Letters to the Editor
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Slavery
No matter how you try to dress it up, "hiring" someone without their consent is slavery. I'd hoped we were past that in this country, but regressives abound.
Are we ever going to be able to put this silly meme to rest?
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Compensation
The legal picture would look like this: a woman would still retain her right to abort, unless a man was willing to compensate her for her time and use of her womb.
And if the woman dies in childbirth, what then? If the birth of the child she doesn't want is so traumatic to her body that she is no longer able to bear any children that she might want in the future, what then? How does a man compensate her for a long healing episiotomy? The permanent changes in the shape of her body? The lingering emotional effects of giving birth to a child you did not want?
This would have to be a very rich man indeed to fairly compensate an unwilling baby factory -- I mean, woman.
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Wha?
I clicked on the link to read the full article. Just me, or was it completely incoherent? And then out of left field comes this quote:
My life-preserving bias also causes me to support mandatory organ donations post-death [and in some cases, perhaps even pre-death]
Holy smokes what is he talking about? At least he is sort of consistent (with the donate-a-kidney pro-choice analogy)??
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His argument is similiar to the actual legal basis for the supreme courts ruling
which was partially based on equal protection, i.e. women needed the means to mitigate the "inequality" of pregnancy, rather than on a right to privacy (as most people probbly assume)
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Brilliant! I Love The Logic Of A Man's Right To Choose
Finally we're getting somewhere!
The entire point of this arguement -- fundemenally -- has to do with legal and financial responsibilities of unmarried couple who become pregnant. When a married woman becomes pregnant sudenly the mother and father have very clear laws, rules, rights and regulations. When unmarried couples have intercourse and then become pregnant -- there basically is no law. What we have done as a culture is to simply throw up our hands, shrug, and give the woman a blank check in terms of custudy issues and the right to drain as much money fromt he father as she sees fit. She also has a blank check to get an abortion at will -- again leaving the biological father with no rights whatsoever.
Is this fair?
The author illustrates that unfairness in a roundabout way by pointing out that men cannot demand women get aboriton, nor can they claim sole custudy of the child upon birth and then move thousands of miles away and forbid the biological mother from every contacting the them, nor can he instantly get sole custudy at birth and then garnish the mothers wages to support the child --- after he vetos her abortion decision and forces her by law to give birth.
It would be incredibly unfair to give a male that kind of unchecked power over a mother, yet currently as a culture we have given that total power to females.
The old arguement that a women must have fundementally more rights because she has to carry the baby for nine months doesn't really hold up to logic -- women complain that "dead-beat dads" are irresponsible, yet at the same time refuse to allow them the legal ability to take any responsibility.
We're seeing the double standard. Women claim, in general, thatthe want fewer single mothers and that the "really" want fathers to play a more active role -- yet when it comes time to actually strip women of their unchecked power they backup, stammer, and then claim that their pregnancy is a special circumstance that MUST give them more rights and responsibilities then men!
They claim to want equality, but then demand that no man should ever have ANY say in "their" pregnancy or that custudy should ever be decided by in impartial third party or that men shouldn't be legally required to pay child support if they don't want to.
We need new laws to protect the rights of unmarried men who become fathers.
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This crap again??
Is this subject really back again? It's like the "Night of the Living Dead" of topics. No matter how many times you shoot it, it keeps coming for you. Someone needs to put a bullet into the skull of this dusty old corpse. Let's see if we can predict how this'll go:
A bunch of women will complain about Mr Dalton's writings, comparing his world to Nazism and slavery and there will be words like "patriarchy" and "speak truth to power" used without the slightest trace of irony or amusement.
A bunch of men will complain about how women are trampling their rights and how to a man feminism is just another word for oppression.
A few men will opine about how much they hate Mr Dalton and his views and how much they love the sisterhood. [These guys are my favorites. Despite abundant evidence that taking this line won't get you laid anymore, they keep plugging away. It's quite touching.]
Broadsheet, time to be a little more, well, broad. Spread your wings a little. Stretch yourself. Whatever. Just put a bullet into whatever passes for the brain of this topic and move on. This one is played. So played.
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Answer a Dalton with a Beagle
How is it that a man forcing a woman to do anything (whether it's brushing her teeth or carrying a baby to term) femminist?
I can only offer the words of Peter S. Beagle to Mr. Dalton: "My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am convinced that you must be possessed of a higher power than I have ever known."
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Monty Python already covered this
When I read Conley's original op-ed piece, this scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian immediately popped into my head. Conley's argument doesn't advance the one proposed by "Loretta" thousands of years ago.
FRANCIS: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
STAN: I want to be one.
REG: What?
STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta'.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It's my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But... you can't have babies.
LORETTA: Don't you oppress me.
REG: I'm not oppressing you, Stan. You haven't got a womb! Where's the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA: [crying]
JUDITH: Here! I-- I've got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG: What's the point?
FRANCIS: What?
REG: What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can't have babies?!
FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.