Activists on both sides are awaiting a comprehensive report reviewing two decades of published research on mental health and abortion, to be presented this week at the American Psychological Association's annual conference in Boston.
The report comes at a pivotal time as some judges and lawmakers have begun to make decisions in part based on peer-reviewed studies suggesting women who have had abortions are at higher risk of anxiety, depression and substance abuse.
Abortion opponents cite these studies, as well as testimony from women who describe years of psychological turmoil after abortions, to make the case that the state must restrict abortion to protect women's mental health.
The U.S. Supreme Court cited this reasoning last year in upholding a ban on a late-term procedure known as partial-birth abortion. South Dakota incorporated the same rationale into a new mandate that abortion doctors must tell prospective patients they will be putting themselves at risk for psychological distress and suicide.
The abortion-hurts-women view is also being used to promote a broad abortion ban on South Dakota's fall ballot. The argument: A woman may think she wants to end a pregnancy, may even feel relief when she does, but she will suffer for it later. So the state has a duty to stop her.
To supporters of legal abortion, this is equivalent to saying the state has a duty to warn women away from giving birth because some might later suffer postpartum depression. They acknowledge some women may regret their decision or feel sad about it, but say there is no proof abortion leads to serious mental illness -- or that women would be better off if they were forced to carry unwanted pregnancies.
I'm considerably more ambivalent about abortion than most pro-choice pundits, but this time I'm firmly on the abortion rights side. I can see this being relevant in boundary cases, like teenagers petitioning for judicial overrides of parental notification laws. And I can certainly see requiring providers to inform patients of any mental health risks, provided that the best evidence shows that there are indeed such. But it is not the state's job to prevent me from dating jerks, taking long car trips with my mother, reading Russian novels, or doing any of a number of other things that put my mental health at risk. It's my job to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
More generally, I'm kind of disgusted by the way both sides look to do an end run around the central issue: the personhood of the fetus, and the mother's right to bodily integrity. If you can't make your case on those grounds, you're setting yourself up for a bad situation when biological technology changes. On current pro-choice rhetoric, if it ever becomes possible to harvest a fetus and gestate it outside the womb, the organization is going to have to change its name to "Unplanned Parenthood". Meanwhile, basing your case on the mother's mental health just means that your arguments will collapse as better treatments emerge for mental illness. Meanwhile, you've set up a pretty damn offensive nanny-state framework that will no doubt intrude into other matters you'd like to hold sacred.
"Meanwhile, you've set up a pretty damn offensive nanny-state framework that will no doubt intrude into other matters you'd like to hold sacred."
Exactly. The left is getting a taste of its own medicine here. For years, pro-nanny staters (mostly lefties) have argued for increased government oversight of people's lives and personal decisions based on what is and is not good for their health. Now that the same tactic is being applied against abortion rights, suddenly they're in high dudgeon?
The hypocrisy on both sides is absurd. Abortion rights are absolute, but we're going to have a jihad against secondhand smoke? The fetus is a person whose life must be preserved almost no matter what, but expand capital punishment every chance you get?
....or we can warn prospective mothers that bringing children into the world will feed the apocalyptic cycle of man-made global warming cycle......in effect, destoying mankind by adding another human life (wanted or not) to the population......I mean, let's not go all whacko here now.....?
The latter is much more consistent than the former. The fetus is a person who's live must be preserved while a felon is someone who's demonstrated that society is better off without them being alive (A fetus, supposedly like the felon, is innocent until proven guilty).
As a FYI: I'm anti-abortion. I once supported women's rights, but as women fight against granting the same rights of absolution from parental responsibility to men, I cannot support women's right to choose without men's right to choose (absolve self from responsibility via "paper abortions").
However....
The problem is self-selection error. Women who have higher risks of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse are much more likely to experience unexpected pregnancies and therefore are much more likely to have an abortion.
On a related note: marriage for men does not make them live longer. It's the same selection-bias that skews the statistic.
Proof of concept: Did you know that veteran survivors of WWII lived longer than men who did not serve? Apparently being shot at by Nazis makes someone live longer!
Lynn Harris at Salon.com has a post about the APA paper which suggests they found no causality between abortions and mental disorders. Read her post as I probably don't do a good job with my summary.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2008/08/13/apa_abortion_report/index.html
But it is not the state's job to prevent me from dating jerks ... or doing any of a number of other things that put my mental health at risk.
That doesn't quite tie in with the chicks-dig-jerks conventional wisdom.
As always, a little scientifically informed inquiry never hurts:
And - again as always - I'm going with the Science Boyz. These other people got nuttin'. If they did, they'd be using reputable, peer-reviewed research.
This is very strange twist on the self-esteem mentality that grew out of 1970's pop pedagogy, etc. There are lots of things I could legally opt to do that I might feel bad about later. Ferinstance, I've lost a couple thousand dollars in the stock market this year. That makes me sad. I wish the government had stopped me from investing.
This post and Claudius's comment conclusively demonstrate that the "nanny state" accusation is politically neutral. It's readily obvious that both the left (generally pro-choice) and the right (generally pro-life) want a nanny state. The only question is what kind of nanny state each wants.
Many of the studies referenced in the article found no correlation between abortion and mental illness, and almost all of the studies had small samples or problems with the selection criteria. Meanwhile, there is nearly overwhelming evidence that divorce raises the rates of depression in men, even more than women, significantly.
Do you want me to enumerate the factors behind that? ;)
So here's the question: Do we get rid of divorce to save people's mental health, or get rid of marriage? =D
It's readily obvious that both the left (generally pro-choice) and the right (generally pro-life) want a nanny state. The only question is what kind of nanny state each wants.
Immoralist wins the thread.
This is why I am a libertarian and vote as such. Just because something is a good idea doesn't mean the government has to force people to do it. Likewise, just because something is a bad idea doesn't necessarily mean it should be banned.
Demonspawn writes: "I once supported women's rights, but as women fight against granting the same rights of absolution from parental responsibility to men, I cannot support women's right to choose without men's right to choose (absolve self from responsibility via "paper abortions")."
If by this you mean that men should be able to demand that a pregnant woman get an abortion and be able to avoid paying child support if she refuses, I can only say that it's one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. I don't know for sure that it's what you're saying, but I have heard a lot of disgruntled support-paying chumps saying it.
The link I tried to provide before enumerates the factors very well.
If the goal is to protect the health of men we'd have to ban divorce and mandate marriage. Never married men live shorter lives and commit suicide more often, so I'm not sure which is worse: staying single or getting divorced.
No, not demand that she get an abortion. That choice is up to her entirely. Just demand that he is absolved from parental responsibility regardless of the other parent's consent... the same right that she is granted via the means of abortion, abandonment, and adoption (none of those require proof of the father's consent).
And why is that? Because abandoning children is "Bad"? Then why is it not equally bad when women do it?
Um, did you read my post at 4:07? Being married lengthens lifespan as much as being shot at by Nazi's does.
The event which increases male suicide rates the most is puberty (read: recognizing and confronting the male role). I know that divorce also spikes the rate, but nowhere near as much. However, comparing never married men to married men is, again, another self-selection bias error.
Demonspawn replies: "No, not demand that she get an abortion. That choice is up to her entirely. Just demand that he is absolved from parental responsibility regardless of the other parent's consent... the same right that she is granted via the means of abortion, abandonment, and adoption (none of those require proof of the father's consent).
I can only say that it's one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard.
And why is that? Because abandoning children is "Bad"? Then why is it not equally bad when women do it?"
Who says it isn't? If you have a gripe with the existing courts and how they handle things, that's one question. How that should add up to giving fathers the right to spray their seed all over the country is the question.
If you don't want kids, keep your dick wrapped or get a vasectomy. How hard is that, exactly? Why should a kid lack support because the father is too stupid to follow the Penis Instruction Manual?
(Not you, personally. I'm speaking generally.)
MLaJ,
Unusually, I find myself in agreement with you (and yes, that's what Demonspawn means, he's said so before). Can you expand on why you think this is a dumb idea? I'm curious as to how deep our agreement goes.
Actually, it's full of shit.
Its closing paragraph is "men are inept without women around" which is not only untrue, but also based on several self-selection bias errors compounded by faulty logic.
Why is divorce so emotionally devastating to an ex-husband? The reason is VERY controversial. Society IS NOT patriarchal. Instead, it is set up to serve women. Men are trained to "have value" when they are serving or selected by women. Men who haven't had sex are derided... because a woman has not selected them! So what happens when a man is unselected (70+% of divorces initiated by women) by the woman who creates his value?
That's just one aspect of what the "researchers" in the link you cited just didn't understand at all.
Rob Lyman asks: "Can you expand on why you think this is a dumb idea? I'm curious as to how deep our agreement goes."
It's absurd to say that a woman has "the right to choose" and then use it as a cudgel to try to force her to either have an abortion or forgo support for a child. The resulting injustices from allowing such "paper abortions" would be nightmarish and would have the effect of rewarding the very least responsible multiple-fathers out there.
I would make exceptions (which I believe already exist in some places) for mere sperm donors when pre-pregnancy contractual agreements are in place, but this, "Honey, have the abortion or sign this paper" notion is just unworkable and barbaric.
Megan wrote: "On current pro-choice rhetoric, if it ever becomes possible to harvest a fetus and gestate it outside the womb, the organization is going to have to change its name to "Unplanned Parenthood"."
Did this remind anyone else of "The Matrix"?
Apparently DAMN hard, or else we'd hold women to that standard.
Oh, that's right, women are inferior in most peoples worldviews, they just don't want to admit it.
Rewards them how, by allowing them to have sex without the possibility of being stuck with raising a child?
The exact same right we've given to women?
Oh, that's right, again you admit that you think women are inferior and therefore cannot be held to the same standards as men.
So a woman can choose to abort a fetus or have the baby without consulting the father of the fetus while the father of the fetus has no say in the matter and is responsible for the child if she choose to have it and is not able to raise the child on his own if she chooses to abort it?
I'm sorry... but if two consenting adults choose to have sex and the woman becomes pregnant, why is that she is the only one who has a choice? The man has no choice in the matter? Why is the man the one responsible for the pregnancy? Aren't they both responsible? But only the woman has a choice?
Why should we, the taxpayer, be forced to support children because the mother is too stupid to follow the Penis Instruction Manual?
Who do you think supports children waiting for adoption or abandoned at a hospital or fire/police station?
Oh, that's right, we only hold men accountable for their actions and for the results of sex. Again women are inferior and therefore incapable of assuming the same level of accountability for their actions according to people like you.
(And the funny thing is that _I_ keep getting called a misogynist)
Dear Claudius (first poster),
It's quite easy to understand the distinction. The death penalty punishes murders for what they've done.
When a fetus knowingly and intentionally commits murder, then I will agree that a person should abort it.
I sense a rare moment of agreement here. I also believe that if the male has no say in the decision to have a child that he also should be exempt from any responsibilities. Isn't this the way things usually work? Isn't the ideal that with great power comes great responsibility? And that conversely, if one has no power to amend a situation, then one has no responsibility either?
So what's different in this case?
The child support and abandonment laws are based on the notion of harm reduction. They seek to make the child's life as good as possible in concededly bad circumstances. Arguing over who "should" be responsible for the child's welfare misses the point; the child's welfare should be placed before other concerns.
Viewed in that light, even the guy who pays his child support on time but doesn't actually put time into loving and raising his child is already so far down the asshole scale his pissy concerns about paper abortions don't even register.
the government has no difficulty assuring that the FDA cant interfere with the rights of people to buy cigarettes even though they know theyre highly likely to develop cancer and cost the insurance industry another $150K in cancer care wihch is passed on to everyone else. If we have to mind our own business when it comes to slow suicide at the expense of everyone elses insurance rates, then we should be minding our own business when it comes to a womans choice to bear a child or not.
Ive yet to see that its feasible for men to carry a child, yet the loudest voices against abortion are often male. Perhaps a little less money spent on erectile disfunction pills at the urging of the male majority and a little more spent on the development of a male hormonal birth control device would be advisable. At least until the first true male find himself pregnant after having been attacked or even experienced a lapse in judgement. Punishing women by robbing them of the choice of what to d owith their bodies is a level of control not pre-ordained by human being. It is between a woman and her beliefs. Jsut as its between the guy ahead of me at the convenience store with the oxygen tank in a backpack buy a carton of cigarettes and his beliefs over commiting suicide.
So isn't that an argument that men should have some say in the decision to have a child as well?
Nice bit empathy about the 'bad father', btw. There can be a lot of reasons, for not being around. Not the least is the mother who uses the 'welfare of the child' as a club. Why don't you say something about those types as well? I have a fourteen-year-old daughter, btw, so I don't have a dog in that hunt.
Ahh yes, because the men are so devalued that the traditionally male method of supporting and caring for children: creating financial stability so they could, you know, eat and stay alive, is worth so much more less than making sure they had good self-esteems.
If you valued men and male sacrifice at all, you'd realize how asinine your statements are. Instead, you take men, and yourself apparently, for granted.
Oh, I love this "excuse" as well. So I take it men just need to go out and MURDER INNOCENT CHILDREN LIKE WOMEN DID and then they can get rights to abandon them? Is that what you are suggesting?
Female majority. Most men who are in need of ED drugs are generally of the age where their sex drive has already diminished.
Wonderful idea, now if only the FDA would approve RISUG (not all methods are hormonal) we'd be happy. Well, men would be happy. Women, on the other hand would be devastated:
"As an example, according to the 2004 National Scruples and Lies Survey (which polled 5,000 women in the United Kingdom), 42% of women claimed they would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant, regardless of the wishes of their partners."
Think that stat might change if women knew they wouldn't be automatically entitled to 1/3rd of the man's paycheck?
Of course, we'd have to accept that the birth-rate would plummet.. either way.
But apparently robbing a man of choice to take a less stressful job, to earn less for whatever reason he chooses, is A-OK. Oh, right, that goes back to devaluing the sacrifices of men.
Rob Lyman writes: "Viewed in that light, even the guy who pays his child support on time but doesn't actually put time into loving and raising his child is already so far down the asshole scale his pissy concerns about paper abortions don't even register."
Yup. Although it does have to be acknowledged that some guys do get screwed by a system that will allow a woman custody and do a poor job of seeing that he can have access to his kid.
The whole point of "choice" is that it exists during the pregnancy. Once the child is born that choice is gone. This nonsense about the woman being able to abandon the child is just that, nonsense - since the biological father still maintains his rights.
The desire to force a woman to sign a paper forgoing any aid for choosing to have the child - and that is ALL that is involved here - remains absurd. Demonspawn's "Why should we, the taxpayer, be forced to support children because the mother is too stupid to follow the Penis Instruction Manual" is a particularly inane argument since HE is the one who wants to allow the father to skate on his obligation, thus increasing the chance that the taxpayers will get stuck.
It's obvious that it's not really "the taxpayers" he's bleeding for here. He or someone close to him is stuck in the child-support vise. That's unfortunate, but reacting to it with stupid public policy would be moronic.
I wrote: "The whole point of "choice" is that it exists during the pregnancy. Once the child is born that choice is gone. "
Or, of course, it's gone when applicable laws say it's gone.
Demonspawn - You dismiss the statistical studies that are referenced with a cliched and unwarranted "selection bias" brush-off and then spew this kind of unsupported psycho-babble?
Perhaps if you checked you'd learn that the researchers attempted to correct for factors like age, economic status, health history, etc. Hey look, they did!Nice try, anyway.Why don't you say something about those types as well?
I think that people who use their children as tools for personal gain (whether financial, emotional, whatever) are evil. This group includes many women.
I also do not think highly of women who abandon children at fire stations; it's tolerable only because the women who do so hold us hostage by threatening the even greater evil of infanticide. The theoretical injustice of not allowing men to behave just as evilly as women who would abandon or kill a child is a truly trivial concern.
And while you're right that there can be a lot of reasons for not being around--so I was perhaps overly broad in my condemnation--the people I had in mind are people like Demonspawn, whining about the injustice of paying for a child. Paying full child support on time discharges at most 10% of your duty as a father. So my empathy goes to the child who's getting seriously ripped off. It's your child: you should be happy to pay, and to do much, much more than that. (The question of the proper amount and the way mom spends it is separate but important...)
Perhaps men should have "some say," but the only ones who really have none at all are the ones who get their sperm stolen from a used condom. I can't point to hard numbers, but I suspect this is not an enormous proportion of the male population.
Dear Claudius (first poster),
It's quite easy to understand the distinction. The death penalty punishes murders for what they've done.
When a fetus knowingly and intentionally commits murder, then I will agree that a person should abort it.
Instead, you take men, and yourself apparently, for granted.
A child should be entitled to take his father's support, both financial and emotional, for granted. If he can't, his dad's an asshole.
Same goes for mothers, too, of course.
I don't have any problem with "devaluing male sacrifice." A man does his duty; it's what makes him a man.
So how much of this is 'some' say? And why doesn't the State taking a hand in support statements imply that the woman made a poor choice to carry the pregnancy to term? If the woman made such a poor choice in the first place, why doesn't the State take responsibility for the child on the grounds that the parent is an unfit mother?
No matter how you slice it, it's unequal treatment. The justifications for this strike me as contrived, to say the least.
ScentOfViolets says: "I sense a rare moment of agreement here. I also believe that if the male has no say in the decision to have a child that he also should be exempt from any responsibilities. Isn't this the way things usually work? Isn't the ideal that with great power comes great responsibility? And that conversely, if one has no power to amend a situation, then one has no responsibility either?
So what's different in this case?"
The diference is that once the kid is born he does "have a say" in regards to dealing with taking care of the child. He accepted the risk of having a kid when he ejaculated. This is a basic human reality that most of us learn even before puberty.
I'm surprised I have to repeat it here now.
So how much of this is 'some' say?
Well, he can choose not to have sex with her, choose to use appropriate birth control, or nag her when she's pregnant with offers to pay for an abortion. That's as much say as biology allows him to have and I must say, it's worked out fine for me.
No matter how you slice it, it's unequal treatment.
Indeed it is. But since men can't get pregnant, unequal it will remain for all time. But again, however "unfair" it is to pay child support for a child you didn't want, it's 10 times more "unfair" to grow up with a father who doesn't want you and is apparently willing to fight tooth and nail to make that fact clear.
I am not, you will note, defending the woman's choices or saying she is without responsibility; I'm just saying the child comes before the father's complaints.
And that means?
Honestly, according to your logic, getting shot at by Nazis is also causes men to live longer. Vets who survived WWII had a longer average lifespan than men who did not serve during WWII.
Perhaps that might make the idea of how selection-bias invalidates the results apparent for you?
ScentOfViolets writes: "And why doesn't the State taking a hand in support statements imply that the woman made a poor choice to carry the pregnancy to term? If the woman made such a poor choice in the first place, why doesn't the State take responsibility for the child on the grounds that the parent is an unfit mother?
No matter how you slice it, it's unequal treatment. The justifications for this strike me as contrived, to say the least. "
As soon as men are able to get pregnant and carry a child to term it will be equal treatment, Scent, and you can relax. Until then you'll have to deal with the fact that biology has left this sad inequity in your life. You don't have the right to determine if your child will be aborted or carried to term because you're not the one carrying it. It's not your choice. Similar lack of fairness is why you're not a chess grandmaster or an NBA player. You'll just have to deal with the rancid unfairness of existence.
"Oh, I love this "excuse" as well. So I take it men just need to go out and MURDER INNOCENT CHILDREN LIKE WOMEN DID and then they can get rights to abandon them? Is that what you are suggesting?"
Apparently it is what you are suggesting.
And you call me sick?
But with this logic, the woman should never have had the child in the first place. And again, given her poor judgment, why doesn't the State have a compelling interest in removing the child from her care?
Nor am I saying anything about 'complaints'; I am merely pointing out a logical inconsistency. But since you agree that the woman has 'some responsibility', what remedies do you propose? Realistic remedies (I disagree emphatically with your 'unequal' argument, btw; it strikes me as a fatuous attempt to create equalities where none can categorically exist) I am assuming, of course, that this whole approach isn't just some way to argue that abortion should be illegal.
So I take it men just need to go out and MURDER INNOCENT CHILDREN LIKE WOMEN DID and then they can get rights to abandon them? Is that what you are suggesting?
I'm suggesting that the inequality which so exercises you is an incidental, unintended, and inevitable product of two things: 1) differences between male and female reproductive biology, and 2) the decision to place child welfare above all other concerns when enacting certain laws.
I favor keeping child welfare in its preeminent place and simply accepting the inequality that results. You apparently favor privileging rigid equality of the sexes over child welfare.
Yes, I do think those priorities can rightly be called "sick."
But with this logic, the woman should never have had the child in the first place.
You need an extra premise to get that far: that not existing is better than existing with a lousy father, so abortion should be the default choice. I'm not sure I can agree with that premise. And for removal, you'd have to further assume that the State can do a better job than even a mother with poor judgment. Her judgment needs to be pretty bad before I'd go that far.
As for remedies, I have none; I favor accepting the currently-subsisting inequality as preferable to alternatives, as described in my 7:23 post.
I am assuming, of course, that this whole approach isn't just some way to argue that abortion should be illegal.
Well, that would resolve the inequality: nobody gets a choice! And I believe that is Demonspawn's preferred alternative, though we can ask him to confirm.
Basically, it comes down to what you want to put at the peak of your values pyramid: equality, child welfare, abortion, or some other value.
ScentOfViolets replies: "But with this logic, the woman should never have had the child in the first place. And again, given her poor judgment, why doesn't the State have a compelling interest in removing the child from her care?"
Is there something "logical" about the state taking custody of untold millions of children? One incidence of poor judgment should cover the entire period of the child's minority? Really?
That question truly strikes you as sensible? It seems extraordinarily stupid to me. It's like suggesting that anyone who doesn't send their kid to private school should lose custody.
"I am assuming, of course, that this whole approach isn't just some way to argue that abortion should be illegal."
If legal abortion is to be used as a weapon against individual choice by cheapskate scumbags, I'd just as soon see it gone. And I'm pro-choice.
Worried about being "tricked" by evil women, as Demonspawn is? Get a vasectomy or start agitating for reliable male birth control. Don't argue for absurdities instead.
Just to be clear, I don't think the current state of the law is equal, I don't think it's fair, I don't think it's just, and I don't think it's right.
What I do think is that it's better than the alternatives I've seen proposed, because it (in theory, anyway) places child welfare above all else.
And that explains why you never, ever use any form of contraception ;-) Iow, I have a hard time believing that you _don't_ agree with it.
But you're still missing the point; if it's the child's welfare you're concerned about, why is it necessarily the male who didn't have a say who is on the hook? Why not just have the State give a fixed amount for child support in that case (which might even out some other inequalities)? Or, how about putting the woman's family on notice that now they are obliged to cough up $1,200/month for the next five years, after which those amounts will increase. Since, after all, the child will be most likely considered part of the female's extended family, this makes more sense.
However, you will agree with the premise that not existing is better than existing with a mother who doesn't want you, regardless of the father's wishes.
Very interesting.
Legal or illegal, I care not as long as men and women have the same rights. We can either give men the same freedoms women enjoy, or burden women with the responsibilities men face. The former is easier to implement, the later is better as the foundation of a responsible society.
A rather interesting solution is the Ohio bill which uses a "three vote" system where the fetus is always assumed to be voting for life. Only if the mother and father agree to abortion can the abortion be performed legally. As far as I'm concerned, that's a nice middle-of-the-road approach.
I honestly vary. I'd like for "what makes for a successful society" to be my peak, yet I know this society is already irreversibly headed to self-destruction.
Tell that to the 15 year old boys raped by 36 year old women who are facing the decision of finding jobs or going to jail for failure to pay child support.
That's where your "the children are the most important thing" idiocy has lead.
SoV, I don't have any great objection to either of your ideas, except to say that 1) the male did have a say, it being extraordinarily unlikely that his sperm found the egg without any help at all from him, and 2) he's a good source of money. And the woman's family is likely to be kicking in anyway without any intervention.
I should note I'm not in favor of all the absurdities of the child-support system, like men ordered to pay more than they earn or the laughable amounts rich men have to pay, far in excess of any reasonable needs.
you will agree with the premise that not existing is better than existing with a mother who doesn't want you, regardless of the father's wishes.
I never said that and I don't believe it.
Actually, my plan of gender equality enhances child welfare. If both genders and unilaterally absolve themselves from responsibility, there will be approximately 42% less "oopses" leading to unwanted (by one party, at the least) children existing.
Were neither gender able to absolve themselves, then BOTH genders would be much more careful about contraceptive choices, and were a child to be conceived, the man, even if he did not want a child, would feel more responsibility to "just shoulder the burden" because she didn't have any choice in the matter either. They both recognize they are both mutually trapped and are therefore more likely to work together to make the best out of a bad situation.
However, the current system, which you seem to prefer sets up men to be victimized by women who want their sperm and their wallets. This system creates more unwanted children and more entitled women. The greater number of unwed mothers and unwanted children comes from the polices you support.
Now, what is YOUR greater value? The only reason to support the current system is a belief that women and women's choices are more important than men and children.
The Ohio system amounts to spousal consent, which has been ruled unconstitutional, so I'm curious to know when this law was passed and whether it has withstood any court challenges.
Then on what basis do you support the right to abortion?
Then on what basis do you support the right to abortion?
I would be delighted if you could find a place where I said I did.
I said bill, not law. I don't remember the number offhand.
Quick search found it:
http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=127_HB_287
Demonspawn writes: "Tell that to the 15 year old boys raped by 36 year old women who are facing the decision of finding jobs or going to jail for failure to pay child support."
Yes, because we all know there are hundreds of such "raped boys" who have been made to do this. And the laws should all be changed because of some wacko anomalous case in Bilgewater, Oklahoma or somewhere.
Silliness.
I fail to see how forbidding women to absolve themselves of responsibility would lead to fewer women grasping at men's wallets. It might mean fewer unintentional pregnancies, but 100% of those would result in children, which would all the fathers would have to pay.
Allowing men to absolve themselves of responsibility would probably lead women to be more careful, but really, if raising a child by yourself with a piddling support check from the loser you slept with isn't a deterrent enough, then it's not clear to me that taking away the check is going to do much. Unless you sleep with Bill Gates, the child is going to cost you much more on many, many, levels than the check will be worth.
Aside from which, we've tried that system in the past, when fleeing town was enough to get you free of responsibility. Apparently the good old days weren't good enough for people to want to replicate them.
Wealthy celebrities might benefit from fewer money-grubbing groupies, but that's not exactly a huge demographic.
This is where I see the weaseling come in; no, he _very_obviously_ does not have any say. The male can't kinda sorta maybe mabye-not have any responsibility according to the convenience of the argument of the moment. Suppose I were to give someone a pistol as a gift; according to your argument, somehow I would be responsible as well if they were to use that gift to shoot someone.
Iow, you can't say it's not a matter of responsibility, it's the welfare of the child that trumps everything, but then turn around and say the male is responsible, he's the one who should be tapped for child support. Pick _one_ position and stick with it, please.
BINGO! That's it, and that's _all_ of it, a very, very sordid state of affairs if you ask me. And no, it's been my experience that the woman's family does _not_ kick in $1,200/month, every month, for the next twenty-one years.
Maybe you know a better class of people than I do ;-) Let's ask the audience: does anyone know of a situation Rob describes, where the girls family gives her $1,200 or more a month, every month, for twenty-one years straight?
I will also say that one of the reasons I am not a liberal is that I see a lot of how the lower orders live. Trust me, the women don't think of that money as being 'for the baby'. Not one in ten, probably not one in twenty have that enlightened view. This is from my partner's wonderful experiences with the Division of Family Services. And from my own experiences growing up in the 'hood.
So I suggest that some entity other than the donor contribute money to the cause of raising the child, preferably the girl's family - and I do mean to sock it to them for the full amount - or, failing that, the State. Better still is to have no one contribute any money other than the mother. I have a terrible, but very firm conviction that you will see the number of pregnancies carried to term in that situation go way down.
Which is what I would like to see anyway.
ML+J,
Fixed that for you.
no, he _very_obviously_ does not have any say.
I do not see how this is obvious unless he was somehow raped and his sperm stolen. There are many ways of not getting a woman pregnant. I have tried several of them and found it remarkably easy to manage. I have also found getting a woman pregnant when I wish to be quite easy.
He has less say than the woman, but by no means none.
you can't say it's not a matter of responsibility, it's the welfare of the child that trumps everything, but then turn around and say the male is responsible, he's the one who should be tapped for child support. Pick _one_ position and stick with it, please.
There is no need to pick one, and only one, justification for public policy. What I propose is a graded hierarchy of values. I place child welfare at the top of the heap, but I see no need to rule out responsibility altogether as a policy consideration when it is not in conflict with child welfare.
Making women "more" responsible by, for instance, criminally prosecuting abandonment conflicts with child welfare because of the threat of death; welfare trumps. Making men responsible by insisting on child support payments does not conflict, so responsibility can be a consideration.
And certainly you are right that many mothers are irresponsible with their child support money. I'm not sure what we can do about it, or if children will really be better off if the payments are denied.
Rob, why did you cut my example? I repeat: Suppose I gave someone a small-caliber pistol as a gift. Suppose they then used that pistol to deliberately murder someone. Does that make me responsible? After all, I had a 'say' didn't I?
This is about on a par with those ridiculous arguments about 'accepting consequences' which have as their implication that someone driving to work and getting T-boned should just 'accept the consequences' and not go to the hospital to treat a punctured lung, broken ribs, and a ruptured spleen. Either that or those 'she was asking for it' rape defenses. Somehow, I don't think you want to go there.
So when you say this:
It strikes me as just playing word games. We are not talking about getting pregnant; we are talking about either bringing the pregnancy to term or aborting it. Be honest: does the male have any say about whether the pregnancy will continue? Yes or no?
The only other way to interpret this that I can see is that you're operating under some bizarre and unspoken implied consent theory.
Now, as to taking care of the monetary side of things. I ask again, since the child will be raised as part of the mother's family, why not have them be the ones to pay child support?
I'll explain it to you slowly: If we adjusted the stats of your probably apocryphal WWII vets to correct for the health issues that caused non-vets to miss the battlefield in the first place we'd find that proximity to Nazi bullets doesn't increase lifespans, but being physically or mentally unable to serve does shorten them. That's what the researchers that create these population studies do... they statistically correct for the differences among the populations.
It's not perfect, and it can be misused to massage the numbers in a desired direction, but it's certainly better than your gut feelings and bleating about selection bias.
SoV: You're not responsible for the murder unless, of course, you knew that a murder was a pretty likely result of the gift. I would hold you partly responsible if you gave the gun to a child, lunatic, or gang-banger. Or if, say, you gave your sperm to a woman of childbearing age.
The man has zero say in the abortion decision. But, given that the link between sex and pregnancy is well-documented and widely known, he does have a say in the pregnancy decision, and he ought to use it for all its worth.
And as I said before, I'm just fine with asking the woman's family to chip in. But since I haven't excised responsibility entirely as a grounds for child support (merely placed it lower than child welfare), I don't see why we can't go after the dad first.
Skully writes and quotes and writes: "ML+J,
If you don't want kids, keep the dick wrapped or get your tubes tied. How hard is that, exactly? Why should a kid lack support or life because the mother is too stupid to follow the Penis Instruction Manual?
Fixed that for you."
Made more sense when I wrote it, chuckles. As far as I'm concerned BOTH parents share the responsibility once the kid pops out. And I'm sorry you and your woman-hating pals can't follow the Manual. But I' not surprised, given your general lack of acumen.
Let's recall that if conservatives had always had their way women wouldn't be able to vote or own property. Conservatives are ALWAYS behind the curve of civilization. It's what they do. It's what they are.
Yes, because we've already figured out EVERY factor that decides lifespan and can give someone an exact date of death. There can't be ANY factor outside of what they've controlled for, now can there?
Well, then explain to me how it just so happens that lately, as less men have decided to get married (healthy men who are otherwise marriage material) that the lifespan gap between married and unmarried men has shrunk.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080811/hl_hsn/marriedfolksstillthehealthiest
"But because trends in marriage have changed so dramatically over the past few decades, with more people opting not to marry or marrying at later ages, Liu wanted to assess what, if any, effects these changes might have on physical health."
Hrm.. yes.. shocking... It seems that it was selection bias all along, and now that this selection bias is changing, the gap associated with marriage (measuring one side of the selection bias vs another) is shrinking.
That's exactly how it works for Rob and his ilk. Men consent to parenthood when they have sex. Women consent to parenthood when they feel like it. They believe that women just aren't as capable of taking responsibility for their decisions.
Far be it from me to point out obvious omissions, but I don't see "child welfare" guaranteed in the Constitution. On the other hand, I do see "Equality of protection under the law" and "Protection from being an Indentured Servant (sans commission of crime)"
So if you are going to say your values are more important than the Constitution when deciding public policy, you're in the wrong country.
Don't even get me started on that. I'd hate to make you cry when you realize how wrong you are.
Do you think it's some accident of chance that the traditions of all current societies is the father-lead household, that the big 3 religions stipulate father as head of family?
Couldn't be that that is the most successful formula for an advancing society, could it?
P.S. Do you think this is the first time in history that "feminism" has existed? It isn't. Do you want to know what happened to societies where feminism took hold?
Er, in my experience, the _presumption_ is that in the vast majority of cases, the female will _not_ get pregnant. You are having the presumption be otherwise, which is simply not realistic. Taking myself as a typical example (say 200 'instances' a year as a younger man, falling off to maybe 50 before going abruptly to zero), in over 2,000 possible instances, only two resulted in a pregnancy, one brought to term.
I have no idea what you mean by this 'use it for all its worth'. I will also mention that there are many, many cases where the possibility of a child is explicitly discussed and rejected . . . only to have the female change her mind later. Is this a breach of contract?
But as you admit, the man has zero responsibility in bringing the pregnancy to term. And the long odds are that the child will be a benefit to the mother's family, not the fathers. So in this case, the family should be tapped first.
I'm curious as to your pretzeling, btw (it seems rather obvious that your position came first, the defense later): since the welfare of the child trumps everything, why not have the father live in a box for twenty-one years, and have him contribute _all_ his excess pay to raising his child? To do less would be to say that the welfare of the child does _not_ trump everything else. Iow, it seems that your 'welfare of the child' argument seems to be a purely emotive one. Would care to elucidate when the welfare of the father trumps the welfare of the mother or child?
I'm usually a fan of MLaJ, but I have to say I'm a bit concerned that he doesn't see that he thinks that men should be aware of the outcomes of a moment's lack of thought and should pay those outcomes, but that women shouldn't. Basically, all you are doing is bickering over which outcomes you should be permitted to choose: so that women can choose not to have an abortion but men cannot choose not to pay for a child they do not wish to be born. Snidey bullshit about who is and isn't civilised doesn't really cut it in this discussion. Women can use contraception too. Basically, we are saying that men must accept that a consequence of sex is that it might cost them a lot of money, but women do not have to accept that a consequence of sex is that it might involve having a baby. I'm not sure that there's a stronger argument for that than "we think that's how it should be", and the opposite views are insupportable in the same way.
I agree on the whole with Rob Lyman that a guy who doesn't want to support kids he has fathered is an asshole, but I remind myself that we permit all sorts of assholery in this world, and the state pays for a lot of it.
Excuse me if I'm still skeptical.
BTW, your Yahoo! article doesn't say what you think it says. The fact that unmarried men are healthier today than 30 years ago doesn't have anything to do with selection bias. I realize those words are fun to say together, but that doesn't make them meaningful.
You should be. And you should be skeptical of the research presented.
You still haven't answered the question:
"after adjustment for potentially confounding variables."
What does that mean? What adjustments did they make? Have you studied what they adjusted or why, or are you taking what they've done at face value?
On top of that, I want to point you to one particular part of your source: "external causes (RR = 2.18, 95%CI 1.05-4.54)"
Is it your contention that being married somehow protects the man from external causes of death (violence, accident)? Is there something in marriage that protects men from car accidents and muggers knives?
I'm sure you'll retort with something along the lines of "well married men take less risks which subject them to those causes of death". But herein lies the problem: Does being married make men less likely to take risks, or are men who are less likely to take those risks more likely to be married? Can you prove the former? Unless you can demonstrate the causation of the former, than the correlation of the latter is the situation by default. And that is the very core of selection bias (and bias that is virtually impossible to compensate for).
Like many stats, there is selection bias when dealing with non-randomly selected groups (marrieds and unmarrieds are NOT random groups, similar to men and women in other research). There is no way to avoid it. It is possible to control and minimize it, but there is NO method of assuring that it has been eliminated.
Is this a breach of contract?
Yes, and in some cases it's more like fraud. When you discover a way to punish the mother that doesn't also punish the child, let me know.
why not have the father live in a box for twenty-one years, and have him contribute _all_ his excess pay to raising his child?
I could largely live with that, although of course not even a loving and involved father actually lives that way most of the time.
Would care to elucidate when the welfare of the father trumps the welfare of the mother or child?
The non-custodial parent's welfare does not rank real high with me, as you can probably tell. But if, say, mom marries a rich guy, there's no reason not to let a poor dad off the hook; no reason to torture him if his kid is well provided-for.
Dr Zen writes: "I'm usually a fan of MLaJ, but I have to say I'm a bit concerned that he doesn't see that he thinks that men should be aware of the outcomes of a moment's lack of thought and should pay those outcomes, but that women shouldn't."
But I do think that. Once the child is born both the father and mother should have an equal part in the "outcome." Deciding to carry the child to term rests with the mother, though, because it's IN HER FRIGGING BODY. The burden during that time, as well as the risks, are hers disproportionately, so she gets to decide.
Once it becomes possible to pump daddy up wih hormones and let him carry the frog, get back to me and we'll talk. That day is coming. I'll bet Demonspawn can't wait for the day when he can lactate and feed his NEXT mistake himself, with no stinky GIRLS involved.
Until then, shut the f**k up and face reality, you whiny cheapskate drunks. (Not you, Zen, those hypothetical other guys.)
Why not live with rich guy instead of marrying him and get his income on top of the CS??
Reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine in front of his teenage daughter. Party at his house and one of his older daughter's friends (male) got married to the woman he got pregnant. He mentioned something about the guy "doing the right thing" by marrying her.
I looked at him and asked him if he knew what he just taught his daughters. He looked at me quizzically. I replied "You just gave her the message 'if I get pregnant, he has to stay with me.' You just taught her (pointing to the younger) that if she really likes a guy but he won't commit, that she should have a 'birth control accident' and get pregnant so that he'll 'have to do the right thing' and marry her. The real shame is that she'll end up raising a child that isn't really a kid, but instead a tool that she used to get her way"
What are you teaching women?
Demonspawn again: "Far be it from me to point out obvious omissions, but I don't see "child welfare" guaranteed in the Constitution. On the other hand, I do see "Equality of protection under the law" and "Protection from being an Indentured Servant (sans commission of crime)"
So if you are going to say your values are more important than the Constitution when deciding public policy, you're in the wrong country."
So now taking care of your kid amounts to being an Indentured Servant?
Good thing you were never given a student loan.
"Do you think this is the first time in history that "feminism" has existed? It isn't. Do you want to know what happened to societies where feminism took hold?"
She made fun of your small penis and left you for another woman, didn't she? It's okay if you admit it, man. We're all guys here. No one will laugh.
Right, everyone? Let's help Demonspawn through this tough time. Everyone promise not to laugh.
And may I take this moment to ask if it's "Demon spawn" or "Demons pawn"?
Claudius:
Are you really as stupid as you seem? What party was behind the Patriot Act? What party had all its members vote for the FISA bill? Stop advertisin' your ignorance!!
Ever notice that when reason and facts are not on their side, they resort to shaming and blaming the people they desire to submit? Ever wonder why that is?
You can insinuate that I'm a misogynist all you want, or that I'm "not really a man" to your heart's content. I don't care. I don't base my value of myself on what you think of me. Sorry, you're just not that important to my life.
And society's values? As I said before, they're already on an irreversible path to self-destruction. Why would I care what the suicidal think of me? They're just pissed that I'm not killing myself alongside them. I've had my eyes opened to the truth and can no longer be a useful idiot.
You (the person doing the shaming) on the other hand, are a useful idiot. You've allowed the shaming of others and the expected desires of society to shame you into doing as they wish. Were this not the case, you could provide me a compelling reason to change my views based on logic and reason, rather than based on the shaming which has caused you to conform to your beliefs that you desire me to share.
Yes, I mean you, and the hypothetical other guys. And don't pretend that my opinion doesn't matter. Shame works on you, you've demonstrated that to be try by attempting to shame me. If it wouldn't work on you, you wouldn't attempt to do it so me. (and before you give some snide little "well you're doing it now" whimper, learn to read and reason. I've already demonstrated why I'm doing this to you.. I know it'll work even as you deny it.)
Are you having fun yet?
For extra credit, try to answer the questions in my 10:36 post.
Being required to earn and pay a certain amount each month or face jail/imprisonment is the very definition of indentured servitude.
The current child support system is blatantly unconstitutional.
If you don't recognize the difference between a written and agreed-to contract and a judgment forced upon a man... well then I just can't help you.
As for the rest of your post... well I'll just reiterate what I said at 12:26
SoV, the more I think about it, the more
I like your "mom's family pays" idea. I wouldn't let Dad off for free, but your idea has many benefits and little downside.
So if you are going to say your values are more important than the Constitution when deciding public policy, you're in the wrong country
I'll limit myself to saying that your legal analysis is somewhat conclusory.
Apropos 'paper abortions', I disagree with them on practical grounds because they'll mostly only empower chain single parent child creating douchebags, rather than honest men who were tricked into having a child they didn't want (yes, some women lie about contraception) and that's the last thing we need.
But I always find the arguments about it revealing because invariably there's people who make arguments along the lines of 'well, if men didn't want to a support a child, they should use contraception/not have sex, it's that simple'. But I never see these people concede that the pro choice position is unnecessary because if they women didn't want a pregnancy, they already had the choice to use contraception or not have sex.
Surely if they found the former argument convincing, they should also tend to find the latter convincing, but it never happens. I wonder why?
Mercutio writes: "But I always find the arguments about it revealing because invariably there's people who make arguments along the lines of 'well, if men didn't want to a support a child, they should use contraception/not have sex, it's that simple'. But I never see these people concede that the pro choice position is unnecessary because if they women didn't want a pregnancy, they already had the choice to use contraception or not have sex.
Surely if they found the former argument convincing, they should also tend to find the latter convincing, but it never happens. I wonder why? "
If you had more than half a brain and thought about the consequences of your, uh, deep thoughts, you'd realize that your thinking leads into a deep quagmire requiring courts to do some he said/she said examination of every contested pregnancy. "He said he was wearing a condom!" "She said she was on the pill!" In the end, who gives a flying McArdle! (Famous trapeze ensemble from the '30s.)
You squirt the seed, you support the kid. Deal with it.
MLaJ -
Resorting to insult is a sure sign that you recognize internally (even if you would never admit it publicly) that you've lost the argument. If you had a cogent argument you would have made it, but since you didn't then readers can safely assume that you have no sufficient response and have therefore ceded the debate to your opponents.
Godwin's Law is the natural corollary...
And while we're at it, could you answer this question: do you understand that when your first choice of insults is to question someone else's manhood/sexuality in a discussion like this, it only serves to put your insecurities about your own inadequacy on full public display?
When children do it, it's just their immaturity speaking: so we correct them and hope they will grow out of it. When adults do it, it's a revealing insight into their psychological make-up.
You really would have better served if you had just chosen to quit the discussion rather than continuing on in that fashion and embarassing yourself. I would hope, for your sake, that you either seek help in dealing with your issues or at least learn to better keep them under wraps...
I never see these people concede that the pro choice position is unnecessary because if they women didn't want a pregnancy, they already had the choice to use contraception or not have sex.
As one of "these people," I'll concede that. Point?
Missing from this discussion so far is who the driving force is when deciding whether to have sex or not. I know lots of women who have said no, wait, stop, I'm not ready, and so on. Often successfully, but sometimes not. Never heard of the same from a man, and I've certainly never heard of a man being so overwhelmed by a woman's badgering and sheer persistance (or even just physical drive) that he gave in after first offering resistance.
If you take away the fear of being stuck with child support, you remove the one remaining social constraint on male sexuality. Whereas female sexuality still faces all sorts of contraints, even if some women are too dumb to realize this and get themselves into bad situations as a result. If you think men are predatory about sex now, imagine what would happen in that scenario. Talk about society falling apart...
MoeLarryAndJesus, thanks for continuing to demonstrate my point in your own inimitable hostile fashion. You just keep digging.
"You squirt the seed, you support the kid. Deal with it." Well OK, I don't actually have a problem with that. But how about "You accepted the seed, you carry the baby to term. Deal with it."? Now why doesn't that spew so reflexively from your mouth?
Rob: You're the only person I've ever seen who's been consistant on that point. Kudos for an internet first :)
M.C.
whew! Sounds like someone's been taking a few too many hits off of the misandry bong. Better slow down there.
To balance out the anecdotes , I've met my share of predators (and they weren't constrained to one gender) along with some people that seem to want to be preyed upon (which is really just another form of predation), in addition to those just too stupid to know what they're getting into. The thing is, asexuals are relatively rare, and most of the rest of us, men, women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centaury, will trick ourselves into doing very silly and dangerous things if we don't find healthy ways of dealing with our sexuality. The fact that that silliness is represented in various cultural stereotypes is really beside the point.
Also, I don't know what kind of fantasy sex world you're living in where men face no constraints outside of the imposition of child support, but I am living in a fantasy sex world beyond the imagination of previous mortal generations and I still have plenty of healthy constraints on the expression of my sexuality, both social and not.
I think it is great that someone is finally talking about how we're starting to peg our morality on technology. I agree that we've got to resolve these issues before the tech gets there to take a first-trimester fetus viably from a woman's uterus. These aren't easy questions, but that is the real problem.
You've nailed Rob's opinion; however, the opposite view is much more supportable, at least, at any level above 'why should people tell the truth' philosophizing. The idea is one that everyone here should be familiar with, this purportedly being at least nominally a libertarian blog: authority should be commensurate with consequences. A frequent complaint here, for example, is that the people who are consuming a service are not the ones who are paying for it, leading to gross (and insupportable) inefficiencies. Or consider the idiocy people in positions of great power who never suffer any penalty for the bad consequences of their actions.
Again and again and again, it seems a fairly consistent principle across the spectrum of possible decisions: to the extent that one has the power to influence an outcome, one should also bear the consequences of that outcome. One should most definitely _not_ be shielded from the consequences of their actions.
And in this specific case, if a woman wants to bring a pregnancy to term over the objections of the male, she should be the one to deal with the consequences. Anything else encourages bad outcomes. I would wager that under my system, there would be far far fewer out of wedlock births with absentee fathers.
I'm sorry - when did this become a libertarian blog? I would argue that anyone who votes for either major candidate this cycle could not possibly be a true libertarian, although in my experience most self-described libertarians are either Republicans who want to smoke pot or Democrats who don't like paying taxes.
Mercutio makes an excellent logical point - it is the inconsistency at the heart of liberal dogma - which is wny MLJ has to freak out on him like a toy poodle on meth. RL is at least honest in admitting that the current system is unfair, but is the least worst for the child. I don't know that I agree, but it's a strong argument.
Demonspawn's point, which MLJ refuses to acknowledge, is that guys have one chance not to have the kid, whereas women have that same chance, plus another one after conception but before birth. This is totally unfair, but I don't know how to make it fair without being unfair to the child. In the next 20 years there will probably be a procedure that would allow the fetus to be grown in an artificial womb until it is viable. So long as the procedure is not significantly more invasive than an abortion, I suppose that would be a solution where the father wishes to keep the child but the mother doesn't. Obviously the father would be on the hook until the child was decanted, but after that I would assume he could sue the mother for child support, the same way a mother can today go afer an unwilling father? I suppose that will make the situation "even" though not necessarily "fair"?
Megan's hypothetical--in the future, a safe method of gestating outside the womb--is the answer to the upthread silliness about how men and women should have equal shares in an unplanned pregnancy, yet don't because of that technicality about how it takes place in a woman's body. (Men have orgasms, women have babies, to cite Oregon law.) Should that come to be, and the method of "harvesting" have the same medical risks as an abortion, then the idea of the would-be dad being able to say "no, I want to raise this child even if she doesn't" would have an equitable solution.
Pregnancy ain't beanbag. Nor are the medical risks it entails. Nor the lack of eager adoptive parents if the woman wasn't "good" during pregnancy.
The legal grounds for childsupport paid by a noncustodial parent are that it is in the best interest of the child. Fairness to any adults involved is way down there. (People who adopt also are legally required to support the child, no matter how many "but really it was her/his idea, I just went along..." they later issue. If you helped bring this child into existence, you need to help raise it, imperfect as you are at that.) You want to not be hit for child support, be vigilant about using birth control and make sure your partners are people who would absolutely go with the abortion should bc fail. (Hint: no one knows for sure how they'll feel about a future hypothetical when it becomes reality. So if you're going to unzip, a child may be the result.)
Finally, sex causes babies. Birth control fails--that's what those little "90% effective in practice" labels mean, that of 10 couples using this method 1 will find themselves expecting by the end of the year. And another 1 next year, should you all keep on with that method. And after 10 years, expect 10 pregnancies amongst 10 couples. Both the "pregnant? why didn't they use birth control?" assumption and the "but how come I'm responsible just because I've fathered a child that's going to come into the world" excuse are pretty silly. It's 2008; this stuff shouldn't be coming as a shock to anyone old enough to have sex.
Basically, we are saying that men must accept that a consequence of sex is that it might cost them a lot of money, but women do not have to accept that a consequence of sex is that it might involve having a baby.
That is an accurate description of the pro-choice and pro-child-support position. Again, however, I don't see the inequality as terribly grating; even 50 years ago both sides would have had to face consequences. Women now have it easier, but men do not have it any harder than they did before. If somehow medicine discovered a way to lengthen the life expectancy of blacks to 100 years, I would not begrudge it to them because I am white and still stuck at 72 or whatever.
Being, as I am, not particularly pro-choice, and indeed inclined to accept abortion principally on harm-reduction grounds, I do not feel the sting of inconsistency in any case.
I do in fact prefer in almost all circumstances the birth of children and the extortion of child support over a great increase in the scraping of wombs. I would most prefer that these children were not conceived in the first place; if under SoV's system the number of out-of-wedlock conceptions (not births) would be greatly reduced, I would consider it as a possibly desirable option. But I have my doubts about the frequency of fraudulent or "trying to force a commitment" pregnancies, as opposed to mere accidents or ordinary stupidity.
One's bodily integrity is generally regarded as more worthy of protection from assault than one's financial situation is. Rape is considered a more serious crime than theft, and it's considered appropriate that the government can require us to pay taxes but cannot require us to donate blood or organs. So it's not necessarily inappropriate that an unwilling parent can be required to pay child support, but an unwilling mother cannot be required to remain pregnant.
Obviously the father would be on the hook until the child was decanted
I would have thought the child had been decanted from its original container. After he's had enough time to "open up" in the decanter, you can pull him out for consumption.
And of course, custodial father already can sue mothers for child support; the system is nominally symmetrical after birth. How that actually plays out in practice, I don't really know. One of my friends is an ex-divorce-lawyer, maybe I'll ask.
Josh L. -- I stand by my comment, although I would qualify it by saying that it applies to most people primarily in extreme youth... teens through mid-20s, by my count. A lot of men with incredible drive, and a lot of women who are only going along to get along. Unfortunately, these are the prime years for making unplanned babies, and it's a time when there really is a strong gender difference in who is pushing to go faster. The power difference is also very strong, especially if the man is significantly older than the woman (or, often, girl).
I expect women who are 35 to be able to take care of themselves, and most men do calm down and get socialized as they get older. But the biggest problem occurs in an age group where this socialization is not yet complete.
I would also note that there seems to be an assumption here that child support arises primarily when a baby is born following casual sexual relations. Anybody know how often that comes about, versus how often it's the result of a baby born to a couple with an ongoing relationship that subsequently dissolves?
"If you don't want kids, keep your dick wrapped or get a vasectomy. How hard is that, exactly? "
So you really are anti-choice, Moe, when it comes right down to it, because the correlary for women is "If you don't want kids, keep your crack shut."
But actually it's clear from the rest of you comment that is isn't anti-choice sentiment that animates you, is dick-headed misandry, when you neglect to condemn women who go around "dropping their eggs all over the country."
Bigot.
Jim lectures: "Resorting to insult is a sure sign that you recognize internally (even if you would never admit it publicly) that you've lost the argument. If you had a cogent argument you would have made it, but since you didn't then readers can safely assume that you have no sufficient response and have therefore ceded the debate to your opponents.
Godwin's Law is the natural corollary...
And while we're at it, could you answer this question: do you understand that when your first choice of insults is to question someone else's manhood/sexuality in a discussion like this, it only serves to put your insecurities about your own inadequacy on full public display?
When children do it, it's just their immaturity speaking: so we correct them and hope they will grow out of it. When adults do it, it's a revealing insight into their psychological make-up.
You really would have better served if you had just chosen to quit the discussion rather than continuing on in that fashion and embarassing yourself. I would hope, for your sake, that you either seek help in dealing with your issues or at least learn to better keep them under wraps..."
You don't have a fun muscle, do you, Jimmy?
Play your hall monitor routine with someone who gives a damn about your tedious sanctimony. Your opinion means nothing to me.
But the legal grounds only address the issue of the best interests of the child. Why should it be 'father'? Why not the mother's family? And if it's 'in the best interest of the child', why only in this case? Why not require even more draconian legislation 'in the best interests of the chile', since we've already established that fairness is way down on the list.
The problem, you see, is not your defense, but it's inconsistency.
"You should have known that driving carries with it a non-zero risk of a serious accident. So no, you can't go to a hospital get your ruptured spleen operated on. It's 2008; at this point, anyone using this excuse is just being silly."
"You should have known that there is a non-zero chance that anyone you give a firearm to as a gift will use it to commit murder, so you will get a stiff jail sentence along with the actual perpetrator. Expecting anything else in 2008 is just silly."
Need I point out the idiocy inherent in those arguments? Or the lack of logic in using what is to be proved as an assumption?
Now, if you have a case where the presumption is that the odds are that engaging in sex will result in a pregnancy, instead of one chance in a hundre d or a thousand, I would agree with you. But that's not exactly the case now, it it?
Jim also says: "So you really are anti-choice, Moe, when it comes right down to it, because the correlary for women is "If you don't want kids, keep your crack shut."
But actually it's clear from the rest of you comment that is isn't anti-choice sentiment that animates you, is dick-headed misandry, when you neglect to condemn women who go around "dropping their eggs all over the country."
Bigot."
I guess you forgot your anti-insult stance pretty quickly, huh?
Hypocrite.
The choice of whether to have an abortion lies with the woman. I have no problem with that. I suggest those who do are not just misogynists, but also rather stupid and (quite possibly) insane.
Note for those who have trouble following complicated discussions - this is quite separate from the question of whether abortion should be legal.
Holdfast says: "Demonspawn's point, which MLJ refuses to acknowledge, is that guys have one chance not to have the kid, whereas women have that same chance, plus another one after conception but before birth. This is totally unfair, but I don't know how to make it fair without being unfair to the child."
Not only do I acknowledge that point, but I have done so explicitly in the above discussion. I even see how some would say that it is "unfair." I just don't give a shit. Life is unfair.
This comes as news to some of you? Seriously?
Here, I'll post it again, since it's both on point and funny:
"Dr Zen writes: "I'm usually a fan of MLaJ, but I have to say I'm a bit concerned that he doesn't see that he thinks that men should be aware of the outcomes of a moment's lack of thought and should pay those outcomes, but that women shouldn't."
But I do think that. Once the child is born both the father and mother should have an equal part in the "outcome." Deciding to carry the child to term rests with the mother, though, because it's IN HER FRIGGING BODY. The burden during that time, as well as the risks, are hers disproportionately, so she gets to decide.
Once it becomes possible to pump daddy up wih hormones and let him carry the frog, get back to me and we'll talk. That day is coming. I'll bet Demonspawn can't wait for the day when he can lactate and feed his NEXT mistake himself, with no stinky GIRLS involved."
Those who wish to do so can now resume their whining about how "unfair" it is that women are the ones with a uterus.
There's a reason you haven't heard it: MSM won't report it. Beyond that, it is "unmanly" and "unmasculine" to admit one didn't want sex.
As for the reports, however:
Well damn I just can't find it. That's going to torque me off. It was college age students and which gender felt more verbal pressure to have sex... and women were NOT the gender feeling pressured more! I really wish I could find it, it's one of the more commonly cited reports (I'm not kidding) but the kicker is that only the "girls who felt pressured into having sex" percentage is reported, and everyone ignores that in the very same study the "boys who felt pressured into having sex" stat is HIGHER!!
Stuff like that happens all the time with DV research and other studies that paint women in even the slightest unfavorable light.
Anyways, I did find this:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4422794a11.html
"The Sunday Star-Times' Being a Bloke survey last year found that 29% of the 5000 men surveyed felt they had been pressured into having sex or had had sex unwillingly."
Only a woman could be as blind to write that. It's considered "appropriate" that the government can require men to donate their lives.. it's called selective service.
There's a critical flaw in that analogy, Deborah. People who adopt are not forced to earn and supply a particular amount or FACE JAIL. Only non-custodial parents (read: men) are.
And if you want to know why, research title IV-D. Following the money will open a lot of people's eyes to the fact that the States don't give one flying leap about children, they care about their pocketbooks. (Were states to actually care about children, then child support paid to children receiving State assistance would still go to the child instead of reimbursing the State for the cost of support paid to the child).
It's a little more severe than that:
Men's choices:
Pre-conception:
1. abstinence
2. reduce pleasure (condom)
3. often irreversible choice (vasectomy)
Post-conception:
1. Say "yes, maam"
Post-birth:
1. Pay child support
Women's choices:
Pre-conception
1. abstinence
2. reduce pleasure (female condom... anyone wonder why these are rare?)
3. irreversible birth control (tubal ligation)
4. hormonal birth control
5. barrier birth control (diaphragm, sponge, male condom)
6. IUD (kind of a class of it's own)
Post-conception:
1. Abortion
2. Plan B \ Morning after pill
Post-Birth
1. Abandonment (does not require father's consent)
2. Adoption (does not require father's consent)
I'd say there's a rather extreme disparity in rights and choices there.
I saved this for last just because:
This is a prime example of the "find a reason, any reason" method to pin responsibility on men.
Why does it matter what type of relationships spawned the child? Do women suddenly have less right to abortion/abandonment/adoption if they're in a long-term relationship vs. a one-night stand?
So why should it matter in men's case?
I knew something was wrong with that when I read it the first time... took till now to be able to form the argument.
This isn't a "health advancement" more than it's a "legal regulation". So this is like saying we'll allow blacks to live to 100, but whites will be executed the day before they turn 73.
This isn't a "health advancement" more than it's a "legal regulation".
Safe surgical abortions are unquestionably a "health advancement" inasmuch as they did not exist at one time, and now they do. This has given rise to an inequality which did not exist before, but it has not made men worse off than before. Indeed, the unwilling fathers whose children are aborted would have been on the hook in the past, so they're actually better off. The problem is just that men, although no worse off in an absolute sense, have benefited relatively less than women.
The requirement that men pay to support their children I presume is much older than abortions, but if I'm wrong about that, I'd say that means the law used to be defective and now it's fixed.
At risk of encouraging Demonspawn by replying, I'll do one more round and then give it up.
The difference between an ongoing relationship and a one-night stand is not necessarily significant if the pregnancy was an accident and if the decision about what to do is what broke the couple up. This does happen, and it's tragic. But if a couple has a baby while together, there's a presumption of joint decision-making at some point. Even if it was a case of making the best of a bad situation.
What follows is usually an arrangement in which one partner gradually takes on more child care and one gradually becomes more responsible for family finances. The former not only reduces her/his income at the time, but also reduces career prospects in the future. The latter developes the ability to earn more money, because he/she is relieved of much responsibility at home.
If the couple then separates, you often see an arrangement where the main child care responsibility and the main responsibility for providing the money stay right where they have been all along, except with the parents in separate households.
It so happens that the main child care parent is usually female and the main financial responsibility parent is usually male, but that could easily be reversed in some cases. Mr. Mom could end up with custody and a hefty check from Ms. Career, and rightly so. That's the deal they struck.
I think you get a lot of headaches when a couple breaks up and forgets that this was the fundamental deal. On both sides. The one who gets the kids knows about how hard day-to-day child care is, but forgets that earning money is real work too. And vice-versa. Plenty of competent professionals would go bonkers with the strain of keeping a couple of preschoolers out of trouble 24/7 while also doing all the other things adults have to do.
The gender role reversal could happen after a one-night stand, but it is extremely improbable if the couple doesn't know each other and remain in contact after the birth. The father could agree to assume full child care responsibilities in return for child support from the mother, a contract I would expect to be enforceable in law even if the mother later changed her mind. A father opposed to abortion might even offer this deal in order to persuade his partner to bring the child to term.
The difficulty in sorting all this out after the fact is one of the primary reasons to avoid one-night stands, or to be exceedingly cautious if you do indulge. And a primary advantage of keeping sex within relationships (I'm not old-fashioned enough to limit this to marriage) is that you can sort all this crap out ahead of time rather than creating the problem before you negotiate the solution. Although a relationship is no guarantee that the negotiated solution will stick during a break-up, it really does raise the odds.
I don't think anyone should be having sex with anyone they don't know well enough to discuss such things with. Just like you don't buy a house with someone without finding out how they handle money first. Isn't this just common sense?
This should be the case, and yet, there have been several instances I can tick off on my hand where there has been a verbal contract that was subsequently violated by one party. Invariably, it has been the female who has been responsible for the violation. Strangley, I have never seen any sanctions for this violation . . . though in the reverse case I have, both of the formal and informal sort.
Suppose a woman makes use of a sperm donor bank and tracks down the contributor. Is he on the hook for child support? To be consistent with the cases being discussed, shouldn't he be?
Add me with those who think paper abortion for men is a good idea. And I love babies and am a woman, so you can't ascribe my view to misogyny or an unwillingness to put child welfare high enough in my priorities.
The frank truth of it is, for poorer women, i.e. those most likely to have out-of-wedlock births and in need financial help, having a baby to keep a man is a way too frequently employed tactic. The result is children who aren't really wanted by either parent. If women couldn't count on the courts to shackle these men to them financially, then they'd be far less willing to try to use a baby to shackle them romantically.
And lest you think that such women are an abberation, I have to tell you that I know MANY women who have done this, including MY MOTHER. My father was married to another woman, though separated at the time and was dating my mom. My dad made it clear to my mom that he enjoyed her company, but really wanted to patch things up with his wife. Well, my mom deliberately got pregnant with me anyway. She was 40 and wanted kids and felt that time was running out, and since this guy already had 11 kids, what was one more to him?
Happily the story ended well for our family. But I chalk that up to peculiaries of my parents' situation and the fact that we aren't white trash.
Women are devious creatures. Any woman who has had her period for more than a few years knows how her body works and can avoid pregnancy easily and reliably. I don't believe "oops babies" exist anymore, unless you count careless disregard of probable consequences, like that depicted in Knocked Up.
But just because something is possible does not make it legal. The basis for allowing abortion is legal, and, most importantly, is based NOT on "a woman's right to control her body" but instead on "a woman's right to not be forced into parenthood" This becomes painfully apparent to anyone who reads the text of RvW:
"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. (1)Specific and direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. (2) Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. (3) Psychological harm may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. (4) There is also the distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it."
(enumerations mine). You will notice that a valid medical reason for abortion, 1, is included (and a reasonable excuse according to your hypothesis) yet reasons 2, 3, and 4 are all reasons based on avoiding motherhood rather than any medical need of the mother and which would apply to either gender for reasons to escape the responsibilities of parenthood. Yet, abortion expanded from a legitimate medical procedure to a right to avoid motherhood is a right granted only to women... not only in abortion, but also via abandonment and adoption (rights not granted to men.. fathers cannot abandon nor place a child for adoption without the other parent's consent like a mother can).
You fall into the same logic trap that everyone does when they use this argument (don't feel bad, the courts use it too). The argument is that the mother should be granted custody because the existing division of labor is such that she is the caretaker.
Somehow you just don't get that the labor is no longer going to be divided once the couple splits. The mother will require to work to support herself and therefore will no longer be as available to take care of the children.
On that basis, it make much more reasonable sense to share custody evenly so that the burden is spread between both parents, and both parents can maintain reasonable interactions with their children, and thusly the child can benefit from having both parents in their life.
Unfortunately, the court's answer is to make the man support child AND mother by basing the child support on his level of income rather than the needs of the child. And then they stipulate that the man's income is never to drop.
If only that was true...
Non-custodial mothers are not only less likely to be ordered to pay child support, they are also ordered to pay lower average amounts.
The real kicker is that even with all the "deadbeat dad" BS, it's a non-custodial mother who is most likely to be in default of child support.
Women control sex. Sex no longer has consequences for women. Of course then women will be more open to having sex and standards of personal knowledge prior to sex will fall. If you want to reverse that trend, you need to look at women, not men. (However, the cost of sex for men is becoming so high that men are starting to opt-out. STD studies would postulate that the majority of women have sex with a minority of men.)
Demonsperm writes: "Post-Birth
1. Abandonment (does not require father's consent)
2. Adoption (does not require father's consent)"
This is quite simply a lie. Adoptions without the consent of the father are routinely (and often painfully) overturned.
"Women control sex. Sex no longer has consequences for women."
Women don't like you, do they?
I wonder why.
Someone is not in touch with reality, it seems. Do you know what a Putative Father's Listing is? Do you know how to sign up for your state's listing (do you even know which government office to go to?) Because unless you do, you are, quite simply, talking out of ignorance.
7 months post birth, parental rights denied:
http://www.metnews.com/articles/2008/vinc040708.htm
And read this comment from one of the judges: “[He] did everything one would hope a man in his position would do.”
I remember a 2 month post birth case that was recent, but I'm having difficulty finding it now.
You just don't learn, do you boy? Let me give you a little pat on the head and thank you. Now I understand that you rate a man's value on woman's acceptance of him. A man, in your worldview, is worthless unless women like him.
Explains perfectly why you sell your own rights down the river to gain women's acceptance. That's a good little lap dog. Keep away from the meth, ok?
Demonsperm quotes and replies: " Women don't like you, do they?
I wonder why.
You just don't learn, do you boy? Let me give you a little pat on the head and thank you. Now I understand that you rate a man's value on woman's acceptance of him. A man, in your worldview, is worthless unless women like him.
Explains perfectly why you sell your own rights down the river to gain women's acceptance."
My rights are fine, dude. It helps that I've never been stupid enough to have to pay child support after some drunken one night stand, unlike you.
And I notice you don't bother to deny the fact that women are repulsed by you. Or at least the ones who aren't drunk or being paid do.
(Hint - even the ones you're paying are creeped out by your nascent-serial-killer, uh, "charm.")
But just because something is possible does not make it legal.
So what? The existence of abortion as an option for women does not make men worse off vis-a-vis child support. It makes women better off without conferring the same benefit on men. Like my hypothetical black-guy-life-extension and totally unlike your execute-white-guys analogy.
I do not see why you're so filled with spite at the inequality of it all that you can't recognize that men are still in the same place they were 50 or 100 years ago (before feminism), namely "spread the seed, pay to feed." What you're proposing is not a return to a simpler, more equal time, it's a radical contraction of fathers' responsibilities justified by the contraction of womens' responsibilities.
Really, Rob? I suppose then our wayward father has access to the mother's favors then. Just like one hundred years ago. Care to make child support contingent upon that? Otherwise your current argument, that fathers are no worse off than they were before, is wrong as well.
I suppose then our wayward father has access to the mother's favors then
I don't know why you'd assume that historically, entitlement to child support would have been contingent on such access. Divorce was rare but not unheard of, and support of the mother as well as the child would have been presumed, not contingent on any such favors.
If that's not what you meant, please clarify.
Support after a one night stand might well have been less common, but for reasons of proof, not any legal theory.
And you know this because?
And you know this because?
Sorry pal. 0 for 2 on blind allegations attempting to shame me to be just your pathetic emotionally-manipulated self.
Begone. Your idiocy is not useful to me, so I am done with you.
Abortion is only one piece of the puzzle. You need to look at the whole picture. Fixing only this little part or that little part while ignoring the rest won't fix the whole system, and often leaves it worse off than before.
Oh, you mean back when a mother did not secure support from the father without being married to him? Back when a women's sexuality was her own until married, after which the results of her sexuality became his responsibility? Back when children went to the people best capable of taking care of them (fathers) after divorce?
I think you've been mislead to the legal history in question.
And as for why a woman had to be married to secure support? No DNA tests back then. But we live in the same situation now: DNA tests exist, but they are often ignored and men demonstratively proven not to be the child's father is still held accountable for child support.
It's been a transition of innocent (not the father) until presumed guilty (married) to the current legal of standard of presumed guilty until proven innocent... and then sometimes it doesn't matter.
Ok, now I know you're mislead.
The "tender years" doctrine only started in the 1870's. For the thousand or so years prior to that, a wife's sexuality and reproductive capability belonged to the husband (it was considered a trade: he gave her his extra wealth, she gave him sex and reproductive capability). The results of that reproductive capability, children, belonged to the husband. Therefore there was no "child support" because the father took care of the children after divorce, and did so on his own without having the state garnish her wages! Unlike the current system where father pays, back them mother was not financially beholden to her children. Only when men could be on the hook did that system change.
No, because of legal theory. Her reproductive capability belonged to her until traded to a man in marriage. As such, the offspring of an unmarried mother was her responsibility alone. If I remember correctly, that didn't change until the early 1900's.
No DNA tests back then.
So...because men back then were able to dodge their legitimate responsibilities (which the law would have imposed on them if it could), it's unfair that today, men can no longer dodge them? Boo-freakin'-hoo.
It's like saying that today's bank robber has it rough because the news media can broadcast his image around the country. Why, in great-grandpappy's day, he just had to beat the sheriff to the train and he could keep what he stole! Waaaahhhh! Unfair!
DNA tests exist, but they are often ignored and men demonstratively proven not to be the child's father is still held accountable for child support.
That true (well, maybe not the "often" part) and it's really shitty. I don't support it at all. I'd prefer the state kick in the money and spread out the burden (or SoV's family plan) rather than dump it all on one poor guy who's girlfriend screwed around on him.
The "tender years" doctrine only started in the 1870's
f I remember correctly, that didn't change until the early 1900's.
So you're saying that in the relavant time period, "50 or 100 years ago," I'm correct about the legal history?
This discussion is stupid. There is no way to let unwilling fathers of the hook unless you want a welfare state. I'm actually ok with the welfare state but people on this blog might disagree. The current system is the only one that can work because:
1. women are the ones who bare babies and they have a right to have control over their bodies
2. the more resources a child has access to the better for the child
3. we as a society have decided that taking a child away from a willing parent and giving it to a stranger because the parent can't support the child is cruel
4. we as a society have decided that the less taxpayers and other uninvolved parties have to pay for the child's upbringing the better
#1 means that women and only women can have abortions. I support abortion on harm-reduction grounds only so I can be convinced that abortion should be illegal (though that wouldn't help unwilling fathers). Forcing a woman who doesn't want an abortion to have one because her husband/boyfriend/ one night stand wants one is barbaric.
If both parents agree, a child can be abandoned and given up for adoption. Right now in the US there are enough childless couples who are willing to adopt that this is not a problem. The adoptive parents usually pay for the costs of the adoption. The child gets a nice upper-middle class upbringing with no government help. Everybody wins.
If only one parent wants the child then that parent gets to raise it. In the case of infants this on parent is almost always the mother because ,well, she carried the kid in her womb for nine months (and had access to abortion). Only a tiny percentage of people of child-bearing age of either gender have jobs that not only pay enough for them to afford daycare and still have money left over for food/shelter/etc but also guarantee that they would never have to be at work when the daycare is closed (evenings, weekends). That means that this parent would need substantial subsidies from somewhere.
The only alternative to giving this subsidy is forcing the parent to give up the child to be raise by someone else. This wouldn't work anyway because there would be insufficient willing rich childless couples to raise all babies with poor parents. Hello Orphanages. And the state still has to pay.
So the only alternatives in the case where only one parent wants the baby and the baby is born are a)child support b) government welfare. I am going to dismiss the suggestion of having the woman's family pay for it. Forcing a pair of elderly parents to never retire to pay for their estranged 35-year-old daughter's baby is laughable. Putting siblings and cousins on the hook is bizarre because, well they have no control over the woman.
I'm all for a more socialist system. Free day care for all parents. Limited work hours. Large child subsidies. And so on. But Americans are never going to such a system and the people on this blog would be howling the loudest. So what is it? A man's right to dump his children or limited government? You can't have both.
Or I guess you could go back to the good old days.
Les Miserables and all... But you have to be Demon spawn (or a Demon's pawn) to want that, right?
No, not his responsibilities at all. The legal precedent back then was, quite honestly "her body, her choice, her responsibility" It only became HIS responsibility once it was no longer her body and her choice (having traded her sexuality and reproductive capacity in marriage). Now, socially there was a desire to support a child even if not married (common with a man's mistresses) but it was not legally enforced nor legally enforceable.
What was the result of those policies? Women waited until after marriage to engage in activities which might result in children (and, consequently men did via women's choices) and therefore there were less unwanted children. The policy will accomplish your goals (less unwanted children) wonderfully.
I can't remember the percentage, but a significant portion (over 20%) of California "fathers" are default judgments (not proven to be the father). Several years back there was a bill in CA that would allow these fathers to contest paternity, but the Governor vetoed the bill. Why? To allow those men to question paternity and win, therefore no longer paying child support, would risk $40 MILLION dollars going to CA under title IV-D.
Title IV-D is when the system became vehemently anti-male. Before then support guidelines were much more reasonable and custody much more open to being shared (as there wasn't a money winfall for the woman in full custody like there is now).
It's an important part of the puzzle to consider, and the answer why contempt of court will earn men jail, while contempt of the same court order will earn women a stern scolding... there's money for the state in making the man pay at government gunpoint.
Can't? We did for a few thousand years prior to today, and that happened without abortion and without birth control. And how did we do it? By holding women responsible.
People like you have said: "it's all men's fault they get women pregnant!" and therefore set up a system where the woman has all the rights and the man has all the responsibilities. Is it any wonder to anyone that women have adjusted accordingly becoming lazie-faire with their sexuality and, even with abortions and effective contraceptives, has lead to more unwanted children and more out-of wedlock births? They're anchor babies... anchoring the woman to a man and his wallet.
And you think we'll fix the problem by pressuring men? Simply not going to happen. Men sell their souls for sex, it's the fundamental truth that makes society work and causes civilization to advnace!
I know there's this whole frontman-fallacy that because men are at the top men drive society, but that's simply not how it works. What women want, women get. Currently women want entitlements, and they're getting them. We have to live with the fallout of women adjusting to said entitlements. Eventually our civilization will crumble due to it, like repeated historical examples will demonstrate.
a significant portion (over 20%) of California "fathers" are default judgments
Default judgment means the man didn't show up when summoned. It is different from the man being proven by DNA not to be the father, which was your original statement.
People lose money in all sorts of civil actions by defaulting; this is not unique to paternity suits. If you don't want to lose, you should show up when served with process. And you really should bring a lawyer along, too.
You are correct, but where do you think those "proven not to be" fathers come from (besides cuckolded husbands)? Many men do not understand that a paternity order is set in stone after a default. Or, as rumored often to happen in CA, the man never gets the summons in the first place.
Nonetheless, there are men who have not been proven to be the father responsible for child support. Guilty until proven innocent is the new legal standard in the US.
Demonsperm writes: "I know there's this whole frontman-fallacy that because men are at the top men drive society, but that's simply not how it works. What women want, women get. Currently women want entitlements, and they're getting them. We have to live with the fallout of women adjusting to said entitlements. Eventually our civilization will crumble due to it, like repeated historical examples will demonstrate."
Yup, this is the guy who claims he has no problem with women.
Is there anyone here with a teenaged daughter, niece, cousin, or acquaintance who would leave her alone with Demonsperm?
I'm guessing not.
First: I find it just hysterical that ML&J and Rob Lyman are tag teaming Demonspawn and SoV. Yes. I spend too much time reading this blog.
Second: I don't know what kind of Shangri La Demonspawn imagines women retire to after they've tricked the seed out of their prey and have born the ticket to riches. The single mothers I've encountered are trying to scrape by and trying raise good kids. They are struggling and not eating bon bons by the pool while the person with the penis toils in the mines.
The women Deborah speaks of who deliberately get pregnant to trap men are complete psychos. I suggest not having sex with women who are psychos. I give that advice for free to every man and woman I talk to. That tactic is unfair to everyone involved -- most of all to the child. I'm glad it worked out in your family, Deborah, but it's just sick to do that to yourself, the man, and your child.
I've managed to negotiate years of fertility and sexual activity by using reliable birth control and using it correctly. As a back up, I talk to men who I am contemplating sleeping with and make it clear that it is highly likely that if a pregnancy should result from this activity, I would likely not have an abortion and it would become an issue for the both of us. I think it makes that whole acceptance of risk thing pretty much up front and clear. No?
M writes: "I don't know what kind of Shangri La Demonspawn imagines women retire to after they've tricked the seed out of their prey and have born the ticket to riches. The single mothers I've encountered are trying to scrape by and trying raise good kids. They are struggling and not eating bon bons by the pool while the person with the penis toils in the mines."
Penis Toils would be a great name for a band.
I would like to apologize openly to one and all for referring to Demonspawn as Demonsperm. I don't know what I was thinking. Such a lapse in judgment is just about unforgivable.
I mean, just how could I have missed so badly? Obviously I should be calling him Demonsemen.
I will try to be more precise in the future.
ScentOfViolets - The only other way to interpret this that I can see is that you're operating under some bizarre and unspoken implied consent theory...."You should have known that there is a non-zero chance that anyone you give a firearm to as a gift will use it to commit murder, so you will get a stiff jail sentence along with the actual perpetrator. Expecting anything else in 2008 is just silly."
Need I point out the idiocy inherent in those arguments? Or the lack of logic in using what is to be proved as an assumption?
1. Why is implied consent bizzare? It certainly has the weight of religious tradition behind it. In the Judaic legal tradition, for instance, an implied bond is created between any two people when they have sex. That doesn't make that tradition 'right' of course. The age of the tradition does suggest that it can't simply be discarded as abnormal, though.
2.If you accidentally hit someone with a car, you can still be held responsible. Same with accidentally shooting them with a gun.
3. One big problem here is that a 'right to privacy/ government non-interferance iwth personal medical decisions' is conflated with a 'right to terminate pregnancy.' In cases where people believe in an actual 'right to choose' I agree there's a contradiction. For people who believe in the former only, however, there isn't.
SoV - since the child will be raised as part of the mother's family, why not have them be the ones to pay child support?
Because it incents men to have illegitimate children, which we, as a society, don't want, and which would be bad for the child?
Demonspawn - Is there something in marriage that protects men from car accidents and muggers knives?
Point taken, but testosterone does go down in individuals after marriage, IIRC. I wonder if the studies controlled for that.
Mercutio - But I never see these people concede that the pro choice position is unnecessary because if they women didn't want a pregnancy, they already had the choice to use contraception or not have sex.
Well, what about unforseen medical complications?
Otherwise, I agree with what you're saying here. I'm pro-privacy, not "pro-choice".
ScentOfViolets - The only other way to interpret this that I can see is that you're operating under some bizarre and unspoken implied consent theory...."You should have known that there is a non-zero chance that anyone you give a firearm to as a gift will use it to commit murder, so you will get a stiff jail sentence along with the actual perpetrator. Expecting anything else in 2008 is just silly."
Need I point out the idiocy inherent in those arguments? Or the lack of logic in using what is to be proved as an assumption?
1. Why is implied consent bizzare? It certainly has the weight of religious tradition behind it. In the Judaic legal tradition, for instance, an implied bond is created between any two people when they have sex. That doesn't make that tradition 'right' of course. The age of the tradition does suggest that it can't simply be discarded as abnormal, though.
2.If you accidentally hit someone with a car, you can still be held responsible. Same with accidentally shooting them with a gun.
3. One big problem here is that a 'right to privacy/ government non-interferance iwth personal medical decisions' is conflated with a 'right to terminate pregnancy.' In cases where people believe in an actual 'right to choose' I agree there's a contradiction. For people who believe in the former only, however, there isn't.
SoV - since the child will be raised as part of the mother's family, why not have them be the ones to pay child support?
Because it incents men to have illegitimate children, which we, as a society, don't want, and which would be bad for the child?
Demonspawn - Is there something in marriage that protects men from car accidents and muggers knives?
Point taken, but testosterone does go down in individuals after marriage, IIRC. I wonder if the studies controlled for that.
Mercutio - But I never see these people concede that the pro choice position is unnecessary because if they women didn't want a pregnancy, they already had the choice to use contraception or not have sex.
Well, what about unforseen medical complications?
Otherwise, I agree with what you're saying here. I'm pro-privacy, not "pro-choice".
I did not say that the idea itself was bizarre; I said that this particular manifestation was. That it would be like dismissing charges of rape against a woman on the grounds that she dressed provocatively, for example. The proper application of implied consent theory is that the male is _not_ giving consent to a pregnancy, any more than giving someone a pistol as a gift should be taken as implied consent for them to shoot someone.
Ryan? The whole point of the discussion is that men _don't_ have any say in the matter. But I like your argument. It's the one I used as a matter of fact: I argue that giving women money for having children is a perverse incentive that encourages the creation of illegitimate children.
I further argue that if one _must_ give money to raise these children, it should come from those who benefit from them, namely the mother's family, or, failing that, the State. I have also argued that that if it's all about the children, then why doesn't the State further obtrude itself to say, forbid parents of children the pleasures of smoking? Or set aside every excess penny they make until some sort of college fund, or post-high school fund is accumulated.
And finally, if a woman can go back on her word about not continuing an unplanned pregnancy and suffer no consequences while forcing the man to pay child support, why isn't the same true for sperm banks?
The whole issue is positively medieval. In fact, the only reason this has happened - I would guess - is that this represents an incomplete transition from what went before. Oh, there's always the issue of money too. Again, appropriating the experiences of my daughter's mother, the State is very quick to go after the father to get child support. To make sure it gets into the mother's hands 'in the interest of the child'? Not so much.
if a woman can go back on her word about not continuing an unplanned pregnancy and suffer no consequences while forcing the man to pay child support, why isn't the same true for sperm banks?
There is no good or logically consistent answer to this question. A prenup not to seek child support is invalid, but insert a medical doctor between dad and mom and suddenly an identical agreement becomes a valid contract. Our legislatures have simply decided that one kind of contract is enforceable while another kind isn't. Presumably this is to encourage the enormous public good which flows from sperm banks, whatever that may be.
I personally wouldn't care if the credit crunch caused every sperm bank to go under tomorrow, except that the inevitable Congressional bailout effort is too disgusting to contemplate.
"I personally wouldn't care if the credit crunch caused every sperm bank to go under tomorrow, except that the inevitable Congressional bailout effort is too disgusting to contemplate."
[insert Larry Craig joke here]
that this represents an incomplete transition from what went before.
That is unquestionably true. A lot of the pre-DNA presumptions and rules for paternity have yet to be dispensed with despite the existence of an almost-foolproof means of getting the right answer. For instance, there's no need to assume anymore that a marital child is the husband's, but that presumption still attaches and isn't always overcome by irrefutable proof that he isn't.
The 30K or so of income from government programs designed to assist single mothers which help her with food, housing, medical insurance, and all other kinds of help. That doesn't include any child support which the state will hunt a man down to force payment.
If she can't live off of 30K/yr with one child, perhaps she can learn from the thousands of families that do. I never said it was some sort of Shangri La, but it sure as hell beats working for a living.
Government non-interference with personal medical decisions?
Tell that to the people in California smoking medical weed.
Tell that to children of JW believers who refuse blood transfusions only to have government come over the top and require them.
Tell that to people who desire assisted suicide.
Tell that to parents who want to get a circumcision for their daughter. Now, I realize that the same parents wanting one for their son is considered a "personal medical decision" but why do the rules change when it's a daughter?
There's plenty of government interference.
That sounds odd. But assuming that it's true, how do you control for that? You simply can't as we don't even know everything testosterone does.
But speaking of hormones and decision making.... and even slightly on topic...
Study just released about women's made selection that differs based on if she's on hormonal birth control or if she's not.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/2008....menpickbadmates
Seriously, who knew about that before now? How would you adjust a study for something like that before you knew it existed? Heck, how do you adjust for it even after?
Incorrect. They are valid if written by a woman, only invalid when written by a man. A surrogate mother (the legal presumed mother by state law) cannot be sued for child support.
Yet another violation of the 14th Amendment when it comes to each gender and reproduction.
They are valid if written by a woman, only invalid when written by a man. A surrogate mother (the legal presumed mother by state law) cannot be sued for child support.
Once again, this has nothing to do with who "writes" the agreement. Surrogacy contracts are, just like sperm banks, a special area of the law and regulated by their own special rules. These may or may not be logically consistent with the rules governing ordinary child support, and they serve whatever ends the legislature was trying to serve at the time, such as promoting or discouraging surrogacy/sperm banks.
A woman who was sued by a custodial father for child support could not defend on the grounds that they had signed a prenup agreeing not to sue for child support. Nor would some casual oral "contract" be enough to protect either party. Ta-da! Equality before the law.
If you're going to keep pitching fits about equal protection, you might trouble yourself to both speak more precisely about the law and acknowledge that men and women have differing reproductive roles.
Let's go further with this, Rob. I've asked you this before: how far can the State go 'in the interests of the child'? Can it ban parents from smoking 'for the benefit of the child'? Can it compel parents to be an active part of a child's academic life? How about ensuring that every non-essential penny go into some sort of trust fund to be released to the child at age 18, or to be put towards college?
Contrariwise, how is it in the interests of the child to forbid fathers living with mothers who receive AFDC? How is it in the interests of the child if parents get kicked out of their house because the teaser rate on their mortgage resets?
No, this is just inconsistency, plain and simple. And it strikes me that the people who say they don't care about the inconsistencies aren't really advancing an argument about 'the welfare of the child'; their just randomly picking up whatever comes to hand and throwing it.
Finally, I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating: I suspect very strongly that 'in the interests of the child', my notions are much better for them than Rob's. Spare me the sob stories about the unfortunate few this will 'hurt'; in the long run, there will be far fewer pregnancies bought to term without a willing father in the picture. Speaking only for myself, those women who decide to bring a child into the world knowing that the this is against the wishes of the father to be, knowing that this will be a source of intense resentment on the part of the father, and who will in all liklihood will blame all of this on the father, instead of herself where the blame lies, well, she strikes me as pretty poor parental material to start with.
Speaking only from personal experience, it seems to me that the mothers who did not go after the father for child support seem to have much healthier kids than those who did. In fact, those are precisely the kind of mothers whose kids start the whole dreary cycle over again.
Iow, 'good intentions' are not good enough. I want to see some hard data that this policy has actually benefitted the kids in question. The reasoning strikes me as being on a par with the cogitation that brought us 'lowering taxes will increase revenues'.
The massive difference being that a surrogate birth can be contracted privately while a sperm donation cannot.
Smoking, educational involvement, absurd welfare rules, etc. are beyond the bounds of the discussion, are they not? The question isn't so much what the state should do to make every kid's life better, it's whether the father's "right" to a paper abortion trumps the child's right to adequate material support. I say: no way in hell, you say yes.
If the time comes to broadly restructure society in the interests of children, we probably will find ourselves with more agreements than disagreements.
I suspect very strongly that 'in the interests of the child', my notions are much better for them than Rob's.
This is certainly possible, given the undeniably perverse incentives. And I'm not arguing with your points about certain women being poor parents, or that women who don't go after dad make better parents and having happier kids; that's also possible.
My point, to reinterate, is that the father's pissing and moaning about how he was cheated by a woman who didn't take her pill on time is worthless and meaningless next to the cheating he's doing himself by not providing for his child.
The massive difference being that a surrogate birth can be contracted privately while a sperm donation cannot.
Assuming that is a coherent sentence ("privately" means what, exactly?) and assuming you are correct--there are 50 states, and you don't give the impression of one who has passed the bar in all 50--that is a tiny difference, and most probably the result of the minuscule number of child-support cases brought by parents who get a surrogate mother.
It means, exactly that: privately. A man and a woman can write up a document and both sign it. That is valid in the case of a surrogate birth but invalid in the case of a sperm donation. She can absolve her rights and responsibilities by private contract but he cannot. Hardly legal equality.
P.S. What I said to MLJ at 12:26 applies to you (well, and to me) also. It's nice to recognize that you feel so superior. Is that why you are presenting such logically inconsistent arguments to "prove" you are right? SoV is pointing out how you are contradicting yourself all over the place.
A man and a woman can write up a document and both sign it. That is valid in the case of a surrogate birth but invalid in the case of a sperm donation. She can absolve her rights and responsibilities by private contract but he cannot. Hardly legal equality.
I would be genuinely surprised if that were true and I would appreciate a cite to a case where such a thing was validated. If it is, in fact, true, then I agree with you that it is unequal, unfair, and I'd be happy to see it changed.
I'd also like you to explain where I have "contradicted" myself. I have acknowledged logical inconsistency and a lack of fairness in the law, and I've said I'm comfortable with it.
What!?!?!? Rob, just because this is yet another reason why your position is inconsistent in _not_ an excuse to declare it off the table. _You_ advanced the argument that it was 'in the interests of the child', so it is up to you to defend it, not declare by fiat that the implications of your argument is out of bounds.
Really, the way it looks to me is that you don't have any reasons for your opinion. For you, it's just your feeling of the way things ought to be. That's fine, but at least be up front about the fact that this is just an opinion, an opinion with no coherent argument to back it up.
Those words do not mean what you think they mean. And you have no idea why people don't want to be fathers. Yet, somehow, their ability to make an informed decision is less than the woman's who is making the same decision for both of them.
Is there something personal going on here that we should know about? Because frankly, you don't sound very reasonable about the issue. I'll be up front here and say that if my father had not been in the picture growing up, even if that meant there had been no child support, it would have been a much, much better thing for our family. Reading between the lines of the family history half a century later (and also by the bald accounts of other family members - which may be suspect), my 'father' did not want to be a dad, or at least as many times over as he was, and had a pretty good idea before the fact that he wouldn't be much of one. I say this not to explain any motivations I may have, but simply to point out that in addition to sounding as if you're taking this rather personally, you also don't seem to have much of an idea of what it means to be a 'good dad'.
It occurs to me, Rob, that I haven't heard you say anything against the women who decide have a child despite the wishes of the male involved.
Could we have a blanket condemnation of these women, please? Something like what you're willing to do in the case of the men? Really, how the generic woman who makes such a decision could be considered anything but a low-life piece of scum is beyond me . . . if that sounds a bit over-heated, maybe you'd care to reconsider what you wrote about the men involved?
I haven't heard you say anything against the women who decide have a child despite the wishes of the male involved.
You haven't been listening carefully; I've condemned them several times. And I'm happy to do so again: I agree with the poster above that women who try to use children to control or keep men are psychos. And I mean that in a semi-clinical sense; treating children as means rather than ends is psychopathic. I have also agreed previously that women who break their word commit fraud or something very much like it.
Furthermore, I have never said that child welfare should be the sole determinant of all public policy decisions, or even the sole determinant of support decisions. You have attempted repeatedly to to stuff me into that box; my refusal to climb in meekly is not "inconsistent" at all.
I have said that (read this carefully, now), in decisions regarding financial support, child welfare is at the top of the hierarchy of values, and "fairness" to Dad is a LONG ways lower. That relative ranking is the sole point which I have tried to advance. I have not tried to define "welfare," I have not tried to contradict your claim that child welfare would be advanced with different support rules, I have not ruled out all possibility of alternative support mechanisms (hell, I endorsed one), I haven't come anywhere close to endorsing bad female behavior, and I haven't claimed that we live in the best possible world.
OK? One simple point about the relative importance of two competing values in a particular context. For support decisions, Child welfare > fairness to fathers. That's ALL. If you want to run wild and try to map that weighting to different contexts, figure out how other possible values fit in, establish numerical weights for them, discuss the relative culpability of pregnant women, construct theoretical models of the ideal legal regime for children, applications of your theories to your own personal life, why, feel free, go right ahead.
Demonsemen reveals his deep knowledge of Constitutional law:
"Yet another violation of the 14th Amendment when it comes to each gender and reproduction."
Take it to court, sport. See how far you get.
There were actually a few people who were worried about the Equal Rights Amendment having effects like that, though the fears were probably groundless. Of course the ERA was killed by conservative dingbats, so we'll probably never know.
Just to be clear, I don't think the woman who decides to have a child over the objections of a father is scum. I think that a mother who does what we are contemplating men here doing--namely, refuses to participate in the child's care and upbringing without making adequate provision for it, as by adoption--is doing something scummy. Children deserve better from their parents than to be abandoned.
There may be outlier cases, in which a parent is aware of his or her own failings to the point that the child really is better off abandoned, or left with mom or grandma and a monthly check.
And here's the crux difference: children don't deserve anything. It'd be nice if they had things, I hope that they have things, but they're not entitled to them. The more we entitle children, the greater their entitlement complex becomes, and the less they are capable of dealing with the real adult world where value is based on doing rather than being. That transition is particularly hard on boys, which is why boy's suicide rates explode once that transition starts.
The "overprotection of children" culture we have is creating so many more problems than it's solving.
Demonspawn, I think you're right about our overprotective culture, and about the need to teach children to deal with the real world. But the fact that children are not entitled to everything doesn't mean they are entitled to nothing. That would be, so to speak, throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
If children are not given both material support and proper instruction, then they have no hope of becoming functioning members of society.
Out of curiosity, are you familiar with the concept of duty? As in, "Doing your duty"? As in, your duty to support and instruct your children? I regard that as one of the paramount duties of life and yes, I do indeed look down on people who renounce it without finding adequate substitutes.
I have been listening carefully, and this is not what I meant. I meant in general as a matter of principle. Also, you may have 'agreed previously' that women who break their word commit fraud, but you have neither (a) proposed a remedy, nor (b) condemned the woman. Condemning the behaviour is something entirely different.
Why, no Rob, inconsistent behaviour is simply inconsistent behaviour. It seems that you really don't know why you have the opinion that you do on this subject. That's fine. But don't pretend that it has anything to do with 'the welfare of the child' if you can't make a defensible argument for it. For example:
Posted by Rob Lyman
Now, it seems to me that if you can offer this up as a justification, then you should have no problem with parents not being allowed to smoke if they have children. It's not as if opposing a terrible hardship on the parents, after all. Otoh, if you think parents should be allowed to smoke _despite_ it not being in the best interests of the children (and very much so, second-hand smoke is deadly stuff), you should have reason as to why you make this exception.
Really, characterizing this as trying to make you 'climb in a box' is really pushing it a bit, don't you think?
Funny that, but I'm one of those people who think that having a father in the picture is a minimal requirement for making 'adequate provisions'. But whatever, it seems like you have a definite double standard going on.
What possible reason could a woman have for wanting to raise a child without a father? One that is not completely selfish and self-absorbed?
No, to the extent that you want to generically condemn the man, I heap just as much opprobrium on the (generic) woman. I also think you have a rather unrealistic idea of how common bad family situations of this sort really are. You seem to think it's maybe one-in-a-thousand; it's really a lot more like one-in-ten.
Good lord, I would have thought calling something fraud was a condemnation--fraud being generally disapproved of in my social circle--but if that's not good enough, then I'll say that I officially condemn people who commit fraud, whether or not it involves child support. I'll add a condemnation in general and as a matter of principle against some unspecified group of people who have done something bad.
But no, I do not condemn women merely for the act of bearing an child unwanted by the father, which refusal I justify as entirely consistent with my lack of condemnation for men who accidentally get women pregnant but go on to care for their progeny properly.
Moving right along, I heartily disapprove of--and, for those who find that choice of words confusing, condemn--forcing children to breathe smoke. I find the relationship between this and a discussion of child support "fairness" difficult to discern and inadequately explained.
Soldiering on anyway, I will say that resisting government micromanagement of all areas of childrearing is a value which should outweigh the "best interests of the child" in many cases--precisely because the best interests of the child are usually best determined by the parents rather than government, and because rigid enforcement of unnecessarily detailed rules is rarely actually in the best interests of the child. That is to say, I think a complete understanding of a child's best interest includes tolerance for practices that I personally believe to be contrary to their best interests.
So...in principle, I don't object to requiring parents to smoke outside of homes containing small children. In actual practice, I think it better for children to be at home with smoking parents than jerked to foster care and custody hearings because some peeping tom thinks they saw Dad light up indoors. Given a magic wand to stop smoking near children, I'd use it, but given only the blunt instrument of CPS, I would not.
And yet another thought. Suppose the fathers pay child support for twenty-one years. How about after this the woman has to turn around and pay back the man that child support for the next twenty-one years, plus the time-value? That way the child is provided for, and the men, although put upon in a particularly dastardly way, will recover at least some of what they have lost. _And_ the women will know that what they have done is not right.
Sounds like a win-win to me.
ScentOfViolets wonders: "What possible reason could a woman have for wanting to raise a child without a father? One that is not completely selfish and self-absorbed?"
How about if the guy turns out to be an abusive maggot? Is she supposed to stay with him in order to be seen as "unselfish" in your eyes?
How was your flight to this planet, anyway?
it seems like you have a definite double standard going on.
That's only true if you think that the woman is equally responsible with the man for the man's decision to abandon his child.
I'll grant that if she refuses to allow him in her life (absent a justification such as criminality), or conceals the pregnancy, or drives him off by generally being a psycho, then she bears the blame for his absence.
But again, the discussion started with a man unwilling to be involved in his child's life; you can't pin that on the woman.
Suppose the fathers pay child support for twenty-one years. How about after this the woman has to turn around and pay back the man that child support for the next twenty-one years, plus the time-value?
I'm turning this over in my mind with no definite conclusion yet. It has substantial appeal, although I probably wouldn't give him full payback. And I'd want proof of the woman's fraud; he can hardly be put upon in a dastardly way if he agreed to it but later changed his mind. Perhaps the "paper abortion" in the first trimester would entitle him to payback rather than exemption from child support.
Good incentives all around. I'll provisionally support the idea pending further considerations of the implications.
Hrm, let me try this without the links...
Shame to your belief system that mothers are much more abusive (and fatal) to children than fathers are.
But don't take my word for it, there's a good 10 years of government research that shows that fact. Look up Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families: abuse and fatality stats.
The MAJORITY of child abuse is from the mother, and is almost twice the rate from fathers
(link to DHHS went here)
Child fatalities?
(link to DHHS went here)
Oh, and in case you meant abusive to her rather than to the child? You lose there as well. Women are more likely to be abusive in relationships than men are.
(Link to study named "Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence")
50% of mothers see no value in the father's continued contact with his children.
--See Surviving the Breakup by Joan Berlin Kelly
40% of mothers reported that they had interfered with the father's visitation to punish their ex-husband.
--See "Frequency of Visitation...." by Stanford Braver, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
Demonsemen quotes and writes: " How about if the guy turns out to be an abusive maggot? Is she supposed to stay with him in order to be seen as "unselfish" in your eyes?
Shame to your belief system that mothers are much more abusive (and fatal) to children than fathers are."
That doesn't surprise me or matter to me at all, chuckles, but it's also completely irrelevant to my comment, which was in response to Scent's question about why a woman might choose to raise a child on her own.
Your bizarre and unrelenting hatred for anything with a vagina leads you to some very weird places. This was just one of them.
40% of mothers reported that they had interfered with the father's visitation to punish their ex-husband.
That is evil and psychopathic. Also, I condemn it.
I'm glad you think so. Now, extrapolate from that just a little bit. Under our current legal situation, women have pretty much complete control over the child. He's only going to be able to gain custody if she's a psychopathic drug-addict, and most men know that. That means as soon as the pregnancy starts, it's her way or the highway. Many men pick the highway.. and why not, they have zero bargaining power, even if he leaves his wallet is still on the hook. Why get emotional abuse and financial abuse when just financial is the better deal?
Now, if she had to bargain with him, if she had to be reasonable with him to get money for the child.. she'd have less of a "my way or the highway" attitude and more reasonable bargaining would be going on. Having a say brings him back into the relationship and back into the child's life. And what happens when he's in the child's life?
90.2% of fathers with joint custody pay the support due
79.1% of fathers with visitation privileges pay the support due
44.5% of fathers with no visitation pay the support due
(admittedly, this is an older stat from 1988)
The proper application of implied consent theory is that the male is _not_ giving consent to a pregnancy, any more than giving someone a pistol as a gift should be taken as implied consent for them to shoot someone.
1. I don't follow. Why is that application of implied consent theory more proper?
We could also say that speeding tickets are absurd. You should only get a ticket if you actually run into someone and are determined to be at fault for speeding. Why don't we do this? (outside of the revenues generated, of course) Arguably, because once a person has put themselves in a situation where they have lost the ability to fully control their actions (driving at high speed) they're giving a kind of 'consent' to the outcome of the action and should be treated according to that consent.
But I think the difference here is that you see abortion as a choice comparable to birth control. I see abortion as something which is tacitly accepted due to privacy rights. The difference is that a woman doesn't have a 'right' to an abortion or a choice and neither does a man. She has immunity from prosecution, which isn't the same thing. The choice is made a bit before conception. Women have an out only due to an accident of biology and tacit consent.
Though men should be able to pick up their children if put up for adoption and sue the mothers for child support.
it should come from those who benefit from them, namely the mother's family, or, failing that, the State.
It seems like the public at large is harmed by illegitamate children in a number of ways rather than benefitting from them. Increased crime is the least of these problems. Does that mean we should fine women who have children out of wedlock to make up for these services? I'd oppose that as bad for the child, but I don't see the argument where the state benefits from children out of wedlock.
I'm not sure why the mother's family really benefits from children, either. Extra field hands? Care in the old folks home? Perhaps that would work, but your intent seems to be to convince more women to have abortions, which you seem to view as good. Mine isn't. I'd like to reduce the number of abortions as well as the number of out-of-wedlock births and support policies which achieve that.
then why doesn't the State further obtrude itself to, say, forbid parents of children the pleasures of smoking?
We seem to be going in that direction, to the degree that smoking harms children.
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/93147.php
Not to say that this is good. Were you thinking of something else?
Or set aside every excess penny they make until some sort of college fund, or post-high school fund is accumulated.
I have no clue why they don't do that, nor am I sure it would benefit children more than letting parents spend the money in the present tense. Maybe they should.
I'll agree (have agreed) that the law is sometimes inconsistent.
And finally, if a woman can go back on her word about not continuing an unplanned pregnancy and suffer no consequences while forcing the man to pay child support, why isn't the same true for sperm banks?
First, this argument makes perfect sense against the 'abortion as choice' argument. It makes less sense when abortion is justified only tacitly as an act which cannot be prevented due to the restrictions of medical privacy. All pregnancies involve a certain, non-negligable amount of suffering.
Second, this status quo would be consistent if verbal contracts were not worth the paper that they're printed on (i.e. they were unethical but ultimately not illegal), and sex implied consent to raising children unless otherwise agreed. Though Rob makes an interesting point about pre-nups barring child support to be invalid. Apparently the boilerplate marriage contract doesn't allow for that, which makes sense since it's bundled with a lot of other rights.
Are sperm banks or egg donors ethical? I really don't know.
Perhaps sperm banks should be illegal. What would be the repercussions of that?
that this represents an incomplete transition from what went before.
I'll certainly buy that.
Again, appropriating the experiences of my daughter's mother, the State is very quick to go after the father to get child support. To make sure it gets into the mother's hands 'in the interest of the child'? Not so much.
I'm honestly not familiar enough with the intricacies of child support to evaluate this statement, but if it's true it's certainly a problem.
Demonspawn wrote -Tell that to the people in California smoking medical weed.
Tell that to children of JW believers who refuse blood transfusions only to have government come over the top and require them.
Tell that to people who desire assisted suicide.
Tell that to parents who want to get a circumcision for their daughter. Now, I realize that the same parents wanting one for their son is considered a "personal medical decision" but why do the rules change when it's a daughter?
for #1, I'd like to see those better protected under medical privacy though there are some externalities related to drug use that don't apply to surgery.
For #2 What a parent can do with or to their children is a significantly different legal issue than what an adult can demand for themselves.
For #3 ... I may need a doctor for surgery, but I can kill myself just fine, thanks.
Cyanide is not hard to come by for most folks and countries which allow euthanasia (like Nazi Germany)
easily stray into worse territory. Theoretically, I'm fine with euthanasia. Practically, I think we're better off without it in all but perhaps a few cases. There's always DNRs.
Tell that to parents who want to get a circumcision for their daughter. Now, I realize that the same parents wanting one for their son is considered a "personal medical decision" but why do the rules change when it's a daughter?
I'd guess clitorectomies are more damaging, for one thing. I admit circumcision (and non-health related surgery on children in general) is a gray area that probably wouldn't be allowed unless it was part of a longstanding religious tradition.
But clitorectomies seem more damaging and less helpful in a number of ways. Circumcision helps prevent against some infections, even in the modern world. And boys who have it can still have fulfilling sex lives. Should it be legal, though? I don't know.
Demonspawn wrote - That sounds odd. But assuming that it's true, how do you control for that? You simply can't as we don't even know everything testosterone does.
But assuming that it's true, how do you control for that?
I don't know. I'll stick with asserting that the differences between married men and single men are
not entirely selection bias.
ScentOfViolets - How is it in the interests of the child if parents get kicked out of their house because the teaser rate on their mortgage resets?
Unless the bank was somehow a party to the reproductive process, I don't see how that's relevant. I oppose government payments for childcare except as a last resort based on the Catholic concept of subsidiarity.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity)
i.e. they were unethical but ultimately not illegal
Should say "i.e. breaking them was unethical but ultimately not illegal"
Let's reduce the Demonsemen philosophy to its essentials.
1. Bitches, have babies!
2. Bitches, shut up!
Have I missed anything? I don't think I have.
Unfortunately very true. Child support is a hot topic. Child visitation however? When's the last time you've ever heard of a woman going to jail for contempt of court for denying visitation? It just doesn't happen.
The reason for this is simple, and it has to do with money. Title IV-D gives money to the state for enforcing child support orders, depending on percentage and the like. That means the state is going to go after the man pretty harshly because that brings money into the state. Enforcing visitation doesn't bring money to the state, in fact it costs money. Therefore, they just don't care.
Concerning your source: I don't trust it. I need to see the actual studies. It reaks of "reporter playing scientist". The headline is "marriage lowers testosterone" yet the study they are talking about doesn't say that at all.. it only says that men they tested who were married had lower testosterone levels.. again with selection bias. And, quite interestingly:
Gray just finished a study in Kenya where he tested the saliva of 88 Muslim men, some of whom had two wives. "I thought guys with two wives would have lower testosterone than those with one wife, but that turned out not to be so," notes Gray
It doesn't surprise me. And this part I want to comment on directly:
A man's testosterone levels drop significantly when he holds an infant. Even holding a baby doll can decrease levels of the male virility hormone.
Were you aware that a male's level of arousal can directly influence his testosterone level? I don't think he's pondering sex while he's holding a child.
I'm not dismissing those studies outright, I'm just saying I'd need to see their methodology before I can draw any conclusions.
Demonspawn: "And here's the crux difference: children don't deserve anything. It'd be nice if they had things, I hope that they have things, but they're not entitled to them."
I suppose you popped out from the birth canal ready to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself. Look! It's a miracle infant. I'm just not clear on what the hell you're arguing here.
Demonspawn: "I never said it was some sort of Shangri La, but it sure as hell beats working for a living."
The children require care. Some mothers don't do a good job of it. But it is work indeed for those who do. I'd like to see you suggest it's not in front of a bunch of mothers who do the lion's share of child care so that I can charge them to hunt you for sport.
Demonspawn -Were you aware that a male's level of arousal can directly influence his testosterone level? I don't think he's pondering sex while he's holding a child.
Sure. So is the following good evidence of a change in sex androgens associated with marriage, then?
I couldn't get access to the following article's materials and methods, but it claims to support your assertion that T is a leading rather than a lagging indicator of marriage. (I'm fine with the notion that there's some selection bias, but the fact that men's behavior changes over the course of a marriage seems to indicate to me that there's a hormonal change to back that up.)
Finding something that addresses total free androgens is even more difficult, perhaps because I don't think you can measure DHT or SHBG with a spit test like you can with T. (Conversion of
T -> DHT would increase sex drive in some men, but decrease apparent testosterone levels.)
That just because someone requires care or help doesn't mean that they are entitled to receiving that care or help. It would be nice if they could get it, but none of us are required to give that assistance via government force.
Yes children require care. However, caring for a child is a hell of a lot easier than working a job. Complain all you want, but I've done both. I'm sure some guy who's doing it for the first time will go bonkers and complain how hard (unusual to them) it is, but once they've done it for 2-3 months and learned the tricks and how to combine effort, it's honesty the easiest job I've EVER had, by a longshot.
But, I've noticed you're complaining about my "it's not work" statement rather than the "earn 30K just for being a mother" statement. Is it because the latter is indefensible?
Yep, but it doesn't indicate which gender the changes are coming from ;) You can have three guesses to which gender I think is responsible for that, and the first 2 don't count. Anecdotal evidence points to there being some truth behind the rumor that wedding cake lowers sex drive in women (err.. in the woman getting married. In the women at the wedding who are still single, going to a wedding actually seems to increase their sex drive for a few weeks).
I know a LOT about testosterone (again, amateur bodybuilder) and I've found there's a lot of behavioral changes which can actually influence your T levels! That leads to a tricky thing with some hormones... did the hormone level change influence the change in behavior, or did the change in behavior influence the hormone level change? Honestly, I haven't seen similar research pointing to the same for estrogen, but that might just be that types of studies I read ;)
P.S. Female sex drive is indicated/influenced by testosterone as well, believe it or not.
Demonsemen quotes and writes: " I suppose you popped out from the birth canal ready to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself. Look! It's a miracle infant. I'm just not clear on what the hell you're arguing here.
That just because someone requires care or help doesn't mean that they are entitled to receiving that care or help. It would be nice if they could get it, but none of us are required to give that assistance via government force."
No? Well, remember that kid you and your wife had, and how you forced her to lock the kid in a room until it starved to death? Well, when the cops find out about it, you're going to jail. Because, chuckles, you actually ARE forced to help or to find someone who will if you're not able to do so.
You could look it up.
RIP, Demonsemen Jr. 2007-2007.
none of us are required to give that assistance via government force
Is this intended as a descriptive statement of the state of the law, or a normative statement of what the law should be? Because the common law has imposed a duty to care for your children for centuries. You could look it up.
I'm told that infanticide by exposure was practiced in ancient Greece, but that particular aspect of Greek civilization wasn't imported by the Founders, who were otherwise well disposed towards classical ideas.
Complain all you want, but I've done both.
So have I. In fact, I have an infant napping on my chest this very moment. There is no doubt that practicing law (what I do) is dramatically easier, emotionally and physically, than caring for small children. It requires more schooling, so it's "harder" in that sense, but we're not talking about coal mining with pickaxes here.
I have had jobs that might count as harder--the plywood factory really sucked--but "working" generically may or may not be harder than child care.
Demonspawn, for the record, I'm not complaining about squat. I'm disagreeing vehemently with you. There's a difference.
I'm so glad you find childcare easy. You should write a book and clue in the rest of the world on your secrets. I don't have kids, but I watch what my friends go through and this is why I do not have kids right now. Working 60-70 hours a week like I do at my job looks a hell of a lot easier than being on the hook 24/7 for a being that is utterly dependent on me.
And the money that you characterize as the mother earning for just being a mother? Yes, it is indefensible if she spends the money on vacations and cars and not on the kid. That money is defensible if it is going to the care of the child -- food, rent, clothing, school supplies, etc. With welfare reform, though, you will find much fewer single mothers on welfare raking in the big bucks and many more working jobs and leaving their kids in daycare. Probably bad daycare.
So, Mr. F*ck 'em and Chuck 'em, I think that's the crux of my disagreement with you. That and you will probably disagree with my assertion that I wish guys like you could be tagged on the ear so you were more readily identifiable, and thus easier to avoid. Yes. Totally ad hominem. But you're ticking me off.
M, the reason to stop child support is to _improve_ the life of children. You may disagree, but there it is. Yes, some children will suffer. But others will find themselves in far better circumstances.
Really, the idea that a woman would choose to have a child even though there will not be a father present is sorta pretty good evidence that she's not exactly good Mom material, don't you think?
ScentOfVileness writes: "Really, the idea that a woman would choose to have a child even though there will not be a father present is sorta pretty good evidence that she's not exactly good Mom material, don't you think?"
This is incredibly stupid, and it doesn't get any less so as you repeat it. How many women have a child and think they'll never get married (or cohabitate) again?
"M, the reason to stop child support is to _improve_ the life of children."
We had to destroy the village in order to save it!
Actually, no, you're complaining. To be able to disagree you require a basis to form a disagreement. Rob has that basis, you do not.
It's simple, really. You be a good parent. That means that instead of coddling your children and keeping them helpless and dependent on you so that you can boost your own self-esteem, you instead teach them how to do things for themselves which prepares them for life when they need to take care of themselves and increases their ability to deal with decisions, accept failure, know challenge, and have meaningful feelings of accomplishment when they do succeed.
There's my book. Sorry it was so short.
Yes, but common law didn't require that I pay for someone else's kids with my taxes. That's what I'm complaining about.
This reminds me of the whole thread about boundary cases. Liberals rarely understand that concept. They think "taking care of single mothers" won't influence the rate of single motherhood. I just don't get how people can be that blind.
I mean, shit. Why not just pay everyone 30K a year for being a parent. Men and women. Then the father's won't have to work either and both can focus on being a good parent. Tell me when they get that law passed so I can know to expat ASAP.
Demonsemen writes: "Why not just pay everyone 30K a year for being a parent. Men and women. Then the father's won't have to work either and both can focus on being a good parent. Tell me when they get that law passed so I can know to expat ASAP."
Actually the tax deduction for having a yardape works along these lines, so to be consistent Demonsemen should advocate the elimination of that deduction, as well as any further tax deductions related to fertility.
If he agrees this may be our sole point of agreement.
And, SoV, apparently the other problem we have is people who can't understand the difference between keeping more of the money you earn (paying less in taxes) and being paid by the government (other people paying more taxes). The former is enabling people to take care of themselves by making it easier for them to do so rather than the latter which is taking care of people by forcing others to take care of them. That's the real difference between conservatives and liberals: Conservatives want the former, liberals the latter. Liberals do realize that communism failed, correct?
Do liberals really think that their money belongs to the government first and to them second? That's the only way I can comprehend a tax break being thought of as the same as government payout.
Demonsemen stupidly replies: "Do liberals really think that their money belongs to the government first and to them second? That's the only way I can comprehend a tax break being thought of as the same as government payout."
So much for your concern about equal treatment uder the laws, chuckles. The problem with the yardape deduction is that you're asking people without yardapes to pick up a disproportionate share of the tax burden. In effect, childless taxpayers are subsidizing yardapes!
I would think that would offend you - but it's not like you're really principled, anyway. You're just a crank.
I've been rolling that one around in my head for a while, Rob. It got mentioned on another site, and I was thinking about it there too. Here's my answer:
It is a man's "duty" to have a wife, support her, and raise children. It's a man's duty to support all of his children, no matter how they came about. What is duty? Duty is basically that which strengthens society, what compels society to drive forward, the sacrifices we all make to make us all better.
This is undeniable truth. It is what drives society forward.
But then there is another type of "Duty" out there. The duty for a woman to choose wisely before lying with a man. The duty of a woman to get married before having sex. The duty of a woman to stay out of the career track fields such that men can have better chances to enter them and earn enough to be a good husband. The duty of a woman to stay home and take care of the family to raise good children. What is this duty? It is the emotional bonds that keep a slave chained.
But, wait, didn't I just say it was what makes society better? Of course it is. And it's that way for women as well, even if society as a whole has decided to see duty for men differently as duty for women. But that's the thing, why do they see it differently? Why are we freeing women from duty while telling men to fulfill it?
Is duty that which makes society better, or is it the chains of slavery? And even if it is the former, why the hell should we expect men to keep doing their duty when we don't require it of women?
Because when you think of it, what is it when one side does what they are supposed to, and the other does not and is not held accountable for it? Well, we'd like to say they are "doing the right thing" but once it's been done to them over and over and over again you have to realize the truth: They're just suckers being leeched on by the other part of part of society who isn't doing their job. Those doing their duty are carrying the load for all.
Men are getting tired of carrying women. We're done with it. We desire to be suckers no longer. Either women need to shape up, or we're going to ship out and drop them on their asses.
Demonsemen writes: "Men are getting tired of carrying women. We're done with it. We desire to be suckers no longer. Either women need to shape up, or we're going to ship out and drop them on their asses."
Demonsemen's wife is having an affair with his boss.
The funny thing is, as Demonspawn has aptly demonstrated in this thread, is that so-called men's rights advocates don't give a whit about the rights of children, or indeed about equal rights or "justice" at all; for all of their hysterics, rantings and hand-waving antics, what it boils down to is a desire to see women stripped of their natural human rights and relegated back to property. All you have to do is keep the debate going for awhile, and they all show their true colors (again, as Demonspawn has perfectly displayed for us). Give them enough rope, and they all hang themselves in the end.