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This moved pretty far astray from the original article.
Didn't we just recently hash out this "men should be able to control women" thing a few months ago???
I feel badly for the father in the initial article, but I don't know all the facts of the case. However, given the fact that Utah law is pretty much known to try to hamper single fathers from trying to claim their children from adoptions, I'm not surprised. It's not a new problem. I've known a woman online for years whose son has been fighting with a Utah court for his child... :-( Most states aren't that bad though, and the Utah law is one of the main reasons people want a more federal approach to adoption.
Many states, however, make it pretty easy for a father to claim a child if he makes an honest attempt. As long as you're not going around breeding with random women, you there's usually a good legal system that prevents your child from being adopted out from under you as long as you care enough to be informed and follow the legal process.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I think, ideally, it should be a mutual decision-that is, the mother ought to listen objectively to the father's input and take it into consideration in the event of a disagreement.
But Lyrhawn, consider what it *actually means*, in practice. The father wants his child breastfed, and the mother doesn't. What should happen in that case? Is there some situation where the father should-morally-be able to veto what is done with his wife's breasts?
You're advocating that men should have some right to determine what will be done in a situation no man, anywhere, will have to face.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: The father wants his child breastfed, and the mother doesn't. What should happen in that case?
I suppose that hiring (or otherwise procuring, such as a friend) a wet-nurse is one option. Westerners tend to be horrified by the very notion, but I know women who have breastfed other women's babies (for a short time or a longer one).
I'd be rather wary about hiring a stranger, though. Too many things that don't show up on health screening tests, too hard to be sure what she's eating, drinking, etc.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Um, nowhere have I said that men have a breast veto...?
I was under the impression that rivka meant men should shut up and butt out, and that seemed wrong, because while women might get the final say, that doesn't mean men shouldn't be involved in child rearing decisions like that. All I said was that parents should decide these things together. Seems like everyone agrees with that.
Also, I don't know if you saw my response to you on the previous page, but that was a really interesting study you linked to regarding child support payments, though I think it complicated, rather than concretely supported your position.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: For example, why is bottle/breast feeding a mom-only decision? Isn't that more of a parenthood choice, rather than a motherhood choice?
Biology. Again.
You're missing the point.
And I think you're making an assumption about my position, but then, it's one that apparently EVERYONE here made, so, okay I guess.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Lyrhawn- when I was breastfeeding with WIC, they did offer to meet with my husband to explain all the ways he can support me in breastfeeding and the benefits of doing so. They sent home a packet designed for fathers. Things like that might be kinda what you are looking for
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: For example, why is bottle/breast feeding a mom-only decision? Isn't that more of a parenthood choice, rather than a motherhood choice?
Biology. Again.
You're missing the point.
It's just a straightforward answer to the question. That it should be ideally something decided upon by both parents in the best interest of the child, but that's 'ideally.' if it comes down to him vs. her, it's her breasts.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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So, by having a child, she hasn't engaged in a tacit agreement that her breasts ARE to be used for the sake of the child's determined best interests now that it exists, right?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:So we're just singling out child support paying fathers? If fathers paying child support is the ONLY metric you care about, then I agree, we have a long way to go. I fundamentally disagree, however, that that's all that matters. Your report even said that the number of custodial children in the country is only 26% of all children, so what, the fathers of the other 74% simply don't matter when we're talking about overall job performance? I'm not saying child support isn't important, it is, but it seems like you're really missing the bigger picture.
You're right, we shouldn't only be concerned about child-support paying (or more often not paying, or paying-in-part) fathers. It was just an example of a clear-cut set of statistics that can be looked at. And you're also right, the study (the Census always has such interesting info, don't it?) raises a lot of unexpected points.
quote:There are some other interesting numbers in your study that I wouldn't have guessed. I'm going to read this at length later, but the percentage of deadbeat moms out there appears almost exactly equal as the percentage of deadbeat dads. I would have guessed that mom number was a lot lower. And by the way, if the percentage of those not paying full child support is all that matters, then by your logic, moms suck just as much as dads do.
Such as this one. I wouldn't have expected that either, but the thing is (bearing in mind that my point wasn't 'child-support is the only factor'), the fact that proportionally mothers are just as likely to be deadbeats as fathers is interesting, but doesn't serve as an example of mothers being just as bad as fathers. Because, let's face it, they don't have an opportunity to get into that proportion as often as fathers. That is to say, to be the ones that are going to be paying child support rather than receiving it. Only then do they have a chance to live up or down the expectations.
quote:Well, in my defense, most of this moral framework I'm developing here is a theoretical fantasy, so, I have a much higher burden of responsibility for men than they are currently bearing. I would also suggest that under this system, if a man is demanding that a woman carry a child to term that she doesn't want, then he's likely to be the sole custodian of the child. Short of him giving the baby of for adoption afterward, his role is automatically that of primary caregiver, not a support role, which sort of eliminates the level of slacking he's allowed to achieve.
This is precisely my point, which you appear to be agreeing to: ideally the split should be equal, but currently it isn't. Men aren't bearing an equal burden of the responsibility in this country, or at least certainly not (and I don't see how this can be argued-not that you are) during pregnacy. You can see it in the often default expectation that, in the event of a divorce, the mother will be granted custody. That expectation didn't just occur at random. It occured, I think, because generally that's what we expect of women, at least moreso than of men.
If we're doing all of this extra expecting of women regarding parenting duties in the day-to-day, well, it seems to me reasonable to suggest that women are also bearing a disproportionate amount of the responsibilities. In fact it seems to flow naturally. Obviously it's not the truth in all individual situations. But my point is...we've got a ways to go yet.
At times you seem to even agree with me, acknowledging the changing expectations of male involvement. I'm not entirely clear on what we're disagreeing about. It feels to me - and I'm describing my own perception of the undertones, not claiming you're stating this (also asking for clarification) - that you're expressing resentment that paternal rights are taken less seriously than maternal rights, generally. My response to that is to say that, generally, maternal responsibilities are generally greater and not uncommonly unmet in the event of a split, so this different in rights is not so surprising. Again, I want to be very clear that I'm asking for clarification on your underlying thoughts here-not claiming that's what you're actually saying.
quote:The other way around. Like the rest of you have said, there's nothing men can do about the imbalance, men have to live with their share of the negatives just like women do. One of those negatives is a total loss of control.
It's not a total loss of control. How can it be a 'total' loss of control when, if we move just a few paces to the side, we've got another party who faces an even greater loss of control-over what their bodies will be doing, over their nutrition, over their daily fatigue, potentially even of their lives...and then once that's over with (assuming post-partum depression and similar issues are luckily avoided), they also face that same decade or two committment as the fathers do?
(Also, sorry for missing this response of yours earlier-I didn't mean to skip it.)
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Men in general get a lot of "oh boo hoo" responses when a conversation forms about new ideas of what it means to be a man in the 21st century. Some of that is true, and some of it is nitpicky, like what scholarette mentioned earlier, but look at the decades of feminism studies and look at the paltry offering of masculinity studies. What it means to be a woman in the new era has been discussed and explored a lot more than what it means to be a man. And by extension, what it means to be a mother and a father.
You're an actual professional student of history, so in that light I ask the question: is this really very surprising? This disparity of concern, I mean. Looked at one way, it is unfair, of course-women and men being a near-identical split in population worldwide. But when you look at it another way...well. Women all over the world (it seems to me) get varying amounts of the shaft as a result of their gender. In some places, it's gotten a lot less overt and intentional-places such as the USA-than it was even a generation or two ago, much less in the much longer cultural memory of many generations. In other places it's much worse, of course. So I feel that (overall), women's identity issues get more 'play' because, well, there's more work to be done. Y'know? Farther to go.
I'll never take issue with any dude expressing an interest in wanting to discuss what a man's role should be in the modern world, or lamenting that such concerns are often scorned (and they are). My only beef comes when those complaints are expressed in a way that includes some tone of, "But women's issues..." It strikes me as strange in a similar way as when I've heard of people complain, "Why don't we have a white history month?" I'm not sayin' your thoughts are racist or sexist, Lyrhawn, but that my response is similar: because the majority/privileged gender doesn't need its own month/as much focus on issues as the under-privileged minority/gender.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: ... Westerners tend to be horrified by the very notion, but I know women who have breastfed other women's babies (for a short time or a longer one).
Can you elaborate on how this horror in the West came about actually? (This is from the perspective of knowing very little about the practice, except that I've heard of it surviving overseas and first came across the practice in Victorian history actually)
I mean, I can understand being worried about the quality of the feed, but horror?
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: ... Westerners tend to be horrified by the very notion, but I know women who have breastfed other women's babies (for a short time or a longer one).
Can you elaborate on how this horror in the West came about actually? (This is from the perspective of knowing very little about the practice, except that I've heard of it surviving overseas and first came across the practice in Victorian history actually)
I mean, I can understand being worried about the quality of the feed, but horror?
I blame the formula companies. And I'm not kidding.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:You're right, we shouldn't only be concerned about child-support paying (or more often not paying, or paying-in-part) fathers. It was just an example of a clear-cut set of statistics that can be looked at. And you're also right, the study (the Census always has such interesting info, don't it?) raises a lot of unexpected points.
According to the study, while only a third of fathers made all their payments, 64.7% of all child support due to mothers was received. This would suggest that a lot of those dads who weren't totally up to date on their payments were still doing pretty well, though not as well as we'd like. That's still too low a number, but it suggests that, unlike your characterization, more often than not, payments do get made.
Looking at the data regarding child support questions does raise larger issues about the quantifiability of child rearing in general. I've read polling data that suggests that fathers are more involved in their children's lives than at any point in history, but I haven't read any actual published studies on the subject.
quote:Because, let's face it, they don't have an opportunity to get into that proportion as often as fathers. That is to say, to be the ones that are going to be paying child support rather than receiving it. Only then do they have a chance to live up or down the expectations.
Can you elaborate on this? To what degree does that make them less likely to be "deadbeats?" Because they want sole custody more often than men? I'm betting that's true, though I'd also like to see data on how often men are denied sole custody. It's no secret that the courts favor mothers over fathers. I'm still betting moms want the kids more often than dads, but I'm wondering if that's your argument here. (I'm not saying I totally disagree with it, either).
quote:It's not a total loss of control. How can it be a 'total' loss of control when, if we move just a few paces to the side, we've got another party who faces an even greater loss of control-over what their bodies will be doing, over their nutrition, over their daily fatigue, potentially even of their lives...and then once that's over with (assuming post-partum depression and similar issues are luckily avoided), they also face that same decade or two committment as the fathers do?
Well, it's a binary state though, isn't it? Both sides can't have control, so if one does, then the other doesn't. You're arguing that for one party, the loss of control is greater, but that doesn't make the loss of control for men and less a loss of control. Regardless, as I've said, I accept that.
I'm not ignoring your third section there where you ask for clarification. Let me think about it for a day and get back to you.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Men in general get a lot of "oh boo hoo" responses when a conversation forms about new ideas of what it means to be a man in the 21st century. Some of that is true, and some of it is nitpicky, like what scholarette mentioned earlier, but look at the decades of feminism studies and look at the paltry offering of masculinity studies. What it means to be a woman in the new era has been discussed and explored a lot more than what it means to be a man. And by extension, what it means to be a mother and a father.
You're an actual professional student of history, so in that light I ask the question: is this really very surprising? This disparity of concern, I mean. Looked at one way, it is unfair, of course-women and men being a near-identical split in population worldwide. But when you look at it another way...well. Women all over the world (it seems to me) get varying amounts of the shaft as a result of their gender. In some places, it's gotten a lot less overt and intentional-places such as the USA-than it was even a generation or two ago, much less in the much longer cultural memory of many generations. In other places it's much worse, of course. So I feel that (overall), women's identity issues get more 'play' because, well, there's more work to be done. Y'know? Farther to go.
I'll never take issue with any dude expressing an interest in wanting to discuss what a man's role should be in the modern world, or lamenting that such concerns are often scorned (and they are). My only beef comes when those complaints are expressed in a way that includes some tone of, "But women's issues..." It strikes me as strange in a similar way as when I've heard of people complain, "Why don't we have a white history month?" I'm not sayin' your thoughts are racist or sexist, Lyrhawn, but that my response is similar: because the majority/privileged gender doesn't need its own month/as much focus on issues as the under-privileged minority/gender.
Lots to grapple with here. Am I surprised? No, I'm not. Look, I'm not saying that masculinity studies, in this case, even deserve total parity with women's studies. Women got the shaft in ways that boggle the mind, in every aspect of their lives, and I don't begrudge them a single second of the time we've spent as a society exploring their history, their condition, or advocating for the numerous changes necessary to bring them even close to equality with men. And on that journey, we still have a ways to go. I think we should by aware of just how truly the role of women in America has changed in the last century. Enormous progress has been made. But there remains many things left to accomplish. My issues are not meant to in any way detract from women; their problems still need to be solved.
I think we also need to take a look at the way in which redefining the modern male actually HELPS redefine the modern female. Women don't exist in a vacuum. The changes in their lives have effects on men, and for that matter, demand a lot of changes from men in order to accommodate them. Most of that is a good thing, I'm not complaining! But coming at it from an all-female point of view isn't the most efficient way of doing things. Men in this country still by and large grow up with certain expectations of what their role is supposed to be, and a lot of that is still rooted in the pre-women's liberation era. The way that men treat women is as much a part of this discussion as anything. The biggest problem I seem to encounter when I get into these discussions with people is that people arguing the other side from me tend to assume this is a zero sum game. There's only so much attention, so women should get it all, and men detract from it. I don't see why that is so. Why do we have to take our eye off the ball with women in order to take a gander at men? We can multitask.
I also think, as a student of history, that to suggest modern history is simply the history of men, and they don't require any special focus, is totally misleading. I suppose this is really more a focus of anthropology or sociology, but historically, a good gender historian would chronicle the changes in mens' lives as specifically as the changes in women's lives. The long study of history measures one fundamental thing: change over time! To ignore the fact that the male role in society is changing dramatically is to be a bad historian.
The chapters for the women are probably going to be longer, but at least that way the picture is complete.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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The mother already made the decision when she had sex. She wants an opt-out clause after the fact.
Where two equal parties are concerned, the father almost always loses. It's no secret that preferential treatment is given to the mother. I think this speaks to a larger problem in society. We assume that the mother is the natural caregiver, which speaks to what I was talking about earlier regarding an ill-defined definition of fatherhood. We tell dads to get involved on one had, but on the other, we tell them they're inherently second fiddles to the mom. We're sending mixed messages.
I don't just mean child support. It's between a life where you are a parent or aren't a parent. And no, I don't balk at the cost to the father. I've said more than once that I think the child support issue is fine the way it is. After all, the man is bound under my idea of a tacit agreement as well, he has to pay up.
Once there is a child, his rights are not equal to the mother's. In the case in the OP, why was the child even taken by the adoption agency before the father signed off on it? If the father had been there, would he have been able to sign the kid away without the mother's consent? Why is it an "opt in" situation, rather than an "opt out." Fathers have to assert parental rights, instead of renounce them, but it's the other way around for mothers. That too sends conflicting signals to potential fathers. It's this sort of conflict that suggests we simply value fathers less, even while we complain they don't do enough.
My dad has to work 2 jobs just to pay for my sister and in the end his girlfriend has to pay the rest, my sisters mom take him to court every week (she doesn't have to be there really) and tell him to pay $500 on the spot or he will be thrown in jail till he can pay it, this $500 is in addition to child support and there is also FEES just by having to go through a court room.
In the same situation my sisters mom is constantly out other places leaving my sister home alone, the very fact she is always complaining about having no money, even though she has next to no rent (living in a family owned home, so they skimp her on the payments) she's a nurse so she get's paid alright, SHE HAS ANOTHER KID whom she's also charging child support and may also be taking that father to court aswell (me and my dad dunno, if she's doing it for one might be doing it for the other) ANNNNNNNNNNNND Despite the possible $1,000 a week +child support+how much she gets paid at work SHE still rates to get food stamps.
What part of any of this is fair, my dad can't even get enough money to fight back in court, he works at least 8 hours a day, and about 2 months ago one of his discs ruptured in his back, and he still has to work.
Posts: 461 | Registered: Nov 2010
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quote:According to the study, while only a third of fathers made all their payments, 64.7% of all child support due to mothers was received. This would suggest that a lot of those dads who weren't totally up to date on their payments were still doing pretty well, though not as well as we'd like. That's still too low a number, but it suggests that, unlike your characterization, more often than not, payments do get made.
My characterization wasn't that most payments don't get made, ever (though I communicated badly, I see why you thought that) but rather that most payments don't get paid when they're needed. Layaway diapers ain't gonna be helpful in the way they're intended, y'know?
quote:Looking at the data regarding child support questions does raise larger issues about the quantifiability of child rearing in general. I've read polling data that suggests that fathers are more involved in their children's lives than at any point in history, but I haven't read any actual published studies on the subject.
I've heard similar things too, on my part remembered bits online or on the radio, but I'm not sure. What it says to me, though, is that if men are doing all this improving and signs indicate we're continuing to improve, the responsibility/burden split is still uneven.
quote:Can you elaborate on this? To what degree does that make them less likely to be "deadbeats?" Because they want sole custody more often than men? I'm betting that's true, though I'd also like to see data on how often men are denied sole custody. It's no secret that the courts favor mothers over fathers. I'm still betting moms want the kids more often than dads, but I'm wondering if that's your argument here. (I'm not saying I totally disagree with it, either).
Basically my point is that since women are far less likely to be the ones without custody, or without custody most of the time, they will thus have less chance (be less likely) to be deadbeats than men. I'm extremely unlikely to flee the enemy under fire in combat because I'm unlikely to ever face the enemy in combat, but if in the (unlikely) event I did, I'd probably be as or more likely to flee as anyone. I don't actually know though. That's a bit of a klunky comparison, but I think it illustrates my point the way I'm thinking of it.
quote:Well, it's a binary state though, isn't it? Both sides can't have control, so if one does, then the other doesn't. You're arguing that for one party, the loss of control is greater, but that doesn't make the loss of control for men and less a loss of control. Regardless, as I've said, I accept that.
What it is is a loss of the maximum amount of control that is 'possessed'. (Calling parenthood after birth a loss of control, for the sake of discussion.) So while it is a total loss of control, I suppose, for men...it's not as much of a loss of control as it is for women. Even though men don't have anymore control left to lose. Which comes back around to my original point-men have less control because they are biologically able to have less control, barring compulsion.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
It is a pain to post from my phone, but Lyrhawn wrote two things that I felt needed a response:
quote: You fundamentally disagree with the notion that having sex implies any sort of reproduction agreement. I find that interesting, since sex is a reproductive function, and you and others have argued biology to me throughout this entire thread. So on the one hand, since biology dictates that the woman bears the brunt of the burden, she gets to choose, but having chosen to enter into a reproductive act in the first place doesn't matter at all?
This is why the medical argument bears less weight with me, I focus more on the initial decision, you focus more on the secondary decision. It's like you hand someone a six shooter with a single bullet and tell them to shoot you, then get indignant when you end up shot. What did you think was going to happen? Just fun and games? Guns are meant to kill. Sex is meant to impregnate.
Sex between humans is meant for far more than that. It is a sometimes a reproductive act, but not always and not only.
quote:If the initial argument is that a woman more or less waives some of her rights when she agrees to have sex, then I can't consider that an assault on her "bodily rights," she's already agreed to give up part of that control.
Who is making that initial argument? That is a terrible argument. Sex does not mean that she has waived rights to her body.
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: ... Westerners tend to be horrified by the very notion, but I know women who have breastfed other women's babies (for a short time or a longer one).
Can you elaborate on how this horror in the West came about actually? (This is from the perspective of knowing very little about the practice, except that I've heard of it surviving overseas and first came across the practice in Victorian history actually)
I mean, I can understand being worried about the quality of the feed, but horror?
I blame the formula companies. And I'm not kidding.
Perhaps naive question.
But wouldn't such an explanation affect mothers and wet-nurses equally? But I've noticed (anecdotally) an increasingly assertive breastfeeding movement (by mothers) but no real resurgence in wet-nurses (or has there been?).
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: But wouldn't such an explanation affect mothers and wet-nurses equally?
Sure. Ask women of a certain age (generally 70+) and many will confess that they see breastfeeding as unhygienic, distasteful, etc. (Not all, of course -- some of them did breastfeed, although it was not the norm, and others have changed their perceptions in the last 50 years.)
But over the last 40-50 years, there have been concerted efforts (by many national and international organizations, as well as individuals) to rehabilitate the image of the breastfeeding mother. These have been largely successful.
I am unaware of any groups trying to bring back the wet nurse, especially since there ARE legitimate health concerns with hiring a stranger to produce breastmilk. Breastmilk banks sterilize all donated breastmilk, even though this removes some of the beneficial qualities of breastmilk, for the same reason.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I was reading this thread in bed and my wife asked me what it was about. When I told her, her comment was the best solution to Lyr's thought that sex is a taciturn agreement to have children. She said, "He should only have sex with women who feel the same way."
I immediately thought, "But how would he know how they felt?" and only mere moments later figured out that they would have to talk about it before having sex!
Instead of inventing a new investigatory/enforcement branch of the government to decide if a father has been notified and consents to abortion which would be funded by tax dollars and stomps all over body autonomy rights...people could just have a conversation before being sexually intimate.
Occam and his razor might appreciate the simplicity of the solution.
quote:Despite the possible $1,000 a week +child support+how much she gets paid at work SHE still rates to get food stamps.
If she's on SNAP (food stamps), I doubt she has nearly as much income as you're suspecting. Here's the income eligibility requirements: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm#income. So, assuming it's her and two children- she can not make more than $1,984 a month ($23,808)- which INCLUDES child support payments.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: rivka: That makes sense, thanks for the perspective.
Sure. My maternal grandmother (who if she was still alive, would be in her 90s) was a social worker who breastfed her own children (despite some mild discouragement from the pediatrician) and convinced many poor, rural women to do the same.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: ... Westerners tend to be horrified by the very notion, but I know women who have breastfed other women's babies (for a short time or a longer one).
Can you elaborate on how this horror in the West came about actually? (This is from the perspective of knowing very little about the practice, except that I've heard of it surviving overseas and first came across the practice in Victorian history actually)
I mean, I can understand being worried about the quality of the feed, but horror?
I blame the formula companies. And I'm not kidding.
By now the formula companies, Nestle Alimentana in particular, are legitimately responsible for the deaths of millions worldwide. It's such a weird story.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Yeah, my mother is nearing 70 and she has said that when she was breastfeeding she ran into pretty significant discouragement from the pediatricians. She still loathes formula companies.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: But wouldn't such an explanation affect mothers and wet-nurses equally?
Sure. Ask women of a certain age (generally 70+) and many will confess that they see breastfeeding as unhygienic, distasteful, etc. (Not all, of course -- some of them did breastfeed, although it was not the norm, and others have changed their perceptions in the last 50 years.)
The age ranges are different for the rural South, I think. Breastfeeding was the norm there until much later, I don't think formula really gained a toehold in the rural South until the 1970s or thereabouts.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I skipped most of the posts, but the father's story sounds fishy. I am an adoptive mother of three children. I am also an adoptive mother who made the heart wrenching choice to give a child back to her mother even though her mother had no legal recourse to get the baby back from us.
Here is what is fishy:
1 In Virginia it appears that the mother can sign right away if she is working with an agency. If the baby was born in Virginia, the baby CANNOT leave the state to go to Utah until after the ICPC goes through - the interstate compact. The girl was not immediately whisked to Utah. These things can take up to two weeks or more. IF it went through quickly (and remember the notice of adoption has to be filed in the state the child was born in BEFORE the ICPC is filed) IF it went through quickly (ours took 2 days and both states and both lawyers, and both agencies said that was the fastest they had ever seen an ICPC go through.) The baby was still in Virginia when he filed for temporary custody. At that point he should have been able to get the baby. The birth father's rights are determined by the state the baby was born in, not the state the adoptive parents live in. Since the child was not born in Utah, he would have to go through Virginia courts, who had already given him temporary custody. I think he was hoodwinked, it matters where the child was born not where the child lives. The parents must have a very good lawyer. He could have called the cops and had the cops remove the child from the adoptive parents. He was the one with legal custody through the Virginia court system (according to him). If the parents took the child out of state before the ICPC came through, they could have been arrested for kidnapping (This is theoretical, I bet parents have made this mistake before, and I would bet very few if any have been arrested, but that is supposed to be a consequence). Looking at laws in Virginia, he had to get a letter from the lawyer or if there was an agency involved, a letter from the agency's lawyer. He then had 15 days to respond to the letter (this law may have been different several years ago).
Some women choose to have their babies in Utah to make sure the baby is born under its strict birth father laws. This is because where the child was born is supposed to take precedence.
The difference is, some people think it deserves rights, (on religious, moral, legal, or philosophical bases) and some don't.
Which is why this discussion gets so heated. People who are anti-abortion don't want to control a woman's body--they believe the fetus has rights.
But even on intelligent boards such as Hatrack,it's a good bet that someone will stir the pot by claiming that men want the right to control a woman's body (Or someone in the Anti-Abortion crowd will say something insensitive and offensive.), and then intelligent discussion is all but over.
Granted, there's no good way to have an abortion discussion. One side believes ending a human life is wrong in most all circumstances, the other thinks there should be an exception for abortion--makes for a very boring debate, so all sorts of conjecture gets thrown around in order to make both arguments seem more sound.
I've mostly retired from the debate...luckily, Lyrhawn's here to make the philosophical arguments I would normally make. Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Which is why this discussion gets so heated. People who are anti-abortion don't want to control a woman's body--they believe the fetus has rights.
So they want to...ccontrol a woman's body to protect the rights of a fetus, in (well, the same, really) other words?
quote:One side believes ending a human life is wrong in most all circumstances, the other thinks there should be an exception for abortion--makes for a very boring debate...
I could've sworn one side believed ending a human life was wrong, and the other side very often had serious doubts about when a human life is said to begin. But perhaps I've misunderstood the dozens of such explanations I've heard.
This isn't me picking nits, btw. Those bits I quoted...well they seem to me to be such clear misstatements that I wondered if you were actually being dishonest. I don't say that's what you did or even intended, it's just they were so bluntly mischaracterizations of a pro-choice position and also a pro-life position.
Pro-lifers do wish to control the bodies of women-to protect the most vulnerable humans there are. An admirable goal. Pro-choicers don't think ending human lives should be stopped, except in the case of abortion-certainly not as a group. These are...pretty fundamental and easy to understand differences. I don't know if you misspoke, or if you think what you posted. If the latter, I suggest you don't understand the controversy nearly as clearly as you think.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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The difference is, some people think it deserves rights, (on religious, moral, legal, or philosophical bases) and some don't.
I've read that something like half of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, if not more. When a fetus is less than a hundred cells (or for that matter, doesn't yet have a heart or brain), its odds of actually surviving are still fairly low.
Is it really fair to call abortion murder, in cases where the pregnancy is so new that the fetus has less than a 50% chance at survival?
At their extremes, in this debate, both sides look and sound ridiculous.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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What bearing do miscarriage rates have on a moral question such as, "Is it murder?" If it's murder, it's murder regardless of how likely the fetus was to have survived.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I agree, the chances of survival seem sort of unimportant. The important moral detail would be, I think, that the life represented is not one that represents a feeling, caring, thinking person- and since we don't get terribly choked up about the rate at which these types of human lives end naturally, (partly because we don't even know a lot of the time when they do end), it seems extreme to call it murder ending one such life intentionally.
At least, it seems extreme to assign the same moral regard for life to that type of life, than to a thinking, feeling, caring person. And of course we really don't- excess fertilized embryos are discarded by fertility clinics all the time- it's understood that you can create them, but that not all of them can ever expect to live.
ETA: This is why I'll stop calling pro-lifers hypocrites the minute they start protesting the thousands and thousands of embryos that are discarded in this manner every year. They are just as alive as unwanted embryos inside the bodies of women- but nobody is demanding that they have a right to be implanted, and a right to live. Personally, I don't think they have such rights, but to claim the right in one case, and ignore it in the other seems inconsistent to me. I understand that emotionally, the idea of pregnancy is more resonant than fertilization in a tube, but the actual presence of life is the same. The lack of consistency doesn't follow the stated logic of the pro-life movement- which leads me to conclude that it is not a logically based movement.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Although it doesn't get much press, large chunks of the pro-life movement are against IVF because it creates embryos which are discarded. There are also organizations that encourage people to donate rather than discard unused embryos and encourage people to "adopt" and implant them. So not every pro-life person/organization is a hypocrite on that score.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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