January 20, 2006

• I'm not legally qualified to sit in judgement on the cases you mention but you might like to consider that child support is intended to support the child, it's not some revenge/money making thing by 'parasitic' mothers.
• That doesn't make it any more palatable in the first or last example. In the statutory rape example, even though the kids are probably too young to fully realize the possible consequences of their actions they made a conscious decision to play the odds. They are both responsible. In the others, there should never have been a point where a decision should have to have been made. In those,100% of the consequences should be on the woman.
• biffa, that sounds like mugging someone and giving half the money to charity. Sure the charity was intended to do some good purpose, but that doesn't excuse potential wrongdoing on the part of one or the other party.
• If you are old enough to have sex, you are responsible for the outcome (this excludes, of course, the victim of a rape). There was a time in which, if an individual was old enough to procreate they were considered an adult and expected to act as an adult. The problem now is that we can still procreate at the age of 14, but we aren't expected to be responsible until we're much older, and the sex drive isn't any less now than it was then.
• But what if you acted maturely, took all normally satisfactory, precautions, and still got an outcome, like in the third example? (or used too many commas?)
• This is by far one of the most ridiculous stories I've ever heard. Consensual sex = risk of preganancy, no matter how small. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Choose your partner carefully.
• MR Chip... life's a gamble, anyone who thinks that taking "precautions" means NEVER having a pregnancy is pretty much an idiot (who probably shouldn't be raising kids, granted, but is still responsible for the fruit of his/her loins). or, like the Underpants Monster (whose contributions in this thread seem particularly appropriate) said.
• Just claim you had sleep sex.
• I don't know about the child support thing, but in Germany you could have the woman arrested for rape. Their consent laws include a consent clause that says you aren't able to legally consent if you are inebriated past a certain extent.
• Holy crud, apoch! I'm amazed their courts aren't backed up from now 'til Doomsday!
• But what if... I'm having a fertility test? I hand the nurse my little jar of semen: but in the lab, instead of the microscope she whips out the old turkey baster and does the necessary? Am I liable? Or what if the IVF doctor steals Miss A's ovum, inseminates it with Mr B's stolen semen and sticks it in his (the doc's) wife. The child turns out to be handicapped, so the doc and his wife contact Miss A and say "Actually, sweetie, this is yours - do you mind picking it up? Oh, and if you need any child support, get in touch with Mr B". I don't know the answer, but I think there is an interesting philosophical point here. Normally responsibility arises only from intentional action: however, there are legal exceptions, which I believe are known as cases of "strict liability". Perhaps parenthood is analagous? I've never understood the rationale for strict liability, but I'd be very interested if anyone can elucidate.
• analogous
• um, same article as the one at the top?
• I really want to know how the Kansas case turned out though... "Consider the following fact situation that is currently before the trial court in Kansas: Two couples go to the local lover's lane in one car, one couple in the front seat, and one couple in the back seat. They discover that among them all, they have only one condom. The couple in the back seat engage in intercourse using the condom, and then give the condom to the couple in the front seat. The gentleman in the front seat, not wanting to spread disease, turns the condom inside out. The couple in the front seat then engage in intercourse. One month later, the lady in the front seat discovers she is pregnant. After the birth of the child, DNA tests reveal that the father is the gentleman from the back seat. Clearly, the gentleman in the front seat engaged in an intimate sexual act with the mother of the child. Yet, it is the sperm from the gentleman in the back seat who impregnated the mother. Who is on the hook for child support?" Chyren - sleep sex = still liable. The unconscious guy was found to be liable after all.
• So, what if I.....and then she....upside-down..and they went to...and it....and then we....and it fell off...and when it rolled....and the mailman... test said.... but really it was...and she got a lawyer...and all twelve had to pay child support. Does that about cover all the possibilities?
• Well, I learned something new. I had no idea I'd be liable for sperm taken and used without my consent. Time for a vasectomy!
• Sorry, polychrome. *Hangs head*
• Unless there the woman is going to admit that she took semen that was never anywhere near her vagina and impregnated herself or if she has been convicted of raping the man, the man is going to be liable for child support in every possible scenario. My problem with child support relates to abortion. The man has zero say in whether a woman has an abortion. If he finds out that a woman is pregnant and does not want to pay child support, then he will have to pay child support anyway if the woman carries it to term. If he wants the woman to carry it to term but the woman wants to have an abortion, then he has no say in whether the woman has an abortion. So he has no say or control over what happens, but he is completely on the hook. She has complete control and say over what happens, and can choose if he is on the hook. If abortion is legal, I think a man ought to be able to forfeit any parental rights in the first trimester and be responsible for the cost of an abortion. If she wants to carry to term and he has exercised this right, then he will not have to pay any child support.
• s'cool Plegmund. I'd be in a hurry too if there was a whale to watch...
• The gentleman in the front seat, not wanting to spread disease, turns the condom inside out. This cannot possibly have happened this way, as anyone who has used a condom will be able to assure you, because that sentence should have continued "turns the condom inside out, and then screams in mortification and disgust as ..." Also, I'm not certain that the word "gentleman" ought to be used in the context of this story.
• I think in the case of the two couples in the car, that the administrator of the mental institution they all escaped from is liable for the child's support.
• *nods in understanding*
• Note to self: never trust a woman to dispose of used comdoms.
• note to self: friends don't let friends reuse condoms.
• So if you act responsibly, take all possible precautions and the woman steals your sperm anyway - child support. But if you act irresponsibly, get stupiddrunk and you produce a child - no child support. (according to the law mentioned by apoch) Bring on the beer!
• Let me qualify my remarks. I'm a law student, not a practitioner, and certainly not a family lawyer. There's not really a "liability" issue here. Child support is strict, you have a kid, you support it. Intent, statutory rape, lack of a long-term sexual relationship, etc just don't matter. The only real question here is: is the kid yours? If you're going to get smacked with child support, the least you can do is get a paternity test. And whoever the situation applies to should be a man and father the child. Only a coward would run from his obligations and leave the innocent child to fate. We all make mistakes, we should all own up to them, especially when it will be so crucially important in the little tyke's life.
• The Kansas case could have been prevented if the inside-out condom guy had screwed his friend's girl instead of his own.
• But that would exceeded the bounds of propriety, Rocket.
• All three of these instances have at various times (in case 3, relatively recently... sometime in the last year IIRC) had their day in court: In the first case, you betcha you're liable for child support. In the second and third cases, you cannot have been said to have engaged consensually in sex that can realistically lead to pregnancy, so no. For the second instance, as far as statutory rape goes, you cannot be said to have given "legal" consent, even if it was consensual.
• And what bernockle said. There remains a double standard with respect to abortion that should be remedied. If the woman has the right, for any reason she chooses, to bear no responsibility for the child by having an abortion, the man should have the same right to disclaim responsibility before the birth.
• Careful with that reasoning. Much of a woman's right to choose is based on the legal assumption that a fetus is not a separate entity, but is part of the woman's body, and she alone has control over it. Opening up control to the father by necessity will open up control to the state.
• I'm not advocating control on the part of the father... that would necessarily curb the currently-defined legal rights based on privacy and the definition of a fetus as a non-person. However, the right is also, at least in the US, defined as allowing the woman the choice for an abortion for any reason. If not wanting the responsibility of a child is allowed as a reason for abortion, all biological fathers are currently not enjoying the equal protection of the law by not being allowed to disclaim all future financial (and otherwise) responsibility. The right to disclaim responsibility is what I'm going for, not the right to interfere in any way with the woman's choice, reasonings, or motivations.
• I think child support on an unborn fetus is a retarded, greed-filled concept that should be done away with completely. There is no child to support; not yet, and as that's the case, a man very well should be able to opt out. I can't help but to see this garbage as simple extortion on the part of a pregnant woman - a way to force a man into a financial agreement regarding a decision he legally cannot even have half a say in making. I do think that a man has some financial responsibility, but I think this should be limited to either HALF the cost of an abortion, or HALF the cost of birth/adoption. No more, no less. However, when it comes to existing children that a man has helped father, but now decides it isn't for him (i.e., divorce or separation after a child is born) – I think this was supposed to be the intent of the concept of child support. Yes, he can opt out of parenting, but should at least continue financing the support.
• Note to self: deny them my essence.
• In that case, the feller has the option of exercising his legal right not to have sex with a woman whose views on abortion don't match his own.
• I wouldn't like to see a father have the right to either force or block and abortion. No matter what his opinion on the decision to abort, once a child is born the father must pay support because that is what is best for the child - and that's the primary concern here.
• I'd say again, Underpants Monster, that it puts responsibilities on the father that are not on the mother. And what you're saying sounds a lot like the pro-lifer argument "If she doesn't want a child, she doesn't have to have sex." And rocket88, I agree entirely with you, but so long as the mother can choose to carry or abort the child based on whether she wants the responsibility of the child, the father should have the same right, namely, to say "I will not be responsible for this child in any way" before birth. After the birth is an entire world of difference, as WorLord mentioned.
• I don't want a father to be able to force or block an abortion. I want him to have a right in the first trimester to say whether he plans to support the child or not. If he does not want to support the child and the woman has an abortion, I want him to have to pay for the abortion. If he does not want to support the child and the woman does not have an abortion, then he should not have to pay child support. It seems fair in light of the fact that the father has no say whatsoever as to whether the child is taken to term or not. And I don't think that the father should have that say. Instead, I think that he should be able to opt out in the first trimester so that the woman can make her decision with as much information as possible.
• Chimaera; In the third case "In State of Louisiana v. Frisard, 694 So. 2d 1032 (La. Ct. App. 1997), the mother and father of the child for whom support was sought met in a hospital while the father was visiting an ill relative. The mother was a nurse's aid who has access to a variety of medical equipment. The mother offered to perform oral sex on the father, and, in the words of the father, "as ... any male would, I did not refuse[.]" 694 So. 2d at 1035. The mother had the father wear a condom. The mother then removed the condom for the father, and unknown to the father, she inseminated herself with the father's sperm using a syringe. The Louisiana court, noting that the probability of paternity was 99.9994%, held the father's testimony that he "had some sort of sexual contact with the plaintiff around the time frame of alleged conception, although he denied that they had sexual intercourse" was sufficient to prove paternity. 694 So. 2d at 1036. This fact of paternity obliges a father to support his child. 694 So. 2d at 1034. In essence, because the father intentionally engaged in a sexual act resulting in his deposit of sperm with the mother, he is liable for child support." I'm curious about what you see in the first case that makes it so definite. To me, if I'm unconscious, the whole question of consent/intention/benefit or anything else is out the window.
• I've think we've discovered by bernockle keeps using owl semen...
• It seems fair in light of the fact that the father has no say whatsoever as to whether the child is taken to term or not. A man that does not want children can use a condom. If he doesn't, and the woman gets pregnant, I'm not terribly sympathetic to his situation. I'm just sayin'.
• A woman that does not want children can use a condom or any other form of birth control. If she doesn't, and she gets pregnant, are you sympathetic to her right to have an abortion?
• Ambrosia, even a couple who uses a condom has to accept that there's still a chance of pregnancy, albeit a slim one.
• polychrome, I'm at work so I can't really look up the case I was remembering (Ohio? Michigan?), but in that case the court ruled that because the father was reasonable to believe that oral sex would not result in impregnation, and since the mother used the sperm to inseminate herself after the fact and without his knowledge, that the father was not liable for child support. The father sued the mother for theft of some sort, and the court ruled that the sperm was given freely, so they through out that part of the case. Perhaps there is likely to be some variation between states, and it appears that there have been court cases that show that the answer to the third case is "depends on your jurisdiction."
• ambrosia, how is that in any way a better assertion than "A woman who does not want children should take birth control or not have sex. If she does have sex and gets pregnant, I'm not terribly sympathetic to her situation." I'm quite curious to see how the above quote and your statement are incompatible. Of course, I say the answer is that BOTH parties are ultimately responsible for the outcome of their actions, and if either party has the legal right to disclaim responsibility, than BOTH parties should have that right. Thus far, nobody has given much of a reason why they shouldn't, and in ambrosia's statement, substituting "her" for "him" would result in accusations of misogyny.
• *then
• Oops, I didn't answer polychrome's question:

  I'm curious about what you see in the first case that makes it so definite. To me, if I'm unconscious, the whole question of consent/intention/benefit or anything else is out the window.

  I guess the first case isn't so definite, but I'd say that proof of a lack of intent, unless corroborated by the mother, is nearly impossible.
• Since you brought it up, Chimaera, I think there is validity in that "pro-life" argument. I would amend it to say that if a woman isn't prepared for the possibility of PREGNANCY (whether that pregnancy ends in birth or not), then no, she shouldn't have sex. Since the man knows, going into the situation, that his partner has the right under the law to carry to term or to abort without his consent, that should weigh into his decision to have sex. And while I don't think it's outrageous to expect that two people having sex should first know each other well enough to have a good idea of what the other's feelings are about abortion, I admit that that may be dreadfully old-fashioned of me. And it's all academic debate for me since the hysterectomy, so I suppose it's easy for me to say.
• Look, chimaera, the woman always has to deal with the outcome of getting pregnant. IMHO both parties need to take responsiblity for their actions, and if one party abdicates and places *all* the responsibility for contraception on the other party, I'm not terribly sympathetic to ex post facto whining. But at the end of the day, it's the woman who is carrying that baby to term. It's the woman who has to deal with hormonal changes, morning sickness, not to mention the multitude of serious complications that can accompany a pregnancy. The consequences are not evenly balanced between men and women on this issue, so just swapping the genders of my original statement is simply disingenuous.
• Thus far, nobody has given much of a reason why they shouldn't. You're right, it's unfair...but to make it fair by allowing fathers to opt out of responsibility would make it unfair to the child, by denying him/her the financial support they would otherwise receive. The needs of the child are paramount in all decisions involving support.
• Here's a U. Penn law review (pdf) article that builds on the FP link. Chimaera, I think you are recalling incorrectly. "The man or woman legally required to make payments each month is the one biologically linked to the child, with no weight given to the existence of any social, psychological, emotional, or other ties between them. Courts give no consideration to the circumstances leading up to or involved in that biological connection, and they do not require consent to the sexual relation." (emphasis added) According to the review, the guy was found to have to pay child support.
• You make a valid point, ambrosia, but pregnancy is not the only place that one gender has a disproportionate amount of good or ill. Consider the fact that men statistically have a shorter life span. I don't believe that is a valid reason to pay men more Social Security, though it can be argued that women stand to collect much more money in their lifetime from that system. Consider the fact that women are awarded primary physical custody at a rate that FAR oustrips that of men. Are women inherently superior parents? Women bear all of the physical risk associated with pregnancy. Some say that because of the increased risk posture of women that it would pragmatically behoove women to be more careful in avoiding that risk. For good or ill, pregnancy cannot, and should not be approached in a vacuum, with platitudes and appeals to fear or emotion. Suffice to say, being a male, I will never know the risks OR the joys of bringing a child to term and giving birth. I miss out on both, only to experience them vicariously. Statistically, I'm also likely to die before my wife. But the legal system is not in place to redress the hazards and risks or the joys and triumphs of accidents of biology, it is in place to ensure that all supplicants are treated equally, with no person having rights nor responsibilities greater or lesser than any other person.
• I stand corrected, polychrome. It's a fascinating topic.
• You're right, it's unfair...but to make it fair by allowing fathers to opt out of responsibility would make it unfair to the child, by denying him/her the financial support they would otherwise receive. The needs of the child are paramount in all decisions involving support. I really take issue with this, Rocket88. In the situations we're discussing here, there is no child. Not yet, in the case of a pregnant woman. Thus, I don't think this argument is applicable - there are no needs of any child to consider in the case of an unborn fetus; and I find it disingeneous at best to plead "for the children" when the only other person in these scenareos is a pregnant woman. Also, I think Underpants Monster is missing the point entirely with the whole "that's the way it is, and you shouldn't have sex if you don't like it" tack on the discussion. As I'm understanding things, the thread seems to be about how fair or unfair the law is, not especially about how to avoid getting in a tight spot due to the current status of the law. But that's just me.
• That is a weakness in your argument, rocket. Any "for the children" argument necessarily reintroduces the question of whether a fetus is a person or a non-person, and if the father cannot disclaim responsibility "because of the child," how can a mother kill that child? My personal opinion on the matter, for context, is that I think it reasonable to define the beginning of life in the same way that medicine defines its end -- higher brain activity. When a person is "brain dead," or a "persistent vegetative state" those are clinical definitions applicable to whether the living thing is a person or is no longer a person. I don't know if the state of the art is up to the task, but I think it reasonable to define the start of life coinciding with the start of higher brain function, just as death is the termination of such function. Of course, this would create a limited window in which abortions could be done absent a life or health threat to the mother, but that's another discussion entirely.
• Well, let me expand on what I said in regard to the law. Any law that would allow a man to not take responsibility for his child, when he had every chance to avoid having said child, is unfair. There.
• Well, let me expand on what I said in regard to the law. Any law that would allow a man person to not take responsibility for his their child, when he they had every chance to avoid having said child, is unfair. There. Fixed that for you. I believe in the 14th Amendment.
• That probably came across as more snarky than intended, but I believe that with regard to any law that makes distinctions based on gender (or race or ethnicity or age or etc.)... that way lies madness.
• WarLord & chimaera: The support situation I'm talking about is support after the birth of the child, if the mother chooses to carry it to term. Before birth, it's her choice. After birth, it's his (shared) responsibility. Unfair, but better than any other alternative I can think of.
• Here in Ontario, child support is automatic and non-negotiable. That means a non-custodial parent must pay support in an amount solely determined by his/her annual income (the custodial parent's income is not taken into account). The custodial parent is not allowed to negotiate any reduction in the support amount. I have known a few divorced fathers who were living barely above the poverty line because they were paying huge support payments to their ex-wives. In one case the ex-wife had re-married (a dentist) and was quite wealthy, and was still receiving payments.
• I do see your point, chimaera, and for what it's worth to you I think it's a good one. But I also don't see how any law that touches on reproduction can not make distinctions based on gender.
• Any law that would allow a man to not take responsibility for his child, when he had every chance to avoid having said child, is unfair. There. Not allowing a man the right to abort said child, is not giving him every chance to avoid having said child.
• Addendum: I do not believe that a man should be able to railroad a woman into an abortion she doesn't want, any more than I think that a woman should be able to force a man to deal with an as-yet-born human he does not wish to pay for. I just wanted to point out the problem with Underpants Monster's apparent double-standard.
• I'm not sure that the law is making the _right_ distinctions based on gender though. Consider the case where a 15 year old male had sex with a 34 year old woman. Statutory rape; for legal purposes the 15 year old is considered incapable of consent. And yet that same 15 year old was found to be required to pay child support. For the purposes of child support, since the sex was consensual he has to pay. Yet, simultaneously, the sex could not be considered consensual owing to the age gap. Or the case where the woman had sex with the unconscious man. No one argued that he was not unconscious. There was no consent, and for legal purposes he was raped. Yet, he still has to pay child support. As pointed out, trying to construct an equivalence for women runs up against some fundamental gender based differences but as a basic point, each of the cases above treats the (male) victim of sexual exploitation in a way that it is exceedingly difficult of conceiving as being applied were the gender roles reversed.
• The aspect that interests me is what kind of insane state of mind are these women who steal and squirt the man juice into themselves? If the Boy and I ever manage to fall pregnant I would be more concerned about the emotional and physical support of having and raising a child than the cash. And what of the child? Well honey I stole and impregnanted myself with your fathers sperm, and that's how you got to be here today! It's difficult enough growing up in a one-parent household without extra complications. As for the turning-the-condom-inside-out story - that HAS to be an urban legend surely? Shakes her head in disbelief
• WorLord: The thing that bothers me about your argument is that a father who has decided to opt out of any financial assistance of a future child *is* "railroading a woman into an abortion" in many cases. If a woman feels that she can't properly support a child without the help of the father, she may feel that she simply has to have an abortion (even if she doesn't want it) if the father were able to abdicate his responsibility for support. I do agree with you that, when a woman is pregnant, there is no child -- there is fetus, and the fetus has no legal identity separate from the mother. However, what are your thoughts on pre-natal care? This is pretty darn expensive, and should the woman bear sole responsibility for this? (I hope I don't sound like I'm picking on you or anyone else. I'm just interested!) Also, someone above said that, in most cases, women are awarded custody of the children in divorces. This is because, most of the time, women ask for custody. When men ask for custody, or when both parents ask for sole custody, men are actually awarded custody the majority of the time.
• Meredithea: That the woman might feel she can't support a child on her own doesn't really justify forcing a man to raise and support a child he doesn't want, though. And really, nobody is holding a gun to her head and forcing her to have an abortion. If she doesn't think she can support a child by herself, there are a lot of viable options. Abortion. Adoption. Finding another partner, who does want a kid. Scrimping and saving and managing to make it work. How does the reverse turn out, I wonder? The man wants to keep the child, but the woman doesn't want to have it, or even bear it to term. Can the man prevent her from having an abortion, and force her to give birth and then pay child support. I kinda don't think so. As it stands, when the man and woman are in conflict as to how they want a pregnancy to turn out, the man automatically loses. This is not fair. I don't see how, if the woman has the sole choice over whether or not she has to raise or support a child (which, by the way, I don't think anyone is arguing against), then the woman should also have the sole choice over whether or not the man has to raise or support that same child. And I don't think the method of birth control used, if any, is at all a factor in that.
• And really, nobody is holding a gun to her head and forcing her to have an abortion. I'm a bit surprised to see this argument here. One of the arguments made by the pro-lifers to support the closing-down of abortion clinics, and to argue that this is consistent with Roe, is that abortions are still available, albeit more difficult to obtain. Pro-choice advocates argue, I think rightly, that fewer abortion clinics mean fewer real chioces. Women with fewer resources will find it more difficult to get an abortion if they are forced to jump through more and more hoops. If we accept this argument, as I think we should, since it is obviously the reasoning behind the pro-lifers' crusade to close down clinics, then the proposal to allow men to opt out of child support surely will, in effect, result in fewer real choices for women. This kind of coercion is an evil, just as coercing women not to have an abortion, by drastically reducing the number of clinics, is an evil. For those women who can't afford to support a child on their own, but don't think about the financial consequences of single motherhood until after delivery, it is an evil visited upon an innocent child. It's true that biology has rigged the situation to promote inequality in the choices available. But that's biology. It makes the most sense, I think, to look at intercourse as the act that confers culpability and therefore responsibility for the results (namely, pregnancy) on both partners. The woman has the choice, simply by virtue of biological accident, to abort the pregnancy. This gives her an escape hatch (so to speak) unavailable to the man. Pregnancy, however, affects her in unique physical and psychological ways, so this isn't entirely unfair. But even if this wasn't the case, I don't think we should think of the asymmetry as unfair. We ought to think of intercourse as sufficient to create responsibility for the results of the act. That a pregnancy can be aborted does not alter this. Implicit in some of the arguments in favor of male/female "fairness" is a belief that a fetus, while not a person, of course has the potential to become one and therefore the man deserves an equal say in whether or not that potential is realized. Women have a choice that men don't. But this line of reasoning fails if we accept my intercourse-as-culpability criterion. And, if we accept my criterion, then talk about potential persons only obscures the issue: it is women's bodies that are at stake, and real live children. That is, unless potential persons are valuable in themselves, but I have trouble with this argument for the same reason I have trouble with the pro-life arguments.
• I'd argue that the whole point of societal evolution is to allow us to override the inherent unfairness of biology. Also, why intercourse? Seriously. Why must intercourse, a simple act of pleasure, automatically bestow all this culpability on someone, especially as it by no means always carries with it lasting aftereffects? I'd think that the act that confers culpability would be the birth, and who was involved in the birth. If the man has no wish to be a part of that, I see forcing it as a definitely bad thing. a fetus, while not a person, of course has the potential to become one and therefore the man deserves an equal say in whether or not that potential is realized. That's actually the opposite of what I was saying. I don't think the man should have any say in whether or not the fetus becomes a child. But as he has no say, I don't think the results of the decision should have any kind of legal weight on him. If we accept this argument, as I think we should, since it is obviously the reasoning behind the pro-lifers' crusade to close down clinics, then the proposal to allow men to opt out of child support surely will, in effect, result in fewer real choices for women. Please explain the logical link here. I'm really not seeing how you got from "No abortion clinics means it's unreasonably hard to get an abortion" to "Not shoving a lifelong responsibility on a man for a choice he has nothing to do with is evil to women."
• Well, my point is that the choice we ought to be concerned with is the choice to have sex. A man owns exactly half of the responsiblity for that. Whether or not a woman decides to have an abortion, the man ought to be prepared to pay for the child. To wit, you write: Also, why intercourse? Seriously. Why must intercourse, a simple act of pleasure, automatically bestow all this culpability on someone, especially as it by no means always carries with it lasting aftereffects?. Because it's not just a simple act of pleasure. It creates babies, not all the time, but it has that potential. Everyone knows this, so ignorance is no excuse. And it doesn't bestow all the culpability on someone; the culpability is spread across both partners. I don't think drawing the line here is arbitrary; I think it's the most practical way to approach the issue. Imagine the alternative, with which I see at least three problems. Suppose we went with your plan. First, would it mean that men could be forced to pay for abortions? If a woman chooses to have an abortion, it costs her money, and it saves her partner a great deal of money. Shouldn't the man, then, assume part of the cost for the procedure? After all, if we want to promote equality, and he can simply declare that he wants nothing to do with the baby, shouldn't she be able to do the same thing and not have to shoulder all of the burden for her choice? This might work out okay in case both partners don't want the child. But what about when the man wants the child and the woman doesn't? What about when the man's religion forbids abortion? Should he be forced to pony up for it anyway? Second, regardless of what you think about this and whether it's feasible, it seems to me that, in practice, this would lead to many women assuming even more of the burden for paying for abortions. A man could decide he wants nothing to do with his baby; this puts pressure on his partner to abort the pregnancy; she being the one who has to undergo the procedure, she has to come up with the cash to pay for it; and he could get out of the situation without paying a cent. I suppose you could set up a system whereby the man has to give her enough cash for the procedure before he gets out of his responsiblities for his child, but this is starting to get very complex. Third, there is also the issue I alluded to in my other comment, about shortsighted (or religious) poor women who avoid abortion and are left to raise a child by themselves. Tough shit for her, you might say. But what happens to these kids? Intercourse is, I think, the most practical place to draw the line for culpability. It avoids all of these problems and, on top of that, sacrifices almost nothing. Yes, it means men need to think twice before they have sex. That might be a good thing. And, yes, it means there is an assymetry in the choices available post-pregnancy. But then anyone who thinks abortions are picnics for women who undergo them is a bit naive.
• Is it that hard to meet a career-driven, pro-lifer nowadays?
• meredithea: "If a woman feels that she can't properly support a child without the help of the father, she may feel that she simply has to have an abortion (even if she doesn't want it) if the father were able to abdicate his responsibility for support." She might feel that way, sure. But I was discussing thoughts, not feelings. Given that, I think that the hypothetical woman in question is incorrect in her assumption that Abortion is the only available choice once a potential father opts out; others have listed some of the many alternatives already. meredithea: However, what are your thoughts on pre-natal care? This is pretty darn expensive, and should the woman bear sole responsibility for this? I thought I said, somewhere, that the man's financial responsibility should cover (and end with) either the birth or the abortion. I had assumed, in my head, that pre-natal care was part of the birth. I probably should have typed that out, sorry. meredithea: "(I hope I don't sound like I'm picking on you or anyone else. I'm just interested!)" It's all good. Smo: "Well, my point is that the choice we ought to be concerned with is the choice to have sex. A man owns exactly half of the responsiblity for that." This only works if the man also inherits half the choice of what to do with the fetus if it gets created. Culpability can't change in the middle of the game, that's called a "bait and switch". Also, for the record, I think this idea (that "the choice we ought to be concerned with is the choice to have sex") is pure poppycock, as the natural result of sex is not always children. If it were formulaic, i.e. unprotected sex = child 100% of the time, or even 90% of the time, than I'd proabably start to agree a little more. However, the odds against pregnancy are actually much higher than the odds for if one has unprotected sex with a woman at random times during her cycle. Frankly, it sounds to me like you are trying to make sure people have less sex in general, because you think things are better that way, and are simply trying to shoehorn reasons into this cause so that you won't appear to be judgemental. But, I can't prove that, its just how it looks to me.
• So it seems that whether or not you agree with the equality or inequality of the rules as they stand, at this point in time both partners go into intercourse knowing what those rules are. That a pregnancy may occur, even with birth control. That the woman will have the choice to abort and the man will not. That the man may be held responsible financially for the resulting child. So to me, it still seems that if either a man or a woman consents to intercourse right now, knowing the way things currently work in our society, they're both agreeing to those rules. I don't think either one should get to whine about it after the fact.