Male Reproductive Rights

Originally Posted by a lurker

Who will pick up the slack on the father's child support, then? The state? Good intentions? Nobody?

Then the mother would have to determine whether she can raise the child without the support of the father. If she can, then she could continue with the planned pregnancy and raise the child by herself, a phenomenon that has become increasingly common today. If not, then she could decide to have the child aborted and not be burdened with the responsibility of providing for a child by herself. In the case of the father, theoretically, he would need to release himself of those parental responsibilities during the period in which the mother could legally proceed with an abortion, allowing her the freedom to decide whether she wants to have the baby by herself or not.

The problem with the status quo, according to proponents of this law, is that men are often forced to pay for children they didn't want in the first place, or are required to pay for children when they're unable to do so because the mother insists on following through with the pregnancy. Granting men the right to opt out of such planned pregnancies would theoretically put them on an equal legal plain with women insofar as they wouldn't be dependant on women to dissolve their parental obligations, and, consequently, they could make that decision for themselves.

This is how a theoretical male abortion might take place. The logic is interesting, but I haven't made up my mind yet on whether I would support something like this or not.

A few things I want to attack:

Originally Posted by Chibi Neko

I guess I will just make my response simple.
anyone, man or woman, who does not want a child, should not be fucking. Either that or reliable methods of preventing pregnancy.

This mode of thinking is outdated and doesn't correspond to the realities of the world today. Therefore, it doesn't hold as a modem for determining the legal validity of a postmodern legal conundrum.

Originally Posted by Chibi Neko

I guess it may not 'seem' fair to the men, but the fact is that the reproductive right is the woman's alone. 9 months of bodily changes and childbirth pain and risks are things that men do not have to worry about.

This is not an issue of reproductive rights (although at certain points they intersect insofar as the mother chooses to abort the child) but parental obligations.

Originally Posted by ChikiNebo

Besides, if a man really wants a child to raise and love, why not adopt? Adopted children require the same things.

For the same reasons that millions of familes in the U.S. don't adopt: they want their own biological children.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by a lurker

Under the current law, neither parent is free to abandon the living child. The father has to provide support, but he does not have to provide sole support. How does your plan make anything equal at all?

You're missing the point. This does not in any way entail the abandonment of a child. The issue of this debate is one party being entirely dependant on the other in an important matter. The mother has full control over whether the father will be committing a portion of his salary to this child over the next 18+ years. This is a clear case of an externality involved, wherein the consequences that would be incurred by the father as a result of the mother making a unilteral decision to proceed with childbirth are entirely ignored in the matter. Therefore, in response to how this makes anything equal, I would simply respond by asking how the status quo is in any form equal considering the above. And although this proposal certainly doesn't make things fully equal, since that would be impossible considering the biological limitations involved, it certainly goes further than the status quo.

Originally Posted by a lurker

There is also the fact that your plan will encourage more abortions, something that no one wants. Even pro-choice people want to limit abortions where possible.

I don't think this would necessarily encourage more abortions, and even if this is true, and there's nothing to suggests it is, then it should be of secondary concern considering the major imbalance between the genders in the decision making capacity of this matter. If we accept Roe v. Wade as a precedent, and all other jurisprudence associated with abortion, the number of abortions is of secondary concern when the livelihoods, rights of some are at risk.

Originally Posted by a lurker

Also, under the current law, the phenomon of women raising their children without any support from the fathers whatsoever is only becoming more common because of deadbeats, which are against the law and not at all the mother's choice.

Ha! Then if you accept this as true, fewer women should suffer materially because fewer women would be stuck raising children on their own after the child is born, since men would now have a legitimate channel to get their intentions across without fear of court reprisal.

Originally Posted by a lurker

The logic isn't interesting, it's vile and wholly selfish.

Women ignoring the conditions of the men involved seems awfully selfish and inconsiderate to me.

Originally Posted by lord Jaroh

The only problem I have with your statements was this one. Just because it is the reality today, doesn't make it right.

Laws have to adapt to the realities of the society in which these laws are present. Having archaic laws in a postmodern society only encourages those laws to be ignored, depending on the intrusiveness of those laws in the personal livelihoods of individuals.

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