Hey, wait, how come she gets to claim it?
The good news is this won’t get far.
As written, the bill would ban women from seeking an abortion without written consent from the father of the fetus. In cases where the identity of the father is unknown, women would be required to submit a list of possible fathers. The physician would be forced to conduct a paternity test from the provided list and then seek paternal permission to abort.
I don’t think you can do a paternity test that early on, so basically this bill is positing that abortion is something that women should only be allowed to get if they fit the criteria of a good woman, which is a) monogamous and b) obedient. If you’ve had more than one sex partner during the time you got pregnant, you have to have the baby to punish you for your slutty ways. Your rights are based on your adherence to patriarchal norms. But it’s so about the saving of the precious, precious snowflake babies.
This law is the flip side of the guys who want to be able to force abortion to avoid child support. Which is to say, it goes to show that this debate is largely about a frustration that women are full citizens with the rights over their bodies that citizens enjoy, and not legally owned by men. Maybe Rep. John Adams saw the “you poke it, you own it” Miller Lite commercial and was appalled to find out that’s not actually the law of the land that women have to submit to.
Invariably, when these things come up, there are men who flip out and demand that it should only be fair that men have the final word over women’s bodies due to the fact that it’s so unfair that women have the final word over their own bodies. So let me be explicit: I do feel like it’s ideal to take a man’s opinion into consideration if he gets you pregnant. Ideally, you should have discussed beforehand what will happen if you get pregnant on accident. This isn’t about giving men a chance to speak up or have input. The law can only really determine who gets the final say if a man and a woman have a difference of opinion on this subject. In any given situation, when there’s a difference of opinion on what should be done, the person with ownership gets to call the shots. And there is no reason under the sun that men should be given the ownership rights to uteruses inside women’s bodies. In any situation where there’s not conflict over what to do, these “who gets final word” laws don’t come into play anyway. The law only covers situation where there’s a dispute.
That said, what I find continually weird is how so much anti-choice energy is driven by the suspicion some men have that a woman who has an abortion is doing it to spite men or reject men, at least the man she’s with. HTML Mencken sent me this post he did mocking crazy old Carey Roberts, who thinks that the equivalent of a man cheating on a woman is not a woman cheating on a man.
Trashing your boyfriend’s car has little to do with sugar and spice and everything nice. But it’s the title — “Before He Cheats” — that turns this song into a bitter gender tirade. Just imagine a male star reaching platinum for crooning, “Before She Aborts”.
A telling comment, and another good example of how anti-choicers often seem to come to their opinions about reproductive health choices by studying a non-human species from another planet that is nothing like ours, or more likely, come to their opinions after taking a full immersion research expedition of their own colons. Cheating is by definition a betrayal—if your significant other is okay with your sleeping around, it’s not cheating anymore. You’re polyamorous. Most abortions are performed with the full knowledge and cooperation of the impregnating agent, as it were. But Roberts here seems to think, as does the representatives from Ohio, that abortion is mostly about women sneaking around behind men’s backs to humiliate and betray them.
But even in the rare instances where women do have abortions because they’ve decided that it’s not the right time so much as not the right man, and their lovers are not happy with it, so what? I don’t think the law has any business playing the trump card in situations where He/She’s Just Not That Into You. The law is not here to make the one guy who left you for another woman come back nor is the law here to make sure that one hot chick is attached to you for life against her will by a baby. It’s utterly childish for men to look to the law to trap women for them that they can’t hold on their own merits. It’s doubly weird that the very people who sneer at “chicken in every pot” populism then turn around and demand that the force of the government come in to secure a womb for every man, even if the woman surrounding it has to lose her individual humanity to get there.
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The good news is this won’t get far.
With this Supreme Court, I wouldn’t bet on that.
Question — how does the woman go about certifying that she has obtained consent from the actual father of her child? In the absence of prenatal paternity tests, I mean.
If you had no idea who the father was, or no way of getting in touch with him, or just didn’t want to involve him, couldn’t you just get a male friend to sign an affidavit saying it was his? I mean, I guess if the truth came out, the friend would be lying under oath. But how would it come out? Would there be forced post-natal paternity tests in all cases, just to make sure they had the right signature on the paper?
Well, the good news comes from the fact that it’s 8 nutball Ohio GOP House members seeking to make a splash, not caring a whit for the 800000 comments generated on feminist websites concerning its logic, viability, or constitutionality.
Was there a particular case that provided the impetus for this legislation to be introduced at this particular time? Or are the motivation and timing purely political?
P.S. If I make the tiniest littler error trying to post, I get a big “fuck you” from the server and lose all my entered information.
It seems to me that the notion of required partner consent has been floated before — in some federal bill as I recall; fetal consent — that’s new and bizarre.
Don’t think for a minute that this won’t pass — it is really just an extension of parental notification laws: we all know, women, at any age, are just too emotional to make a rational decision. As I recall, both India and Turkey both mandate paternal consent for ab services right now.
“Before She Aborts” sounds like quite the jam! I love how they tie a man’s right to reign sovereign over another human being’s body, as if he can’t possibly be bothered to wear a goddamn condom in the first place! In their minds being a “man” is about owning a woman. If you deny him this ownership, you’re anti-”man.”
You should also add on the factors of being a “good” woman: wearing a magical rape-proof wardrobe that cancels not only the physical advantage men have over women but also prohibit men from using weapons against women. Don’t know where you can get this magical attire? Well, you must not be a good woman!
Incertus–It’s got to get through the legislature, then make it through Gov. Ted Strickland’s veto pen, before anything else.
Both of those are possibilities, I guess; the Ohio state legislature is solidly Republican, and Strickland, while a fairly liberal Democrat across the board, voted against partial-birth abortion while in the U.S. House.
I can’t say I’m surprised by the location; the Sidney town that Adams is from is solidly in the middle of the state’s reddest part, running between Dayton and Toledo and including both religious conservatives and Big Oil (Marathon’s headquarters are in Findlay a ways up I-75.)
I thought this would be Tom Brinkman before I read the story, one of the most militant pro-lifers in the legislature; at least he’s consistent enough to be completely anti-death penalty.
I don’t have too much trouble with reasonable abortion restrictions, but they lost me at the paternity test thing.
Would there be forced post-natal paternity tests in all cases, just to make sure they had the right signature on the paper?
Duh — just realized that, after an abortion, there’s no possible way anyone could ever find out, because there’s nothing to do a paternity test on. Which makes the whole thing even more ludicrous. There is absolutely no way of enforcing this, unless the woman in question is either extremely stupid or somehow made to confess that she doesn’t know/feel like dealing with the father.
Oh, and if any MRA types think this is just a grand idea, honestly, the second best form of civil disobedience on this shit would be to accuse any man who won’t consent to an abortion of rape, since I can’t imagine something like this would pass without an exception for rape victims and there’s no way they could wait for a conviction (you have to abort within 12 weeks, criminal trials can take years).
What would you consider “reasonable abortion restrictions,” exactly?
I tried to read that Carey Roberts article. God, that man is senile. It made no fucking sense and every sentence was about a different topic. I want my 3 minutes back!
RacyT,
No federal funding, honestly.
I don’t see what’s so bad about parental notification for minors either, honestly, given that parental input is required for anything else even remotely controversial (tattoos, R-rated movies, tanning beds, etc.)
That headline from the article linked in the Feministing post says: “Abortion law would give fathers a say.” No, it wouldn’t. It would give fathers THE say. If he agrees to the abortion, she gets it; if he doesn’t, she doesn’t get it.
Both of those are possibilities, I guess; the Ohio state legislature is solidly Republican, and Strickland, while a fairly liberal Democrat across the board, voted against partial-birth abortion while in the U.S. House.
Ted doesn’t have the best NARAL rating (it’s his only real downside) but if you look at the specific bills he’s been for or against, he’s generally pretty sane. I wish he were more pro-choice, sure, but his voting record on abortion bills struck me as the record of a man who seriously does balance the needs of his affected constituents against his own personal beliefs. I wouldn’t worry about him not vetoing this little piece of insanity.
“I don’t see what’s so bad about parental notification for minors either, honestly, given that parental input is required for anything else even remotely controversial (tattoos, R-rated movies, tanning beds, etc.)”
Well, for one, my mom saying no to me getting a tattoo when I was 17 wouldn’t have made me legally responsible for the care and sustenance of another human fucking being. Also, my mom saying no to me seeing The Crow would not have stood a chance of actually killing me, or of destroying any chance of me having children in the future. Also, my mother finding out that I’d managed to get the tattoo or see the movie probably would not have led to her beating the hell out of me and/or throwing me out of the house.
How’s that for starters as far as differences between a pregnancy and the flotsam you cited?
Ace, sometimes parents DO kill pregnant girls. Or even just ones who were sexually active, even if they were the victim of an adult. We’re talking about a legislation that will, rarely, cost a teenage girl her life.
As for federal funding, what if the mother’s life/health is in danger? Is it better to have a comatose mother and a baby going into foster care than to pay for the procedure?
Sorry, your idea of a reasonable restriction is only reasonable sometimes.
If this passes, anyone who needs to can claim me as the father. I’m willing to be branded a manslut, and since I’m sure that holds no legal impediments from this proposal, I will gladly be the cad who knocked up the monogamously-shameful hussy in need of an abortion.
There are age restrictions, of course. But other than that, I will gladly have banged anyone. I’ll have crotchloads of imaginary sex in FundieWondieLand!
Oy vey, ace. You don’t yet seem to be trolling, so …
Parental notification is a bad idea because of:
1. Incest/Abuse: a girl who is already abused is likely to receive further punishment.
2. The younger a woman is, the more dangerous birth is vs. abortion. Because a 12 year old can get pregnant doesn’t mean her body is really going to handle pregnancy and birth as well as if she were older. And so she should have the option to abort no matter what her parents think. This is why it’s not like tattoos; no tattoo is always safer than having a tattoo. But once you’re pregnant, you are already at risk. Parental notification does not increase the safety of pregnant women.
3. Autonomy of pregnant women should not depend on their age/level of economic dependence on family. She is the one whose body is being used by the fetus, who is risking pre eclampsia, c/section, hemorrhage, and other risks of pregnancy/birth, up to and including death. Her parents are not risking their bodies and their futures. They don’t get to choose for her in this case.
Well, that’s the point: by law a minor isn’t entrusted to much LESS serious things than abortion.
Look, I’m sorry I even brought the “I support reasonable restrictions” thing up, the purpose of the thread is to discuss the bill at hand.
The good news is this won’t get far.
What makes you so sure? I’m not trying to be rude or snarky; I’m just honestly curious.
what i love about this idea is that it proves the point that the person who carries the fetus is actually the only one who has anything to do with it becoming a baby or not. i love how the law acts on this “there must be a father, because there’s a fetus” principle, and then extends that to exactly where fatherhood does not go, biologically: anywhere past conception. did you hear that? i think the fundies have finally broken the mock barrier. at this point, they’re fucking up so fast that the sound of stupid will only reach our ears several seconds after they’ve passed.
what i love about this idea is that it proves the point that the person who carries the fetus is actually the only one who has anything to do with it becoming a baby or not. i love how the law acts on this “there must be a father, because there’s a fetus” principle, and then extends that to exactly where fatherhood does not go, biologically: anywhere past conception. did you hear that? i think the fundies have finally broken the mock barrier. at this point, they’re fucking up so fast that the sound of stupid will only reach our ears several seconds after they’ve passed.
given that parental input is required for anything else even remotely controversial
You are severely mistaken about this. Neither parental notification nor parental consent is required for a girl to get pregnant, nor for a pregnant girl to give birth. So you are not arguing that abortion should be just like other things of equal import. You are arguing that it should be different, and special.
All your womb is belong to us.
Ohio should pass a law that ‘fore a man can have sex with a woman he has to put in escrow the medical costs of a pregnancy. If he doesn’t, well, you come up with the penalty.
India
Put another way: if it’s legal for a parent to compel a girl to give birth, surely it should be also legal for them to compel her to have sex with a partner of their choosing. After all, if she’s not old enough to make mature decisions about what her body should be used for, the parents are justified in making those decisions for her.
Why not? I mean, it’s just like letting them decide whether she can get a tattoo.
And the same goes for a woman’s sexual partners. If they get to decide what she does with her uterus, why should the rest of her body be off-limits? If the first notion doesn’t upset you, the second shouldn’t either.
Arun…
Not only the cost of the pregnancy, but ALSO the cost of supporting and educating any potential children (just to be safe, plan on triplets) through, say, a Masters Degree program… plus of course the cost of supporting the woman while she raises said children.
I don’t think you could get it past the males in the legislature; this is going to be more of a Lysistrata scenario.
Ace, since parents don’t have to be notified if you have the baby, the whole “parental notification” thing falls apart. Needless to say, the number of girls that your innocent suggestion will subject to beatings or worse, having to confront fathers/brothers/stepfathers who got them pregnant in the first place is unconscionable.
I see a few problems with this:
1) Suppose I’m named as the father by a woman about to get an abortion. I deny it. Can I then be forced to cooperate with the paternity test?
Which leads to #2:
2) Can the woman then name Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts as the father, just to force him to undergo the paternity test? How about naming the rest of the justices, including retired justice Sandra Day O’Connor?
3) Suppose the woman lies about the potential father(s). Will they put her, sans abortion, in jail? What’s the sentence on the fetus and eventual baby, then?
4) How can anyone think this law would be upheld when challenged in any court? Even the current U.S. supreme court?
OK, that last one was rhetorical.
What would you consider “reasonable abortion restrictions,” exactly?
I for one am utterly opposed to abortions after the third trimester.
sophonisba writes: “Put another way: if it’s legal for a parent to compel a girl to give birth, surely it should be also legal for them to compel her to have sex with a partner of their choosing. After all, if she’s not old enough to make mature decisions about what her body should be used for, the parents are justified in making those decisions for her.”
Exactly. We are talking about the most fundamental human right of all: the freedom to exercise sovereignty over your very being. If others have a say, let alone have the ultimate word, in that matter, what rights *do* you have? None.
Now, now. I think it is reasonable to expect that a man would have a half-interest in any fetus resulting from his seed. I mean, even if the uterus isn’t his, the fetus is half his, right? So if the woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, the reasonable thing to do would be to give the fetus to the man, let him finish gestating it his uterus, and everyone’s happy.
And if it just so happens that he doesn’t have the proper facilities to raise a fetus to adulthood, well, then, tough titties. Maybe he can keep it in a mason jar or a Ziploc baggie or something. I don’t see why he’d have any right to keep it in her uterus without her permission.
“Well, that’s the point: by law a minor isn’t entrusted to much LESS serious things than abortion.”
Actually, my point was that the decisions that a minor isn’t entrusted with aren’t generally things that will kill, maim, or legally fuck them for the rest of their lives if the parent decides against the minor’s wishes to deny consent. In pretty much everything but abortion, if the parent denies consent for something vital to the minor’s health or well-being, the minor has a fairly effective mechanism by which to challenge the parent’s decision. Their right to adequate care is not trumped by their parent’s quasi-property rights over the minor’s body. When it comes to abortion, however, the laws governing judicial appeal of parental consent are written specifically to place a hurdle in the minor’s way, not to look out for her best interests in the event that her parents cannot be trusted to do so.
If a parent denies permission to sign a contract that would extend beyond the minor’s 18th birthday, the minor can sign it when they’re of age. If a parent denies permission to have an elective medical procedure, the minor can schedule it when they’re no longer a minor. If a parent denies outside education until no longer legally able, their child is still legally able to pursue one after they reach the age of majority. There is very little that a parent has veto power over that the child cannot, when they are legally an adult, go back and do under their own power.
If, however, a minor becomes pregnant and their parent denies consent for an abortion, the child’s parental obligations to their own child are not terminated upon the minor hitting 18. The damage done by premature pregnancy does not magically vanish on their 18th birthday. If they die of complications, they don’t come back to life on the day they would have been legally able to make their own decisions.
You can’t say “Well, that was all my parents, I never consented, I shouldn’t have to deal with this,” hit a button, and have your life and/or fertility back. The effects of the parent’s denial of consent have profound, direct, immutable, and far-reaching effects on the child’s adult life that their ability to deny consent on “less controversial” issues does not. Given that they’re no more on the hook for those effects once the child to whom they denied consent turns 18 than a potential father denying an abortion to a pregnant woman is on the hook for the dangers and expenses that come with pregnancy, it seems ridiculously facile to say that you don’t see what’s so bad about all of it.
Regarding parental notification laws, the majority of teen girls tell their parents and get help from their parents to pursue abortions. The minority of teens who do not tell their parents usually have very good reasons for not telling their parents such as 1. they’re opposed to abortion and would not allow an abortion and may send their daughters to “homes” aka prisons for teen girls where they could not seek an abortion because they are under lock and key and their children are whisked away for adoption with little choice for the mother, 2. they come from abusive homes where they will be beaten or furtherly abused for reporting the pregnancy, 3. the father is a stepfather/father/brother. It is only a minority of cases in which teens do not get help from their parents to terminate pregnancies, but we need to worry about that minority of girls, not force them into back alleys. If your daughter does not tell you about an unwanted pregnancy it reflects more on your relationship than on the laws on the books. If you are worried about this, foster a dialogue with your children earlier–make sure that they know that they are unconditionally loved and help them with comprehensive sex education and the development of a sexual philosophy that respects their health, the health of their partners, and their mindful planning of a family in the course of their lives (do this for sons and daughters).
Peace
p.s. Oh, and if you care about other people’s children who do not or cannot report unwanted pregnancies, advocate for comprehensive sex education in our schools and for universal health care and universal access to contraception–these are much better solutions to the complex problems we are facing.
Oh fer fuck’s sake! I’m starting to get really demoralized by all these attempts at regressing our society. Why is it so hard to accept that women are full humans, entitled to control their bodies?
Regarding parental notification laws, the majority of teen girls tell their parents and get help from their parents to pursue abortions. The minority of teens who do not tell their parents usually have very good reasons for not telling their parents such as 1. they’re opposed to abortion and would not allow an abortion and may send their daughters to “homes” aka prisons for teen girls where they could not seek an abortion because they are under lock and key and their children are whisked away for adoption with little choice for the mother, 2. they come from abusive homes where they will be beaten or furtherly abused for reporting the pregnancy, 3. the father is a stepfather/father/brother. It is only a minority of cases in which teens do not get help from their parents to terminate pregnancies, but we need to worry about that minority of girls, not force them into back alleys. If your daughter does not tell you about an unwanted pregnancy it reflects more on your relationship than on the laws on the books. If you are worried about this, foster a dialogue with your children earlier–make sure that they know that they are unconditionally loved and help them with comprehensive sex education and the development of a sexual philosophy that respects their health, the health of their partners, and their mindful planning of a family in the course of their lives (do this for sons and daughters).
Peace
p.s. Oh, and if you care about other people’s children who do not or cannot report unwanted pregnancies, advocate for comprehensive sex education in our schools and for universal health care and universal access to contraception–these are much better solutions to the complex problems we are facing.
Regarding parental notification laws, the majority of teen girls tell their parents and get help from their parents to pursue abortions. The minority of teens who do not tell their parents usually have very good reasons for not telling their parents such as 1. they’re opposed to abortion and would not allow an abortion and may send their daughters to “homes” aka prisons for teen girls where they could not seek an abortion because they are under lock and key and their children are whisked away for adoption with little choice for the mother, 2. they come from abusive homes where they will be beaten or furtherly abused for reporting the pregnancy, 3. the father is a stepfather/father/brother. It is only a minority of cases in which teens do not get help from their parents to terminate pregnancies, but we need to worry about that minority of girls, not force them into back alleys. If your daughter does not tell you about an unwanted pregnancy it reflects more on your relationship than on the laws on the books. If you are worried about this, foster a dialogue with your children earlier–make sure that they know that they are unconditionally loved and help them with comprehensive sex education and the development of a sexual philosophy that respects their health, the health of their partners, and their mindful planning of a family in the course of their lives (do this for sons and daughters).
Peace
p.s. Oh, and if you care about other people’s children who do not or cannot report unwanted pregnancies, advocate for comprehensive sex education in our schools and for universal health care and universal access to contraception–these are much better solutions to the complex problems we are facing.
Regarding parental notification laws, the majority of teen girls tell their parents and get help from their parents to pursue abortions. The minority of teens who do not tell their parents usually have very good reasons for not telling their parents such as 1. they’re opposed to abortion and would not allow an abortion and may send their daughters to “homes” aka prisons for teen girls where they could not seek an abortion because they are under lock and key and their children are whisked away for adoption with little choice for the mother, 2. they come from abusive homes where they will be beaten or furtherly abused for reporting the pregnancy, 3. the father is a stepfather/father/brother. It is only a minority of cases in which teens do not get help from their parents to terminate pregnancies, but we need to worry about that minority of girls, not force them into back alleys. If your daughter does not tell you about an unwanted pregnancy it reflects more on your relationship than on the laws on the books. If you are worried about this, foster a dialogue with your children earlier–make sure that they know that they are unconditionally loved and help them with comprehensive sex education and the development of a sexual philosophy that respects their health, the health of their partners, and their mindful planning of a family in the course of their lives (do this for sons and daughters).
Peace
p.s. Oh, and if you care about other people’s children who do not or cannot report unwanted pregnancies, advocate for comprehensive sex education in our schools and for universal health care and universal access to contraception–these are much better solutions to the complex problems we are facing.
Who are the adults who can make a decision for a minor?
Parent adults?
Doctor adults?
Magistrate adults?
None of the above?
Will the doctor making the decision for the minor have access to the minor’s medical records?
here’s the bill:
http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=127_HB_287
if you lie, you’ll be charged with abortion fraud which is like, the coolest crime ever. it sounds like you were selling fake abortions through the mail and made off with millions
i *am* curious if a named potential father can be forced to give up his dna. i’m fairly certain that you can be forced to do so if you’re arrested, but knocking someone up isn’t a crime. not only just the giving up of dna, but what if a man doesn’t want to admit to sleeping with her? what if he was cheating on his wife and doesn’t even want the possibility entertained that it could be his?
me? i’d name all of the sponsors of the bill as potential fathers. couldn’t prove that i *didn’t* have sex with them.
oh, someone asked about post-abortion dna testing. you *can* do testing on surgical abortions, but i wonder about RU-486. would a woman be forced to sit on a bucket all day to catch all of the miscarriage and then bring it in for inspection?
it’s interesting that the bill doesn’t use the word “mother” at all but uses the word “father” repeatedly.
*ON PARENTAL NOTIFICATION*
IF YOU CARE ABOUT THIS ISSUE AT ALL, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE JUST TAKE THE TIME TO READ A MEASLEY ELEVEN-PAGE REPORT FROM THE GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE ABOUT THIS. It’s called Teenagers’ Access to Confidential Reproductive Health Services. You will not read it and continue to support parental notification laws.
Really, it’s important. And PLEASE, PLEASE think about donating a couple bucks to a Planned Parenthood near you. I know this site is filled with a bunch of non-activist intellectuals, but a little checkbook charity goes a long way.
Let’s not talk around ace’s comment. He mentioned parental notificaton laws, not parental consent laws.
So, okay, what’s the difference? Besides the obvious issue that it’s much harder for a reasonable person to oppose parental notification than parental consent… nothing. Nothing at all.
Statistically, the number of pregnant minors who would otherwise choose abortion, yet instead continue the pregnancy is indistinguishable between parental consent vs. parental notification laws. All parental notification laws do is result in higher births, higher instances of STDs and yes, fewer abortions - but those abortions that do take place occur more frequently in the second trimester, which are more expensive to perform and are done at a greater risk to the minor’s health.
According to the Guttmacher Institute about 6% of minors say notifying their parent of intent to abort would result in abuse, being kicked out of the house or some harm to a parent’s health. About 6 in 10 minors already tell their parents when seeking an abortion.
This idea though that parental notification rights are somehow preventative of underage sex is refuted by every study I’ve read - try the Guttmacher Institute for the most accurate info. And adding to the intial claim, parental notification does not increase communication between a parent and child. Instead, there’s a small but significant effect of child intimidation.
And for those people who try to argue the if-a-minor-needs-parental-approval-for-a-tattoo-why-not-an-abortion then try the inverse argument: a minor doesn’t need parental approval for contraception or STD treatment (in all but two states, so I’ve read) so why should a minor require parental notification for an abortion?
So much for closing my tags.
if you lie, you’ll be charged with abortion fraud which is like, the coolest crime ever.
My father sells condoms to sailors
My mom pokes the heads with a pin
My sister performs the abortions
My God how the money rolls in
The law is not here to make the one guy who left you for another woman come back nor is the law here to make sure that one hot chick is attached to you for life against her will by a baby. It’s utterly childish for men to look to the law to trap women for them that they can’t hold on their own merits.
If all these types were cut out of the debate, the numbers would reduce staggeringly.
By the way, I was held hostage by pregnancy, by a domineering, fundie male. So I am here to tell all you doubters, that indeed, for some women, such can indeed occur.
Might I also add that the only option I had access to at the time was a healthy beating like none before (when there were many dangerous ones before) from my misogynist father. Marrying boyfriend and running away to greener pastures, despite the pregnancy seemed a better option.
Ace, why do you assume all families are healthy and functional places for children? I want some winger to answer me that question, really.
Now, now. I think it is reasonable to expect that a man would have a half-interest in any fetus resulting from his seed. I mean, even if the uterus isn’t his, the fetus is half his, right? So if the woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, the reasonable thing to do would be to give the fetus to the man, let him finish gestating it his uterus, and everyone’s happy.
See in a properly organized universe, sentient life would have evolved from any of the multitude of egg-laying species, and then this could all be worked out much more equitably.
This whole nine-month-gestation arrangement just doesn’t do anybody any good.
Religion really is poison when it comes to the well-being of a woman. Abortion is definitely not a decision to be made by my gender.
Technically, a *pregnancy* is what is aborted (read as: stopped/ended/terminated), so that doesn’t quite work.
(I’m ruining the joke, aren’t I? Sorry. But it hearkens back to EC being called “abortion inducing”; it *can’t* be, because there *is no pregnancy to abort*. The *worst* it can do is prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. Now, I know this is controversial because there are a lot of moronic assholes making controversies these days, but *I* think a woman has more right to say “no, you can’t attach to my uterus” than the fertilized egg (okay, “bunch of undifferentiated cells) has to attach.)
The proposed law is insane, but especially damaging for women who are victims of rape, incest or domestic violence. Sometimes it really is best to not involve the father.
karpad: I for one am utterly opposed to abortions after the third trimester.
I did a classic double-take/splutter. Now I am mopping coffee off the keyboard in order to type this. I hope you’re satisfied.
Ace, if you’re still confused about the level of opposition to your belief in parental notification laws/minors shouldn’t get to decide whether or not to abort: The intended and direct result of such laws is: Parents get to force underage girls to have babies against their will.
(Another direct result of such laws is: underage girls have illegal abortions, putting themselves/their fertility at risk, and sometimes die.)
“Ace, why do you assume all families are healthy and functional places for children?”
I think it’s often that they overestimate parents and underestimate teens. I’m always flabbergasted by the number of otherwise sane parents who really believe that if their child was going through a crisis of this type, their kid wouldn’t eventually turn to the people that feed and house them for guidance.
Drug use is one thing, being drugs they tend to mess with your mind. But, oh gosh, I’m pregnant and I’m not in the habit of stealing from you or making big decisions by myself, but I now have this expensive and potentially life altering procedure to pay for and I’m not going to tell you about it?
Yes, they may make you “discover” the problem and drag it out of them painfully and slowly. But the chances of them not telling you in some way are fairly slim - unless you’ve given them good reason to believe you won’t be helpful in any way.
“Ace, why do you assume all families are healthy and functional places for children?”
I think it’s often that they overestimate parents and underestimate teens. I’m always flabbergasted by the number of otherwise sane parents who really believe that if their child was going through a crisis of this type, their kid wouldn’t eventually turn to the people that feed and house them for guidance.
Drug use is one thing, being drugs they tend to mess with your mind. But, oh gosh, I’m pregnant and I’m not in the habit of stealing from you or making big decisions by myself, but I now have this expensive and potentially life altering procedure to pay for and I’m not going to tell you about it?
Yes, they may make you “discover” the problem and drag it out of them painfully and slowly. But the chances of them not telling you in some way are fairly slim - unless you’ve given them good reason to believe you won’t be helpful in any way.
Personally I’m a little confused that the defense of marriage crowd isn’t upset that this bill weakens traditional marriage by allowing unmarried men the ability to assert parental rights. I mean, if unmarried men have the same rights as married men, what’s the point of getting married? The whole justification for *not* allowing homosexuals to get married is that the purpose of marriage is raising children.
Where is the outcry about this proposal to weaken traditional marriage? Oh wait, maybe if the real issue isn’t marriage, but patriarchy, it all makes perfect sense.
7.5 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births = pregnancy is not the dangerous horror many of you declare it to be.
Note: I believe 7.5 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births = still too many maternal deaths.
But you don’t need to trot out the “dangers” of pregnancy and childbirth to talk about abortion rights. If you are for abortion rights, that’s enough, period.
I’ll support giving the man the final word on abortions when the man carries the fetus.
“Humourless Feminist,” you appear to be a concern troll. Please cease and desist concern trolling.
It seems somewhat reasonable to exempt men from child support if they don’t want the kid (although forcing the woman to get an abortion is obviously out of the question), but other than that, I can’t see why men should have any say in the question until they can carry the fetus.
Maronan: It seems somewhat reasonable to exempt men from child support if they don’t want the kid
Ah, even an unwanted kid is still unreasonable enough to need food, clothes, shelter, healthcare, education. It seems reasonable to exempt a man who doesn’t want the kid from doing any of the hard work of raising a kid, since he’ll be shitty at it, but it’s completely unreasonable for him to argue that not wanting the kid is a sufficient reason to refuse his share of the expenses.
if you lie, you’ll be charged with abortion fraud which is like, the coolest crime ever.
But again, it seems like it would be difficult to prove that someone lied. At the very least, you’d need all sorts of policy changes wrt how clinics dispose of medical waste. Because this legislation is at the state level, it’s unlikely the medical industry would be willing to change around all their stuff just to make Ohio happy.
And even then, all you have to do is say you had random vacation sex outside the US and make up some random European or something. I seriously doubt Interpol is going to get onto the case of some dude who might have slept with a tourist from Ohio.
In fact, I’d say that if this legislation passes, its main result would probably be the shutting of all abortion clinics in Ohio. Which is probably what they want, anyway.
I have a question, which occurred to me after reading Ace’s comment and the responses that point out that a minor doesn’t have to notify her parents if she doesn’t get an abortion (i.e. if she gives birth). Do parents have to be notified before a pregnant minor can get a c-section? My guess is no, they don’t, but just wondering if anyone knows for sure.
William, you’re not actually confused, are you? This sort of thing is par for the course. I think Amanda’s stated the basic principle over and over: the conservative sexual agenda is about controlling and punishing women, not ’strengthening the family’ and whatever other bullshit they promote.
opoponax, i think the only way to prove someone lied who the father is would be if they performed a dna test on the embryo after the abortion. this bill doesn’t demand that, though. sooooooo yeah.
it’d be super spectacular if, in the case of a woman literally not knowing who she slept with, like in a one night stand or something, if they go all florida on her ass and make her take out a classified ad detailing everything she remembers about the sex/man. *that* is the pinnacle of all things offensive. to say nothing of remarkably ineffectual - who reads the classifieds?
it’d be super spectacular if, in the case of a woman literally not knowing who she slept with, like in a one night stand or something, if they go all florida on her ass and make her take out a classified ad detailing everything she remembers about the sex/man. *that* is the pinnacle of all things offensive. to say nothing of remarkably ineffectual - who reads the classifieds?
And if they did read the classifieds, why on earth would they respond to an ad that was obviously looking for a biodad to cough up child support? I guess if they did it might be an early warning sign of possibly heritable mental problems that you’d want to look out for in the child.
“Ah, even an unwanted kid is still unreasonable enough to need food, clothes, shelter, healthcare, education. It seems reasonable to exempt a man who doesn’t want the kid from doing any of the hard work of raising a kid, since he’ll be shitty at it, but it’s completely unreasonable for him to argue that not wanting the kid is a sufficient reason to refuse his share of the expenses.”
I don’t know, if a condom breaks and you decided to keep the Kid I think that’s your choice as an adult. I don’t see how you can force somebody else into paying for your choice. If abortion was illegal (which is what the fundies really want) then yeah, force a pregnancy, force child support payment.
I don’t think you can have it both ways, if the man has no say in whether the fetus is aborted or not (the way it should be in my opinion) then how is he responsible for the choice to keep the baby? How is he responsible for paying for the baby? A woman gets to decide what she does with her body and if she decides to keep a baby that was fathered by a man who wants nothing to do with her and the baby then she should have to live with that choice.
DeadMan
I am just terrified of stuff like this because, as a woman of breeding age with a family history of repeated miscarriages in between successful live births, a miscarriage will have to be investigated as a possible homicide if these things are taken to their logical extremes.
I do understand that I’m arguing for logic amongst the anti-choice crowd, which is ludicrous, but I just want that out there.
Raging Red:
My completely uninformed guess is that the technicalities may work to inform the parents if the teen is in the hospital using her family’s health insurance to get care. (If there’s health insurance.) But the C-Section is usually considered an urgent necessity at late stages, so there may be issues of unconsented life-saving actions, the minor granted unusual authority for necessary surgeries, or even an advocate in the hospital assigned to fully inform the teen and joint permission needs to be given by both.
I should probably watch more episodes of ER before I’m really an expert though. BWa!
So solution- if he says ‘no’ to the abortion then the embryo/fetus should be removed from her and implanted in him. If it survives to be born then she should be required to pay child support. That would be fair if only because miracles need financial help too.
It’s not required to give birth (C-section or vaginally).
What’s the point of parental “notification” laws anyway? Why do you need to tell the parents if they have no legal say in what happens with the pregnancy. Just to screw with the pregnant girl and make her home life harder for her?
The debate about ‘why should we force a man to pay child support for a kid he doesn’t have say over?’ usually misses an important point: a child is not the property of its parents. Children are humans and belong to no-one but themselves. This creates a lot of philosophical and legal headaches, including child support payments. We are unwilling as a society to provide a level of support to every child born, believing for some strange reason that a parent’s economic status should influence the future of a child.
We like to believe that children are ‘ours,’ that we own them somehow, and that we can disavow that ownership. I don’t think that child support payments are an ideal solution, but unless we’re willing to recognize a collective societal responsibility for our children, I don’t see a better one.
To all the folks who support the idea of men opting out of parenthood and child support: when exactly do you propose a man can decide this? Within the first 3 months of a pregnancy? Within the first six months of a child’s life? On the day that a woman could no longer have a late-term abortion legally? After a divorce? What if a man agrees to be in a child’s life and to support it but then decides “nah” once the woman could no longer have an abortion? Also, whose going to support these children? The state that refuses to fund health care for low income children as is? No man should ever have to pay child support? If a man decides that he doesn’t want to be part of a child’s life, should that automatically mean that at the moment of birth all children of single mothers should be taken away and put up for adoption? (This was once an ACTUAL proposal by Gingrich–rather, that the children of women on welfare should automatically be put up for adoption or in orphanges). The thing is, as I pointed out, 60% of child support payments are not being made in the first place; its really easy to screw over poor women who are single mothers. Its being done every day. Child support is not “for the woman” but rather to provide the necessities of what it takes to SURVIVE for a child. Your proposals, that a man could drop out of his genetic responsibilities are reprehensible and wrong. This could never work and it shouldn’t be considered. If you really want to work for all children being wanted than one needs to support:
1. Universal Health-Care and Universal access to contraception for women and men.
2. Comprehensive Sex Education that helps young people develop a sexual philosophy that respects their own health, their partner’s, and teaches the planning of families (not some nonsense that God decides when you should have babies…its all about the sperm and eggs).
3. Financial Education classes that help children comprehend the impact of teen parenthood on their whole lives and on the lives of children.
4. Advocate for more male contraceptive options in addition to condom use and a philosophy of sex that makes men responsible for their fertility and women responsible for their fertility.
5. Require all hospitals to offer EC to rape victims and require all pharmacies to carry (had have pharmacists who are willing to dispense it) to anyone woman over the counter.
6. Support universal child-care.
Peace
Maronan: Fuck you.
@ Hawise — apparently scientists/doctors think it should be perfectly possible to implant a fetus into certain tissues in the male abdomen. With enough medical intervention (hormone treatments, c section, probably some kind of artificial uterus/placenta), it should be perfectly feasible for a man to carry a fetus to term.
This hasn’t been done yet, because no man is interested in becoming the guinea pig. What a surprise.
One thing that I absolutely love about these threads is that they simultaneously bring out people who declare to women: “Don’t want to get pregnant, don’t have sex!” Whereas to men it is “Don’t want to pay for kids? Don’t have to!”
Sorry humorless, but 7.5 out of 100,000 is a higher figure than you are trying to make it out to be…it’s still a very significant risk of death and a very valid argument for choice (despite your best attempts at minimalization).
Plus, that’s not even going into the statistics of women rendered infertile by botched pregnancies or those who suffer life-altering (though not necessarily fatal) complications from their pregnancies. Even a non-fatal complication can ruin a woman’s health for the rest of her life and given that ANY woman can unexpectedly suffer these complications she should be given the right to choose whether she wants to subject her body to such risk. You or anyone else should not get to take that choice away from her based on a personal level of what you perceive to be acceptable risk that somehow supercedes her own.
Oh, he beat Adams to the punch by a couple weeks; he’s introduced a bill that would ban all abortions in Ohio without exception, based on the renewed vigor pumped into the slut-punishing cause by Carhart II: the Misogyny. Governor Strickland has already signaled that he’d veto that one. I hope he sees through this travesty as well. And that he has a good PR department, since the primary point of both bills is grandstanding to reverse the slightly weakened fortunes of the Ohio Republican Party. See also Missouri, and the attempt to shut down Planned Parenthood.
@the opoponax- I had read that it is possible, nothing stopping men from becoming mothers except the will to test the science and the eew factor that men would be mothers and all. I just think that that should be on the table if fathers want to make decisions for mothers. If daddy is willing to be mommy than that should be an option.
the main issue with the 7.5 out of 100,000 stat is that, while it may seem like a tiny drop in the bucket, the numbers go way up for pregnancies under the age of 15 or so. A pregnant 13 year old is at a much higher risk of complications or fatality than a pregnant 25 year old is.
Additionally, keep in mind that younger women who wouldn’t be able to get parental consent to have an abortion likely won’t have access to good prenatal care, either, which ups the risks significantly. I’d imagine this would be similar for adult women whose long-term partners/spouses refused consent under the Ohio bill.
Also with this bill, if you claim you want an abortion b/c you were raped, you have to provide proof with a police report.
Now, I wish more women reported rape, but we know they all don’t and I don’t hold that against them, rape is traumatic enough without having to go through an invasive medical procedure.
And many people will claim that it doesn’t matter, rape victims can get EC at the emergency room, which is also a crock. Plenty of nurses have no problem denying EC to rape victims, plenty of pharmacists have no problem denying EC to people off the street, many of the undoubtedly rape victims who didn’t report it to the police. Also, like any form of birth control, it can also fail, and the woman is SOL.
This shit makes me sick.
Hanx for teh linky, Amanda. The other guys used to make fun of Roberts periodically, but that was my first time. *Shudder*
I wish there were something we could call these people besides “Pro-Life.” They just are not. Period. “Anti-Choice” isn’t a strong enough term in my opinion.
Has there already been another moniker that I’ve not picked up? Anyone?
# 63 DeadMan
I don’t think you can have it both ways, if the man has no say in whether the fetus is aborted or not (the way it should be in my opinion) then how is he responsible for the choice to keep the baby? How is he responsible for paying for the baby?.
If a man does not want to be financially responsible for potential children, perhaps he should keep his sperm to himself?
#79 kac90b
Has there already been another moniker that I’ve not picked up? Anyone?
Control freaks?
“Forced pregnancy” seems to be the preferred moniker in a lot of areas.
Hawise - that’s what’s been running through my head for a couple of months now. Anti-choice fundies are all about Saving Teh Baybees, which seems like a reasonable enough goal, except that they act like the only way to do that is to force a woman to gestate against her will. Why hasn’t there been an enormous push for artifical uterus technology that would allow a woman to give her zygote to someone else if she didn’t want to be pregnant? All of these “OMG MY BAYBEE NO KILL IT” menfolk would be happy to gestate the zygote themselves if medical science would allow it, right? So why not a fundie research funding initiative in that direction?
Oh, because their ultimate goal isn’t to prevent abortion, it’s to punish women for being sluts. I forget that sometimes.
i tried calling his office to ask the aide questions about the logistics. she’s not answer the phone. fancy that. if you want to try: 614-466-1507.
this particular bill won’t go anywhere. if it does, strickland wouldn’t sign it. i’m not particularly concerned.
however, a bill requiring paternal consent would make abortion illegal before a bill that makes abortion illegal, if that makes sense. no one will pass an “all abortion is illegal” type of bill. but paternal consent is one of those ideas that clueless, white, middle-class, happy family types would consider an appropriate bill and not be too fussed over. “well, my brother was a litte tiny bit hurt when he found out six months after the fact that his fuck buddy hadn’t mentioned he was pregnant. he said he probably wouldn’t have minded if she had just told him but it would have been nice to be included. so yeah, no harm in paternal consent, it’ll be fine.” whatever. so then you get into the subject of dna testing. fine. you get all the skin tags you need, you hand them to the doctor, the doctor extrapolates their dna, then what? they get the dna from the 5 week old blastocyte? which causes a miscarriage? unlikely. so then she has to wait, what? until the 5th month of pregnancy to get an amniocentesis? sure, the d/x procedure is illegal, and good thing too! because then she might be sad! but d/c is still an option so she can just do that. and really, complications are exceeedingly rare so she’ll be fine.
“One thing that I absolutely love about these threads is that they simultaneously bring out people who declare to women: “Don’t want to get pregnant, don’t have sex!” Whereas to men it is “Don’t want to pay for kids? Don’t have to!””
and
“If a man does not want to be financially responsible for potential children, perhaps he should keep his sperm to himself?”
don’t tell woman not to have sex not to get preganant! men don’t want babies should have sex!! … i like how those 2 idea work so well together
Uh … I sure as hell never said that women shouldn’t have sex , we live in the age of contraceptives and abortion. A woman really doesn’t need to have a baby if she doesn’t want to (and we need to make sure that stays true). If a woman CHOSES to have a baby, she’s an adult that has all the rights in the world to make that decision but that choice shouldn’t have long term reproductions for somebody who has no control over the decision.
And honestly … isn’t that what we are talking about here? A man can’t tell a woman to not have an abortion, how come a woman can tell a man he needs to be a father (financially at least)? It’s not that men shouldn’t pay for child support; I’m saying if you have a child without the consent of the father I don’t think you should be expecting money from him.
Of course this is all theory, to have it work that way in real life you’d need some kind of legal document that the pregnant woman would present to the sperm donor (if she chooses to allow him parental rights) that he would sign saying he is indeed now the father with all financial and legal responsibilities that would entail … huh … I wonder if that would actually work? … … I think it could be a useful legal document, I’ve discussed having a child with a lesbian friend and a document like that might come in handy depending on the situation we find ourselves (she could sue my ass for child support if I somehow decide to become a complete asshole). And a gay father could use it as assurance that he will be able to stay in his kids life even if the mother decides to get married and make her husband the “father” … … … anyway
DeadMan: If a woman CHOSES to have a baby, she’s an adult that has all the rights in the world to make that decision but that choice shouldn’t have long term reproductions for somebody who has no control over the decision.
Nevertheless, the child still needs clothes, food, shelter, shoes, books, healthcare. The notion that the child’s father shouldn’t have to kick in any financial responsibility just because he didn’t want the child is pure bunkum.
A woman gets to decide whether or not to have an abortion, because it’s her body.
Once the child’s born, both parents are obliged to provide the necessities of life for the child.
deadman, child support is paid to the child not the mother. regardless of any decision that the man or woman makes, the child exists and the child has a right to be supported. this means it has a right to shelter/food/clothes and it doesn’t matter how it gets it. in some relationships, the kid gets it by living with the mother and having the mother pay for everything and occasionally getting a monthly pittance from the father. if the mother fails to provide appropriate shelter/food/clothes, then the state comes in and “fixes” it because the child is *entitled* to those things.
Lessee- mysoginists for the men, and Stockholm syndrome victims for the women.
And I’d like to express my faith in Gov. Strickland. A friend of mine worked for him when he was in Congress and trusted him, and I trust her judgement. Even so, I’m going to make some noise.
oh yeah another part that makes my point completly theory is :
“women chose to have babies” … in a perfect world that would be the case … in the real world this is normaly pretty far from the truth … not with the way sex ed and reproductive rights are being killed in america by fundies
furthermore, women and men have different consequences to sex that, really, if they haven’t figured out by now probably shouldn’t be having sex.
potential consequences for women - pregnancy, abortion, childbirth, single motherhood
potential consequences for men - paying a couple hundred dollars in child support, finding out that a woman he knocked up had an abortion
i think women have, for the most part, accepted their consequences fairly well. in fact, most of the time that i hear of women demanding child support it’s actually *not* the woman who wants it, but the state. in fact, ohio doesn’t even allow single mothers to apply for state assistance unless they cough up the name of the father so that *ohio* can demand child support. most women i know don’t give a shit that the father took off.
Goddamned fucking bastards? Or is that too strong?
Because a fetus is a fetus. It can’t survive outside the mother until 7-9 months, and is therefore a part of her body, and no one should be able to tell her what to do with her body.
A child is a human being which can survive outside the mother, and is no one’s property. The father should be responsible for caring for him partially, at least financially, regardless if he wanted it or not.
To review:
Child=owns itself=has rights=needs to be cared for until he can care for him/herself
Fetus=part of mother’s body=mother has rights to her own body
Thealogian,
I’m one of the people who believes that a man should have the right to opt out of fatherhood. However, I realize that this doesn’t function currently because we don’t have enough societal provisions to assist single mothers. If we had universal health care, free child care, a monthly payment for children (I think Australia does this, or is it France. I can’t remember) etc. that we would be morally obligated to allow men to not be involved.
The way I would do this is that it would be a man must sign a legally binding contract within 3 months of the child’s life. This would sever all parental rights and responsibilities. Were he to change his mind later, he would have to legally adopt the child with the permission of the mother. If this contract isn’t signed, he has the full responsibility of child support.
Again, this would function in my ideal society. This is not that society.
a woman can tell a man he needs to be a father (financially at least)?
Because life isn’t always fair. This is a consequence of having sex.
It’s kind of the same way women can’t force men to be tested for all those non-life-threatening STD’s men tend to be carriers of, which only really affect women. Anytime I sleep with a man, I know I’m risking the possibility of getting chlamydia or something, and I can’t legislate testing all men for it annually and putting the results online in a handy searchable database.
Ashley, the legally binding contract must be signed BEFORE the woman gives birth. She should have as much information as possible (like whether the dad’s gonna help financially) when she decides whether to continue with the pregnancy or not. It’s hard to pin down, since women find out they’re pregnant at different points during gestation, but I think it could go something like this:
Let’s say the law says that men have up until the 12th week of pregnancy to decide whether they’ll be involved financially in raising the resulting child.
The law does not allow the man to force the woman to abort or prevent her from aborting.
Dick and Jane have sex. Jane gets pregnant.
She discovers this when she’s 6 weeks along.
Dick now has until week 12 to decide whether he’d like to help support the child should Jane continue with the pregnancy.
Dick either:
a.) Decides he’ll take financial responsibility for the resulting child (should she keep it). He signs a legally binding document saying so. Jane takes this info. into consideration when deciding whether or not to continue with the pregnancy. She decides to continue with it. She has the baby and she and Dick are both responsible for it financially.
or
b.) Decides he wants nothing to do with the resulting child (should she continue with the pregnancy). He signs a legally binding document saying so. Jane takes this info. into consideration when deciding whether or not to continue with the pregnancy. If she continues, she’ll be 100% responsible for the child. Or she can abort.
“having to confront fathers/brothers/stepfathers who got them pregnant in the first place”
Don’t a lot of parental notification bills have rape/incest/health exceptions?
I haven’t been by a computer so I’m sorry that I haven’t answered all the concerns; again I don’t want to belabor the issue but I mostly agree with Thealogian’s post, especially about
“If you are worried about this, foster a dialogue with your children earlier–make sure that they know that they are unconditionally loved and help them with comprehensive sex education and the development of a sexual philosophy that respects their health, the health of their partners, and their mindful planning of a family in the course of their lives (do this for sons and daughters).”
But, but…the sons are supposed to sow teh wild oatz!!11!! /sarc
I have to say I favor giving couples an option to decide that the male will have nothing to do with the child. I think it should be at the couple’s discretion, though, with the consent of both parties. If both parties don’t consent, paternal responsibility proceeds as normal. And I think it should have to be a complete renunciation of paternity — no rights to visitation, nothing binding between the mother and father. As far as the genetic father is concerned, the kid doesn’t exist.
I’ve just seen so many guys who kinda-sorta want to be involved, but can’t get their shit together, and think it’s a one-way street where they shouldn’t have to pay anything or make any commitment, but the moment they deign to buy the kid an ice cream cone, suddenly they are superdad. I think facing a legally binding non-paternity agreement would get some of these dudes to just face the fucking facts.
If either biodad or mom is not 100% into raising the child, it is not fair to the child. Simple, huh? That is how I would want things run in my family - there is no “cram down” right amongst friends. My sister (lawyer) who could easily have had an abortion but was around 40 and wanted to have the baby has a legal right to cram down a baby on dad (police officer). She lacks an ethical grounds for that legal action, in my view, since it is unfair to the child to have a reluctant/absent dad. The rights of the child trump the rights of the 40 year old who yearns for a child, in my view. I would not propose this as the law, but as an ethical matter, I vote to make things as easy as possible for the innocent child, even if mom needs to get a (safe, legal) abortion she does not want.
the opoponax: I have to say I favor giving couples an option to decide that the male will have nothing to do with the child. I think it should be at the couple’s discretion, though, with the consent of both parties. If both parties don’t consent, paternal responsibility proceeds as normal.
That sounds like a fine suggestion, and I’m all for it. But whatever the two people who are the child’s genetic parents decide together about who’s going to be the child’s social parent, unless the child voluntarily renounces their right to receive financial support from their parents, what the parents want is irrelevant.
Private sperm donor arrangements aside (that is, a couple who are looking to find a man who’s prepared to provide just sperm, in which case, pre-fertilization, the three of them can make that legal contract) the parents simply shouldn’t have the right to decide that the father can just opt out of his minimal legal obligations to his child. He can decide he never wants to see the kid, but not that he never wants to make sure the kid gets to eat.
My sister (lawyer) who could easily have had an abortion but was around 40 and wanted to have the baby has a legal right to cram down a baby on dad (police officer). She lacks an ethical grounds for that legal action, in my view, since it is unfair to the child to have a reluctant/absent dad.
Yeah, sex can be funny that way. I mean, last year, when I found out some anonymous past sexual partner “crammed” HPV “down” on me, I was pretty pissed off, too. If I knew who it was and I was as seriously litigious as some of these Men’s Rights dudes are, I would have been happy to take the responsible party to court to ensure that, in the event that I come down with cervical cancer, I (and any dependents) would be provided for. Being reimbursed for all those annoying pap smears, biopsies, etc. wouldn’t be a bad thing, either. I also think I probably deserve something for the fact that, now I’m chained to a job that includes health insurance, my career has been a bit stagnant.
But luckily for the dude or dudette who “crammed down” HPV on my ass, I’m mature enough understand that nobody ever said sex would be fair.
Here’s my point, SilenceIris: 7.5 maternal deaths out of 100,000 births does not make the majority of pregnancies and births “dangerous” for the mother. Each of those maternal deaths is a horrendous tragedy, and I shudder to think how many may have been prevented had the woman had unfettered access to abortion.
Using the “danger” of pregnancy as a way to justify abortion is a weak argument.
No woman should have to justify her need/want for an abortion by saying she’s afraid of the danger of pregnancy. The only reason abortion must remain safe and legal is that women must have absolute sovreignty over our own bodies. No other justification is necessary.
Maternal deaths from pregnancy/childbirth is a separate issue, and should be treated as a pretty damn serious one at that.
oh, and @ Jesu — yeah, if you view child support as being an arrangement between non-custodial parent and child, with the mother merely being the child’s legal vehicle, that’s very true.
Wow, CFU. Now it’s in children’s best interest to have absentee, deadbeat dads. Way to twist things there. It doesn’t matter if the father is a shitty guy who never wants to see the kid; the kid deserves financial support from his/her parents. Getting a check in the mail for some meager amount each month is not going to hurt the kid.
Sounds like you advocate allowing men to force women to get abortions.
And that police officer was not hoodwinked or “crammed” with a child. Unless he was raped, he took the same risk of pregnancy that your sis did.
How’s this for a generic answer–give the name of someone who’s been cremated (what does happen if the father is dead in this bill?).
On a technical note, parents do have power in things that can have life consequences–for example they can opt out of vaccinations for their children even though this makes the child more likely to die (there’s also the fuzzier example with christian scientists not letting their children get any medical care, but there the parents can be held responsible).
How do parental notification laws work (do some states have parental notification laws right now)? I think there are states with it and I know most proposed laws have a non-parent option (they have to go to a judge or (is there someone else?) and explain why they don’t want to notify their parents). I am against these laws, but if there is one out there how well does it work for women who don’t want tell their parents (is the judge a rubber stamp or do they usually rule for the notification)?
CFU, your claim reminds me of men who put effort into “screwing up” the laundry or the dishes in attempt to show their wives/girlfriends just how incompetent they are at housework, and maybe they (the women) should do it from now on since they’re so good at it. Man’s refusal to be responsible is really a benefit to those involved.
This is a typical fallacy brought up when talking about abortion issues. The fact of the matter is, abortion is a protected right because pregnancy is a major issue regarding a woman’s health. The right to have an abortion is based entirely upon the right not to be pregnant, not the right to avoid financial responsibilities.
A man doesn’t get to decide “the woman I’ve impregnated must remain pregnant” and doesn’t get to decide “the woman I’ve impregnated must stop being pregnant, or grant me freedom from my responsibilities.”
If you have sex, and a child results, you are financially responsible, unless the child is adopted or other arrangements are made. This is the same if you’re a man or a woman.
Yes, a woman can choose to have an abortion; this is not unbalanced because she is the one who bears the burden of pregnancy. The person who bears the physical burdens and risks gets to determine if those burdens and risks are justified.
What would be unfair would be if a woman could say “I won’t support this child” and force the man to raise the child. Similarly, it’s unfair for a man to refuse to support the child and force the woman to do so.
Instead, we have the situation that is the only fair one: the person who must be pregnant gets to decide if she will continue the pregnancy, and both parents are liable for financial care.
Ok just to clarify (and maybe look less like a nut):
I believe a woman has total and complete control of her body and all the choices are her’s to make. I also think a biodad (I like that word) shouldn’t have any rights to a child unless the mother gives him those rights (her body, her choice) … I also believe there should be a way for biodad to opt out officially before the mother ever makes the decision to abort.
Having said that, if the choice came down between a system that takes control of a woman’s own body away from her or a system that allows a woman to make all the decisions regarding her pregnancy (including forcing a biodad to pay child support even though he wanted the pregnancy aborted) I’ll always take the woman in complete control of her body option. Female reproductive rights are just too important to be fucked around with.
Oh and kids shouldn’t ever go hungry … ever. But I think that has more to do with health care, day care, and financial support for single mothers than it does with abortions.
But biodad having rights to a child have nothing to do with the woman’s body. Once the kid’s born anyway.
But luckily for the dude or dudette who “crammed down” HPV on my ass, I’m mature enough understand that nobody ever said sex would be fair.
What does this have to do with fairness from the perspective of the child? Ethics analysis that just focuses on mom and dad leaves out child, the poor schmuck who has no right to vote in the US system for 18 years.
If all 75 million or so schmucks under 18 in the US had the right to vote, then the schmucks’ interests in the go/no go decision would be more respected.
To a large extent, poor schmucks under 18 are the “niggers” in current society (more politely, a discrete and insular minority denied access to the polls).
Single mom raising a poor schmuck under 18 is no joke (it is a bitch of a job even with two parents) - those who do their ethics analysis assuming a poor schmuck under 18 would be just has stable and prosperous, in all likelihood, even if raised by mom alone, need to recall that no voting data (from voters under 18) supports their assumption.
To me, ignoring rights and interests of those under 18 is a bit like saying the average slave did not mind slavery, etc., not that we ever asked (via vote taking).
What does this have to do with fairness from the perspective of the child?
It doesn’t — the child has a legal right to financial support from both parents, regardless of how wanted it was. Life’s not fair that way. You get pregnant, the child is born, it must be fed and clothed and housed and educated for 18 years (minimum). If the woman decides she doesn’t want a child and has an abortion, well, OK. Men’s lack of say in this choice is the “unfair” part of sex, for men.
The perspective of the child only comes into play when the father becomes a deadbeat dad. Which is the responsibility of the father, not the mother or the child.
very well said, opoponax
humorless, for those 7.5 the pregnancy was indeed “dangerous” (even lethal, imagine that) not to mention that this figure isn’t touching on other very serious lifelong complications resulting from pregnancy.
I don’t think it’s necessary to discount the dangers of pregnancy in the name of supporting your larger focus (a woman’s sovereignty over her own body). They are very valid and very real dangers and EVERY woman is subject to these dangers when carrying a child to term. It’s important, in fact, not to downplay these risks.
You can argue your agenda on whatever stance you choose without trying to undermine someone else’s point of view. Again, you may think 7.5 (which doesn’t tell the whole story) is insignificant and not a valid argument in support of abortion rights: others would disagree with you. It all plays into the larger narrative and helps to show that there are many ethical, moral and practical reasons to support abortion rights.
If all 75 million or so schmucks under 18 in the US had the right to vote, then the schmucks’ interests in the go/no go decision would be more respected.
I really don’t get where you’re coming from here.
All children under 18 have a legal right to financial support from both parents. Voting or not voting has nothing to do with it. A legal age of majority has nothing to do with it (though I personally think the child support issue would be less frought if it were more explicitly an agreement between parent and child rather than between mother and father). There’s nothing for a child to decide, any more than we individually get to decide whether we should be subject to the first amendment. Who would waive their legal right to free speech? Why do you think a child would waive their right to material support?
I found one of the answers–many states have parental notification (and some consent) laws.
I know parental notification is bad for many teenagers (which is why I’m against it), what I’m wondering is more technical: how many teenagers do go to the judge and how often does the judge rule that the parent doesn’t have to be notified?
“The right to have an abortion is based entirely upon the right not to be pregnant, not the right to avoid financial responsibilities.”
Your argument makes it sound like women don’t have abortions to avoid financial problems. Not being able to afford a child has to be one of the top reason that women get abortions in the first place. Women do in fact abort to avoid the crushing financial responsibility of having a kids and that’s their right, a man should have an opt out option too. But what worries me the most about your argument is that it sounds like being too poor to afford a kid isn’t a valid reason to not have a child. And in my opinion it’s a great reason not to have kids … for men and women.
DeadMan
“It doesn’t matter if the father is a shitty guy who never wants to see the kid; the kid deserves financial support from his/her parents. Getting a check in the mail for some meager amount each month is not going to hurt the kid.”
Yes, it does hurt the poor schmuck who is under 18 and gets a check in a meager amount from a dad, as opposed better parenting from dad.
If we stop viewing those under 18 as mere chattel, and view them as adults with rights equal to those of mom and dad, then the “forced” (ethically, not legally) abortion does not look wrong.
We need to picture 3 folks in ethics court with ethics advocates, not just two. If two of those three ethics advocates are saying this is fraught with peril and not wanted (dad plus prospective child or mom plus prospective child), why is it so inequitable to say to mom, as an ethical matter (not legal), get the safe, legal abortion?
We can assume that child would rather be born and neglected by dad, rather than not born. A better assumption in my view is that child would rather not be born than born and neglected by dad (or just sent a meager support check).
@ Deadman — but the legal principle that makes abortion legal is the right to bodily autonomy/privacy, not the right to avoid financial responsibilities, or the right for everything to always be fair all the time.
It’s true that some women choose to exercise said right to bodily autonomy for reasons of financial responsibility. But that doesn’t mean “you have the right not to be financially responsible for anything you didn’t really think through very well”. Which is what folks who want to be able to opt out of parental responsibility want it to mean.
“But biodad having rights to a child have nothing to do with the woman’s body. Once the kid’s born anyway.”
Yeah, and I don’t think it helps the debate to pretend that women have rights to the fetus rather than rights to their own bodies. Men don’t get veto power simply because he state does not have enough of an interest in the fetus’ welfare to override my bodily autonomy and privacy. (If it did, abortion would be illegal at all stages.) Since the man’s rights with regard to the child come from his responsibility as custodian of the child’s rights, if the fetus’ rights don’t supersede mine, neither do his. It has nothing to do with who has more rights or responsibilities when it comes to the potential child.
“Men’s lack of say in this choice is the “unfair” part of sex, for men.”
Or, as someone said over at feministing, “your complaint is about biology” not the law.
“If two of those three ethics advocates are saying this is fraught with peril and not wanted…”
Which is incredibly stupid, because (in addition to the reasons I stated above) now you are pretending to speak for the child instead of accepting that the child, being unable to speak for his or herself, must rely on his/her parents to speak for him/her.
Because why is “I want to live?” the only available decision? Not that I don’t want to live, but I am kinda amused that all these “but what if your mother had aborted you!” arguments - and, yes, that is the essence of your argument - assume that the child, once he or she is of age to make such decisions, wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice him or herself for the greater good. Not saying that it’s a likely choice, just one that I could see people making.
Yes, it does hurt the poor schmuck who is under 18 and gets a check in a meager amount from a dad, as opposed better parenting from dad.
Then whose responsibility other than “dad’s” is it that the father be involved, to whatever capacity the experts think is most appropriate? How is it the mother’s responsibility to abort a fetus because the father can’t be bothered?
Again, we go back to the fact that sex, like the rest of life, just ain’t fair. You have sex with a woman, she gets pregnant, it’s her call as to how to handle the situation. If she decides to have the baby, you, as sperm manufacturer, are responsible in some capacity for the welfare of the resulting child. If you think that means you need to both contribute financially and share custody, then so be it. But, look, dude, you pays your money sperm, you takes your chance.
And then, of course, there is also the fact that you are talking about possibilities as if they were actual realities. Which is part of why I think assuming the kid/fetus would pick “no! don’t abort me!” every time to be more than ridiculous.
I may not be selfless enough to die for the sake of my family (although I’d like to think so) but I am adult enough to understand that aborting the pregnancy that made me wouldn’t have meant killing me, it would have meant killing the possibility of me. And I would have been very mad if my mother hadn’t been able to make the choice that she thought would be best for herself, her husband, and the two children she already had - even if the choice had involved missing out on me - but possibly getting someone else.
So men who have sex and run should have society pick up their share of the tab for their kids? Wow, now that’s freedom.
wtf is it with me and the strikethrough? why doesn’t DEL work?
it showed up right in the preview!
that should be “You pays your
moneysperm, you takes your chance.” Duh.The opoponax said it better than I, CFW. What you’re saying, essentially, is that pregnant women are ethically obligated to look into the future to correctly determine what kind of parent the father will be, and to get an abortion if he’s gonna ditch them or be a sub-par dad. Even if he IS going to pay child support religiously.
How ’bout this, ethically, men are required not to ditch the women they impregnate & their children, physically or financially.
Or is it too much to ask that we hold men responsible for their behavior as well as women?
#121 SarahMC:
Or is it too much to ask that we hold men responsible for their behavior as well as women?
But if we do that, then oh noes teh mens won’t be able to ditch their responsibilities. Which is what I think CFW is arguing for. His point seems to be (and I admit I may be wrong, because I find his comments difficult to parse) that kids are better off with no father than with a crappy one, so if a man does not wish to fulfill his responsibilities, he should be allowed to opt out of them. For the sake of the child, dontchaknow.
Funny, I’ve been parsing cfw’s comments as saying that it should be a woman’s responsibility to abort if a man doesn’t want a child, because men who don’t want children will be shitty fathers, and better for a child never to have existed than to have to live without two happy, responsible, and committed parents. Which is so laughably out of touch that I kinda don’t know what more to say about it.
I’m certain CFW is saying both of those things, Shelley & The opoponax.
Opoponax, I think you have smacked the proverbial nail upside the head.
The mind wobbles!
No, my argument doesn’t “make it sound” like that. You are inferring.
It’s true: the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy has a side effect of ending the financial responsibility. But the reason there is a right to obtain an abortion is because of the right to make personal medical decisions without the government interfering.
“How is it the mother’s responsibility to abort a fetus because the father can’t be bothered?”
Apply the ethical golden rule and assume the poor schmuck who is under 18 has rights equal to mom and dad.
Perhaps mother (and dad) have a responsibility (ethical, not legal) to abort if they cannot treat the poor schmuck like they would want to be treated.
To me, that ethically implies emotional support 24/7 from two parents and not just a monthly check from one.
It also ethically implies to me two parents (the magic to me is the number, not the sex) spending time with the child in a shared home for 18 years, absent unforeseeable disaster. (Work outside the home is allowed, of course, and maybe 2 tours in Iraq for 15 months - beyond that, there are “no enough face time” issues, in my view.)
There is an ethical contract that is made with the prospective child by each prospective parent - if it is not a voluntary 3-way implied contract, or it is “pie in the sky” (not reasonably likely to be honored by prospective dad or mom), then there are ethical (not legal) issues, in my view.
It is legal, of course, to say I want to be a mom and my needs prevail, just send the check, thanks. Ethical, given the pitiful support given by our society for the under 18’s and single moms? I would say it is a close call, especially for a prospective mom with limited funds (forecasted, of course, for 18+ years). If in doubt, the prospective mom should ethically say “not this time”, out of deference to the prospective child, in my view.
Prospective mom has an ethical responsibility since she has a choice - she can elect the safe, legal abortion, or the neglectful dad and support check. She can put her need for a child above all else, or not.
So let me get this straight, cfw (and it’s true, your comments require a fair amount of parsing), you apparently think that every person who was raised in a single-parent home and/or had a shitty father who was not totally involved in her/his life would rather not have been born?
Apply the ethical golden rule and assume the poor schmuck who is under 18 has rights equal to mom and dad.
Said “poor shmuck” is a tiny cluster of cells at the point a decision has to be made. S/he does not yet exist, or at least in any way that would count as being a full human being. S/he cannot vote, because s/he does not have a brain to decide who to vote for, legs to walk to the polls with, or an arm to pull the lever in the voting machine. S/he cannot share opinions about the ideal parenting setup because s/he does not have any vocal apparatus, and is physically located in a place that is permanently out of earshot and impossible to get a cell phone to (the birth canal does not get good reception. do not ask me how i know this.).
Because of all this, the mother, who is carrying said fetus in her body, gets to make the decision about whether to bring a child into the world or not, under the present conditions.
The father, who should have known what he was getting himself into when he “spread his legs”, to use fundiespeak, has no say whatsoever beyond the decision to use a goddamn condom and ideally talk about the hypotheticals a bit before it actually happens.
Perhaps mother (and dad) have a responsibility (ethical, not legal) to abort if they cannot treat the poor schmuck like they would want to be treated.
See, here I think we’re on the same page. Of course, I happen to wish my parents had divorced sooner (their constant arguing and general miserability was a total pain in the ass).
I’d never bring a child into the world that I didn’t think I could raise properly. Which would include a seriously delinquent and irresponsible father who I thought might ever have a chance of seeing the kid.
But at the same time, I still don’t think it’s the woman’s responsibility to abort if the father isn’t on the same page. I think that if a woman gets pregnant and wants the child, and thinks the kid has a reasonable shot in life, the man needs to sack up and deal with it.
SilenceIris, re-read my comment. I stated that the maternal deaths were indeed very tragic. Respond to the comment, not the perceived comment.
What “agenda” do you assign to me besides this one: Women must have access to abortion, no “excuse” or reason or justification necessary?
The fact that women die in childbirth is a completely different and gravely serious issue that should not be ignored. Neither does it need to be a “reason” for women to have abortions.
“With this Supreme Court, I wouldn’t bet on that.”
Incertus, even assuming it gets that far, in Casey v. Planned Parenthood Kennedy joined the plurity opinion which struck down spousal notification (less extreme than the consent required here). So assuming the current court, I feel pretty safe that this wouldn’t be upheld.
Hm, so is cfw also saying that all couples considering having a child should be psychic to ensure that both parents will be alive for the next 18 years? Because you have to have that magical pair of parents.
humorless
I can only respond to what I perceive, sorry
We are apparently misunderstanding each other on some level. I feel that after this response I will have made myself rather clear to the point of dead horse flogging and won’t engage the topic further. I don’t enjoy arguing for argument’s sake nor am I making any attempt to twist your words or imply meaning that is not there.
The risks involved with pregnancy are one of many VALID reasons a woman may choose not to continue a pregnancy. There is no point in tearing down or minimizing ANY reason a woman may make such a choice by calling it a weak or invalid position.
“Agenda” was perhaps the wrong word to use. I would describe you APPROACH to the issue of abortion as being more philosophy based (sovereignty over the body is sufficient unto itself as an argument and no other factors need be considered) than considering practical concerns (safety, health, financial issues). I think the more levels we approach the issue on, the more we will strenghten the Pro-Choice position. It won’t weaken the argument for the basic right to a woman controlling her own body to point out the very real dangers to going through a pregnancy.
According to this site (http://www.paternity-answers.com/paternity-prenatal-test.html), prenatal paternity tests require samples acquired through either amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling. If you wanted it in order to get an abortion, naturally you’d want to go for CVS, which can be done earlier in pregnancy than amniocentesis. CVS is done between the 10th and 12th week of pregnancy. So, the effect of the legal requirement that paternity testing be done in any case where the father is unknown is to push abortions for women who have slept with more than one man into the second trimester. (Assuming, that is, that people actually follow the law rather than picking a father and lying.)
And of course, it’d push abortions for women who’ve been raped into the second trimester (if that early!). Not that they’ll believe any of the women who report, but ya know.
So men who have sex and run should have society pick up their share of the tab for their kids? Wow, now that’s freedom.
Given a choice between society paying, or the child and mother being abandoned, I plump for the first. Of course, I’d also support the State and/or the mother having enforcable claims against the father as well.
And as regards “I wish I’d never been born”, I think my mother would have been beter off if I had been aborted and she hadn’t married so young. Or, should I rather say, if the fetus that later became me had been aborted - abortion would not have killed me because there was no “me” there at the time. Abortion destroys the potential for a human being (as, for that matter, does a complte menstrual cycle), not a human being itself.
“I think that if a woman gets pregnant and wants the child, and thinks the kid has a reasonable shot in life, the man needs to sack up and deal with it.”
I think if a man wants to have a child and he thinks the kid has a reasonable shot in life the woman needs to sack up a deal with it.
and if she’s not happy well life and sex aren’t fair now are they … …
I get a feeling my arguments hold no water … I wonder why?
DeadMan
I just had a depressing conversation with a friend of mine the other day. He’s said in the past that men shouldn’t have to pay child support for unwanted children. Now he’s also told me he doesn’t like condoms and doesn’t wear them. He doesn’t need to, you see, because he doesn’t have sex outside of committed relationships. He’s a peace-and-love hippie type, and I guess condoms are too big a buzz-harsher when the universal spirit moves him to screw.
Discussions about abortion and child support always bring home to me the fact that some men are pro-choice simply because when abortion is legal, if they knock someone up they have a better chance of getting off the hook.
“Discussions about abortion and child support always bring home to me the fact that some men are pro-choice simply because when abortion is legal, if they knock someone up they have a better chance of getting off the hook.”
that’s fucked up … and sad … and so true. On a side note I can’t believe i’m advocating for father rights … so before my soul breaks , i think i’ll stop.
DeadMan
DeadMan, I’m going to tip you off to something here: your argument doesn’t hold water because men don’t get pregnant. And, you know, that’s kind of a big deal.
forced pregnancy = fucking up a person’s body
forced support payments = fucking up a person’s checking account
fucking a person’s body > fucking up a person’s checking account.
duh.
Why is it so hard for social conservatives to understand property rights in this instance?
If its in the woman’s body, its on her property. She can do what she wishes with it. Its none of the man’s damn business.
Because social conservatives do not believe that a woman owns her own body: see title of Amanda’s post. Property rights are invested in the man who’s having sex with her, or her father, depending which social conservative you talk to.
Hey, cfw!!!
No parent can guarantee they won’t end up in a car crash or get sick and DIE!
They should ALL abort, according to your logic, because their children would be better off nonexistent rather than fully or partially orphaned.
Sure, the human race ceases to exist in about a century, but at least there will be no kids in non bi-parented homes.
#
Because social conservatives do not believe that a woman owns her own body: see title of Amanda’s post. Property rights are invested in the man who’s having sex with her, or her father, depending which social conservative you talk to.
And thats part of the reason social conservatives are reactionary tools!
In general I agree that arguing that pregnancy is dangerous-in-a-lethal-sense can often be skipped over. However, it is still important to note that pregnancy can be hell on a woman’s body anyway.How many of those 999,992.5 surviving mothers had easy pregnancies with no complications? How many made it only due to heroic efforts of doctors with the best modern medicine? How many of the surviving mothers developed new medical problems during the pregnancy? How many miscarriages or stillborns occurred alongside the 100000 successful births?
i just reread the bill in question. anyone notice this:
(2) When the fetus that is the subject of the procedure is not viable, no person shall perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman without the written informed consent of the father of the fetus.
that means that if you have a miscarriage, you can’t have the abortion performed.
i do admire the logical consistency. one does not abort a fetus. you abort a *pregnancy*. only women can get pregnant; hence, it’s the woman’s abortion, the woman’s pregnancy being terminated and the man doesn’t have a thing to do with it since *pregnancy* has 100% nothing to do with men. if she needs a permission slip from the guy who knocked her up to abort her pregnancy, but not to kill his fetus then it makes sense that even when there isn’t a fetus involved, she would still need a permission slip for an abortion because there is still a pregnancy involved.
that is a spectacular example of woman-hating.
I’d be much more sympathetic to the complaints men make about child support and how “unfair” things are for them, if men (in general) took positive steps to ensure they don’t end up w/ kids they don’t want.
Men (in general) have not gotten outraged and started a letter writing campaign to big pharma calling for more male birth control options. I see more men resisting it than calling for it. No, they’re not going to put hormones into their bodies. Let the women take care of it.
I don’t see men taking interest in the woman’s BC.
I don’t see men supporting women regarding more birth control options. I doubt many men pay for half their partner’s BC.
Men, do you discuss BC at length before sex until you’re both clear on where you stand? If the girl’s ambivalent, do you still screw her and cross your fingers, or do you walk away?
If men (in general) were more conscientious about preventing pregnancy, I think would be more sympathetic. If men were more interested in reproductive justice, I would be more sympathetic.
Men leave most of the prevention up to the woman, don’t even actively approach the woman to talk about birth control or unplanned pregnancy, etc…
will even vote for an anti-abortion politician- then bitch and whine about having to pay child support.
Okay, silence — you and I disagree that on the whole, pregnancy is dangerous.
“DeadMan, I’m going to tip you off to something here: your argument doesn’t hold water because men don’t get pregnant. And, you know, that’s kind of a big deal”
that and “life’s not fair” is a stupid argument coming from a liberal femminist message board that is pushing for more equality for women and minorities … of course life isn’t fair, but aren’t we trying to make it more so?
“fucking a person’s body > fucking up a person’s checking account.
duh.”
now that’s a fucking good argument and totaly true (duh). The (small amount) of men paying unfair child support is a minor issue … a problem of luxury if you will … woman’s rights are a major issue that needs to be discussed because we simply aren’t there yet … men run the show , they don’t need that protection.
Having said that I still think it’s unfair that a man can’t opt out of a situation he has no control over* and a better system could be devised, is it a priority? hell no. I’ll start to seriously push for it the day women stop making 70% of a man’s salary, and a stay at home dad is as common as a stay at home mom. But just beacuse there are bigger and more important problems out there doesn’t mean that this isn’t an issue at all. It’s just a minor one.
DeadMan
* “no control” here is after impregnating the woman … before that he has tons of control and should take responsibility for preventing the damn pregnancy in the first place. But that’s a separate issue.
DeadMan:
Define “unfair child support.”
I wrote my (Cleveland-area) rep about this bill and got a response today:
I’ve volunteered to do whatever it takes here in NE Ohio to make sure this craziness will not stand, so any other embarassed Ohioans are welcome to email me to join forces accordingly…
JohnL:
“what I’m wondering is more technical: how many teenagers do go to the judge and how often does the judge rule that the parent doesn’t have to be notified?”
I can only offer anectodal evidence, my judicial bypass went fairly smoothly, was in a small conference room with me, two lawyers, a judge and stenographer. The judge was pregnant and I was terrified. I had to answer questions about why this decision would be for my benefit(stupid question). Like I said I was approved, but I am an articulate, upstanding little white girl. I shudder to think what would have happened if that were not so.
That is part of the whole problem with the process, it is completely arbitrary and left to the whims of each individual judge and there reactions to the people before them. Also, one lawyer was there for me, one for the “interests of the fetus.” which is bullshit, because the fetus has no interests at that time.
cfw:
Children are born with the rights to be provided with the neccessities for survival, ie food, clothing, living space.
Children are not born with the right to a household with two loving parents. Even men who do not “run out” or reluctantly send child support can be a shitty influence on a child.
There is nothing wrong with being raised by a single parent. Just because it sucked for you, doesn’t mean it sucks for everyone. Another example of why laws aren’t based on extreme occurences.
“I know parental notification is bad for many teenagers (which is why I’m against it), what I’m wondering is more technical: how many teenagers do go to the judge and how often does the judge rule that the parent doesn’t have to be notified?”
I’m assuming that this varies widely from area to area and judge to judge. But having worked for Planned Parenthood in the southwest Ohio area, I know that judicial bypass was considered to be an absolute last resort a few years ago, because the judges almost never ruled in the young woman’s favor. So she would go through the difficulty and effort of applying for judicial bypass, making her abortion more expensive and more invasive, and the judge would force her back into notifying a parent anyway.
Baseline: judicial bypass is sometimes just another way of telling a minor that she can’t have an abortion.
Also, one lawyer was there for me, one for the “interests of the fetus.”
Your fetus had a lawyer? Jesus Christ.
The argument isn’t “life isn’t fair,” the argument is that your complaint is with biology, not the law, and yet you keep complaining about the law.
Sometimes the law can address biological inequalities, sometimes it can’t. Short of science creating artificial wombs, I don’t see how the state can address this inequality through law. And it already does so through social programs and institutions, like oh, say marriage, which foster communication between the potential parents.
The fact that women get a (legal) say in whether or not they have children after they become pregnant, while men only get a (legal) say in whether they become parents before pregnancy happens is a result of biology, period.
This isn’t like complaining about the glass ceiling or rape. This is like complaining about the fact that men get to pee standing up. It’s not even really a case of fairness, it’s just a case of the situations being different. You can address the results of this difference by acknowledging that this means that men’s public restrooms don’t need as many stalls/urinals as women’s restrooms need, but you can’t penalize men or speed up time for women to address the individual unfairness of the time it takes to pee.
So, push for better social programs, but drop the stupid requests to change the law.
The person that has the womb, gets to make the decision.
This is like complaining about the fact that men get to pee standing up.
Hammer.
Nail.
Bang.
“No parent can guarantee they won’t end up in a car crash or get sick and DIE!”
True, of course. Like when I sign a mortgage for 30 years, I am just forecasting, hopefully reasonably, that I can pay it off.
Just because we have no crystal balls does not mean we have no ethical duty to consider the rights of that poor schmuck, to be, if there is no abortion.
Picture said prospective child when he is 17, telling mom he needs $$ (some to be used for drugs), he just smashed up the car (again), he is depressed (suicidal?), he is jobless (and not looking), he never wants to be like mom (but wants her food, housing, laundry service).
This is probably not atypical 17 year old behavior, perhaps, but it shows the value in 24/7 committed parents (ideally 2 - there is safety in numbers) able to help pull the child out of the occasional tailspin.
Unrealistically romantic notions about “it will all work out” (even with virtually no money and uncommitted dad) are ethically suspect.
Suppose the shoe were on the other foot, said 17 year old decides he wants to adopt and single-parent because, heh, things might work out, you never know. (Assume the law allows adoption for 17 year old males - like it allows natural birth by 17 year old females.)
Within 9 months, he might get a great job (that he can hold down while emotionally and physically supporting a child 24/7). Right. It is statistically far-fetched, so ethically suspect because of the impact on the child to be (which he cannot ethically ignore, even though the child is not yet adopted).
Some things are just unreasonable, at particular times in life, on their face. Those are probably unethical, toward the child to be, even if not illegal.
“There is nothing wrong with being raised by a single parent. Just because it sucked for you, doesn’t mean it sucks for everyone. Another example of why laws aren’t based on extreme occurences.”
Laws are not the issue - my point is about ethics. My upbringing was not with a single parent, and yes the law should not require 2 parents. Things can and do go wrong with 2 parents working hard 24/7 and raising the poor schmuck in a single home for 18 years. It is a risky business, raising poor schmucks (who get no votes, and it shows, in our society).
The risk of unfortunate results (e.g., major depression for mom and/or poor schmuck, etc.) goes up, I suspect, when the 18-year project is undertaken by a single mom (or dad), particularly where there are major income/asset limits.
Ducking the issue by saying it is a fetus not a child, or the woman owns the womb and its contents, or it is too hard to look forward for 18 years, is unfair (ethically, not legally) to the prospective child.
Shorter CFW: My parents totally suck ass. Turning 18 is going to be so awesome. Too bad it’s 3 years away.
“Shorter CFW: My parents totally suck ass. Turning 18 is going to be so awesome. Too bad it’s 3 years away.”
Off by 35 years - getting ready for the grandkids, in say, 10-12 years.
Raising kids for 18 years is much harder than one might think.
Lots of mental health issues - the under 18 brain is just not the same as the adult brain.
My parents are and were top notch, raising 4 schmucks, but they saw their share of under 18 behavior that causes lots of gray hair.
And my hair is 80% gray, thanks in part to under 18 behavior of my 2 “little darlings” that caused parental stress, worry, sleepless nights, etc.
292993
“This is probably not atypical 17 year old behavior, perhaps, but it shows the value in 24/7 committed parents (ideally 2 - there is safety in numbers) able to help pull the child out of the occasional tailspin.”
Funny, cuz all the 17 years olds I knew who did act like this, all had two parents. Me, my mother was all I had and I cared for her too much to pull shit like that, including getting an abortion completely behind her back, so she wouldn’t have to deal with it. Most of my friends who were raised by single parents feel that way.
It seems to me, that if you were really raised by two parents, and raised all your kids with a co-parent, how in the hell do you qualify to remark on what kids raised by single parents. Trust me, better to be a completely single parent, than to have a half-assed obligated one. It causes more pain to have never known your parent that is not around, than to have a sample of what it’s like to have a dad(or mom) and realize that yours sucks and doesn’t really care about you, is only there b/c the have to be.
Men have arguably more reproductive freedom even though they have fewer reproductive options.
Birth control for men, the condom, is cheap, widely available and unlike birth control for women, has far fewer physical side effects, is not subject to doctor or insurance approval, offers some protection from STIs and costs a lot less money.
Vasectomies are not as physically traumatic as tubal ligations and more research is being done on reversible method of male birth control. This is the stage men have total control over whether or not they will be fathers.
States with stringent child support laws have lower rates of claims because men have an interest in taking control of birth control methods and making sure they do not become finanacially responsible for another human being before they are ready.
Women have more options but they are not more free because of it. This is largely the result of biology but many female birth control options are controversial and under politcal atttack from the right wing. They are more costly, have far more side effects or are completely inaccessible. women can and should have these options because they have power over their own bodies but this would only render them more powerful than men if men had NO birth control options of their own.
(Found you via spainplease on LJ, replying to a similar post of mine)
The most insidious thing about this is the way it attempts to be “reasonable”. Of course it’s reasonable to consult fathers, of course they should have a say. And therefore it’s only reasonable - when the slutwoman has multiple partners - to give every potential father the right to claim the pregnancy.
And it’s not like they’re banning abortions, oh no. There’s even provision for rape/incest victims - just produce the police report and submit to some humiliating questioning, and you can have one.
The net effect of this legislation, should it pass, is that a woman seeking an abortion is likely to be tied up in paperwork, jumping through bureaucratic hoops. Meanwhile, her pregnancy is progressing, she’s into her second trimester, and if there is enough delay (via challenges to allegations of fatherhood, tracking down potential fathers and testing their DNA, etc), she’s into her third trimester and - so sad, too bad - she can’t have an abortion anyway.
It’s an appalling piece of legislation - stinks on just about every level, including physical danger to the woman. Amnio and CVS aren’t safe - there is approximately a 3% risk of complicated miscarriage, perforation of the uterine wall, infection and consequent fertility problems for the future. There is nothing reasonable or fair about it - and men should be up in arms, too, because when the woman with the belly stands up and shouts “J’accuse!”, they’ll be put through the investigation wringer.
On the nasty side, someone over in dark_christian on LJ suggested every woman seeking an abortion should name John Adams as the father, or indeed anyone who supports this bill.