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From: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: soc.singles,soc.women
Subject: Re: Entrapment
Message-ID: <427@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Oct-86 13:56:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.427
Posted: Wed Oct  8 13:56:17 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 04:09:09 EDT
References: <598@rosevax.UUCP> <969@tekigm2.UUCP> <1037@dadla.UUCP> <406@cci632.UUCP>
Reply-To: andrews@ubc-cs.UUCP (Jamie Andrews)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 53
Keywords: teenage pregnancy
Xref: watmath soc.singles:417 soc.women:290


     Rex's story about entrapment seems to suggest the following set
of rules, which have been forming in my mind through this discussion.
I am assuming we have choice on abortion, no flames on that please.

if (man was responsible for pregnancy, through deception, coercion,
    etc., or if there was an agreement to have a child)
then
{
  if (woman wants child)
  then
    she should be able to force man to pay child support
  else
    she can have an abortion
}
else /* ie. mutual irresponsibility, deception by woman, etc. */
{
  if (man does not want child)
  then
    he should be able to, before abortion becomes unsafe, declare
    himself unwilling to pay child support (and forfeit his rights
    to see the child?) ;

  if (man has made such a declaration)
  then
  {
    if (woman still wants child)
    then
      she can have it but not have any right to sue man
    else
      she can have an abortion
  }
}

     No flames on my programming style please!

     One thing I wonder about is whether, if the man doesn't want to
pay child support, he should have to forfeit his rights to see the
child.  I think he probably should.  I'm also not sure about the case
of planning -- if the man changes his mind, maybe he should have the
right to make the stated declaration before the second trimester.

     I fully realize that this may result in the man "effectively"
making the woman have an abortion if her economic condition makes
sole support of a child unviable.  I think this is OK, but that is
assuming that the effect of forcing the man to pay child support for
18 years is going to be more devastating than the effect of encouraging
the woman to have an abortion.  (Exceptions should be made, of course,
in case of medical unviability of abortion.)

--Jamie.
...!seismo!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
"At the sound of the falling tree... it's 9:30"