Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (robert coleman) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: birth control failure? Keywords: feminism,men's rights,parenthood,choice,children Message-ID: Date: 21 Jun 91 16:23:49 GMT References: 676071224@lime.cs.duke.edu> <9106062203.1796@mydog.UUCP><676577065@lear.cs.duke.edu> <9106102152.669@mydog.UUCP> Organization: Informix Software, Inc. Lines: 293 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes: -| In article <9106062203.1796@mydog.UUCP> gcf@mydog.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes: -| >I may have missed something, but everyone in this discussion -| >seems to be forgetting that the claim against the father comes -| >not from the mother but from the child. -gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit) writes: -| 1) If the claim comes from the child, then why the *mother* gives it -| up in a case of artificial insemination? -[ This argument seems to have wide popularity; Robert Coleman -also advanced it, or something like it. Is it the party line -now?] ??? Isn't the party line one of those 976 numbers? ;-) Nope. Hillel and I don't belong to the same party. We may agree on some things, but ultimately, it's my party and I'll cry if I want to. -The difference between artificial insemination and the usual -method seems so egregious as not to merit much comment. -Artificial insemination, as it is usually practiced, and the -laws surrounding it, cannot have a great deal of effect on -the usual methods of parenthood, and the laws surrounding them, -because the latter are a great deal older and more firmly -established. In general, you do not establish precedents -backwards, which is what this argument tries to do. I don't -know why the argument is seen as so clever as to merit mention -by at least two people; it seems fairly silly. Oh, nonsense. This is the silliest reason for ignoring the fact that the law talks out of both sides of it's face at the same time that I ever heard. There's no reason that a new law reflecting the current societal environment can't be used as a precedent to undo older laws that apply to societal situations that no longer exist. Heck, the Supreme Court does this all the time. A new situation comes up, they make a new precedent that invalidates all the old precedents. The argument only seems "clever", however, when other posters say such all-encompassing statements as "The financial claims against the father comes not from the mother but from the child". Clearly, this example shows that this line of thinking is hardly universal in law, which means we should give some serious thought to why we don't have a standard approach. If children have "rights" to financial support from their natural born parents, and no one can sign away those rights, then how do sperm banks exist? Answer: children do not necessarily have the right to financial support from their fathers. This opens the question as to exactly what circumstances do children have the right to expect financial support? IMO, when the father agrees, before the birth of the child to supply financial support. That is the magic difference in the sperm bank situation; the father supplies seed, but does not agree to supply support. I'm not sure why if the seed is imbedded in a more personal way that the father should be considered to consent in advance to financial support. I know why this *used* to be the case; neither partner had a choice after conception. -I suppose, in the throes of passion, a man could stop and have -the woman sign a paper waiving her right to sue for child -support, should she become pregnant. She would have to have -a lawyer along, of course, to check the document, and a -notary public. Is this a new form of sex? I know you've been on the net long enough to have encountered various rounds of suggestions of standard pre-coital agreements. This isn't a new idea for you. It also doesn't have to be any more inconvenient than, say, birth control. -| 4) If the child's good is a top priority then why not to force a -| woman who can't support a newborn to give it up to adoption. -| Why a situation of an unmarried mother and an angry father is -| better than an adoption by a pre-screened couple? -"Good" isn't the same as "right": I have a right to drink beer, -but it isn't necessarily good for me. No one said the situation -was "better for the child." The child's claim on its father -does not proceed from its good, but its right. Ah, the child's "right" to support from an indigent father and mother who simply cannot provide enough income, and where one parent will not provide his part of the emotional nurturing, precedes the child's "right" to be fed enough to grow up healthy in a loving fully nurturing environment. You have a peculiar "rights" hierarchy. -As to "destroying a man's life": very few men are forced to -engage in vaginal sex, and all of us know what the rules are. -Our society _could_ arrange things so that all men were -perfectly free of any responsibility for the results, but it -hasn't, because in general people want to affix responsibility -for important liabilities, like the support of children, onto -individuals. No; onto men. Society could easily affix responsibility onto the individual who created the child, but it doesn't. -As I have pointed out in previous incarnations of this -discussion, there are several alternatives. We could communize -child support. We could say that children have no rights to -support whatever. We could say that mothers, but not fathers, -had responsibility for children -- perhaps with some -compensation, as was the case with the Navahos, who allowed only -women to own land, because only women were responsible for -raising children (or so I have heard). As it happens, we have a -tradition and practice of individual parental responsibility -which the general public seem very enthusiastic about. -You can try to change this, but I think you've got a long way to -go, because just as a lot of men don't want to pay for the -possible results of their own sexual activities, so they don't -want to pay for the results of someone else's, either. Do they? -And you can't replace something with nothing. Little problem with wording. Most of the men posting here don't have any problem paying for the results of their sexual activities. Very few, if any, have said that they don't think they should be required to pay for an abortion, if that's what the woman wants. What men don't want to pay for is the choice of women to use the results of sexual activities to produce a child. I believe a family should consider whether they can afford to support a child before they have one. I believe that a mother who decides to create a child without a family should consider whether she can afford to support a child before she makes one. -uunet!infmx!robert@handies.UCAR.EDU (robert coleman): -| ... A -|mother who decides to have a child when she doesn't know who the father is -|has committed a crime against the child. A mother who chooses not to make -|publicly known who the father of the child is, because she wants full rights -|to raise the child, has committed a crime against the child. Strictly -|speaking, parents who get divorced are forcing the child to share the -|emotional aspects of living with parents on a part-time basis, and are -|committing a crime against the child. ... -None of these are crimes, as far as I know. Some of them may be -torts. It is extremely difficult to get an emotional aspect into -court, however. Well, yes, that's my point. If the child had these "rights" by law, as you've suggested, these would all be crimes. The mother/divorced parents would be committing crimes against the child's rights. Most, if not all, of our "rights" are protected by law. Ask a man who's invaded a woman's right to privacy by peeking in her bedroom window. He is subject to criminal charges; he is probably also subject to a tort. -| The law obviously does not deal consistently with the issue. For -|some bizarre reason, a child has these "rights" only if the parents are -|divorced, or if Mom is making the decision to raise the child singly and -|*decides* not to take full responsibility. -On the contrary, both parents can be sued for failure to support, -whether they are married, divorced, or just hanging around. You're missing the point. If the child has these rights, it's the states responsibility to see those rights are defended. However, the state does not pursue cases where, for instance, the mother has decided not to name the father. Therefore, the state does not consider, in this instance, that the child has the "right" to be supported by the father. It instead considers that the mother has the right to decide for the child. -| People normally feel that, in -|the above cases, the child does not have any claims against the parents. -|Why should the child, which does not exist at the time an abortion -|decision must be made, have a claim against the father, who does not wish -|a child, in this exceptional instances? -The fact that the child does not exist at the time an abortion -decision must be made seems entirely irrelevant to the issue. No -issue of child support arises until the child is born. Fine. Edit out those offending phrases, and answer the question. -| In particular, why should the child's -|rights hinge on whether the Mother unilaterally *decides* to name the Father? -I believe that the child, or someone representing the child's -interests, might be able to sue the mother to compel her to -testify. This usually would not be done because there would not -be enough property at stake to make it worthwhile. Welfare -departments often try something like it, though. Something "like" it? Interesting. Do tell. Do you mean they attempt to find out on their own who the father might be? This could be costly in itself, for something where not enough property is at stake to make it worthwhile. If the child has "rights", it hardly matters what the property at stake is, does it? There are many "right" issues that are pursued without regard to property damage at all. The reason that this isn't pursued is that in this case, the court doesn't consider the child to have this right. If it did, it would be bound to pursue the matter, using whatever measures would be necessary to coerce the mother into naming the father. The fact is, the court doesn't care a bit unless the child ends up on the public dole, and then they only care in a half-hearted way; not enough to take action against the mother. That is not what I would call enforcement of "rights". -| How do you feel the child's "rights" should be applied in the above -|situations? You need to answer this question before we can take seriously -|the "exceptional" cases. -I wasn't describing my feelings. I have been trying to describe -what I know of our laws and customs. I rather like the Navaho -system, myself. Oh, for pity's sake. You've gone to all this trouble to simply inform us about what the current situation is? We *know* what the current situation is. We're discussing why it isn't fair, and the possibility of changing it. When you have something to contribute to that discussion, feel free to leap in. In the meantime, feel assured that we know what kind of inconsistent excuses the court has used to enforce the unfair situation. -| In the meantime, we'll continue to debate the father's right to an -|abortion, which occurs before there is a child, with the understanding that -|it wouldn't really matter whether the claim is brought by the possible child -|or the mother; the mother's right to an abortion is not affected by the -|possible existence of a child, and the father's rights should not be affected -|either. -The mother's right to abortion rests on her right to control her -body. The closest thing to a right of abortion in a male is the -male's right to not have vaginal intercourse against his will. -In other words, he has a right to control his body just as a -woman does. Since he does not carry the child, no amount of -control of his body can secure for him a right of abortion. Contrariwise, since he doesn't control her body, no amount of justification can make him responsible for what she does with it. The term "abortion" seems to confuse you in this context; feel free to call it something that makes more sense to you, such as "right of refusal to have a child". Hey, you come up with the term, as long as it allows you to debate the idea rather than get stuck in the terminology. I call it abortion because it gives the woman two things: the right to control her own body, and the right to control her own future after conception but before birth. The closest thing a man can get to the right of abortion is the ability to control his own future after conception but before birth. -If, given publicly known and generally agreed-upon laws, he -engages in vaginal intercourse with a fertile woman, he has signed -up for the risks involved, and I can't see what the complaint is. Once upon a time, there was a publicly know and generally agree-upon law that blacks rode in the back of the bus. If they tried to ride elsewhere, they got arrested. Do you see what their complaint was? -In all of the argument about what I said, I still haven't seen -anyone put herself or himself in the position of the dependent -child, or the taxpayer who may wind up paying for the child's -support when one or more of the parents cop out. That, as I -said, is where the issue is. The war of the sexes is mere -teenagery beside it. The plight of the child is sad. The two choices are nearly equally as bad; being raised without fatherly emotional support and financial support, or being raised simply without fatherly emotional support. The only thing different is the money. Of course, it would make things easier for the kid to have more money. Supposed, if the mother didn't know who the father was, that we simply set up a lottery among all men, and the one who "won" would have to support the child. That would certainly make the child's life easier. But it would be *stealing* from the stranger to do it. The only difference is that a single man can be identified as having something to do with the process somewhere. But his participation is so minimal as to be almost laughable. He didn't choose to make a child. He had nothing to do with the process of making a child. He couldn't make a child if he wanted to. Requiring money from him because he supplied some seed to mom, who then decided to use it, is stealing from him. Had dad agreed to raise the child, the dad would have a contractual agreement to support the child. Had dad created the child, he would have a responsibility for the results. Neither of these two things apply. The child has some reason to suppose that it will be supported. But it should expect that support to come from the one who created it, not from a near-complete stranger. As far as the taxes go, I'll take that risk. I think that that might be less of a problem than you think, when mothers begin to understand the enormity of the responsibility that the privilege of deciding whether to create a life entails. Robert C. -- ---------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: My company has not yet seen fit to elect me as spokesperson. Hmmpf.