quote:I'd [like] to see a discussion on the rights of the father over unborn children.
I'm a little uncertain how I feel about a father's rights concerning unborn children. I oppose abortion, but the reality of the situation is that, right now, the woman legally dictates IF the child will be born, and to a great extent, if the father can have anything to do with his child. It's something she determines, and he gets no input.
Abortion, adoption, or keeping the child, the man really gets no legal rights until after he's received approval from the mother. And with the court system the way it is, the father can loose many of those rights at her whim, AND be financially saddled to pay for children he isn't allowed access to. [rant] This imperfect system is buoyed by at least a century of cultural and economic forces that have pushed the man out of his children's lives, and saddled the woman with the being the main source of education, nourishment, and influence in the family's life. The 50's television dream of patriarchial authority is a sham, because it relies on the myth that fathers cannot form anything but authoritarian bonds with children. "Wait until your father gets home..." puts dad in a position of disciplinarian, rather than in his proper place as teacher and nurturer. [/rant]
Fathers should have legal rights to help determine the fate of their own unborn children. It's one way to bring the father back into his children's lives, by telling him that his decisions, as a father, are important even before the child is born.
I don't know what those rights should be. Hopefully, this discussion will hammer some ideas out.
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However, I think it is important that father's rights over (etc etc) the unborn should be drafted/considered keeping in mind the very different impact of a pregnancy on the mother than the father.
I don't think this should mean that a father has no rights. But I also think the fact that pregnancy means a woman's body is hugely and permanently changed (not to count the actual duration of pregnancy itself) means it is a very hard line to tread when discussing the rights of someone who is not immediately (physically) affected by the pregnancy.
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Also, although I think it is sad, I could not ever support any system that let a father force a mother to carry a pregnancy to term against her wishes (assuming abortion is legal).
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quote:I could not ever support any system that let a father force a mother to carry a pregnancy to term against her wishes
I understand the sentiment. What do you think of the idea of forcing a father to support a child that he wanted aborted?
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I honestly believe we should be focusing a great deal more research money on artificial wombs.
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quote:What do you think of the idea of forcing a father to support a child that he wanted aborted?
Child support is a right of the child, not the custodial parent. A preference by one parent that the child should not exist - especially if expressed prior to the existence of the child - does not diminish that child's right to support from both parents.
quote:Abortion, adoption, or keeping the child, the man really gets no legal rights until after he's received approval from the mother. And with the court system the way it is, the father can loose many of those rights at her whim, AND be financially saddled to pay for children he isn't allowed access to.
This is not really true with regards to adoption. Although a father's rights can be easily waived by inaction, they do exist. The biggest hole in the law is the lack of required notice to the father in certain cases.
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quote:Originally posted by imogen: I agree with most of your post Scott.
However, I think it is important that father's rights over (etc etc) the unborn should be drafted/considered keeping in mind the very different impact of a pregnancy on the mother than the father.
I don't think this should mean that a father has no rights. But I also think the fact that pregnancy means a woman's body is hugely and permanently changed (not to count the actual duration of pregnancy itself) means it is a very hard line to tread when discussing the rights of someone who is not immediately (physically) affected by the pregnancy.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I honestly believe we should be focusing a great deal more research money on artificial wombs.
I also agree with this.
Scott, I think that child support shouldn't be payable if a father doesn't want a child. But I think that should be done with a full waiver of any rights to, or access to that child.
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That seems like an easy way out for a guy that is not going to be a good dad anyway. We are responsible for our actions. We can't say, "Officer, I didn't mean to kill that person, I just pulled the trigger on this gun." Men do not have a choice after the "trigger is pulled".
It would be nice in the instances where the woman does not want the baby and the man does for the man to pay for every cost associated with the pregnancy and take full responsibility for the child when it is born, but that could bever happen.
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(And given the financial burden that system may place on mothers, I'd want a government support system to make sure such children would not be (too*) deprived.)
*I recognise any government system could not replace having two parents financially contributing to their child's welfare.
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It would be nice in the instances where the woman does not want the baby and the man does for the man to pay for every cost associated with the pregnancy and take full responsibility for the child when it is born, but that could bever happen.
It could with the artificial womb! (Seriously. I think it's a fantastic idea.)
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quote:Scott, I think that child support shouldn't be payable if a father doesn't want a child. But I think that should be done with a full waiver of any rights to, or access to that child.
In my mind, this comes dangerously close to commoditizing children - as if support is really the price of admission to child access rather than a moral obligation to care for one's offspring.
A mother who deprives the father of access to his child (barring circumstances such as abuse) is depriving her child of something that child has a right to - it is a violation committed against the child.
Similarly, a father who denies support to his child is committing a violation against the child. If he denies his presence to his child, he is likewise depriving his child of something that child has a right to.
Justifying lack of support based on lack of paternal access (regardless of whether the lack of access is desired by the mother, father, or both) is justifying one wrongful deprivation with another.
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I think Dagonee's take on the child support issue is the correct one.
Euripides, Imogen:
To me, it seems like despite your reservations, you're advocating that the situation remain at status quo. That is, the father gets no rights at all.
Do you think that having only legal responsibilities and no (or tenuous) legal rights fosters a good culture of fatherhood?
EDIT: Ooops-- that last bit was a little leading. Rather, what effects do you think assigning responsibility to fathers without allowing them legal rights has on fatherhood?
This question is asked with the (mis?)understanding that court decisions in custody cases overwhelmingly favor mothers.
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But (unlike you, I know) I also think abortion should be legal.
So in my mindset, while I firmly believe a woman (mother) should have the ultimate right to decide whether to carry a pregnancy, I also think (and maybe offset that unilateral decision) with a man's (father's) rights to financially "opt out", so to speak.
But, as I posted in my (late) addition, I think such system would have to be supported by the government (I have no problem with this).
Reading your post, and thinking about it, I'd tweak my earlier statement to be a waiver of rights, but not access.
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Regardless of a double standard, it is SO easy to NOT get a woman pregnant that I have no pity on any man that doesn't want to pay child support because he wanted an abortion.
Being opposed to abortion outside of rape/incest myself, I would support any law giving the man some say in the matter of preventing it.
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quote: Do you think that having only legal responsibilities and no (or tenuous) legal rights fosters a good culture of fatherhood?
No.
Secondly, the things I said only applied to your question where a father wanted an abortion and the mother didn't agree.
I think where a father is wanting the baby (and so hasn't "opted out") I think there should probably be joint custody as norm, and if not, very, very generous access (I also think fathers should be awarded sole custody more than they are). I think fathers should have a right to say where their kids live (to a point, if they live with their mothers on non-joint access), and where they go to school.
And I agree with you, I think fathers should be brought back into their children's lives.
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Dagonee: First, there may be a moral obligation to care for one's offspring, but I do not see how it follows that such support is a "right", and denial of such or access to a parent, a violation.
At least in Canada (although it differs a bit by province, I think BC has them open by default but either party can veto that, Ontario's are closed), a child can anonymously be given up for adoption at birth and the records sealed.
Thus, there does exist a system that does deprive a child of access to its parents and also deprives a child of support from both parents when both parents desire a lack of access.
Would you deem this system to also be a violation of a child's rights?
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What can be done to better support fatherhood, without changing the current legal system?
To be honest, I have no idea; and perhaps I shouldn't have jumped into the thread so readily, since this is that topic you wanted to explore. I agree with you that the presence of the father outside of disciplinary roles is being devalued, and that it should be recovered.
It's just that in the immediate term, the mother has to bear the life-altering consequences of the decision, and the future might still be up in the air. Despite laws on alimony, it still seems to be easier for the father to evade the responsibilities associated with parenthood than it is for the mother.
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quote:Dagonee: First, there may be a moral obligation to care for one's offspring, but I do not see how it follows that such support is a "right", and denial of such or access to a parent, a violation.
There are many rights that are not legally enforceable. If a moral obligation exists, then the person to whom that obligation exists has a corresponding right. Whether that right should be enforced at law is an entirely different question from whether that right exists - the latter is merely a necessary condition to even asking the former.
quote:At least in Canada (although it differs a bit by province, I think BC has them open by default but either party can veto that, Ontario's are closed), a child can anonymously be given up for adoption at birth and the records sealed.
Thus, there does exist a system that does deprive a child of access to its parents and also deprives a child of support from both parents when both parents desire a lack of access.
Without giving my thoughts on such a system in particular, the existence of such a system does not mean that either the right must not exist or that the system must violate the right. There are other alternatives.
There are many situations where competing rights result in compromises between them, especially when we move into the realm of legal enforcement of rights. This is true when the rights at issue belong to the same person or belong to different people. We typically do not call such compromises "violations." For example, there is no right to commit libel. We don't consider libel laws to be a violation of free speech, even though, strictly speaking, they limit what is allowed to be said.
Even if such a system is a violation of the child's right, the existence of a system that tries to find a suitable response to a violation of another's rights does not mean the right does not exist. It means that the right cannot be achieved perfectly in this imperfect world.
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The child is still being supported, Mucus, which is what Dagonee's first point speaks to.
The child has a right to receive support, primarily from the biological parents, and barring will or ability, from society (acting through the government).
Virginia has a similar program, I believe.
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Dag, what do you mean when you say "right"?
I take you as pretty much the expert on US law ( ), but I wonder when you start to talk about Canadian law. (ie - "Without giving my thoughts on such a system in particular, the existence of such a system does not mean that either the right must not exist or that the system must violate the right. There are other alternatives.") what you mean by "rights".
Do you mean rights in the US? Rights in Canada? Human rights? Natural law rights? Rights at international law?
I would respond to your argument differently depending which one you mean.
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Specifically, I mean the concept embodied here: "If a moral obligation exists, then the person to whom that obligation exists has a corresponding right. Whether that right should be enforced at law is an entirely different question from whether that right exists - the latter is merely a necessary condition to even asking the former."
A moral obligation is something someone "ought" to do such that someone who fails to do it may be considered to be acting immorally. This is contrasted with acts which we consider to be moral goods but which failure to do carries no moral blame. For example, taking extreme risks to one's life to save another is generally not a moral obligation. If I refuse to charge a bear to save you from that bear, I have not committed a moral wrong (assuming I wasn't responsible for the bear and you being in contact). But I think most people would regard it as a morally good act if I did so. They simply would not assign moral blame if I did not.
If I were strictly speaking of the law, then right would have no meaning absent a means of enforcement. But I'm not - the law protects moral rights imperfectly, and sometimes not at all, and this is perfectly proper. But it does mean that the existence of a legal scheme that does not enforce the right is not evidence that the right does not exist.
At the same time, when commenting on a proposed legal construct such as a way for a father to opt out of child support if a women chooses not to abort, it is necessary to see if the construct has a negative effect on the vindication of existing moral rights.
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quote:Originally posted by imogen: Dag, what do you mean when you say "right"? .. Do you mean rights in the US? Rights in Canada? Human rights? Natural law rights? Rights at international law?
I would respond to your argument differently depending which one you mean.
*geeky law groupie fangirl squeal
I love it when you guys talk like this. Love it.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: There are many situations where competing rights result in compromises between them, especially when we move into the realm of legal enforcement of rights. This is true when the rights at issue belong to the same person or belong to different people. We typically do not call such compromises "violations."
For the first point, fair enough. However, this would mean that if fathers did have rights akin to those proposed in this thread, your assertion that denial of support by a father would be a violation, would no longer be the case. It would just be another compromise. Similarly for access.
The other issue though is that closed adoption does bring up an issue of consistency. Both parents can (if they agree) give up the child for adoption with no obligation for financial support or access. It seems odd that one parent cannot give up either, but that the couple acting together can. The intuitive counter argument is that any decision affecting the child in such a fundamental manner must be made by both parties. However, in the current system, a mother can in fact make such a decision on her own with no agreement by the father, abortion. So such an argument cannot hold in such a system, individual parents can in fact make such decisions without a veto from the other parent.
Thus while I'm aware that you're not in favour of a system with abortion, it would seem that given a system with abortion, that it would be hypocritical and inconsistent to deny a father to choose what level of involvement he has with his child's life. Afterall, if a mother can deny the child to its right to life, a father giving up his obligation for support and access seems mild by comparison.
Scott R: Not relevant. When both parents give up a child for adoption, they both are not under any financial obligation to support that child, the state now steps up. One could argue that if only one parent gives up the child, the state should step up to "halfway" rather than enforcing support by the unwilling parent. The issue here is not even the child's rights. When comparing adoption and a father denying support, the child (and its rights) do not change. What changes is whether the mother wants to keep the child, the father's rights is dependent on the mother's decision. This does not seem consistent to me.
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quote:However, this would mean that if fathers did have rights akin to those proposed in this thread, your assertion that denial of support by a father would be a violation, would no longer be the case. It would just be another compromise. Similarly for access.
This applies what I said inaccurately in two ways:
1) Denial of support by a father is not a legal compromise - it's a decision by the father to not perform a moral obligation. The legal system in these situations is acting to choose the best alternative in situations where two rights are incompatible or where a party refuses to perform a moral obligation. It is trying to find the best way to handle a situation which has either left the moral rails or in which the moral rails require a third party to pull the switch and choose which track should be used.
2) I was not speaking of just any compromise, but rather compromises between "competing rights." I don't recognize a moral right of the father to refuse to pay support, therefore the compromise is a compromise between a moral obligation and a father's wishes - not a compromise between competing rights.
quote:Thus while I'm aware that you're not in favour of a system with abortion, it would seem that given a system with abortion, that it would be hypocritical and inconsistent to deny a father to choose what level of involvement he has with his child's life. Afterall, if a mother can deny the child to its right to life, a father giving up his obligation for support and access seems mild by comparison.
So does spray-painting someone's window, but I don't think we should get rid of anti-vandalism laws until abortion is banned.
Any hypocrisy in the system exists (from my perspective) because one right is not protected sufficiently. The relative mildness of the harm done by violating the moral obligation of support is not justification for allowing that harm.
Moreover, this underscores one of the reasons why I think it is important to make abortion illegal in almost all cases - because by its very nature it devalues the moral obligations that come into existence at the moment of conception.
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1) I think you missed the "if" clause in my statement. "If fathers did have rights akin to those proposed..." denial of support *would* be a legal compromise. The incompatible rights in play here, is that the father wished an abortion, this would violate a woman's right to decide what goes on in her body, the pregnancy proceeds, the compromise is that the father should be able to decide his level of involvement. This is the closest compromise that preserves equal rights between the sexes. After all, the mother did have the right to decide her level of involvement all the way from non-existence to full involvement.
2) I think this follows from the first point, you missed the if clause.
3) I'm not sure how the spray-painting applies, no one is proposing a right to vandalism AFAIK, so what compromise is this?
In any case, I don't think that abortion should be banned, so as I said before both parties should have as close to equal rights as possible when it comes to the child.
I do not recognize a moral obligation to a handful of cells at the moment of conception.
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So how do you change the seemingly undermining of fatherhood by society? It seems to me that there is little positive support for fathers in general. Is fatherhood a good thing that we should be encouraging?
I can think of several children's cartoons where the fathers are stupid, bumbling dunderheads. What kind of message are we sending our sons about being fathers?
Just like any issue there isn't one cause or one fix. But anytime a man wants to step up and be a good father we should support that. If a couple screwed around and got pregnant and the man wants to be a father he should have rights to do so, even if the mother doesn't want to be a mother. Barring any heinous behavior the father should be allowed to have his child.
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The problem I see with requiring that fathers consent to abortion, much as I would like to see it, is how in the world do you prove that's his child the woman is carrying? In other words, if she doesn't want the child, but needs the father's consent to abort and knows he won't give it, there is nothing to stop her getting a buddy of hers who is NOT the father to say he is just for the purposes of obtaining an abortion. The real father may never know.
I think obtaining consent of both parents (or both participants in conception, if you will) is a fine idea in principle but impossible to carry out practically.
Now once the child is born, I do fully agree the father is responsible for some of the child's support, whether or not he wanted the child or wanted the mother to carry it to term. Then, of course, DNA testing can be done to establish paternity and if the child is biologically his, he should be responsible for support.
And I have a question, which Dag or someone may know. Does child support end at 18 in all states? I was just wondering if a father (or mother, whoever is not the primary caregiver) has a responsibility to help pay for a college education.
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: And I have a question, which Dag or someone may know. Does child support end at 18 in all states? I was just wondering if a father (or mother, whoever is not the primary caregiver) has a responsibility to help pay for a college education.
Not a legal responsibility, no. As long as married parents aren't required by law to pay for college expenses, unmarried parents cannot be required to.
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Thanks, maui babe, I didn't think so. I only asked because a close friend is signing her divorce papers tomorrow, and she's very stressed about continuing to pay for her son's education. I think it's sad this guy is not only walking out, but abandoning a commitment he made to help his son through college. That makes him a jerk, I guess but not one who can be compelled to hand over the money.
Though, if we don't require parents to pay for college, then financial aid apps shouldn't include parental income as a factor. Since, after all, parents don't HAVE to use their money to help their kids pay for college. Why deny a kid help based on parental income? (sorry - tangent - feel free to ignore)
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I can only speak to Virginia (we learned it for the bar exam), and there is no obligation for child support after 18. However, a separation agreement with such an obligation could be enforceable against the promising parent.
There is a recent case in Maryland about a disabled adult who is seeking support from his father. Under Maryland law, parents are required to support disabled adults in some situations. In this case, the mother had such an obligation. She died, and her son sought payments from the father. But a Maryland statute of limitations made it impossible to force DNA testing. I am definitely fuzzy on details and have no idea how the case is going.
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Without getting into my disagreement with dagonee on the merits of abortion, I completely agree with him that child support, and abortion, are completely seperate issues.
Abortion is about the rights of a woman to control her body, and the rights of the unborn to life.
Child support is about the parental responsibility to care for a dependent person.
THe one isn't connected to the other.
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I couldn't help but think this wouldn't matter if people either didn't have premarital sex, or had responsible protected premarital sex.
I am suprised no one has mentioned that yet.
Women that don't want to have a baby: don't have unprotected sex. Or wait until you're married.
Men that want to have the baby: Get married and start a family.
There is far too many broken families and one parent families and fatherless children as it is. And that is hurting our children and destroying the family structure. If we left the child rearing to married people we wouldn't have issues like fathers rights to an unborn child.
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I really don't know what I had in mind for fairness when I requested such a discussion, but right now, men really have no say in the direction a pregnancy takes and the aftermath, women have all the control, and I don't think that's fair.
When women want to abort a pregnancy and men don't, the women win.
When men want to abort a pregnancy and women don't, the women win.
And in both circumstances, men's emotional and financial well being are subject to the ultimate and total control of women. I don't necessarily know what the answer is, but at the same time, I know that men should have a say, and by have a say, I mean some sort of legal standing beyond just being able to voice their opinion and cower in fear of what the woman decides to do.
Generally I think men and women should figure this stuff out ahead of time with birth control, and then never have to deal with these problems, but we live in an imperfect world where people make mistakes all the time, and people change their minds. Right now, the only minds that can be changed are the ones with all the rights, and they are the women. Men are just along for the ride. As was said before it's not fair to kids that men are considered second when it comes to parenting. They should be integral equal partners, that includes equal say in decisions, as well as equal responsibilities in child rearing.
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Scott R said: " AND be financially saddled to pay for children he isn't allowed access to."
This isn't true. If a parent pays child support he/she is entitled to visitation. It is part of the child support order. They cannot legally be denied visitation even if they're not paying it and they're supposed to be (now I wouldn't bring it up if I were them, but technically...). The exception lies if the mother can prove abuse, drug use, gang involvement, etc. and even then the father can usually get supervised visitiation.
If a father does not want to be "saddled" with child support for a child that he wanted to be aborted, he can waive all parental rights and not have to pay child support. Of course he also will not have any rights to the child, but if that's what he wants, he does have that option.
I'm aware that this may not true in every state. I only know paternity and child support laws in Texas, but I'm very aware of the ones here as I work with the Attorney General's office.
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quote:Originally posted by Coccinelle: Scott R said: " AND be financially saddled to pay for children he isn't allowed access to."
This isn't true. If a parent pays child support he/she is entitled to visitation. It is part of the child support order. They cannot legally be denied visitation even if they're not paying it and they're supposed to be (now I wouldn't bring it up if I were them, but technically...). The exception lies if the mother can prove abuse, drug use, gang involvement, etc. and even then the father can usually get supervised visitiation.
If a father does not want to be "saddled" with child support for a child that he wanted to be aborted, he can waive all parental rights and not have to pay child support. Of course he also will not have any rights to the child, but if that's what he wants, he does have that option.
I'm aware that this may not true in every state. I only know paternity and child support laws in Texas, but I'm very aware of the ones here as I work with the Attorney General's office.
And I know how impossible they are to enforce. Effectively, the woman almost always has the control over the child. There has been some headway in the past 10 years, but not as much as is needed.
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I feel like I've heard of too many relationship horror stories to condone the father having some kind of stong say about a pregnancy. I can too easily imagine such power being used abusively. The stakes for the father prior to childbirth simply aren't as high.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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In a perfect world, couples would discuss pregnancy before they had sex and come to an understanding as to how they would proceed. Back when Chet and I were in high school, we agreed that if I got pregnant we'd get married and raise the baby together. We had a Plan B.
In the real world, not nearly enough people do this. When you factor in the manipulation that can go with pregnancies, I don't see how a legal system can possibly be expected to sort it out. If a woman claimed she was on the pill but didn't take it so she could get pregnant and trap a man, she's pretty much committed fraud. But we let that slide. How could we possiblt prove such a thing? Should he get a free out because he didn't mean to knock her up?
Then there's the women who get pregnant because they want someone to love them unconditionally. She never intended to have the father there in the first place, and he didn't intend to help raise it. But she filled out some paperwork to get aid from the state and they want someone paying them back, so the next thing he knows he's got a court date and a big debt. The State's kind of changing the implict contract the two parents had. Should he get an out because they expected the rest of us to pay for their kid?
The system is broken, but fixing it would be so dependant on motive and our holy DNA testing (which I still don't entirely trust) that I don't see how we can. I think I'd rather see it addressed during sex ed classes. I can just see the gym coach up there looking down at the boys telling them their rights pretty much end after the deed itself. I'm guessing a football analogy would be involved, at least here in the South.
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quote:The stakes for the father prior to childbirth simply aren't as high.
Part of the problem is that this is a lie. The stakes are not quite as high for a father only because he isn't pregnant himself. The problem with this lie is that it seperates the father of the child from the child before the child is even in the world. This lie is part of the culture of anti-fatherhood that exists today.
The father has an enormous stake in this, because it's his child. The attitude expressed in the quote downplays and degrades that role (unintentionally, I imagine).
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:I think you missed the "if" clause in my statement. "If fathers did have rights akin to those proposed..." denial of support *would* be a legal compromise. The incompatible rights in play here, is that the father wished an abortion, this would violate a woman's right to decide what goes on in her body, the pregnancy proceeds, the compromise is that the father should be able to decide his level of involvement.
I didn't miss the "if" at all. Even if someone creates the legal rights being proposed by some here, the moral right would not exist. The moral right of the father to decide his level of involvement exists up until the moment the child exists. Barring some very unusual circumstances, all of which involve a gross violation of the man's bodily integrity, a man can absolutely guarantee he is not fathering an unwanted child.
quote:This is the closest compromise that preserves equal rights between the sexes. After all, the mother did have the right to decide her level of involvement all the way from non-existence to full involvement.
This is an equal "right" to morally wrong another. Which is exactly what my vandalism analogy was meant to convey. The fact that we allow one set of people to commit a wrong is not justification to allow someone else to commit another wrong.
quote:In any case, I don't think that abortion should be banned, so as I said before both parties should have as close to equal rights as possible when it comes to the child.
Even if one doesn't consider abortion to be a wrong, the fact that one parent has a chance to avoid moral obligation to the child later in the process does not mean we need to provide that same chance to the other parent. Biology has created a difference between the sexes in how children are borne and born. Even allowing the opt-out-if-no-abortion option wouldn't make things equal - the mother, to exercise either choice, must bear enormous physical consequences. The father only has to sign a paper. Why is that equal?
quote:I do not recognize a moral obligation to a handful of cells at the moment of conception.
The father would be shirking his duty to a baby outside the womb, not a handful of cells.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by stihl1: If we left the child rearing to married people we wouldn't have issues like fathers rights to an unborn child.
If I recall correctly, the landmark civil cases in this area have been between married (or soon to be unmarried) persons, or the families of deceased married persons and the surviving spouse.
quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: If a woman claimed she was on the pill but didn't take it so she could get pregnant and trap a man, she's pretty much committed fraud. But we let that slide. How could we possiblt prove such a thing? Should he get a free out because he didn't mean to knock her up?
The problem I have with this is that it seems to put the onus of birth control solely on the woman. If a man *absolutely* does not want to become a father, he has options too, that have nothing to do with trusting someone else (his sex partner) to make sure that she's current on her BCP. Saying that a woman who "gets herself pregnant" (and yes, I know I'm taking liberties here... I know you didn't use that terminology) has committed fraud completely gives the man a free pass. It's as much his responsibility as it is hers.
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quote:If I recall correctly, the landmark civil cases in this area have been between married (or soon to be unmarried) persons, or the families of deceased married persons and the surviving spouse.
It depends on what you mean by "in this area." The most famous I can think of is the embryo custody case, which was between a divorcing couple. It's the only case I'm aware of (and my awareness is limited, so don't take that as commentary on the existence of others) in which a man's right not to be a father was recognized. It was, IIRC, a state court interpreting the federal constitution. It acknowledged that there might be cases where a woman's right to procreate might outweigh the father's right not to. For instance, if she were sterile.
(* I see you added a link to the case - glad to know my memory hasn't failed me. *)
On the adoption front and custody of yet-to-be-born children (man suing for custody or acknowledgment of paternity, etc.), the leading cases (based solely on appearance in my case book for family law, which is a decent but not infallible method) deal with unmarried parents.
It's clear, though, that marriage in and of itself is not sufficient to avoid these kinds of knife-balancing legal decisions, which I took as your larger point.
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But in that case the man has only a near 0% expectation of creating a child, so it isn't his fault; if she lies, how is he to know?
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I agree, scott. But you called a statement a lie, and then said its true in the very next sentence.
The stakes simply aren't as high for the father as for the mother. A pregnancy can kill a woman. The father faces no such risk. And you acknowledge that, by saying that by virtue of being pregnant the father has less at stake prior to childbirth.
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In America, almost all pregnancies do not end in the death of the mother. In America, most of the risks and many of the discomforts of pregancy have been mitigated by advanced medicine and a burgeoning culture of support for pregnant mothers.
So when you talk about risk to American mothers, realize it's significantly small.
In terms of investment in the unborn child-- the stakes that this thread is about, after all-- the father has as much as the mother. Or *should* have, if our culture would allow it.
Saying that the father should get no say over the fate of his unborn child is fine-- but I need larger reasons than the boogeyman of abuse (most men are not abusive) and the ludicrous idea that the mother has more invested in the child than the father.
I recognize that pregnancy is a factor in a woman's emotional leanings toward her baby. But it does not preempt a man's rights, nor does it usurp his place as a father.
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), but I wonder when you start to talk about Canadian law. (ie - "Without giving my thoughts on such a system in particular, the existence of such a system does not mean that either the right must not exist or that the system must violate the right. There are other alternatives.") what you mean by "rights".
