>From: "Gina Miller" <nanogirl@halcyon.com>>Subject: Re: Responsibility for
>children
>Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2000 14:21:39 -0700
>
>Mike Lorrey wrote
>
>.> Personally, if the man was lied to, then the woman should either be
> > forced to either abort, OR accept the father's dissolution of rights and
> > support. That is a perfectly fair reproductive choice to make.
>
>
>I don't think every unplanned pregnancy was because "the man was
>lied to" by the woman. I find it peculiar that you would explain away two
>consenting adults with such a devious explanation. (I doubt that most
> situations are due to such Jerry Springer antics)The two parties both
>participated in the risk,(and everyone does know the risks, both man and
>woman) There are many reasons that an unwanted pregnancy could result.
>No, I don't believe it would be fair to force an abortion on a woman
>(physical,
>and emotional trauma) and I highly doubt that abortions will ever be forced
>on anyone (excluding medical emergency, which still isn't forced). Legally,
>that's just not going to take. Your other 'alternative/choice" is that if a
>woman
>refuses abortion, that she should then take care of the child, (who is
>indeed
>his as well) while he shouldn't have to contribute emotional or financial
>responsibility.
>
>
>Of course, I'm sure this is gonna piss off at least a few of the women on
> > the list. I personally think that the lack of application of consent
> > here is a major legal hole.
>
>Funny you should say that (about to puke) your reasonable (in pure
>jest) 'resolution' of such a situation is shockingly selfish, not only in
>leaving all consequences on the female of the -two- who took the risk,
>but for the child as well. It's as if your scenario implies she had sex
>with
>herself. (I smell cop out)
>
>Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
But.... There isn't any "child" at the point of conception. There's just
an embryo, which, if it gets a huge amount of biosupport for 9 months, might
eventually make it to the point of being a child. The point at which one
can talk about a child is certainly uncertain at our current state of
understanding of the scientific/medical/ethical issues, screwed up as they
are by all the religious nonsense and propaganda, but I can state with great
certainty that it doesn't qualify as a child at conception, nor at one week,
nor at one month, nor at three months. After that, the level of certainly
starts dropping.
Thus, the mere act of co-creating an embryo is not all the same as that of
having a child. The option of having a child or not is purely up to the
woman. Since it is totally her choice, then it is totally invalid to try to
bill the man for the consequences of HER choice. Only if the man agreed at
the beginning that if the woman chose to have a child, then he would take
responsibility for support, would the man be liable.
Most embryos don't make it to being a child, BTW. I've read that about 75%
of human embryos die naturally due to histoincompatibilities and other
problems. Dogs have about the same rate, probably because they also have
gone thru a period of very rapid evolution, as well. Usually they are
simply reabsorbed during the first few weeks of prenancy. (So, for the
Christians reading this, does this mean that God made a MISTAKE! Or could
it be that He doesn't really care very much about embryos.)
If women did not have a reasonable option of choice due to legal or medical
problems, as would have been the case 50 years ago in this country, then you
could make a different argument, certainly. But one of the basic principles
of justice is that all parties are expected to act reasonably. Just because
some drunk drops a lighted cigar on your carpet and then passes out in front
of you does not give you the option of letting the house burn down and then
charging the drunk. If you could have limited the damage due to someone
else's error and you chose not to, then you can only charge them for the
damage that would have occurred had you intervened.
Thus, today, given the woman's options, the most a woman could dunn the man
for is half the cost of an abortion, assuming no prior contract otherwise.
If it is rational for the man to assume that the woman is using birth
control, and she isn't, then he can't be held responsible at all.
A confusion arises here out of a confusion of two separate lines of
argument. One has to do with the responsibility for the costs of raising a
child between the man and woman. The other has to do with the
"responsibility" for the child to begin with. Clearly, in a causational
sense, the man and woman are responsible, although, as I point out above,
the woman has the ultimate veto and thus bears the only real responsibility
barring prior contract.
However, no person is "responsible" in the sense of "liable for the support
of" another person. Life itself is the ultimate gift. If, at the point of
birth, the mother changes her mind, for whatever reason, there is no moral
basis as such for claiming that she must support the child for one second
beyond that point. At that point, anyone else is certainly free to claim
surrogate parent rights, and, in a normal society where children are highly
valued - such as our own, where tens of thousands of childless couples
desperately seek children denied them by a thoroughly evil social services
bureacracy - there would be no lack of takers for all but the most severely
defective children.
I would be appalled by any mother who simply abandoned a child without
searching for alternate support, just as I would be appalled by someone who
witnessed a serious accident on the freeway and failed to at least call it
in on their cellphone. Nonetheless, this idea that simply having born a
child makes one liable for the support of that person for the next 18 or 21
or whatever number of arbitrary years, is morally absurd. And, if it is
morally absurd for the mother, it is most certainly morally absurd for the
father - again barring prior contract.
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