quote:Why would it necessarily change the debate? What if the transfer procedure were as dangerous as childbirth? Wouldn't that still justify retaining abortion as a safe alternative for ending a pregnancy?
Right now, once a woman becomes pregnant the life of the child is inseparably connected to her until it is old enough to survive outside the womb. If she can not or will not carry the fetus until it is viable outside the womb, it will die. Those are the only options. Adding a third option would change the debate. It wouldn't automatically make all abortions unjustifiable, but it would certainly change the issues substantially.
I still don't see how it would change the debate, inasmuch as I understand what is meant by that. I don't understand why the idea that "it's a woman's body, so it should be a woman's choice" would be materially impacted by the availability of a new technology for ending pregnancies (one that had the added result of not ending the life of the fetus in the process).
It would certainly open up new options to a woman, but if the heart of the issue is a woman's autonomy over her own body then I don't see how it would change the debate. If instead the debate were over the appropriate role of government in balancing a woman's autonomy with the negative consequences of her actions on others, then I would agree. But I don't think that that's what the debate is about (at least under the standard pro-choice/pro-life platforms).
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Yeah, the mom having the choice and the dad not having the choice is (at present) an insurmountable problem of biology — as well as her ownership of her body. It's her decision whether to carry a baby to term in her body.
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Unfortunately this causes 'some' women to go out-of-their-way to have babies for child support even when the men tell them from the beginning that they didn't want kids. This reminds me of a case in the northeast where this actually happened.
The woman got the man drunk and seduced him. Of course she got pregnant and now collects child support from him. He went to court to try and fight it... failed.
It also reminds me (on a more personal note) of a woman I used to work with while I was younger. I remember she had 6 kids from all different men.
It is problems like this that make me (as a man) cringe at the thought that we have no rights or any means to protect ourselves in these extreme circumstances.
Of course you also have your dregs who just want out of child support... just like you have women who write random names of men down on the birth certificates. My father was one of these men. Of course after going to court he found out that the woman's stepfather was the actual father of the baby... but still, these things do happen.
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quote:This has layers of complications that may be surprising. For example, most women do not know they are pregnant before the zygote implants. The type of hormone in the bloodstream or urine that is assessed in a pregnancy test takes time to be made, and certain things (like implantation) have to happen first.
One could reasonably argue that the woman isn't pregnant until the zygote implants. There isn't any signal that lets the woman's body know that the egg has been fertilized until it implants.
I don't imagine that catching the zygote before it implants and transferring it to another host would ever become a viable alternative to abortion. Even if we had technology to reliably locate and capture a zygote before it implanted, we'd need a reason to go looking for them in the first place. Short of scanning every sexually active woman for zygotes during the week after ovulation, I don't see how this might work.
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Unless the scanner was built into your matress and would alert you if it detected it even as you lay down sleeping.
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I don't see why men who don't want kids can't do the same thing women have been told for centuries- don't want kids, don't have sex. Take some responsibility for your actions. Or go to India and get yourself that experimental male birth control (it is in phase 3 trials I believe).
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quote:It would certainly open up new options to a woman, but if the heart of the issue is a woman's autonomy over her own body then I don't see how it would change the debate.
That may be the heart of the issue to the pro-choice camp. It is certainly not the heart of the issue for the pro-life camp.
quote:If instead the debate were over the appropriate role of government in balancing a woman's autonomy with the negative consequences of her actions on others, then I would agree.
This has been the center of every abortion debate I've ever participated in.
quote:But I don't think that that's what the debate is about (at least under the standard pro-choice/pro-life platforms).
I don't know what you consider the standard pro-choice/pro-life platforms. There is an entire spectrum out there ranging for the hard core Catholics who think its better for the Mother to die than to abort her child to those who think unfit mothers should be required to have an abortion. In my experience, most everyone falls somewhere in the middle where abortion is some times morally acceptable and sometime not.
I think the core debate is over the appropriate balance between a woman's right to autonomy and the fetus' right to life.
Right now, it is impossible to separate the two issues. A technology that made it possible for the woman to transfer the fetus to another person, with no greater risk than having an abortion, would change the equation for the vast majority of people in that middle ground.
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It's not that hard to get the gender you want (although not foolproof 100% either) by simply using the technique of timing sex and ovulation. And the best part is, you can have a son without expensive, time consuming, inconvenient, morally evil unnecessary abortions!
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quote:It is problems like this that make me (as a man) cringe at the thought that we have no rights or any means to protect ourselves in these extreme circumstances.
Don't be ridiculous. You can choose not to have unprotected sex with women who would pull that kind of crap. You can choose not to have any sex with women you don't trust. It's pretty simple. The number of cases where men were tricked into impregnating a woman and then forced to pay child support are rare enough that they still make the news. This really isn't a serious problem.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I think the core debate is over the appropriate balance between a woman's right to autonomy and the fetus' right to life.
Right now, it is impossible to separate the two issues. A technology that made it possible for the woman to transfer the fetus to another person, with no greater risk than having an abortion, would change the equation for the vast majority of people in that middle ground.
quote:It is problems like this that make me (as a man) cringe at the thought that we have no rights or any means to protect ourselves in these extreme circumstances.
Don't have sex with women who would pull that kind of crap. It's pretty simple.
You mean, don't trust scamming, premeditated liars? Oh, that's easy.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: It's not that hard to get the gender you want (although not foolproof 100% either) by simply using the technique of timing sex and ovulation. And the best part is, you can have a son without expensive, time consuming, inconvenient, morally evil unnecessary abortions!
Sex selection techniques that are at all reliable are very expensive. Timing sex with ovulation is barely better than random.
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@Rabbit - If you saw my first scenario I wrote I said the man was drunk and seduced. The man said he did not want kids when he first met the woman. It was her intention to have the baby regardless of what he wanted. After quite a few drinks it would be pretty simple for a woman to achieve this outcome.
If a man does this to the woman and the woman gets pregnant she can just have an abortion. if this happens to a man by the woman, however, well... tough luck.
That is what I am talking about.
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Rabbit...you may be right, I don't know the stats...it worked 100% for me and my wife, but that is hardly indicative of a wide based study.
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quote:Originally posted by KirKis: @Rabbit - If you saw my first scenario I wrote I said the man was drunk and seduced. The man said he did not want kids when he first met the woman. It was her intention to have the baby regardless of what he wanted. After quite a few drinks it would be pretty simple for a woman to achieve this outcome.
Do you have a link to a legal brief or court decision from the case? I'll be blunt: I don't believe it happened. I'll be happy to retract that given evidence.
(Also, I quibble with your latter point; while pregnancy is certainly a possible outcome to any sexual encounter, it's not in fact "pretty simple" to ensure. Ask any married couple that's been "trying" for months.)
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To be clear, don't think the case of women getting impregnated intentionally against the wishes of the father with the goal of collecting child support is a widespread enough problem to be a serious concern. I just don't think "don't trust liars" is a good answer.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Rabbit...you may be right, I don't know the stats...it worked 100% for me and my wife, but that is hardly indicative of a wide based study.
You have two children, one girl and one boy. The chances of that happening randomly are roughly 50/50 so its impossible to say whether timing with ovulation worked, or you got lucky.
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@ambyr- Sure I can look for a link when I have the time. I remember I was working at the Pentagon, taking a break, when I came across the article. I tried to generalize it as much as possible since I don't remember the details. I remember he made a big fuss over it and it turns out there is an organization for men rights with regards to abortion.
You can quibble all you wish. My first wife (when I was 18) told me she couldn't get pregnant. She told me a doctor said her tubes were too narrow so she couldn't have a baby. She also told me (on our wedding night) that we had to "consumate" our marriage by not wearing a condom. Of course we did... and she got pregnant. (was the only time we had sex without condom btw) 1 month after the baby was born... She left me and took the baby. I had to fight hard to get rights to my baby.
Yes I was 18, and stupid. I trusted in what she told me because I didn't know better. Now I get to see my baby once a month and 1 week in the summer (next week actually yay!) but it took years to get to this point.
There are many other men out there in a similiar situation that I can share with you if you want proof that this actually happens... More than you think, too.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: To be clear, don't think the case of women getting impregnated intentionally against the wishes of the father with the goal of collecting child support is a widespread enough problem to be a serious concern. I just don't think "don't trust liars" is a good answer.
I agree with this (both points).
Also, since no one's said it yet: the point of child support is to provide for the child, not for the custodial parent. Is this abused sometimes? Yes. Is the solution in those cases to deny support to the child? No, it's to prosecute the custodial parent for misusing the child support.
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Silly Rabbit, (I've been waiting to say that), we wanted a boy first and a girl second, we tried for a boy, and got a boy, we tried for a girl and got a girl, I know that's not a lot of data, but it is hardly inconclusive either.
As to this...
quote:You have two children, one girl and one boy.
Thanks for reminding me, I had forgotten. Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: To be clear, don't think the case of women getting impregnated intentionally against the wishes of the father with the goal of collecting child support is a widespread enough problem to be a serious concern.
When would you consider it a widespread enough problem to be a serious concern? When it is on the news often? When all your friends are going through it? When they make a sitcom about it?
Are there statistics that show how much of the population is going through this?
This sort of thing shouldn't be happening at all. Isn't there something that can be put in place to protect people going through this?
Lives are ruined due to this sort of thing. Don't believe me? I have proof of what something like this can do to a person. I can share with you if you'd like.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: Silly Rabbit, (I've been waiting to say that), we wanted a boy first and a girl second, we tried for a boy, and got a boy, we tried for a girl and got a girl, I know that's not a lot of data, but it is hardly inconclusive either.
As to this...
quote:You have two children, one girl and one boy.
Thanks for reminding me, I had forgotten.
It's totally inconclusive. You had a 50% chance of having a boy first. If you'd had a girl first, you wouldn't have been trying for a girl the second time so the two aren't statistically independent.
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quote:Originally posted by KirKis: This sort of thing shouldn't be happening at all. Isn't there something that can be put in place to protect people going through this?
The laws to protect them are already in place; the men can prosecute the women for rape.
And yes, America's culture makes successful rape prosecution difficult. There's a tendency to blame the victim. There's a tendency to deny that having sex with someone who's too drunk to consent is rape. Reversing those attitudes is going to be difficult and painful and time-consuming, but it doesn't require focusing on men's rights; it requires focusing on human rights, and understanding that the end result will help both men and women.
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@ambyr - When I said *this* I didn't mean the rape. That, anyone can understand... I meant the fact that she IS pregnant. The courts can't force her to abort (nor would I want them to). The man might have been raped but the woman now carries his child.
There is nothing to protect him from this. He is now a father whether he wanted to or not.
quote:Originally posted by KirKis: @ambyr - When I said *this* I didn't mean the rape. That, anyone can understand... I meant the fact that she IS pregnant. The courts can't force her to abort (nor would I want them to). The man might have been raped but the woman now carries his child.
There is nothing to protect him from this. He is now a father whether he wanted to or not.
I thought you meant having her misuse the child support to support herself, rather than the child--in which case, her being jailed and without custody would seem to take care of things.
There is nothing to protect him from being a father, no. Trying to solve that through law is like trying to declare pi 3.
As far as the article you linked goes, sorry, in that case I'm with scholarette. In your initial example the man was raped; in this example the man consented to have sex. They're not comparable.
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KirKis...there are outlets in the law for trying to get custody of your children (I know you know that) and I agree with ambyr about the solution...seek prosecution of the mother. As to when will it be a big enough problem? I don't know, this is an issue you are bringing into the discussion, why not try and bring some stats too?
quote:Originally posted by KirKis: This sort of thing shouldn't be happening at all. Isn't there something that can be put in place to protect people going through this?
The laws to protect them are already in place; the men can prosecute the women for rape.
Except what Kirkis described is not rape. He was OK to have sex, he just wasn't OK to have a baby. But the fact is, babies can be a consequence to any heterosexual sex, protected or not, with persons supposed to be barren or not. The odds change, sure, but it can almost always happen.
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quote:Feit argues that within a short window of time after discovering an unplanned pregnancy — he has proposed a month, but thinks a week might even be more appropriate — a man should have the right to terminate his legal and financial obligations to the child. "I'm not talking about fathers opting out of obligations that they've committed to," Feit says. "I mean early in pregnancy, if contraception failed, men should have a choice, and women have a right to know what that choice is as they decide how to proceed."
From the article that Kirkis posted.
I disagree with this...Anna said it well:
quote:He was OK to have sex, he just wasn't OK to have a baby. But the fact is, babies can be a consequence to any heterosexual sex, protected or not, with persons supposed to be barren or not. The odds change, sure, but it can almost always happen.
"But I don' wanna" is not good enough reason to be able to relinquish your responsibilities.
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quote:Originally posted by Anna: Except what Kirkis described is not rape. He was OK to have sex, he just wasn't OK to have a baby. But the fact is, babies can be a consequence to any heterosexual sex, protected or not, with persons supposed to be barren or not. The odds change, sure, but it can almost always happen.
KirKis's original example:
quote:Originally posted by KirKis: The woman got the man drunk and seduced him.
is rape. I'm not really interested in arguing this point again; we just went over it a couple weeks ago, at great length.
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@Stone - Trying to get custody is no easy feat. In my situation I could only obtain what I got and this was after years of fighting in the courts and A LOT of money spent. All this because my ex did not want me in my child's life. She had everything until I had to fight it out in court.
Seeking prosecution... thats all we are able to do. Sure the woman might go to jail. The woman is still pregnant and you still become a father against your will. You have to live your life knowing that you have a child out there. I just don't know how they can live like that... if it were me i'd feel obligated and want some form of custody... then again I wasn't opposed to having a child so I have no idea how it must feel to have one against my will.
I don't have stats on this. Until this discussion I really had no reason to look up the stats. I'm sure that organization I linked earlier might have some of those answers. All I can bring to this discussion is my own personal experiences, experiences of people I know, and articles that I read years ago.
EDIT:
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: "But I don' wanna" is not good enough reason to be able to relinquish your responsibilities.
Jeez let me finish typing will ya?! lol...
I agree with this!!
EDIT EDIT: Sorry, when I posted the link I said that it wasn't related to my previous example. Dregs that try to get out of paying Child Support... I do not support.
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quote:Originally posted by Anna: Except what Kirkis described is not rape. He was OK to have sex, he just wasn't OK to have a baby. But the fact is, babies can be a consequence to any heterosexual sex, protected or not, with persons supposed to be barren or not. The odds change, sure, but it can almost always happen.
KirKis's original example:
quote:Originally posted by KirKis: The woman got the man drunk and seduced him.
is rape. I'm not really interested in arguing this point again; we just went over it a couple weeks ago, at great length.
I was talking about his own case; from what he said, he was willing to have sex with his wife as long as he thought she was barren. The fact that she was not (and lied about it, or not, we'll never know) is irrelevent; that does not make it rape.
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Come on ambyr and Anna, let's get really deep into a rape debate then endlessly repeat ourselves and then we can claim the other person is saying things that they never did and we can get all up in arms about semantics and then make up a scenario where the male is named Bob and then argue about Bob...it'll be fun! Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Ok i'll try to sort this out since I feel like I confused everyone.
I posted my situation with my ex based on Ambyr's post about "Also, I quibble with your latter point; while pregnancy is certainly a possible outcome to any sexual encounter, it's not in fact "pretty simple" to ensure. Ask any married couple that's been "trying" for months."
This was to prove that not everyone has to actually "try" to have a baby. If my ex's whole point was to have my child then she did it pretty easily. She was able to have my child, leave me, then attempt to write me out of being a father. She is one of those crazy ones where she didn't want money, just the baby.
I had to fight in order to actually have fatherly rights. Which was one heck of a fight btw.
Other than my own I gave the example of a man being raped for the baby... as well as the link showing a man who seemingly tries to get out of child support.
What I am proposing is protection for men that are used and abused so a woman can have a baby. Either by women who want the baby just for extra income (in my example of the woman having 6 kids from different men for the income)or by forcing the man to stay with the woman when he would be trying to leave her (I have an example of this too... one of my good friends Andrew).
Of course the most extreme situation would be a man being raped. Though in all these situations there is nothing (besides sending woman to prison) that would prevent the man from fathering a child.
I hope this clears up my point a bit. Sorry about that.
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Thanks, it does help a bit...but what I meant was, what changes to the system do you propose to help men in those situations?
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Financial: Place the child support in a trust for the support of the child and have it be administered by a trustee.
Force a relationship: Men leave women all the time. No law forces a man to stay, and this isn't remedial by law.
If you're looking for some kind of society okay that makes it acceptable for a man to abandon his children, that doesn't sound like it is in the best interest of the child.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Financial: Place the child support in a trust for the support of the child and have it be administered by a trustee.
And where does the money to pay the trustee come from?
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From the person who doesn't trust the mother to spend it on their kid correctly. If someone is insisting on greater oversight, they get to provide the oversight.
If there is an established history of neglect by the mother, then...she shouldn't have custody anyway.
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For the people who said they were barren, well, sometimes a dr will tell you that and be wrong. My mom had a hysterectomy and they were amazed she had carried my siblings and I due to the damage. Three out of four were oops babies that she could tell exactly when she conceived because it was the only time she hadn't used protection. The non oops baby (born in the middle) took 2 years of trying and some fertility treatment. I had surgery and was told that I should assume I would have infertility problems and yet got pregnant right after I went off the pill twice. My sister on the other hand has similar problems and has had miscarriages and years of infertility. As long as there is a chance, even once can be enough. If you really don't want a kid, get snipped. Or again, get on that Indian male birth control trial. Right now, it looks miraculous.
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sorry- when she had a hysterectomy, they couldn't believe she had carried a child because she was so damaged. She had her problems before laproscopies so it wasn't until they opened her up that they saw how bad she was. We were born pre-hysterectomy. Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: sorry- when she had a hysterectomy, they couldn't believe she had carried a child because she was so damaged. She had her problems before laproscopies so it wasn't until they opened her up that they saw how bad she was. We were born pre-hysterectomy.
For a moment I had to question everything I thought I understood about hysterectomies. Your mom sounded like some sort of ultra child bearing machine.
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quote:I don't see why men who don't want kids can't do the same thing women have been told for centuries- don't want kids, don't have sex. Take some responsibility for your actions. Or go to India and get yourself that experimental male birth control (it is in phase 3 trials I believe).
And here I thought I had you pegged as Pro-Choice.
quote:Don't be ridiculous. You can choose not to have unprotected sex with women who would pull that kind of crap. You can choose not to have any sex with women you don't trust. It's pretty simple. The number of cases where men were tricked into impregnating a woman and then forced to pay child support are rare enough that they still make the news. This really isn't a serious problem.
But the whole rape thing isn't really a direct comparison to abortion. Even in consensual sex, the man has no choice.
For a man to have the same rights to their life as a woman, they'd have to be able to stop paying child support for any reason or no reason at all.
I think it's pretty hypocritical that the Pro-Choice crowd (as a whole, not on Hatrack) is so silent on this topic.
quote:"But I don' wanna" is not good enough reason to be able to relinquish your responsibilities.
Word. But in our society, it pretty much is. If we can make it someone else's problem, we will.
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What is so wrong with the "don't have sex if you don't want a baby" mantra??? It's extremely clear cut and very easy to follow! The number of times a man has been tricked into being a father without having consensual is very small. (I believe there have been a couple of women collecting semen after other types of ejaculation, but not many, and the likelihood of that succeeding is tiny.)
It's also why I'm not willing to let the teen mom off the hook when it comes to an abortion. She made the decision to risk her future the minute she made the decision to have sex. She has options to successfully parent her child if she's willing to work hard enough, and she has the option of placing a healthy infant for adoption (as long as she keeps herself healthy during the pregnancy).
I don't have any sympathy for people who end up pregnant when they don't want to be (unless they were raped), because the simple truth is there is no such thing as an accidental pregnancy. There are surprise pregnancies, but that's different. There is always an act of volition involved.
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I hear you tripleD...but the reality of the situation is that if abortion is outlawed, then they will still happen, but instead of a doctor in a clinic, it will be...a non-doctor in a less sterile and health conscious place.
As to a possible single teenage mother vs a married couple seeks a son, I just do not agree that they are both doing the same amount of evil. I can forgive the teen (I was once young and stupid too), but those married couples just disgust me.
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If a man doesn't want children, there is a simple procedure for that -- one that is much cheaper and less invasive than permanent birth control solutions for women.
Then you can go around being a big ol' man-slut to your heart's content, with few consequences.
Biology creates certain inequities. I believe in bodily agency (that is, the right of the individual to decide what to do to/with their own body. Since biology dictates that fetuses are inseparable from their mothers in the beginning... I may not like it, and I may not think it is the moral choice, but abortion is a matter of bodily agency.
If you don't want children, do what you need to do to/with your body to prevent having them. If you do want children and you're a man, it shouldn't be that hard to find someone to commit to raising a child with you, but if you let things get past the point where your own bodily agency can change the outcome... Well, it is what it is.
While I suspect that abortion is rarely the best moral choice, I'm personally against the government making decisions about anyone's bodily agency. (That, and stridently pro-life men (in the sense of legally restricting another person's bodily agency) are creepy. Especially the slutty ones. )
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