Richard Bennett posted a response to me, but I’m putting off replying until I can borrow a copy of a book he cites. Meanwhile, Tony at the Rant Factory (whose permalink isn’t working, so you may have to scroll down to find it) has been responding to an unwilling Meryl Yourish, arguing that “real choice” includes the right of men to decide whether or not women have abortions.
Bizarrely, Tony cites the Supreme Court to support his position. He emphasizes Skinner v. Oklahoma (which he mistakenly calls a state supreme court decision) to argue that “procreation is a basic human right available to women AND men.” But Skinner, which established that the government can’t punish criminals by sterilizing them (or, at least, that it’s unconstitutional to do so if sterilization is applied unevenly), doesn’t say that anyone is required to give up their rights to facilitate other people’s reproduction. Tony is arguing that he has a constitutional right to force his wife to bear children, and that proposition is not supported by Skinner.
If you’re having trouble seeing why Skinner doesn’t help Tony’s argument, think of the First Amendment. I have a First Amendment right to free speech, but not a First Amendment right to make Tony publish my opinions. In fact, Tony has a free speech right to not publish me, if he doesn’t want to (see Miami Herald v. Tornillo).
Just as my right to free speech doesn’t force Tony to publish my speech, Tony’s right to reproduce doesn’t force his wife to bear his child. On the contrary, Mrs. Tony has a constitutional right not to reproduce, if she doesn’t want to (see Eisenstadt v. Baird – “If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”).
If we’re going to look at Supreme Court cases, let’s look at relevant ones. Skinner isn’t the relevant legal precedent; Planned Parenthood v. Danforth is. In this case, the court addressed Tony’s question – should husbands have a legal right to prevent a wife’s abortion? – directly. “The obvious fact is that when the wife and the husband disagree on this decision, the view of only one of the two marriage partners can prevail. Inasmuch as it is the woman who physically bears the child and who is the more directly and immediately affected by the pregnancy, as between the two, the balance weighs in her favor.” (Notice this is just what Meryl Yourish said – “my body, my choice”).
* * *
So all of Tony’s constitutional and Supreme Court arguments can be thrown out. What about Tony’s other arguments? They all boil down to this:
All Rights have responsibilities. If you want the sole decision-making power in all cases, you need to take the sole responsibility in all cases. Your body, your decision? That’s incomplete; how about Your Body, Your Decision, Your Problem. If men have no reproductive control and no procreative rights, they should have no responsibilities for the result of procreation, whether it’s an abortion or a baby. Personally, I don’t want to live in a society where the man’s responsibility defaults to non-existence.
Tony is attacking a collection of straw men. Women don’t have the sole power in all decisions; women cannot legally rape men to get sperm, for instance. Women have sole power to make the abortion decision, but women and men share the power to decide on reproduction. Tony’s claim that “men have no reproductive control and no procreative rights” is blatantly false; men decide to have sex (or not), to wear a triple layer of condoms (or not), to have a vasectomy (or not), to refuse to have sex unless she uses a diaphragm and spermacide (or not), and so on. It’s true that only the woman can decide to have an abortion; but it’s equally true that only the man can decide to provide sperm. Each sex has the ability to unilaterally prevent reproduction.
Since women don’t have sole reproductive choice, there’s no reason, under Tony’s argument, for women to bear sole responsibility. (I’ve previously addressed arguments similar to Tony’s here and here).
(Cliché watch: This isn’t important to my argument, but the claim that “all rights have responsibilities” ain’t true. A one-year-old infant has some legal rights, but no legal responsibilities. Even for adults, there are some rights so fundamental that no behavior, no matter how irresponsible or antisocial, can take them away. Even Charles Manson has a right not to be dipped in boiling oil by police.)
yor argument is hollow and hipocritical you facist basted, you are just mouthing the extrimist womens organisations line. this isn’t about the childs rights it’s obvious you dont give a shit about the child.this is all about power and control over some one elses life.after all if your argument were to hold then illegalising abortion and adoption would be just as just foraccording to your logic they still have a choice, they can keep their legs together,get themselves sterilised or use contraception and refuse to have sex unless their partner uses a condem.the example you gave stating that men have a choice is crap and you now it, women do rape children and legaly get away with it and they do steal sperm from used condems and impregnate themselves ,so much for your argument that “only men can provde sperm”.as for contraception even the best fail and condems are one of the least effective women have far moreeffective forms of contraceptin such as the pill and the “day affter pill” and the injectible contraceptive wich used in tandem has a success rate of over 95% but inspite of this millions of women get pregnent agaist thier wishes.and even though men can refuse to have sex unless women use contraceptives their is no way they can make sure the women does as she claims(how would you know for certain wether they took the pill or are on the injectible contraceptive ?)You can only take their word for it and many times it turnes out affterwords they have “forgoten” to take the take the pill,and as for the day after pill even if they agread to take it before sex they can always go back on thier word what can you do then “force it down her throught?” ,”have her arrested for breach of contract?”.When women can enrichen themselves through child birth (if the unwilling farther is rich)and since theirs no law to force her to use the money on the child (she can spend all the money on cologne if she wants) it isn’t in the best intrest of the child ,under the present law many children end up as no more than a goldmine for the mother.It is in the best intrest of the child as well as the farther, that he get a descition on wether or not to be a parent.After all every child deserves a loving farther as well as a mother who wants the child for himself not for money.Your lies wont continue to fool any one for long.
“yor argument is hollow and hipocritical you facist basted”
Right you are!
Thanks for dropping by and setting me straight. I really was being a fascist bastard! Fortunately, the force and logic of your arguments has totally persuaded me to accept your worldview.
Well, your work here is clearly finished. Go fight evil somewhere else now, please.
I know I’ve said this before, but it’s like stream of consciousness only without the “conscious.”
One saving grace is the vitupertiveness of the first line was potent enough to prevent me from verbally abusing myself by reading the rest.
How interesting that ‘tsw’ decided to ‘comment’ on a post that’s over two years old – just days after the election. Perhaps that’s just a coincidence – and he or she just stumbled upon the post – but I have noticed a remarkable emboldening on the part of radical right-wing blog trolls (and bloggers) since Wednesday morning.
seeing as it’s been brought back up to attention, if I might ask a legitimate question:
is it really accurate to say that both parties have the opprotunity to unilaterally prevent reproduction?
making this statement, I am making some assumptions. first, that “you can chose not to have sex” doesn’t count as control, simply because we don’t accept that arguement when refering to anti-choice positions (ie “if she doesn’t want to have a baby, she shouldn’t have had sex”)
that leaves more standard birth control (condoms, spermicide, reliance on women’s birth control pills et. al)
now, these aren’t failsafe. the more layers of protection that are in place, the less likely any conception will take place, but it isn’t impossible.
an abortion, however, reduces the chance of childbirth to zero.
a visectomy also reduces the odds to zero, but it’s a rather permenant solution.
I recall reading about a relatively recent development of a male birth control pill that is similarly effective to a visectomy, but that isn’t yet on the market.
are we taking the position that condoms and other means of birth control, when layered, are close enough to zero as to be equivalent? since either partner would be saddled with a life of responsibility for their participation, I don’t know if “close to zero” is really acceptible.
disclaimer: I am NOT setting up the reprihensible straw man of “the woman claiming to be on birth control to trap a man.” but misuse of birth control is common enough that the odds of birth control failure are higher than the 1 in 2 million of proper use of redundant birth controls.
“One saving grace is the vitupertiveness of the first line was potent enough to prevent me from verbally abusing myself by reading the rest.”
Well, I admit I only skimmed it because of both form and content, but I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on the knowledge that women rape children and steal sperm from condoms to impregnate themselves so that they can get rich off of bearing children. Awesome!
karpad, I think your question is a good one, but easily answered. Either partner has the ability to unilaterally prevent contraception within a reasonable degree of efficacy, through hormonal, barrier or surgical means. If a man really wants to not father a child, it’s a good idea for him to control the contraception and either use condoms or get a vasectomy. Same with a woman, though her options are greater. But because her burdens are also greater, she should have greater say in case of a pregnancy.
The thing is, you’re acting as if the exact same standard should apply to both men and women. 99% of the time, I’d agree with that. But here’s the thing: when it comes to bearing children, men and women are NOT identically situated. Treating them as if they are doesn’t make sense.
To see what I mean, consider this question: Is it discrimination that men’s room provide urinals (letting men get in and out faster, leading to shorter lines) while women’s rooms don’t? Shouldn’t we treat men and women the same and provide them both with urinals?
Men and women are physically different. That means that we pee differently, which would make it foolish to treat men and women the same when it comes to bathroom fixtures. And it means that we have different roles in childbirth, which makes it foolish to act as if men and women are similarly situated when it comes to childbirth.
I think that both men and women should have every reproductive choice biologically possible. For men and women both, that means they should have the choice not to fuck, if they don’t want to. For men and women both, that means they should have access to every kind of birth control. And for women, that should mean access to abortion.
Cutting either men or women off from their biologically possible options is wrong, in my view. But “abortion” just isn’t one of men’s biologically possible options.
To say “well, if an argument’s valid for women, then it should be valid for men as well” is true most of the time – but it’s not true in a discussion of abortion, because men can’t have abortions. Men and women are not, when it comes to this issue, identically situated; and it’s illogical to act as if they are.
Potty parity!
I don’t want a urinal, but I want the same number of fixtures as men get. My college actually had female urinals in the field house, and I see why they never caught on.
is it really accurate to say that both parties have the opprotunity to unilaterally prevent reproduction?
Actually, neither party always has this opportunity.
So with all these so called rights, please explain to me why I required my wifes permission to get my balls snipped…. You know, taking responsibility as we males are so often reminded.
It’s MY BODY, MY RIGHT… isnt it?
uh, because you required it? Is this a trick question?
Now, if someone else required it…
You don’t legally need your wife’s permission for a vasectomy, though it’s human decency to talk to her about it beforehand.
BTW, I had an Italian professor who had an interesting take on the whole “all rights have responsibilities” cliché. Her view was that all rights did, indeed, have corresponding responsibilities, but the rights and the responsibilities needn’t be in the same person. For example, Stalin, as a totalitarian dictator, had the right to do anything he wanted, and his people were saddled with all of the responsibilities of carrying out his will. The Soviet people had no rights, so Stalin had no responsibilities to them. (note: one might say that Stalin had responsibilities, but he ignored them, and the Soviet people had rights, but they were abused. I’m just explaining the structure of the “all rights have responsibilities” cliché in my prof’s view). In our society, rights and responsibilities should be roughly proportion, because we don’t want to have all the responsibilities concentrated in some people and all the rights in others, but she might say that your example of rights without responsibilities — the baby, for example — is just responsibilities without rights on the parents’ side.
Oops: to clarify, my professor was Italian, but she is not a professor of Italian. She is a professor of history, especially economic history. I just thought that maybe her rather unique take on the “all rights have responsibilities” cliché, which is very different from how Americans use it, might have something to do with her experiences in the Italian intellectual-cultural context. But maybe that’s just her being herself with her own spin on that phrase.
I’ve heard “rights” described in two different ways. One describes them as moral absolutes, ahistorical, and often with some reference to metaphysical ideas. That’s the way “rights” are described in the Declaration of Independence, for instance. It comes out of a theological idea that human souls are God’s property and no human agency should be permitted to come between God and his property.
Then there’s describing “rights” as historically and socially contingent. In other words, you’ve got the rights you win and can defend in social struggle. As in, women have the right to abortion because of the social struggles that won that right; that right is threatened by legal restrictions and physical threats to abortion providers.
There was a discussion of vasectomies on Mousewords some months ago, and I read a few articles after that. From what I recall, doctors often refuse to perform them on men who are unmarried, don’t have children, and are below 30, and sometimes will refuse to perform vasectomies on men who are married and only have one or two children. The idea that a man getting a vasectomy was depriving his partner came up a lot as well, so a doctor insisting that a man get permission from his partner doesn’t seem so surprising.
The upshot was that it can be surprisingly difficult for a man to get a vasectomy. But they’re not legal restrictions.
Yep. They also won’t perform tubal ligations on young women, women who haven’t had children yet, or young unmarried women.
If you only have access to a Catholic or conservative church affiliated hospital, tubal ligations are not an option.
Brian, I’d be interested to see that discussion, because in my experience it’s not true–I don’t know any single men who got vasectomies whose doctors ‘refused’ them. My husband’s doctor asked him to get a ‘permission slip’ from me (i.e. the wife), and I told him to pass on my “go fuck yourselves” instead. I believe he was a little more diplomatic about it, but they certainly didn’t refuse to perform a vasectomy without my consent.
Here’s the discussion on Mousewords.
It started as a commentary on an article on Salon.com.
Despite my politics, I can be pretty timid in the face of authority. I might have backed down when confronting that doctor, and I probably would have described the doctor as refusing to perform the procedure. I don’t know if I have any acquaintances who’ve tried to have the procedure done, so I have no personal experience to go on.
Re:
No. That would be completely anathema to the ideal condition of “real choice” because it would take away women’s right to choice regarding their own bodies. It would give men a choice that women don’t have now: the right to make reproductive choices for not only themselves but the opposite sex as well.
Real choice would be if men had the option to carry the fetuses themselves if the woman didn’t want it. As it stands everyone, male and female, has the right to have intelligent conversations with their significant other about whether and when they want children, and if an agreement is not reached everyone has the right to find someone who shares their wishes or, failing that, to make use of fertility aids like sperm banks and surrogate mothers.
Forcing any reproductive choice on another person is not choice. Ever.
Karpad writes,
There is a difference: the anti-choicers are of the oppinion that women who don’t wish to be pregnant should abstain from sex completely. Whereas the “choice not to have sex” mentioned in this article means the ability to refuse to have sex with someone who won’t respect your reproductive wishes. It is not a total trade-off between having sex and retaining all your reproductive rights, like the anti-choice position is. You can have sex. You can control what part you play in reproduction. You cannot control what your partner does about his or her part of reproduction. You can choose your partners based on what they are willing to do about their part of reproduction.
Many women, for example, want their partners to wear condoms. A woman who wants this cannot force a man to wear a condom, but she can refuse to sleep with him if he doesn’t. She can make condom use a requirement for those who have sex with her. If one refuses, she can find another person to have sex with. She can back up her choice with oral birth control or, if necessary, the morning-after pill or abortion.
A man, likewise, might want any partners of his to take birth control. He cannot force any woman to do so, but he can refuse to sleep with anyone who doesn’t. He can make birth control use a requirement for those who have sex with him. If one refuses, he can find another person to have sex with. He can back up his choice with a condom. And, yes, there should be a male oral contraceptive available.
And there should be a way for unwilling fathers to avoid paying child support for a child whom they didn’t want, tried to prevent, and were the result solely of the mother’s duplicity or carelessness, without letting off those men whose children were the result of their carelessness. And there should be a way for a father to carry or support a fetus whose mother doesn’t want to be pregnant. The world is still not perfect. But attacking women’s rights will not make it better.
By the way, the argument about not knowing whether women skip or forget birth control works both ways. If a woman can lie about birth control, a man can poke holes in his condoms with a needle. Or lie about having a vasectomy. And men are capable of tampering with their partners’ contraceptives and women are capable of tampering with their partners’ condoms. Find someone you can trust to have sex with.
Anyway, currently laws making it difficult for women to get abortions are much better enforced than laws making it difficult for men to not pay child support. And it’s much more difficult for women to get contraceptives (prescription, pharmacists’ refusal clauses) than it is for men to get condoms. And women often have to deal with being pregnant after having been raped. Many hospitals won’t even mention emergency contraception to them, much less offer it. But do you think that in a legitimate rape case involving a woman raping a man (or boy), that she would succeed in getting child support from him?
“And there should be a way for unwilling fathers to avoid paying child support for a child whom they didn’t want, tried to prevent, and were the result solely of the mother’s duplicity or carelessness.”
Well… sounds like it’s a fair solution for the man, and a fair solution for the woman, but how do we avoid screwing the child over here?
In fact, I’d even go so far as to ask that question about cases when a woman rapes a man and gets pregnant. It seems truly sick to make a victim pay to support his rapist’s baby, but the baby is innocent no matter how tainted its generation, or its mother.
I’m not saying men who are fathers by deception or rape should have to pay child support, but the children should be supported somehow.
Here are my intuitions about child support, by the way:
-As the non-custodial parent’s income rises, if the custodial parent’s income is constant, child support payments should increase.
-As the custodial parent’s income rises, if the non-custodial parent’s income is constant, child support payments should decrease.
-If incomes of both the custodial and non-costudial parents rise, child support payments should rise, and stay proportional to the income of the parents.
You know, given that this is a feminist blog, why are we asking questions about children spawned by a woman’s duplicity?
And furthermore…children because a man got raped by a woman? Now there’s a crime wave sweeping the nation.
Becuase that’s a major talking point of choice for men advocates, and choice for men is under discussion here?
Am I missing something here…how is it possible that raping a man can result in pregnancy? I don’t mean to diminish the experience of men who are raped, I appreciate that it happens (though I’d guess most of the rapists are other men, not women) and that it’s a terrible thing, but pregnancy is *not* one of the consequences!
Unless of course if it’s a case of an adult woman having sex with a young boy, which in many places counts as statutory rape regardless of which partner was doing the penetration. I’d certainly have sympathy in that case, the boy is a victim and shouldn’t be held responsible for any resulting child.
But that doesn’t apply to adult men. The definition varies in different countries and states, to be sure, but rape generally means forcibly or otherwise penetrating someone without his/her consent, whether with penis or another object. That doesn’t tend to make men pregnant.
No it’s certainly not impossible (though I imagine it’s rare) that a woman can force a man to have penis/vagina intercourse with her against his will, and that’s certainly a sexual assault. But calling that rape, or, more to the point, calling it the equivalent or direct analog of a man forcibly penetrating a woman…well I object to that for so many reasons I don’t know where to start.
Sarah: I’d certainly have sympathy in that case, the boy is a victim and shouldn’t be held responsible for any resulting child.
I think the current solution is to make his parents responsible for his share of child support.
But that doesn’t apply to adult men. The definition varies in different countries and states, to be sure, but rape generally means forcibly or otherwise penetrating someone without his/her consent, whether with penis or another object. That doesn’t tend to make men pregnant.
I believe there is a technique where one can make a man ejaculate, by pressure on the prostate. That could come from penetration without his consent. Or nothing to stop her raping him, and then sexually assualting him so she gets pregnant.
Julian Elson: I’m not saying men who are fathers by deception or rape should have to pay child support, but the children should be supported somehow.
Why can’t they be supported by just the one parent? I know a lot of single parent families that manage just fine.
Why is there any need for non-custodial parents to pay child support at all then, VK?
I’m sure that many single parents without child support do fine, but still, it seems like exempting the father from child support payments because the mother got pregnant duplicitously (or, very, very, very unlikely, by raping the father) penalizes the child, who is not the perpetrator.
I think making fathers in such situations pay child support is also wrong. I don’t have a solution.
I suppose I could just toss my hands up and say, “hey, children always pay penalties and get bonuses based on the circumstances of their parents. Paying a penalty for having a mother who had you by tricking your father isn’t fair, but paying a penalty for having poor parents in crime-ridden neighborhood isn’t fair either. Tough luck.”
I guess I’d accept this, in a sorta quick-and-dirty way. It still seems far short of the ideal, though.
Maybe the solution is to abolish all child support and replace it with a comprehensive children’s welfare state that would ensure all children had a fair chance at life. I think that’s the proposal of The Stakeholder Society, by Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott, though I haven’t read it (I’m basing this off of a half-remembered review in the TLS, I think). Maintaining ordinary family structures while doing this would seem to require a welfare state for all families, though. I suspect a lot of people here would like a welfare state on the scale of, say, Norway, but I’m not sure that’s what I’d like.
So I still don’t have a solution.
OK, since once again the PHMT bunch are setting up their theoretically-possible-yet-ridiculously-improbable scenarios as if they were commonly encountered real-life situations, we don’t we see some concrete evidence before we hare off after them, arguing their laughable points as if they actually were worth the time and effort of putting together a response? I want to see some sort of documentation that gives an indication of just how prevalent pregnancies as the result of women raping adult men are.
“we don’t we see some concrete evidence…” should be “why don’t we see….”
And also, re VK:
Again, you are blathering on about some ridiculous scenario that “may conceivably” happen (though I have to say I have my doubts about the prostate thing) as if the fact that it “could” happen means that OH MY GOD IT DOES HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!! ALL THE TIME!!!! WE MUST DO SOMETHING TO STOP THIS OUTRAGE!!!!
Bollocks (once again, quite literally). It’s a little fantasy you’ve set up in order to make it seem as if men have it oh, so hard while women are getting away with murder. The problem for you is that such incidences–if they have ever occurred at all–are so rare as to be wholly unsuitable for a discussion of trends in society as a whole.
You can’t set up a couple of freak events (and hypothetical freak events, at that) as if they consituted some sort of norm.
Damn that formatting thingie!!!
[Fixed! :-) –Amp]
Damn again: I’d like to apologise for my poor choice of a gratuitously nasty word in my response to VK.
I didn’t say it was likely or common. Just suggesting it was possible – Sarah asked how a man could cause a pregnancy when he was being raped.
Maybe the solution is to abolish all child support and replace it with a comprehensive children’s welfare state that would ensure all children had a fair chance at life
It would seem more sensible then forcing someone who doesn’t want to be a parent, to be a parent simply because they had sex. Children should be cared for by whoever wants to do it – any idiot can procreate, the only ones we should count as parents are the ones willing to raise the children.
Anyway, currently laws making it difficult for women to get abortions are much better enforced than laws making it difficult for men to not pay child support.
———————-
Really? what was the last time in this century that a woman was thrown in jail for getting an abortion? Men who can’t (or won’t) pay their child support are thrown in jail every day, have their licences suspended, and they have the social stigma as well.