be equating child support with the mother living high on the hog. Get real! It’s expensive to raise a child; both parents should share in that responsibility. Child support is not a free ride; in the best of circumstances, it barely approaches 50% of what the child will need. Which means that the woman would be better off financially not to have the child, as she wouldn’t be spending her share of the child’s necessary expenses. If she does decide to have the child, it indicates that she considered the child more important than money — but suplemental money from the father is needed to give that child the life it deserves.
she has an incentive to abort if she can’t force someone to pay
In your eyes, apparently, abortion is no more significant than a hangnail. Bull! There are a lot of factors involved, and it’s a difficult decision, whichever way the woman decides. There are also some dangers involved in either choice. But because it is her body, it’s arrogant for a man to want to make it for her, simply to avoid paying money. His choice occurred earlier – the choice NOT to use a condom – so now he can just suck it up and deal.
If you think of it as adoption through one person giving up their parental rights, does that change your view? I don’t see why it would be any different from other forms of adoption.
I actually believe the inverse example as well, I believe women should be able to keep the child, and decide they don’t want anything to do with the biological father. Basically I don’t think biology is not that important to who parents a child.
I don’t think abortion is just about a pregnancy, I think a lot of women make decisions about whether or not to have an abortion on the basis of whether or not they can handle another child. BitchPhD makes some really good arguments that abortion is often a moral choice, one that comes from an analysis of the situation a woman lives in, including her other children, her other responsibilities, whether she feels she’d make a good parent at that time.
I think deciding that you would not be a good parent, and therefore deciding not to be a parent, whether through abortion (for women) or adoption (for either sex), can be the right decision to make, and people should be able to make that decision.
The last thing any child needs is a so-called parent who doesn’t want to parent, you raise all the emotional expectations on someone who is never going to deliver. I was randomly reading a parenting magazine while in a waiting room recently and a number of women had written in saying “the baby’s father doesn’t want anything to do with the kid, what do I do?” I couldn’t help but think the only answer was to stop raising hope now, because you can’t change people, you can’t make them what you want. You can’t make someone into a parent if they don’t want to be one.
I’m not sure it’s that big an issue, I think that once you have elected to become a parent you shouldn’t be able to give that up. The vast majority of men who don’t, or don’t want to, pay chld support make this decision after they have committed to parenting the child, and that should not be an option. I just believe that parenthood should be optional, not just for the parents’ sake, but for the child’s.
Ismone;
People have the right to reproduce with anyone who is willing to reproduce with them, under whatever conditions they set on the act of reproduction, and they do not have the right to coerce another person into reproduction if that other person does not want to reproduce with them, or does not want to reproduce under those conditions. So yes, I think that situation you’ve posited is fair. The solution for the man who wants to become a father is to find a more appropriate women to have a child with.
On the issue of social support, it would be nice to have a better security net, but that’s not what my argument is based upon. The presence or lack of social assistance doesn’t make the difference for me.
As to sperm donors affecting children’s rights, if anonymous sperm donors waive rights and obligations to the children created with their sperm when they donate it (and that’s supposed to be what happens), then the fact of whether or not a child is entitled to support from two parents is a function of whether the impregnated woman is or is not married, and if she isn’t, the support the child is entitled to is halved.
Children (or to be more accurate pregnancies) are an occasional natural consequence of sex, but as we can see from the realities of abortion rights, they are not a necessary legal consequence. All contraceptive methods can fail, which is partly why I haven’t been making any references to contraception. If the argument that goes “If you didn’t want to have a child, you shouldn’t have had sex” is not valid for women, then it isn’t valid for men either.
Charles;
I’m sorry, but you are not the arbiter of what is and is not the pro-choice position. The argument you mention above is clearly a sub-class of the pro-choice pisition given that it is being made by pro-choicers. That the argument does not hinge upon personal bodily autonomy does not make it any less about choice, just less about the body. It’s to be expected considering the biology of the situation.
Starwatcher:
I don’t find the argument from contraception acceptable, as I noted above to Ismone. I don’t accept it as an anti-choice argument against women, and I don’t accept it as a sexist legal inequity when used by women against men.
No, I don’t seem to be doing that. I haven’t made any mention whatsoever of living standards of women receiving child support.
You should stop trying to look through my eyes; that’s twice now you’ve gotten my opinions wrong.
If both the man and the woman agreed beforehand that they didn’t want a child, both used contraception, a pregnancy resulted, and the woman declined to abort, then I think the man is justified in wanting to be released from child support.
But any man who doesn’t seek to control his own fertility and doesn’t determine the attitude toward an unwanted pregnancy by the woman with whom he is having sex has tacitly agreed to accept the responsibility of supporting any child that might result.
AndiF: “If both the man and the woman agreed beforehand that they didn’t want a child, both used contraception, a pregnancy resulted, and the woman declined to abort, then I think the man is justified in wanting to be released from child support.”
That seems like it would result in high transaction costs. What constitutes “an agreement beforehand”? Need there be a contract to that extent before every sexual encounter? A standing one? Could it be oral? What constitutes valid consideration–some additional benefit gained or detriment suffered by each party–for the modification of that contract? Instead of prosecuting men who slack off on child support, we’d fill the courts with cases pouring over these exact details.
Attacking a woman to cause a miscarriage is a “reproductive choice” that occurs before birth yet I doubt that Amp supports that legality of that choice.
That seems like it would result in high transaction costs. What constitutes “an agreement beforehand”? Need there be a contract to that extent before every sexual encounter? A standing one? Could it be oral? What constitutes valid consideration”“some additional benefit gained or detriment suffered by each party”“for the modification of that contract? Instead of prosecuting men who slack off on child support, we’d fill the courts with cases pouring over these exact details.
I’m not arguing for a specific legal approach; I’m describing how I see the “opt-out” choice being just or not just. The only solution I see to the problem is for men to take more responsibility for preventing unwanted pregnancies. The more proactive men are about this, the fewer circumstances we will have where there is a pregnant woman who doesn’t want to get an abortion with a “father” who has no interest in supporting the child, financially or emotionally. If I want to encourage men to be proactive, then I should support a position which would encourage men to act in ways that I think are promote that. I don’t believe that most men entering into sexual relationships think about pregnancy at all — they continue to think that pregnancy is the woman’s problem and only concern themselves about it after the fact. Changing that attitude seems to me to be the heart of the matter.
?!
This is absurd. That’s not a “reproductive choise”, that’s assault.
Attacking a woman to cause a miscarriage is a “reproductive choice” that occurs before birth yet I doubt that Amp supports that legality of that choice.
Following your logic, we could also say that about kidnapping and castrating men, but you’ll hear no feminist support that as a viable, reasonable, or moral “choice.” Since it’s not a choice, it’s an assault.
I agree that it would be assault and should be illegal but that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t a “reproductive choice” if we’re using that term so loosely. For example, if we’re using the exact meaning – abortion is hardly a “reproductive choice” since the man and woman have already reproduced. The fetus has yet to be born but that doesn’t mean s/he doesn’t exist and the couple haven’t reproduced.
I disagree. “Reproduce”, according to my dictionary is “To produce offspring.” Until there are offspring, there is no reproduction.
Casey,
But you’ve yet to show why a fetus isn’t “offspring?” Does one not become “offspring” until one completely emerges from the womb?
Reproduction is defined by Merriam Webster as “the act or process of reproducing; specifically : the process by which plants and animals give rise to offspring and which fundamentally consists of the segregation of a portion of the parental body by a sexual or an asexual process and its subsequent growth and differentiation into a new individual”
By your definition birth would be the only act of reproduction which doesn’t seem to work.
One more time: a man can’t veto a woman’s control over her body, and a woman can’t sign away a child’s right to child support. Courts have ruled that even fathers who were minors when they impregnated older women can’t be exempted from supporting their children. Why is this difficult to understand? It’s the old your rights end at the tip of my nose situation. You have a right to control your reproduction, but not my body. Not materially supporting your walking around on this earth offspring violates the right all children have to support from their parents. In the man-woman-child triumverate there is a conflict of interests, and certain interests trump others. Sorry, Justin, you seem like a real prince, but your interests in the situation of an unwanted pregnancy are trumped first by the woman’s bodily integrity, and then by the child’s inviolate right to support. That’s actually about as fair a thing as I can think of.
That’s the problem right there, isn’t it? “Fetuses” aren’t “individuals.” But the anti-choicers insist that they are.
Elena writes: One more time: a man can’t veto a woman’s control over her body, and a woman can’t sign away a child’s right to child support.
This is not the reality of the situation. Child support is awarded to the mother, and is most often sanctioned by the courts at the mother’s behest, i.e. she files for the support. And though the money is supposed to go to the child, the checks are made out to the mother. Ultimately, the money is hers. The same is true in the reverse when fathers receive (rarely) child support. Technically, it is his money. The child, even as a teenager, is in no position to ask for or directly receive the money. That is a legal technicality, though in principle the money “belongs” to the child.
I don’t believe a fetus can be classified as a person (“one”) until they are born, if that is what you are asking.
Merriam-Webster defines offspring as:
1 a : the progeny of an animal or plant : YOUNG b : CHILD
Of course, whether a fetus is a person or not IS under debate, but I didn’t think that was the debate we were having here. After all, someone who thinks “Attacking a woman to cause a miscarriage is a “reproductive choice”” doesn’t sound like a pro-lifer. I could be wrong, maybe attacking women to cause miscarriages is totally acceptable because it’s the man choosing it instead of the woman…
Hello?! The checks are made to the parent because what would the kid do with the money?? My parents didn’t just give me money and say “take care of yourself”. The parent uses the money to care for the kid, ie, food, shelter, clothing. Unless the kid is sleeping naked and hungry on the back porch, the money given to the mother is spent on the child. The money is NOT hers or the child’s, in the end it is the landlord’s, utility company’s, grocery store’s, gas station’s, government’s, department store’s, and babysitter’s money.
I’m not entirely sure that a father that doesn’t want to be involved is worth the effort of wringing child support from. That is just my personal position. I was a single mother before I remarried, and me ex-husband’s involvment with his daughters couldn’t even be fairly classified as “part-time”.
I’ve done fine without the nominal child support he would have been ordered to pay had I decided the expense and effort to obtain it woth the effort. The norm in the country is for the mother to take the children with her, or in the case of an unmarried couple for her to keep the child with her. I work with several single fathers, who took sole custody after their wives walked out. Only one of those pays regular child support.
I advocate choice for women, and what is in the emotional best interest of the child. I don’t think that a legal relationship with a person that truly wanted to abort you before you were born and resents his obligation makes for a good parent or male role model.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but it would seem to me that biology has decided for us. Women get pregnant, have to remain pregnant for forty weeks, go through the pain and risk of labor and delivery. A man simply passes on his sperm and semen through intercourse. I would advocate if a man knows that he doesn’t want children ever (or doesn’t want anymore children) then he should have a vasectomy. If a woman knows that she doesn’t ever want children (or want more children) then she should have a tubal ligation.
Barring those two procedures, there is a risk of impregnation that comes with sex. The best time to discuss feelings about the possibility is before intercourse.
Not everyone is so lucky. I know motehers who even the small amount of child support the fathers reluctantly give helps, and also mothers who have to move in with THEIR mothers because they couldn’t get the father to pay child support. (and not everyone has parents willing to help like this.) Hard to have a job when you have kids and no one to take care of them while you’re at work, and hard to pay for childcare when you don’t have a job.
My Mother was in that boat. She moved in with her mother when my parents divorced. I didn’t have it easy. I’ve worked three jobs at a time before, but I did take advantage of what government programs there were. These helped with childcare expenses and also paid for starting a college education.
I’ve worked as a maid where I brought my babies to work with me, and also worked the day I two days after delivering my second child. But, in my situation (and it isn’t to be considered normative) I worked harder with four to support before the divorce, than just three after the divorce. I knew if he wouldn’t work while we were married, there would be precious reason for him to do so after the divorce. So, I did what I had to do to continue to provide a decent life for my children.
It wasn’t ever easy, and a lot of what I did wasn’t fair but then I never expected life to be fair. It is a woman’s choice, because it is a woman that must bear the child. That is my belief, but my children have an “almost” father, and honestly they’d be better off without a father at all. (My personal opinion)
Do you understand the difference between “is” and “should be”?
Love the little word games, Amp. When someone phrases something poorly, it’s always good to use that as the basis for your argument. (As I said before, I used “is” inb one case and “should be” in another because the C4M position is not enshrined in law as the right-to-an-abortion position is.)
No feminist is saying – and I’m certainly not saying – that a man’s choice as to whether or not to obligate himself should be before pregnancy begins.
You absolutely are saying that a man’s choice as to whether or not to obligate himself should be before pregnancy begins, in that you want this position enforced by law.
I don’t think that’s the way it should be. I didn’t create the two-sex reproduction system, and I don’t think the two-sex reproductive system is fair or just. (If it were up to me, we’d all be intersexed.)
What a conincidence! I’m all for the right to an abortion, if reality allowed the fetus to survive it. I’m all for a cradle-to-grave welfare state, too, as long as reality is such that the government can provide it without taxation of any kind.
Your statement is a nice little distraction. Your little bit about how you would rather not have a two-tier reproduction system does not address the real issue. We can all claim to take positions we don’t believe in by saying that we would support it if reality were different.
But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world in which “choice for men” is another way of saying “screw children over, because all that matters is what’s good for dad.”
If the father chooses the “not to pay” option before the child is born (more specifically, while the mother still has the option to have an abortion) then the women has the right to choose whether she wants to bring the child into the world without child support, or to abort it, with full knowledge of the fact that if she brings it into the world, she and the child are on their own. If the child will suffer from lack of support, why isn’t that her fault for choosing to have the child? Her choice, her responsibility, her problem.
Everyone seems to assume that “choice for men” is “abandoning the child once it is born.” Actually, I was thinking of the man choosing not to be financially obligated before the child was born, and then the female has to make her decision about the baby with knowledge of the male’s level of involvement. What you want is for the female to make her choice with the knowledge that she can force the man to pay for it.
Even [if we had a welfare state that supported children], I have doubts about C4M, simply because I think the effect of C4M, in practice, would be to discourage men from using birth control, leading to a rise in single mother families among women and girls who aren’t really prepared to be mothers. So even if children’s material interests were covered, I’m still not certain that the increased unfairness to children would be justified by increased freedom for men.
You know, you are saying that we should restrict the man’s rights in order to make him the gatekeeper of society’s morals. I don’t mind that, per se, but it seems a little inconsistent, as you always thought it was a bad idea to use gays as the gatekeepers of morality in the gay marriage debate, and I get the impression that you dislike the idea of women being restricted in order to make them the gatekeepers of morality for society (I know a lot of feminists talk about that being a bad thing, if you don’t have a problem with it, I apologize).
Elena;
I don’t know how much of your latest comment was directed at me, but at no point have I been arguing for mandated abortions or for prevention of abortion. Also, women do waive financial support rights for the child when becoming single mothers through sperm donor procedures. Nor will I accept that men who were legally raped as minors ought to be responsible for the children who result any more than I will accept that women who are raped should be. And finally, I do not accept that womemn oguht to be allowed to force men into legal fatherhood. I cannot imagine how you can consider this state of law “fair”.
Justin,
I see your point about sperm donor conception now, and here’s how I’d distinguish it.
A woman (or couple) goes to a sperm donor with the express intention of having a child. This choice before the fact distinguishes the two cases. When a man and woman become involved in a sexual relationship, if having a child is the express purpose, both should be required to pay child support, of course. If they are just having sex, with a specific intent to NOT procreate, I don’t see why the legal/financial burden should fall on the biological mother just because she is opposed to abortion in general or in this specific case. Childbirth is a natural outcome of sex, both parties got the benefit of sex, both conceived the child, and so why can one just up and walk away. And why at or before birth? Why not at any time? Well, honey, Johnnie’s becoming a pain in the ass, so let’s give him up for foster care. Or you can just keep him and he’ll be just your kid.
I know I keep flogging social systems, and here’s why. Kids aren’t born in a vacuum–we live in a society and within a governmental system. We may want to change that system, but we presumptively don’t want to devolve into a state of nature. So it comes down to a question of values. Do we value children’s opportunities? Do we value the perpetuation of our society (again, in one form or another)? If we do, does denying children child support from biological fathers meet these goals?
Does it burden women because they happen to be the gender that carries out the biological function of giving birth? Ah, but here is where your legal argument comes in. But all the same, if continuing the species (and society and government) is valued, we want to value childbearing. We want to encourage it to be done in a manner that is safe, and that maximizes the potential of all of these children so that our society is strong. It is no accident that every first world country has a strong, fairly mobile middle class, and no third-world country does. Also, first world countries are characterized by women’s participation in the workforce as well. So if a woman, by virtue of becoming a mother at all, has to give up a decent living for herself and her child, and for those who are capable, has to give up educational opportunities so she can support the child, we create a non-sustainable system. (At least by our modern lights, especially in America, of what an acceptable standard of living is.) So her economic output is diminished, and her child’s ability to achieve is capped as well. Not so good in my world view.
Sorry if this is a bit disjointed, I’ve been studying and listening to rush and it is two in the morning and I should crash.
Ismone
Ismone;
If you and I are searching around a store for a particularly hard-to-find item, and then I give up and go home, the burden does not fall upon you by any kind of mandate. It’s entirely your own choice whether or not to keep looking. Similarly, if a man extricates himself from parenthood of a jointly created fetus, then no one is forcing the woman to bear the child and become its mother. It is her choice whether or not to do so, and if she does, the only burden she is under is one which is a direct result of her decision.
But you shouldn’t be able to bill me for your time looking for that item, and women should not be able to bill men for respnsibilities that only the women are accepting.
This is an argument often used by anti-choice folks, and I don’t accept it. First of all, it’s pregnancy that is an occasional natural outcome of sex, and childbirth is only another occasional natural outcome of pregnancy. That’s a whole nother process in the mix with its own set of complications which one can accept or not. Secondly, the “natural outcome” of most activity or work is death, but does that convince you to just keep doing work until you pass out and die? No; we interfere with the natural process by eating and drinking, and thereby continuing our lives. It’s not eating that’s the natrural outcome of activity, it’s hunger. Eating is the choice. It is choice, and not slavish obediance to cause and effect, which is what life is made of.
Why can women abort their pregnancies? Women who abort are more than just walking away, they’re nullifying the whole situation. And we defend their right to do so because they are not slaves to biology, they are beings of choice which can transcend that biology. Abortion releases a woman from the biological consequences of pregnancy and childbirth, and also from the social and legal consequences of having a child. Adoption and safe harbor laws just do the latter. The men in question cannot have the right of choice over the abortion procedure, because the pregnancy is not in their bodies. However they can have the right to release themselves from the social and legal consequences of having a child if our social/legal structure is not set up to deny it of them. Currently, women have options A1(abortion, which includes A2) and A2, and men have neither. Allowing them A2 (legal disentanglement) is about as close to equality before the law as we can get in this situation, the biological factes being what they are.
Well, there are “safe harbor” laws in some places which allow women to leave their babies with approved social worker “go-betweens” if the child is under 72 hours old. So even now there’s no point of no return set at birth.
But there is a climax in the process of creating a child, and at some point the father changing his mind and backing out would be analgous to breaking a contract. I’m not sure what that point would be in legal terms, or how this affects situations where the man does not even know he impregnated someone, but that’s a civil court issue. I’m not going to think about that right now.
You’re right, it does come down to a question of values. But it is a question of relative values, not absolutes. I value children’s opportunities, but I also value adults’ freedoms. When those values clash, which prevail? Sometimes children, sometimes adults. Depends on the circumstances, and when I argue for C4M, you’re seeing the results of my value systems in this one specific instance. If we were arguing child labor laws, it would be different.
When you argue for social support of mothers, you’re not wrong, but I think the argument’s a bit too simple. Encouragement of child-rearing does not necessitate mandatory child support from unwilling fathers, encouragement of childbirth in an over populated world may be harmful to all of the children involved anyway, and lastly still no one in this argument is forcing women to give birth to and raise children on their own.
On another note, I must say I’m kind of shocked to see you bring up the issue of perpetuating society and government as factors of this issue. Personally, I do not value the continuation of civilization and government, but it had not occurred to me that my stance on them might be a foundation for my stance on C4M. It’s something I’ll have to think about, so thanks.
Justin,
Of any society or government, or just the current one or ones?
I see where you are coming from, and I think this is just one of those “agree-to-disagree” things. I think the tie-breaker is the pregnancy–either carrying, or choosing not to carry, a child has moral and health implications for the person carrying. I think being pro-choice is not just respecting the right to abortion, but the right to give birth as well. I’m for both choices. So I don’t think the fact that the woman may choose to have an abortion means that the man may choose to give up his legal obligations.
I don’t think your shopping analogy quite holds, because we’re assuming neither person was seeking to get pregnant in the first place, so they’re not “looking” and the woman has to get abdominal surgery to get out of the situation, so she can’t just stop. I think what you are actually doing is returning biology to its historicially favored position–you got knocked up, you deal with it.
With eating, we all need to eat to live, so again, I don’t see the analogy. I’m not saying that because something is a possible natural outcome, it is morally good, I’m saying that when it is the actual natural outcome, it needs to be dealt with in the real world with law and social policy. And there is no “unfair surprise” argument to be made. Like I don’t think someone should be shocked if they stop eating and drop dead.
But yes, I think you are right that some of these arguments mirror pro-life ones. And I’m kinda okay with that, because I see where they’re coming from too. If I had the same reverence for fetal life that they do, I’d be with them. I just don’t. But I’m not thrilled about third term or late second-term abortions, either.
No, it isn’t forcing them to give birth, but it is forcing them and the child to bear the consequences of that birth alone, which I do think harms children’s ability to succeed. At the cost of the adult’s freedom? Perhaps. But again, you guys are just as smart as we are about the whole conception thing. So no unfair surprise.
And thank you for the thoughtful discussion. It’s nice to be able to have a civil argument.
Ismone
Justin, you have a very self serving and unseemly view of what is fair. You seem to think that hardship for you= unfair, no matter that much greater hardship is inflicted on a man’s own child and the child’s mother in the scenario you are advocating.
I actually believe that sperm and egg donation are unethical, but point taken, they do allow parents to waive support on behalf of their children. However, your view that a pregnant woman can choose abortion or non support according to the wishes of her partner is about the clearest example of an unethical, immoral and illogical stance as I have ever seen in the whole spectrum of reproductive polemics. With apologies to the adopted among us, you are advocating the financial, and presumably affective abandonment of a man’s own child and the child’s mother, and using a woman’s natural control of her own body as a tool to do this.
Elena,
There are those among us who wishes there was a way to sever ties to our ex partners and the biological fathers of our children. My daughter’s step-father is a much better father than their biological Dad, and no amount of money can make up for the hurt he has caused them. In my mind, and in my case, it would have been easier if he could have legally disentagled himself from our children as well as our marriage. That way my husband could adopt the girls, and the ex would be free from any and all “obligation” to our family at all.
It has been my experience that a parent that doesn’t want to be involved and is forced, does more harm to the children in the long run, than those that are raised by only one parent. I’m not speaking in terms of financial difficulties, but rather in emotional damage and damage done to the child’s idea of self-worth at a young age.
By the way, I’d like to thank AndiF (comment 50).
I’ve posted about the male contraception site on my blog.