Men's reproductive rights and responsibilities revisited

reply to post by Violet Sky

You wanted to discuss whether or not men should have to pay support for children they did not want. I'm pointing out that it is still their responsibility if they are the father and if they didn't want to be a parent, then they should have prevented it in the first place - not after the fact! You just can't negate the fact that a new life has come into this world because of an action you took, just because you don't want to.

Unless you are female? This is the point. Women choose not to be "mothers" all the time. Shall I list her remedies again. Abortion, adoption, and legal abandonment. Her "choice" is a protected right. Dig? Equal rights is what my thread is about. No one can force a woman to be a mother. It is the law. I am saying that the current system is unjust because of this inequity. Argue that, if you disagree with the premise, instead of just insisting that unwanted children are "still their responsibility." How hard is it to respond to an argument I've made over and over again. You don't address the basic question. Yet again. This is starting to get old. I state that a woman's options (if she doesn't want a child) are NOT limited to contraception, therefore if you contend that a man's options ARE limited to contraception, you not only are saying a man is MORE responsible for a pregnancy than a woman, (even though it is her body--the unconscious presumption is apparently that something was done to her) but also that the very protected right to choose for ourselves whether we will be parents or not, is reserved for women only. I don't believe there are other rights that are reserved for one gender. I don't believe this one is either. I believe this is a massive miscarriage of justice. If you disagree, explain. Please.

Originally posted by joechip

Do you know of anyone that ever had an abortion, or gave her child up for adoption? I'm pretty sure that happens quite alot, everywhere, everyday. At any rate, whether its extremely uncommon or commonplace, it remains a constitutionally protected right as interpreted by the Supreme Court. So when a woman chooses to give up her child for adoption, would you consider that "abandonment"? The choice to be a parent or not! That is the basic point. Your language leaves some question of the status of the men involved, but if we are talking about unmarried men, then I believe the women in question bear some responsibility for their children not having active committed fathers. I would argue they have the primary responsibility for this situation, as they had the "choice". Think about it.

In many states a 'woman' can just leave (abandon) her child (within a certain short age limit) in any ER, no questions asked.

Men should be able to just file a declaration of termination of parental responsibility with the county or any ER within the same time period that a woman can legally get an abortion or abandon her child at an ER on notification of fatherhood/birth of the child.

"That's just the way it is." is archaic thinking. Slavery was 'Just the way it is' at one time. Not allowing women to vote was 'Just the way it is' at one time. Saying "that's just the way it is" is just pure lazyness.

I know there are some here that will/have said something along the lines "If he doesn't want to be held responsible he should have kept his pecker in his pants." My response is if she doesn't want to be held responsible she should have kept her legs closed. That's what it all boils down to... responsibility. Women are not held to the same level of responsibility that men are.

There are two choices here. Either men can be given the same choices as women have, or women can be held to the same level of responsibility. It's those two solutions that are most likely holding up ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

It also would be good if men started asserting their rights, but we're too busy trying to make it in a country that sees us as nothing more than walking wallets.

Originally posted by nixie_nox
reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows

 

I am not saying it doesn't happen. But the ratio is pretty skewed. It is far less common for a woman to take off then it is for a man.

Your right, it is less common for a woman to take off. It is more common for a woman to kill their children. Yes, fathers do it also, but that's usually an aggrivated murder/suicide. Women will do it then blame something/someone else... a nondescript black guy, stress, inanimate object (rope, toy (suffocation))(yes, there are accidents, but they are fairly rare), SIDS (yes, there are legitimate cases, but rare also).

reply to post by Violet Sky


It's been proven that the only available contraceptive currently available to men (condoms) are not highly reliable to either protect against pregnancy, HIV/AIDS or STDS. Yes, they are better than nothing and can work but often don't . As I've mentioned in the thread previously, women have quite an assortment of contraceptives that are available to them.

If the situation was reversed and women only had a lousy condom for protection and men had an array to choose to from and men were still not taking responsibility for the contraceptives and impregnating women and opting out of the responsibility, I think we would have a very strong case in our defense.

But this isn't what is happening. Its totally indefensible with so many contraceptives we can use, that females are still "accidentally" falling pregnant. There is no "accident" when you have all the protection available in the world and you choose not to use it.

We really have to step outside of the victim mentality and begin to "own" what we do rather than being careless and making men "own" the results of our stupidity.

It's indefensible, inexcusable and quite frankly I don't know how women have gotten away with this travesty for so long. IMO

How ridiculous.

None of these reasons apply. You want to fool nature. You want to make the case that the level of risk and involvement are the same. You want to make the case not for equality but SAMENESS.

The simple fact will always remain that male physiology isn't female physiology. Trying to appeal to make law to compensate you for this is not equality. It is an attempt at repression under another form.

Get away from the victim mentality? By instead claiming men are victims. Yes, I can see the appeal of that for you. It is hypocrisy, but don't let that stop you.

There is no law that makes a woman as strong as a NFL linebacker. There is no law that you need to change body because you're more likely to be tall, or have bulking muscle. There is no law that COMPENSATES a woman for a man being physiologically different.

You want to claim you are REPRESSED by a child. The child has no say in the matter, and no matter how much you try and paint the issue as being about the Mother, the child HAS a father. That is a natural fact you'll never get away from.

But this is exactly what these "men" are appealling for. A law that makes them owner's of uteruses, or able to deny their children are theirs.

The law doesn't compensate you for being sloppy. It cannot compensate you for not being a woman. Any more than a woman can create a law that enforces that stunted to level the physical playing field.


Your attempt at trying to appeal to law to punish the most fertile women is disgusting.

[edit on 2009/9/15 by Aeons]

Get away from the victim mentality?
By instead claiming men are victims.
Yes, I can see the appeal of that for you.
It is hypocrisy, but don't let that stop you.

I think there are a few posts on here that illustrate the victim mentality.
A woman owns her body and a man owns his sperm.
This thread is mainly about a mans right in how it's used.

The simple fact will always remain that male physiology isn't female physiology.
Trying to appeal to make law to compensate you for this is not equality.
It is an attempt at repression under another form.

How so? Affirmative Action works on just that principal. Think of this as AA for men. The only ones being currently oppressed are men who are forced
into fatherhood against their wishes. If that isn't oppression I don't know what is.

You want to claim you are REPRESSED by a child.
The child has no say in the matter, and no matter how much you try and paint the issue as being about the Mother, the child HAS a father.
That is a natural fact you'll never get away from.

Children conceived by sperm donors have fathers to but when they are born the father is not listed on the birth certificate nor
do they have to pay child support and they actually gave written consent for permission for their sperm to be used to create a child.

You really need to differentiate between males who are sperm donors and males who are fathers.
If a mans only known a woman for a short period of time and a woman has fallen pregnant and decided to keep the child against his wishes, she has effectively just used the man as a sperm donor.
As per above, even sperm donors have rights to not pay child support nor to have an ongoing relationship with the child.

But this is exactly what these "men" are appealling for. A law that makes them owner's of uteruses, or able to deny their children are theirs.

Actually its quite the opposite. Men don't want to own womens uteruses at all. They don't want the child in this circumstance, so they don't need the uterus nor to own it. Its women in this circumstance who feel they own a mans sperm and use it inappropriately.

The law doesn't compensate you for being sloppy

The law currently compensates women for being "sloppy" as you put it by allowing them to extort child support for sperm they have used fraudulently to acquire a child.
Would it be okay with you if a man could use your uterus and DNA to have his child against your wishes and then make you pay child support for the child born for the next 18 years?

I think not....

Your attempt at trying to appeal to law to punish the most fertile women is disgusting

So the most fertile women have a habit of falling pregnant to every guy they get sexually involved with?
And that is quite normal and okay to you is it? If no that isn't okay or normal, then what's your solution that is equitable for both parties?
Would it be okay for a man to state he was the father on a birth certificate but legall opt out of child support? That isn't denying he's the father.
Or does it always come down to money?
And if it does come down to money, why don't women count their own pennies and decided by how much is in their own pocket, if they can afford a child in this situation or not?

There was a case a couple of years ago, possibly less, in the UK, where a woman who had, with her then partner, an embryo frozen as she was likely to lose her fertility through cancer treatment (as I can recall). Her and her partner split up, but she still wanted to use the embryo, her ex-partner refused permission and the court found in his favour.

www.phgfoundation.org...

Another case, about 3 to 5 years ago, involved a woman who wished to use sperm that had been donated by her dead husband. She too, I am sure, was refused by the court.

www.bionews.org.uk...

(I read the article...and the sperm wasn't donated...she 'harvested' it from her dead husband!)

I'll see if I can dig up some links to the cases, but obviously they demonstrate that the law does recognise that the male has a legal right to contest both fertilisation and impregnation, in the UK at least, but only whilst the sperm/embryo is outside of the female's body.

Edit to add links (got the dates of both wrong too should anyone actually read the linked articles and notice)



[edit on 15-9-2009 by shamhat]

reply to post by shamhat


Interesting links, haven't read them in full yet but will do so.
Yet another angle to this, it's incredibly complicated to say the least.

I found this article in the Huffington Post called if Men could Get Pregnant, Would Abortion be Legal.....interesting topic in itself but also highlights the inequity shown towards men in other circumstances, for instance...

Though abortion is controversial, few believe that women should be compelled to bear and be responsible for children who were conceived as a result of a criminal act, such as a sexual assault.
Yet numerous courts have ruled that boys must be held responsible for the children they involuntarily fathered in their early teens as a result of a criminal act--statutory rape by an adult woman.

This I think highlights the victim mentality that I was talking about.
A woman in this scenario is a victim but a male is a walking wallet.

And....

A million and a half American women legally walk away from motherhood every year by abortion, adoption, or abandonment. In more than 40 states, a mother can terminate all parental responsibility by returning the baby to the hospital within a few days or weeks of birth. Similarly, women can give their babies up for adoption, generally with few legal complications.

By contrast, courts and laws refuse to recognize reproductive prerogatives for men, forbidding them to avoid responsibility for a pregnancy in even the most extreme circumstances. If men got pregnant, would they have abortion rights? There's little reason to think so.

Bolded parts are mine.
A million and a half American women legally opting out also doesn't include private arrangements e.g giving the child to relatives to raise. Which could bring the number way over 2 MILLION WOMEN PER YEAR LEGALLY OPTING OUT OF THEIR PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITES.

Over a 10 year period, that's 20 MILLION WOMEN who have opted out legally with no long term financial disadvantage what so ever.

The more I look and read into this, the worse it looks.
I'm a strong believer in equality and human rights. I can definately see no equality or human rights but heaps of abuse here.

The link to the article is here....
www.huffingtonpost.com...



[edit on 15-9-2009 by Flighty]

reply to post by Aeons

You want to claim you are REPRESSED by a child. The child has no say in the matter, and no matter how much you try and paint the issue as being about the Mother, the child HAS a father. That is a natural fact you'll never get away from.

How ridiculous, indeed. The child also HAS a mother. This is a natural fact as well. But it's a natural fact that she CAN get away from. Is this simple, logical point impossible for you to grasp? You obviously don't want to. What can be said? Your inflammatory rhetoric (REPRESSED by a child) doesn't affect the facts, and is not at all what I "want to claim." My actual claim has been clearly stated, and restated enough already. I'll think I'll move along, as there's nothing to see here.

reply to post by silent thunder


What does that have to do with the price of rice? In nature most males eat their young. Maybe that is the answer we are looking for.

Originally posted by joechip
reply to post by Violet Sky

 

You wanted to discuss whether or not men should have to pay support for children they did not want. I'm pointing out that it is still their responsibility if they are the father and if they didn't want to be a parent, then they should have prevented it in the first place - not after the fact! You just can't negate the fact that a new life has come into this world because of an action you took, just because you don't want to.

Unless you are female? This is the point. Women choose not to be "mothers" all the time. Shall I list her remedies again. Abortion, adoption, and legal abandonment. Her "choice" is a protected right. Dig? Equal rights is what my thread is about. No one can force a woman to be a mother. It is the law. I am saying that the current system is unjust because of this inequity. Argue that, if you disagree with the premise, instead of just insisting that unwanted children are "still their responsibility." How hard is it to respond to an argument I've made over and over again. You don't address the basic question. Yet again. This is starting to get old. I state that a woman's options (if she doesn't want a child) are NOT limited to contraception, therefore if you contend that a man's options ARE limited to contraception, you not only are saying a man is MORE responsible for a pregnancy than a woman, (even though it is her body--the unconscious presumption is apparently that something was done to her) but also that the very protected right to choose for ourselves whether we will be parents or not, is reserved for women only. I don't believe there are other rights that are reserved for one gender. I don't believe this one is either. I believe this is a massive miscarriage of justice. If you disagree, explain. Please.

Of course a woman should have the right over her own reproductive system. Your argument is comparing apples to oranges. So by your logic, a woman should be able to force you to have a vasectomy because she doesn't want your children but just wants to have sex with you. Would that be more fair in your mind? After all, you seem to want to be able to order a woman to abort a child if you don't want it.

Perhaps the real solution is for people to not choose their sex partners so casually and start to look at people you may be interested in as a potential parent - because they may just end up being one.

reply to post by joechip


You know what JOE chip on your shoulder...

You write a thread you don't own it

If you can use your pecker be ready to be a dad, what you obviously want is a thread that goes off on women and the system when it's your personal responsibility.

There is a simple answer to the whole topic and if you don't like hearing it don't Listen, but don't tell me to write the response your looking for about how awful it is...

Birth Control is in YOUR hands when have sex in the form of a condom after that you have no choice it's no longer in your body.

So

DON'T BE A BUM, BE A DAD if YOU MAKE A MISTAKE

That's what you DON'T want posted? TOO BAD

Your friend is a BUM, he is a BUM and he PAYS because he brought a kid in the world and chose not to be a FATHER it's CRUEL to do that to a child forever that child will wonder his 400 bucks he refuses to afford or work hard enough for is little compensation to that kid and NO MOM can't keep you away it's choice to be BUM and not be a person who can walk into court and demand your time...

YOU PAY the most, the debilitating amounts when your NOT THERE

Your pecker has a purpose and part of that purpose is making children, that's what it does, women aren't tools for gratification only when you knock them up, they are people and so is the poor child who is the real Victim who has NO CHOICE to be aborted or to be born or to live with no Father when parents behave like BUMS

Taking any other side BUT the child's best interest is disgusting

Not paying and helping when you conceive is repulsive

and NO you don't have a "choice" after you drop your load in someone, you gave the choice up by your own actions.

reply to post by Flighty


What a sad and disturbing stereotype.

Fact is, I don't know a single mother, who chose to be single mother. Most are single mothers who had a partner that bailed.

As you said yourself, you fall in love or fall into attraction, that my or may not lead to a long term relationship or children.

Those who chose to be single mothers chose so and did not plan to have a father in their lives.


What do you guys want people to say? That is is unfair for a woman to hold the parental choices? To you it may be. But considering most women end up making the parental choices anyways, it is not unfair to extend it to conception. She has to make a decision whether she, by herself, can carry and care for that child. That is why she is given the choice. In all single parent households, the parent is 3 times more likely to be a single mother.

As violet, and I have stated, a male has the choice from the get go, he can choose not to have sex if he doesn't want to be on the end of a decision he doesn't want.

He also has that choice from the beginning.

As for the child support, and the "slavery" as you sadly call it....


The average child support a year is $4300. Hardly slavery or or enough for someone to live off of.

That is roughly $358 a month. A car payment. But I am sure if it was a car payment, there wouldn't be griping.

Out of all the child support payments awarded only 44 % of total child support payments owed were made. %62 counting all. Only 73% received some kind of support at all.

So many slaves exercise their choice to not pay anyways.

Of all these "sociopaths" as you call them, 43% were married, 25% still married (seperated) or widowed, and only 31% were never married.

reply to post by nixie_nox


They want to be able to shag away without any responsibility or human factor or use of birth control, your dealing with an innate childish mentality that wants to scream in defiance at Biology itself when the obvious reality is if you have sex your risk pregnancy, what they desire is sex reduced to the utilization of another person as an object for pleasure with no consequences...

and one day they will build androids for the express purpose...

But until then they are simply the ones screwed not vice verse always have been always will be...

If you don't want a risk of children don't have sex, that is what nature intended it for.

Worse people in this thread have absolutely no treatment of human life as anything above a venereal disease to be discarded, the fact that it a person.,... not just a person but your child, your offspring isn't even a factor, they want the child, their life, their LIFE treated like something to be addressed with a shot of Penicillin

reply to post by Violet Sky

Of course a woman should have the right over her own reproductive system. Your argument is comparing apples to oranges. So by your logic, a woman should be able to force you to have a vasectomy because she doesn't want your children but just wants to have sex with you. Would that be more fair in your mind? After all, you seem to want to be able to order a woman to abort a child if you don't want it.

Nope. No forced abortions. Bother to read the thread, maybe. Marry rights with responsibilities. Equal protection. A woman not only having "rights over her own reproductive system" but also having responsibility over her reproductive system. Blah, Blah, Blah. I've been pretty clear. And you still don't get the point. I think you are intentionally misstating my position. Either that, or your reading comprehension leaves a lot to be desired.


edit for grammar

[edit on 15-9-2009 by joechip]

reply to post by mopusvindictus


Write whatever you want and I'll continue to point out that it avoids the basic question and adds nothing to the discussion.

Like this:

Birth Control is in YOUR hands when have sex in the form of a condom after that you have no choice it's no longer in your body.

When it is no longer in HER body, she still has a choice as to whether or not she will accept the responsibility of a child. The choice is still hers. Why should it be any different for a man? We are all citizens or the United States. Why should her parental choice be guaranteed by law, and his denied? Let's just take abortion off the table for a moment. Why should a woman be allowed the options of adoption and legal abandonment, and a man forced into parenthood? Can you not see the basic legal problem here?

And by the way, don't be a cretin. Let's leave my "pecker" out of this.

reply to post by nixie_nox

What do you guys want people to say? That is is unfair for a woman to hold the parental choices? To you it may be. But considering most women end up making the parental choices anyways, it is not unfair to extend it to conception. She has to make a decision whether she, by herself, can carry and care for that child.

That's exactly the point. She has to make that decision. Can she, BY HERSELF, carry and care for that child. Well, can she? If so, then why should she feel the need to coerce a man into sharing responsibility? But the main point here is a legal one; its important to realize that there's nothing in the Constitution that ensures a right to an abortion. The truly innovative (and controversial) justification of the Roe court was to locate this "right of privacy" in the due process clause of the Constitution. So, can you say that men do not share this right to "privacy?" If not why, exactly? If, in the government's eyes, "choice" is founded on "privacy" how can this not apply to men as well as women?


edit for spelling

[edit on 15-9-2009 by joechip]

reply to post by joechip


Because you don't have a Uterus, get used to it stop whining like a child and be a Man.

There are OPTIONS like operative Transsexual for you if you don't like the sex role Mother nature handed you actually, you can also have a vasectomy and avoid the possibility all together...

Both can let you avoid child bearing and have all the sex you want.

There is NO thread here, i'm not avoiding the question, the answer is NO you weren't born with the control, you don't posses a Uterus, you are not a woman You have NO option to decide if you keep the child or not NONE, not for the last 36,000 years of human history Not now never...

Your choices are abandonment or castration or abstinence.

If it wasn't the Govt, and you skipped out 300 years ago some girls Dad would come and put a Knife in you somewhere for abandoning and fouling his daughter... a far worse fate than paying a small fee to be a BUM

You should actually Thank God the govt stepped in and made this law and took vigilante behavior away from Dads like myself because if you knocked up my daughter and abandoned her, I would, I would literally find you and deal with you, as would most guys with even a bit of testosterone.

No threat intended... It's just a point in case, maybe lots of guys got away with it in the past, many ended up in an early grave prior to modern times...

You have never seen the old southern method of dealing with guys who were banging the farmers daughter.... it was get into the barn and shovel some horse poop or get the shotgun, there's even a term "shotgun wedding" and don't think for a second it came to be as a local legend...

You knock some guys daughter up through most of human history you DEAL WITH IT One way or another...

And i'm sorry, I really a not trying to pick a fight but you should thank your lucky star there ARE condoms, you should thank your lucky stars the pill was invented.And you should thank whatever you believe in your not dealing with Angry Dads but rather the govt because they are waaaaaaay lighter on the topic than any father in history ever was, or brothers or uncles or any one of a host of men in most w omens life who would have your HEAD for even suggesting you should have no responsibility if you knock a girl up.


Not avoiding the question I just tried to put it gently at first

The Answer is NO

It's kindergarten reality

Boys have Penises and Girls have Vaginas

They give birth, they decide, your choice is not to use it or take it... that's your choice get used to it it is never going to change...

Is it fair NO, but it's the way it IS and nothing can change it but violence and suppression of women as slave and frankly that's the same line of thinking as using them as masturbatory objects and walking away or even THINKING that you shouldhave the right to, juvenile adolescent thought.

reply to post by joechip


And i'd add... in 99% of cases if a woman chooses to abandon or put up for adoption, somewhere there is a Man who failed and refused to be a man. In 99% of the cases.

It's a rare rare woman who exercise that option without having been forced or having entered a situation where she had no other choice.
And she carries the Baby SHE risks her LIFE, women DIE in childbirth, not nearly as often as they used to, but they carry the Baby, they care for it, the suffer physically and we do nothing but stick the one eyed wonder worm in and get out jollies those first months...


It is NOT allot to ask a Man to act like one if your a big enough guy to screw her your a big enough guy to be responsible...

What are you actually mad at here? the way God or Math or Nature or whatever you believe in made reproduction?

I don't even understand where Men and TESTOSTERONE has even gone, what kind of guys rather jerk their lives off than be a Father and continue their line...

What is it your missing if she has a kid? Nintendo time? your favorite Tv show? What? Career? Success...NO that's not it if you have to be a man you can only be more successful... Poker night with the boys?

It's like Men have all gone Gay as I see it.

What are you envious of Women? like they have it easy? It's great to be a Guy not a child your whole life and that's all I started out saying...

NO

LOL

You shouldn't have the right to decide what women you screw do with their bodies, you shouldn't even have the desire to ask the question...

reply to post by mopusvindictus


You're clearly not equipped for civil intelligent debate. You are the one that seems angry here. Angry with me, angry with the entire question I pose. You've made the entire thing personal. I have not. I'm asking a general question about the law and its unequal application, and you're talking "peckers" and "loads" and "knocked up" , knifing people and similar garbage. I'm from the deep south myself, and if there's one thing I've learned and learned well, it is that it's a waste of time to try to argue logically with an ignorant, angry redneck. I think your posts define you as such, and I don't mind calling it like I see it. I have nothing more to say to you.

I choose to ignore future post from you. (My first ignore, and I don't think I'll be missing much)


edits for clarafication
[edit on 15-9-2009 by joechip]

[edit on 15-9-2009 by joechip]

[edit on 15-9-2009 by joechip]