Letters to the Editor
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Roe.
I'm totally with you Camel. That's why keep saying that Roe was about the physical bodily privacy of the woman. it was based on the right to privacy, not the right to procreate.
and a man can save a child from adoption. if the woman doesn't want it, the man can have it.
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Responsibility goes out the window (II)
I don't see any responses to my previous comment ("Responsibility goes out the window"). I see more comments about how this is about men trying to get money, how the man should just step up to the plate and "be a man, be a father", and how this is just going to be used as a wedge issue by the Republicans.
If many of the posters here keep that attitude, you're just shooting yourselves in the foot. You protest men wanting to decline the responsibility of being a parent, but applaud women who make the same decision. You argue that your cause -- upholding Roe v. Wade in literal and practical terms -- comes first, and while RvW is under assault it's wrong to look at other aspects of reproductive and parental rights. You say that men should support a woman who thought she couldn't get pregnant but did; the man should share in her joy and change his stripes, all of a sudden becoming a great father.
Every one of these arguments can be used against you. The whole concept of child support springs from the long-held prejudice that women aren't worth (salary-wise) the same as men. Given your "RvW-first-everything-else-later" mentality, shouldn't we dismantle child support since it's treating a symptom rather than the cause? Shouldn't every child-support advocate immediately stop advocating for that compensation and devote 100% of their efforts to equal pay? God knows we can't do two things at once!
And what if a man thinks he's incapable of reproducing -- either his "swimmers" don't work or he's had a vasectomy -- but his girlfriend/wife gets pregnant? Shouldn't the woman share in his joy at becoming a father, change her stripes, and become a great mother? Why don't we get the courts involved in that one, and allow men to get injunctions which prevent the woman from getting an abortion? I mean, as long as her financial loss is no more than $500 or $1,000/month, that amount of sacrifice is OK, right?
It's about getting a big tent. And if you can get men to help your cause by saying, "You know, men /and/ women have something at stake in this reproductive rights debate", where's the harm?
Unless, of course, it's just about the money. But men are the only ones who would be petty enough to file a court case about that ... right?
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One dad's thoughts
Personally, I think the entire issue of men's rights in regard to all sorts of family law issues is due for an airing. Having endured the institutional presumption that my ex-wife is somehow a better parent, and human being for that matter, than I could ever be, by virtue of our sex only, I can say there is unnecessary and counterproductive bias surrounding the entire issue. I understand whence the bias and presumptions, but that doesn't mean that fairness is a hallmark of this arena.
I can certainly understand Traister's reasoning, but I think I could also apply her logic, fairly, as follows: Women had their chance to make a decision about abortion's legal status. Before the election. I have a son and a daughter. I've passionately defended a woman's right to bodily self-determination. A pivotal election came, and went, and I think it's fair to say that enough "security moms" voted to keep the belligerent chimp in office—another example of people voting against their own self-interest in response to the hysterical fear-mongering of Rove and Co.—that they themselves could be probably shoulder the blame for the election results and subsequent Alito-Roberts appointments.
I don't know from the timing of this guy's case, and I presume that he'll lose. But, even as a hypothetical situation and conversation point, the "facts" of his case have merit.
If a man makes clear that he doesn't want a child, and is assured by a woman that it isn't possible, or even just that she doesn't want a child either, that understanding should count for something. One person shouldn't get to hold all the cards when a mutual decision has an unforeseen, and undesired outcome. Yes, indeed, being a mother more profoundly complicates a woman's life than does becoming a father a man's life. Woman get stuck holding the baby, and all that implies. Yet, women have had two options for a while now (we'll see what happens to them) that, together, pretty much preclude an unwanted pregnancy: birth control and abortion. Women can change their minds (couple agrees no children, woman doesn't choose pill, insists couple uses condoms, pregnancy ensues, woman wants to keep, rather than abort, guy's screwed, no recourse), and men are legally on the hook. Men can't change their minds with any similar standing (same as above, but guy wants to be daddy, and woman wants to abort. Again, case closed.) Basically, the underlying logic is that women who want to have sex (and are therefore willing to risk pregnancy) get all choices, and men, just one. To remain celibate, or cede financial autonomy to someone else.
As Feit correctly points out, the logic that supports a woman's right to choose does ultimately make a universal human case.
What this all indicates more than anything is a need for a form of male birth control that allows men to choose whether or not they want to procreate, or just have sex.
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We've been over this
Okay:
those of you who think that saying that people should take responsibility for sex is somehow buying into the pro-life argument have it backwards.
See, the prolife argument works on the premise that abortion is a convenient, get out of jail free card. They don't believe that it is a legitimate consequnce of pregnancy (just as legitimate as having the child or having a miscarriage). It's a possibility and that's all. Abortion isn't like getting your teeth cleaned. Having had one, without even so much as a Tylenol (i drove myself) and having given birth, i can tell you that an abortion is the worst pain i have ever felt and that i bled off and on almost continuously for three months.
You guys are the ones who buy into the pro-life argument because you think that rather than abortion being a legitimate possible consequence of getting pregnant, that it's just some easy out. that's why you think you should have one too. but women don't have an easy out.
Pro-choice people DO argue for responsibility in sex and always have--we believe that in order to be fully responsible, all options must be on the table in so far as exercising you reproductive rights AS you're exercising them. that means, your body, your choice... get it?
So, you men can tell me what to do with my uterus the day you reach in, grab it, and put it in your body. till then, if you want to KNOW and take RESPONSIBILITY for your OWN actions and your OWN body, there are some options you have: don't have sex with women, only have sex with at least a condom if not more to help insure, and don't take the word of someone merely because you don't like the way condoms feel.
as for the argument that it's silly to distrust everyone--it's not about trust. it's about taking responsibility for yourself and your body and your own reproductive rights which involve your penis and your sperm and you have absolute control over your penis (despite your own sexist idea that you're mindless sex animals, i'm not sexist and think men have brains) and easy means of controlling the sperm with a condom. If it's something you just always do cause you know you don't want a baby, you don't have to deal with whether or not you trust your partner.
asking to opt out or be able to demand an abortion is asking to not have to take responsibility for you reproductive rights and demanding authority over someone elses as well as screwing the child you, by having sex and not taking responsibility for your contraception, VOLUNTARILY made. even if she lied: it's your responsibility to wear a condom. you weren't raped... so, deal.
finally, if you want to have a discussion about how this society takes care of children, i'm all for rethinking taxes in such a manner that there wouldn't need to be children left in the dust... some sort of subsidy for children like in Britain. Sure thing. sounds great... then we could certainly talk about lessoning the direct financial burden of fathers and mothers and make all children the responsibility of all of society.
that's not the case now. the child didn't chose anything-someone has to take care of it and giving a few hundred a month isn't enough to take care of a kid... what about the rest of the money and TIME and ENERGY it takes?
get real. grow up. take responsibility for yourself. i, unfortunately, agreed to have sex with my husband even though we were out of condoms and he knew i wasn't on the pill... he shirked his responsibility. but so did i. it was on me after that because it was in my body and not his--he had no say (though, he did want the abortion even more than i). and so i had to take responsibility and in this case it meant an abortion. that's not a get out of jail free card. it's not consequence free. it IS a consequence.
if women got men pregnant, then men could be the sole decision maker's over pregnancy. they don't get pregnant, so they have no say. what comes after sex is known... go back to sex ed. it takes two to make a baby and it takes at least two to help raise it (even if those two people hate each other--and can't even talk on the phone in a civil manner). doesn't matter who lied or why. in all cases except rape, each of us is solely responsible for our own reproductive actions. completely. having an abortion is a way of taking that responsibility. so is having the baby.
child support isn't about reproductive rights at all. it's after you decided to take the gamble and lost. and sperm donars are different too. why? they KNOW and are PURPOSELY donating under contract on BOTH sides FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF CREATING A BABY--that's different than wanting to have sex with some chick and hoping she doesn't get pregnant even if you don't wear a condom.