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A question for those who feel men should bear no responsibility for children they father unless they want to.
If abortion were to become illegal again.......should the man still be able to opt out when there is an unwanted pregnancy?
As to the first part of your statement, it seems a bit accusatory, as the OP was posing a question based on a situation where there legally is no child (not born), and there is a legal mechanism available that means there would never be a "child fathered", but that process does not allow the male equal input into the decision, and has life long implications. So it's not really about "responsibility", it's about making a decision to enter into that responsibility, two completely different things.
But, addressing the question you asked. Do you mean if say there is an option to give the child up for adoption, or raise the child? And the male wants to give up for adoption, and female wants to keep the baby? And the female could release for adoption/keep the baby without the consent of the male? If this is the case, then I think my answer would be yes, the male should be able to sever his parental rights. And if the situation is turned around where female wants to adopt out, but male doesn't, the male should automatically be given the child, while female severs her parental rights. Both options should be irrevocable decisions.
This puts both parties on a level playing field, and provides full data for the two affected parties to make very personal decisions for themselves, as well as the child. And of course there are moral implications involved in all of this. But that is a personal belief that should be weighed in the decision making process. It also has nothing to do with the physiology of the male and female body. The carrying/birthing part is certainly something a female may consider in her decision, but it should have no bearing on the two individuals making decisions about the pregnancy, nor give one more control over the life of the other.
A question for those who feel men should bear no responsibility for children they father unless they want to.
If abortion were to become illegal again.......should the man still be able to opt out when there is an unwanted pregnancy?
Both of these are kind of false premises.
The first is that at the point of contention there is no child, or responsibility for a child. This solely applies to a circumstance where there is an unwanted pregnancy of one or both parties. So your initial comment is inaccurate at best, and inflammatory at worst. Inflammatory for the same reason that abortion is claimed to be child murder, well prior to brain development it's no more a child than any tumor is.
The sole reason for my belief that men should have this option is to level the playing field. If the playing field were leveled in another way, it's still level. Personally I'd disagree with it being leveled so that elective abortion is prohibited, but it is still level. The issue is that termination has permitted an inequality to develop, in conjunction with child protection laws. On one hand women have the right to choose not to bear responsibility for children they mother, unless they want to, and on the other men have no such right.
I have a friend, she is a corporate lawyer, married has three kids. When she was going through law school, she had a stupid relationship (not a one night stand) with a guy, and they were not careful enough (which she freely admits to) and she became pregnant. She had an abortion, and she still regrets it (which is how I know because she had a minor meltdown one evening at a drunken barbecue and discussed it with me and my partner at that time, then discussed it again later after she'd sobered up and had the "oh I didn't, did I?" moment). Perhaps she regrets even more because she has a happy life with an awesome job, good husband and three great kids, that would not have even existed had she not had that abortion, and often guilt and good fortune create nasty conflicts.
She's quite upfront that her reasons for the abortion where she did not want to complicate, delay or end her law degree and she wasn't ready for kids, and even though she was having a wild relationship with that guy, she wasn't sure about her or his levels of commitment or it's longevity. All perfectly valid reasons in my opinion, and the outcome was better than she hoped for. That said, if she was a man, she would not have had those same choices, that led to her current situation, while the outcome could have been the same, it would have been without any amount of self determination.
Some men act like they would they would burn up without sex.
Do not want a kid?
Use your extremities.
So I presume from you're argument you're pro-life?
If you're not then you might want to reconsider your argument, because it's precisely the same argument that pro-life supporters use to explain why elective abortion is a means for people to avoid the responsibilities they have in having sex.
Child support is for the benefit of the child. End of story. It's a fact of biology that men have no control over what happens to their sperm once it enters a woman's body and current laws are geared toward ensuring that any resulting child does not land on welfare rolls.
If child support is genuinely for the child, then if a child's custodial parent refuses to request child support from this child's non-custodial parent, then this child himself/herself should be able to go to court once he or she will become an adult and always successfully demand 18+ years of child support payments from his/her non-custodial parent.
Also, though, if child support is genuinely for the benefit of the child, then non-custodial parents certainly shouldn't be able to forgive child support payments and there should be absolutely no time limit on both establishing paternity and going to court and successfully acquiring 18+ years' worth of child support payments.
In addition to this, though, this might be a great idea to solve both the child support issue and the welfare issue at once: Create a sufficiently large unconditional basic income for every person, including for every child.
So I presume from you're argument you're pro-life?
If you're not then you might want to reconsider your argument, because it's precisely the same argument that pro-life supporters use to explain why elective abortion is a means for people to avoid the responsibilities they have in having sex.
Bingo!
Plus, it is worth noting that unless one personally abstained from penis-in-vagina sex for his or her entire life, one has absolutely no basis or foundation to give this very same advice to other people.
Child support is a "punishment" for the father? That may be how YOU view it, but it's not designed to be that. Sorry. It IS for the benefit of the child whether you like how it has been administered or not.
If child support is genuinely for the child, then if a child's custodial parent refuses to request child support from this child's non-custodial parent, then this child himself/herself should be able to go to court once he or she will become an adult and always successfully demand 18+ years of child support payments from his/her non-custodial parent.
Also, though, if child support is genuinely for the benefit of the child, then non-custodial parents certainly shouldn't be able to forgive child support payments and there should be absolutely no time limit on both establishing paternity and going to court and successfully acquiring 18+ years' worth of child support payments.
In addition to this, though, this might be a great idea to solve both the child support issue and the welfare issue at once: Create a sufficiently large unconditional basic income for every person, including for every child.
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That may be how YOU view it, but it's not designed to be that. Sorry. It IS for the benefit of the child whether you like how it has been administered or not.
