A while ago, a reader sent me an article about this hilarious concept of “financial abortion” concocted by a bunch of grievously sexually unsuccessful men and supported by even more unsuccessful women who don’t mind looking like stupid clowns in order to have some loser somewhere approve of their sorry existences. I found the piece too ridiculous to write about at the time, but since it’s International Women’s Day, I want to use this opportunity to share a few laughs with my readers on the account of the miserable rejects who have come up with this silly idea.
It took me a while to figure out what the “financial abortion” was supposed to be all about because it’s too bizarre. Now I have worked it out, though. Men who hate their bodies and their biological sex and detest the idea that a pregnancy occurs inside a woman’s body want to have the option not to support their children financially after those children are born, if they informed the woman (not the child, mind you) early enough in the pregnancy that they don’t want to be fathers. Because a newborn should totally go without diapers because two people had this or that conversation before said newborn even arrived on this planet.
If you think I’m making this all up, here is a quote for you:
“Up until now, reproductive choice has been seen as a woman’s issue: you’re either pro-life or pro-choice… If we expect men to be responsible, isn’t it right to give them some choices too?” “I’m not talking about fathers opting out of obligations that they’ve committed to. I mean early in pregnancy, if contraception failed, men should have a choice, and women have a right to know what that choice is as they decide how to proceed.”
Of course, I’m all for reproductive choices and I think we should all start a petition addressed to Mother Nature, demanding that men get a capacity to become pregnant. Until our shared wish is granted, though, this entire discussion should be kept at the comedy clubs.
The funny article I quoted asks a series of hilarious questions to make its silly point:
While pro-choice legislation makes the rights of the mother clear, at what point is a father able to say, ‘I do not want this child’?
We all know that a father can say this at absolutely any point of a child’s life and sometimes, indeed, does. Obviously, any normal government protects the rights of the person who can’t assert them for him or herself because of being legally a minor. The decision of whether to terminate a pregnancy or carry it to term always lies with a person inside whom the pregnancy occurs. Both in case of the abortion or in case of giving birth, a woman puts her health at risk and transforms her life in a profound way. A man never risks anything at any point. Except for a few bucks, which is a very insignificant little factor when compared to the magnitude of the needs of a human being who was not even around when his or her parents had sex, made reproductive decisions, and held conversations about abortion or childbirth.
The unintelligent author of the article, however, proceeds with stupid questions:
As costs rise and opportunities disappear, shouldn’t men have the same rights as women to control their entrance into parenthood?
This is pretty much as asking whether a person without legs should have the same right to be hired for the Royal Ballet company as a ballet dancer with 10 years of experience, or whether a person who doesn’t speak a word of Spanish should have the same right to be hired to teach Spanish as I do. Unless you are physically capable of giving birth, you cannot possibly expect to have the same rights in the area of giving birth as people who do.
Of course, the article eventually comes up with a bugbear of a completely invented scary woman:
Adversely, what would one call the presumptuousness of women who assume that men should snap to attention after they’ve made the decision to bring — or not to bring — a life into this world without allowing them to play a pivotal role in the decision?
There is, of course, no explanation of who these presumptuous women are and what “snapping to attention” on the men’s part would even mean in this situation. The idiot who wrote the piece does not even realize what kind of a fool she is making of herself by suggesting that anybody else should be playing “pivotal roles” in decisions she makes about her own body. I have to wonder whether she manages to decide when to pee without holding a referendum among her male coworkers.
The conclusion to this bizarre piece nearly made me fall off my chair in laughter:
Do we believe in absolute freedom of choice — or merely our choice?
Erm, can you show me a single idiot on this planet who believes in “absolute freedom of choice”? There are tons of choices that we all frown on and sometimes even punish with prison sentences. The freedom of choice can only be respected when it’s exercised on one’s own behalf and does not infringe on the rights of any other human beings.
A reasonable government cannot afford to go into an investigation of who said what to whom at some point, who did or did not put on a condom and why they did not put it on right, why contraception malfunctioned, what anybody did or did not want in the process, before and after the process. A reasonable government most definitely cannot protect the right of a grown individual to be a cheap stupid prick who begrudges a few dimes to his own flesh and blood at the expense of a small person who does not yet have a voice and cannot even hire a lawyer.
I completely support the right of any man not to be a father to his child if he did not want that child to appear in this world. What I do not support, though, is the right of anybody to rob a small creature who is 50% them of financial means to existence for any reason whatsoever. I’m not a rich person but if I were to find out that somebody collected my DNA and created a child on the basis of that (say, this is scientifically possible), I would dedicate my existence to making sure that this little human being did not want for anything. You need to hate yourself a whole damn lot to refuse something so insignificant as money to somebody who is half you.
Clarissa's Blog 
The way some feminists talked, you would think they’d support “financial abortion.” For instance:
“It would be genuinely hilarious that there are people who believe “Don’t ever have sex unless you will be absolutely prepared to parent in whatever circumstances you find yourself nine months from now” is a reasonable position, if those people didn’t have so much control over reproductive and health policy.” -Melissa McEwan
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-abortion-exceptions-rape-incest.html
If you believe that women have a right to have sex without becoming parents, then of course men should have that right too. But the truth is that no one has the right to have sex without the risk of becoming a parent. You have the right to reduce the risk of becoming a parent via contraception or abortion. But if those methods don’t work, you have no more rights. You breed it, you feed it.
It really bothers me when pro-choice people defend abortion on the grounds that women shouldn’t be forced to be mothers. Abortion is a bodily autonomy issue. It’s not a “let’s bail all these women out of motherhood” issue.
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It’s good to see that the very first comment in this thread is such a reasonable one. 🙂
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Or, y’know, you could just make all your sex gay.
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The STD risk is pretty significant and in any case, I strongly prefer women over men. The only men that I’m even remotely attracted to are men who strongly look like women, such as this one:
But he’s still not as attractive as a woman because he lacks a vagina, et cetera.
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You do know that anti-abortion people also believe in a strong right to bodily autonomy, right? They simply don’t believe that it should be absolute.
For instance, some pro-lifers have discussed their views of bodily autonomy here:
https://secularprolife.org/2018/12/mcfall-v-shimp-and-thomsons-violinist/
But ultimately, you’re right. Bodily autonomy and finances are separate issues. However, I still think that it’s unreasonable to expect cisgender males to choose between abstinence with all fertile and potentially fertile cisgender females for their entire lives and surgical castration (since everything else, even vasectomies and bilateral epididymectomies, can fail, though AFAIK the latter has never failed yet–though it is still theoretically possible for the latter to fail). A third option, such as child support insurance for sterilized people, would be nice. Too bad that it doesn’t exist. The next best thing is to legally require health insurance to cover all possible sterilization surgeries for men, including bilateral epididymectomies, so that I won’t personally have to spend a couple of thousand dollars of my own money plus travel costs on this.
But if you want to know my own thoughts on financial abortion, I think that its validity should depend on the extent to which a single parent is able to adequately financially support and take care of their child by themselves. This was the position that was to some extent adopted by Justice Roger Owen DeBruler of the Indiana Supreme Court in his dissent in the 1994 case Straub v. BMT by Todd.
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Except that thanks to safe drop laws and the ability to give a child up for adoption even if the father wants custody women can infact get out of having to financially support a child even after he or she is born.
Although given your attitude it seems like you’d probably resent those laws, so it’s not like you’re hypocritical. But those laws have a lot more support than “financial abortions” (a term I really dislike).
The supporters of paper abortions (another term i like just as little) will probably just dismiss you as blinded by privilege, dismissing the seriousness of a concern you will never in reality have to face. At least that’s my experience from places like feminist critics.
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Technically a woman doesn’t have the ability to give up the child for adoption if the father wants custody. There’s certainly a lot of cases where a single father is unfairly declared an unfit parent as an excuse to give the child to adoptive parents who are married and have money, and of course the mother could just not tell the father the kid exists, but it’s not like the mother legally has the final and only say. I think a lot of fathers don’t fight for custody because they don’t realize they can.
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“and of course the mother could just not tell the father the kid exists,”
And what would his legal remedy be here?
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“Except that thanks to safe drop laws and the ability to give a child up for adoption even if the father wants custody”
– Are you sure? I’ve never heard of this. Even if the father wants custody?? That cannot be right.
“The supporters of paper abortions (another term i like just as little) will probably just dismiss you as blinded by privilege”
– And I dismiss people who use the word “privilege”, so I guess we are even. 🙂
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AFAIK, a woman can lie and say that she doesn’t know who the father of her baby is. Maybe if the father of her baby is aware of her pregnancy, then he would be able to discover about her using safe haven laws in time and get the baby for himself. But if she cuts off all contact with him, especially before he ever finds out that she’s pregnant, then he might be out of luck.
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You should truly be the last person to talk about parents and children. You know I have a small child. Yet you insistently link my blog to Karlin, trying to bring me to the notice of people who are genociding people like me at this very moment.
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“you insistently link my blog”
Also… why the urgency to find a 10 year old that may or may not reflect your current ideas and then spamming it with a bunch of stale mra talking points?
I smell a shill (or a massive chump), not sure which would be worse…
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I’m persecuted by people who insistently link me to Karlin and vice versa on every and all social media. It’s very strange. I don’t want to be associated with that in any way. Why people take him seriously is a mystery I don’t want to solve.
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Anatoly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your blog, Clarissa. Neither does the Kremlin, I suspect. If they wanted to assassinate hostile foreign journalists and/or academics, there are plenty of them who would likely be ranked above you. Cathy Young, Julia Ioffe, and/or Masha Gessen, for starters.
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I’ve had an obsession with this issue for over a decade, so it’s really not that unusual.
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Also (I hope you don’t have a rule against double posting) when discussing abortion feminists often use the argument that women have a right not to be subjected to the economic costs of parenthood without choice. Choice for men being a right follows naturally from this argument.
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The issue you will generally come across is in the idea of ‘bodily autonomy’ and ‘forced servitude’. The typical Feminist argument goes something like: both sides have the option to do to their own body what they want, when it ceases to be their body they cease to get a say. This means that for men choice ends at ejaculation, for women at birth.
You then start to get into a whole range of sub-arguments such as theft of sperm (legal cases exist), intentional damage to condom (legal cases exist), rape (legal cases exist) in which no pregnancy would have occurred (or statistically unlikely) without the outside interference by a third party with the man’s contraceptive choice. This is coupled with the Feminist idea of ‘abortion for any reason’ which follows from the idea of bodily autonomy, however at that point you lose people to unjust because it isn’t a ‘bodily autonomy’ issue but one of ‘forced servitude’ – I cannot afford this child, I don’t want a child right now, which starts to sound awfully like the idea that a pregnancy resulting from sex should be the exception rather than the rule.
The final point you get is the biological unfairness of the issue – again Feminists typically take the view of ‘tough for me, you don’t get pregnant’ while the same argument would place all of the responsibility on the mother.
Realistically society needs to work out a more formal method of declaring parenthood and responsibility for a child as well as the minimum requirement to support a child. Then you can have choice for women, choice for men, and support for things like single motherhood using something like the equivalent of a mortgage rather than having so many single mothers living below the poverty line due to having to support a child on one income.
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Bodily autonomy isn’t necessarily absolute. What about vaccine mandates, for instance? Or the draft back when we had one?
I wouldn’t mind a mandatory Vasalgel injection for all males once Vasalgel hits the market and once these males hit puberty in order to massively reduce unplanned pregnancies and incidents of males being forced to pay child support against their will, for instance. Vasalgel is reversible.
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“when discussing abortion feminists often use the argument that women have a right not to be subjected to the economic costs of parenthood without choice. “
Yeah and that argument is bullshit.
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“when discussing abortion feminists often use the argument that women have a right not to be subjected to the economic costs of parenthood without choice. “
Yeah and that argument is bullshit.”
– This is the very first time I have heard this bizarre argument. Are you sure it even exists?
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Although men in fact abandon children all the time, and US child support payments often don’t go far to cover cost of raising child, etc. – yet those who are against contraception and abortion and also want men to be able to opt out of child support, often *also* would consider socialist/sinful the idea of *the state* supporting *all* children via viable education and healthcare + child support for children because they are also citizens … the Scandinavian way.
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Is it common for supporters of choice for men to be against abortion or contraception? All the ones I’ve encountered have been for it, but I have very little experience discussing the issue.
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Profacero, what do you count as not enough? Reasonably 50% of all costs, however often the non-cp does bear a lot of costs that aren’t considered in this such as maintaining a room for over night stays. How much does it cost to live, outside of accomodation and transportation my monthly living costs are around £300 however this increases to around £1,100 if we include those – which do you base your calculation on?
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JE, it’s: “she got pregnant – she should have calculated her fertile days better – now she is forcing this child on me” (if it’s their child) or else “now she is having an abortion, when she ought to be ‘facing the consequences’ or having sex by having a child” (if it’s not their child). Srsly. I live in a very right wing area and this is how people talk.
2ndnin: in US though it’s often a lot less than 50% of all costs. In Canada, the other country I’ve got some familiarity with for this, figures seem to be a lot more realistic. Then of course in DK children have more rights as individuals, so their quality of life depends less on their parents’ means, and I’m for this.
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” “now she is having an abortion, when she ought to be ‘facing the consequences’ of having sex by having a child” (if it’s not their child).”
– I heard this argument for the very first time a short while ago and I was terrified by the degree of sheer unadulterated insanity that must have gone into it. I think such people are in need of urgent medical care because they are not normal. That’s just not a normal statement to make. I would be afraid to be in the same room with such a person.
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Yeah, AFAIK, most people who support financial abortion for men are pro-choice and pro-contraception.
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A reasonable government most definitely cannot protect the right of a grown individual to be a cheap stupid prick who begrudges a few dimes to his own flesh and blood at the expense of a small person who does not yet have a voice and cannot even hire a lawyer.(Clarissa)
It can only become his flesh and blood if the WOMAN decides to have the child. Until then its just a fetus. Clarissa, some days you really sound like a stupid prick too. I dont know you well enough to say if you are cheap or not. 😉
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Except that the Government does just that in many legal situations through systems like comparative negligence. If you could have prevented something from happening and didn’t then you are partly responsible for allowing it to happen, and often you can only claim fault if >50% of the fault was not your own. Following through from that kind of legal precedent a man would at most be responsible for 50% of the cost of an abortion and surrounding medical care because his actions were contributory to the fault however the woman had (something approximating) 100% chance to avoid the situation through plan B or abortion – my body, my choice, my responsibility. Now if those options aren’t available then yes he is / should automatically be on the hook for 50% of the costs.
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“Following through from that kind of legal precedent a man would at most be responsible for 50% of the cost of an abortion and surrounding medical care because his actions were contributory to the fault however the woman had (something approximating) 100% chance to avoid the situation through plan B or abortion – my body, my choice, my responsibility.”
– You have completely excluded the child and his or her interests from the equation. This is what I see time and again in such discussions. People get stuck on what the man / woman has decided, done, said, etc. The child just evaporates.
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The child wasn’t harmed as a result of being brought into existence. At least not if they already have all of their needs met without any financial help from their non-custodial parent.
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Of course this argument excludes the child Clarissa, by analogy the child should not exist and therefore any costs incurred are incurred only to the responsible party less the fault percentage which would be the cost to avoid it. Now I tend to argue this as devil’s advocate however it does make a lot of sense when you consider that consent to sex is not consent to raising a child. The same argument is easy to apply in reverse – if a woman hadn’t consented to pregnancy why was she having sex… and I’m pretty sure we don’t support that angle.
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“by analogy the child should not exist and therefore any costs incurred are incurred only to the responsible party”
– And now imagine yourself as a child and your own father telling you to your face that you should not exist. How does that make you feel?
“Now I tend to argue this as devil’s advocate however it does make a lot of sense when you consider that consent to sex is not consent to raising a child.”
– We are not discussing raising anybody. We are discussing financial support.
“The same argument is easy to apply in reverse – if a woman hadn’t consented to pregnancy why was she having sex… and I’m pretty sure we don’t support that angle.”
– I’m not sure what you are trying to say but as I explained in a very long thread we had on the subject, I believe that the circumstances of a child’s conception – irrespective of how tragic they might be – should in no way infringe on a child’s right to be clothed and fed.
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Personally I have no idea how it would make me feel, but having seen friends in that situation it ranges from complete and utter dejection to insane happiness. I’d say that bringing any child into the world it should be wanted and supported by both parents personally.
Again the argument goes in a circle – neither side of this argument ever sees the other side’s pov since one side sees the woman as having a right to bodily autonomy and the child an inalienable right to support while the other sees it as a fault based situation where the woman has made the choice of her body, her choice, her responsibility. It’s fun to argue though since neither side will ever see the other’s pov.
Fed and clothed is a far different standard to 50% of all costs especially when housing and rent are considered only on one side typically. Setting the standard is very important in this debate.
🙂 As I have said before I don’t have a horse in this race but neither side is very consistent.
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“Personally I have no idea how it would make me feel,”
– I suggest you keep trying to figure that out. This is not a financial issue at all. This is an issue of a basic self-acceptance.
“but having seen friends in that situation ”
– What situation? You have seen people approached by their fathers and told that they should not exist? Where do you find such psychopaths, I wonder?
“I’d say that bringing any child into the world it should be wanted and supported by both parents personally.”
– Once again, let’s avoid triviality. There should also be world peace and endless spring, but there isn’t, so what’s the point of discussing that?
“Again the argument goes in a circle – neither side of this argument ever sees the other side’s pov since one side sees the woman as having a right to bodily autonomy and the child an inalienable right to support while the other sees it as a fault based situation where the woman has made the choice of her body, her choice, her responsibility”
– You do notice that even in your own description, one of the “sides” pretends that a child does not exist. Is that a very reasonable approach, you’d say?
“As I have said before I don’t have a horse in this race but neither side is very consistent.”
– What inconsistencies have you seen in my post?
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I’d fall somewhere on that emotional curve, beyond that I have no idea since it hasn’t happened to me. I can empathise with others but I can’t tell you how I would actually feel. Yes I’ve seen friends fathers tell them they don’t want them, I’ve seen mother’s do it as well. I’m not sure I would call them psychopaths – just because you share a genetic bond doesn’t mean you share an emotional one.
Lets avoid the triviality? In a society where there are relatively safe methods to avoid the majority of pregnancies it isn’t a triviality to say that a child should only be brought into a situation in which it can be supported. It is perhaps optimistic however we are arguing a theoretical situation here. Would the situation change if the assumption was no paternal support unless there is an an explicit opt in? The theoretical is important because it informs how we make our laws and decisions, if this idea is to be shot down successfully you need to address its points rather than dismissing the idea as silly.
No both sides admit the child exist, they merely alter where the responsibility for that child lies. One side says ‘have sex take responsibility’, the other says ‘have sex, responsibility if appropriate’. Again I can’t argue my own view point here because I would support a child of mine irrespective of the mother but I can see the point of the latter view.
You dismiss the arguments as silly, you don’t consider / accept the fact that ‘can’t afford it’ is considered a valid reason for an abortion etc. … It’s easy to argue against taking the view that the child should be supported however we aren’t dealing with an abstract here but people’s feelings. Also we then come to the point of where does life begin, when does a woman’s right to choose get overruled by the foetus… the whole area is a mess of contradictions in itself.
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“Yes I’ve seen friends fathers tell them they don’t want them, I’ve seen mother’s do it as well.”
– That was not the situation I described. “I don’t want you” and “you shouldn’t exist” are different statements.
” I’m not sure I would call them psychopaths – just because you share a genetic bond doesn’t mean you share an emotional one.”
– I have no emotional bond with my next door neighbor. But I don’t think he shouldn’t exist. Are you really not seeing the difference or is this simply avoidance? I remind you that the “this kid should not exist” was your statement.
“In a society where there are relatively safe methods to avoid the majority of pregnancies it isn’t a triviality to say that a child should only be brought into a situation in which it can be supported.”
– Yes, obviously. That’s the best-case scenario. But that’s not what we are discussing.
“No both sides admit the child exist, they merely alter where the responsibility for that child lies.”
– Please re-read your own statement. I’m only responding to your texts here.
“Would the situation change if the assumption was no paternal support unless there is an an explicit opt in?”
– Which “situation”? Those children who already exist would be wiped out of existence because somebody explicitly opted in or out or whatever in the past?
“You dismiss the arguments as silly, you don’t consider / accept the fact that ‘can’t afford it’ is considered a valid reason for an abortion etc”
– Considered by whom? People should dispose of their bodies in any way they see fit for any reason whatsoever. Who is this mysterious approving authority you are hinting at?
“It’s easy to argue against taking the view that the child should be supported however we aren’t dealing with an abstract here but people’s feelings.”
– How did we suddenly get into the realm of “feelings”?
“Also we then come to the point of where does life begin, when does a woman’s right to choose get overruled by the foetus…”
– When does your right to make decisions get overruled by the rights of your left ear or your toenails? A fetus is a body part. Body parts do not get rights.
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Interesting that you define a foetus as a body part when things like the 1999 assault law in the US make assault against a pregnant party into an assault with 2 potential victims. I find it odd in these debates that foetuses immediately get given a dual state of ‘person in own right’ and ‘equivalent of a toenail’ and the one used is whichever is easiest to win the argument with…
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“Interesting that you define a foetus as a body part when things like the 1999 assault law in the US make assault against a pregnant party into an assault with 2 potential victims.”
– A stupid, hateful law aimed at curtailing reproductive rights.
“I find it odd in these debates that foetuses immediately get given a dual state of ‘person in own right’ and ‘equivalent of a toenail’ and the one used is whichever is easiest to win the argument with…”
– I have never adopted such a position, so this should not be laid at my door.
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If a fetus is a body part, is a woman who is pregnant with a male fetus a hermaphrodite? She does have both male and female reproductive organs, after all.
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“It can only become his flesh and blood if the WOMAN decides to have the child. Until then its just a fetus.”
– Yes, I am aware. I am also aware that today is March 8. So? What’s the point of drowning the discussion in trivialities? Of course, I can always start a thread titled “The painfully obvious.” 🙂
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The painfully obvious is that you are wrong on so many counts that I dont have the energy or the inclination to try to show the error of your ways. As we both know, when you become passionate about something your eyes and ears see and hear…………. 😉
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If I’m not mistaken, you are a single father who raised your children and never abandoned them. So I find it incomprehensible that you would side with folks who can’t see how the needs of a child supersede pretty much anything else.
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Choice.
🙂
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Let’s not disrespect another reader in his absence. We have no reason to believe that Tit for Tat would have abandoned his kids for any reason whatsoever.
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I dont agree with a lot of people’s choices. But if you are going to call something pro choice and want equality, then at least it should be fair and equal. As it is applied presently the better term should be my/her choice as the father has none.
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“But if you are going to call something pro choice and want equality, then at least it should be fair and equal.”
– I don’t know what “it” is supposed to mean in this context. When a child appears, both parents should be equally responsible for its financial support.
” As it is applied presently the better term should be my/her choice as the father has none.”
– He has the choice of doing whatever he wants with his body.
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And if a single parent can adequately take care of a child’s’ needs on their own?
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”“now she is having an abortion, when she ought to be ‘facing the consequences’ of having sex by having a child” (if it’s not their child).”
Clarissa: I heard this argument for the very first time a short while ago and I was terrified by the degree of sheer unadulterated insanity that must have gone into it. I think such people are in need of urgent medical care because they are not normal. That’s just not a normal statement to make. I would be afraid to be in the same room with such a person.
*Well, these are majority views among my students / very many adults where I live, etc. Yes, I stay at home a lot or else get out of town, because yes, it’s rather scary!
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“This is the very first time I have heard this bizarre argument. Are you sure it even exists?”
Try reading this post, and pay particular attention to the paragraph that begins with “That’s right, I think”
http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2011/06/20/pleasure-procreation-and-erotic-justice/
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I see that paragraph as being very specifically not about financial concerns or responsibilities.
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Ok, I see your point. I’ve never seen a feminist defend abortion on the grounds that parenthood costs too much money. I have seen lots of feminists defend abortion on the grounds parenthood interferes with a women’s career/free-time/feelings/social-life, though.
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” I have seen lots of feminists defend abortion on the grounds parenthood interferes with a women’s career/free-time/feelings/social-life, though.”
– I have a feeling this will be a popular thread, so I don’t want it to veer off into a discussion of social lives or careers. We are talking specifically of financial responsibility here and I want to keep it this way.
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If the lots of feminists you have seen make those specific arguments, they are dancing around a broader concern.
Among other reasons, pro-choice people defend abortion on the grounds that women should not be legally coerced into undesired motherhood, as carrying, birthing, and raising a child has tremendous impact on one’s body, mind, and opportunities.
Like it says in the paragraph you quoted.
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“Among other reasons, pro-choice people defend abortion on the grounds that women should not be legally coerced into undesired motherhood, as carrying, birthing, and raising a child has tremendous impact on one’s body, mind, and opportunities.”
– My position is and has always been that people should dispose of their own bodies as they see fit. This is the reason I’m pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-trans rights, pro-euthanasia, against prison sentences for drug use, against forced institutionalization for people who attempted suicide. My body is my only true, most inviolable possession. Under no circumstances should one be able to decide what other adults do with their bodies. At no point should the government invade people’s bodies in any way.
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That reply was for GudEnuf.
And sorry for contributing to a derail.
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Under no circumstances should one be able to decide what other adults do with their bodies. At no point should the government invade people’s bodies in any way.(Clarissa)
I guess you dont pay taxes, because if you do its your body that has to make the money one way or another. 😉
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“I guess you dont pay taxes, because if you do its your body that has to make the money one way or another.”
– I hope you don’t really see taxation as intrusion INTO your body because that would be too scary. Of course, if people who don’t work and pay taxes were forced to work in concentration camps, for example, I would oppose that, too. However, when N. was unemployed and paid no taxes, we never got any government officials knocking on our door, imagine that.
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Vaccines are an intrusion into one’s body, no? And yet haven’t some people justified vaccine mandates on public safety grounds?
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Among other reasons, pro-choice people defend abortion on the grounds that women should not be legally coerced into undesired motherhood, as carrying, birthing, and raising a child has tremendous impact on one’s body, mind, and opportunities.(P.rhoeas)
I would imagine those are EXACTLY the reasons why some men dont want to be legally coerced into paying for a child they did not want to have.
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Because carrying, giving birth and raising “has tremendous impact on their body, mind, and opportunities”??? Who is asking any men to do that, exactly? Can you also give a few examples of how paying child support has a “tremendous impact” on anybody’s BODY?
P.S. In any case, this is all moot since the only relevant aspect of the abortion debate is bodily integrity.
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Clarissa
Lets say a man and woman start having sex. They both have several children from previous relationships and both have low paying jobs that barely meet the needs of their present families. They are having protected sex, she is on the pill, he had a vasectomy. They have made it clear to each other if she was to get pregnant she would have an abortion so as not to put any unnecessary emotional and financial strain on the prexisting families. By some astronomical chance she gets pregnant and then decides to have the baby. He made it explicitly clear that he was in no way capable of supporting that child without it causing severe hardship for his present family and his on mental health. Are you telling me that he is a cheap, stupid prick for making this adult decision and should have no rights in this regard????
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“By some astronomical chance she gets pregnant and then decides to have the baby. He made it explicitly clear that he was in no way capable of supporting that child without it causing severe hardship for his present family and his on mental health. Are you telling me that he is a cheap, stupid prick for making this adult decision and should have no rights in this regard????”
– He made it explicitly clear to whom? The woman, right? This is why he owes her nothing. But given that he couldn’t have made anything explicitly clear to the child (who was not around when the explicit clarifications were being made, remember?), he has obligations towards that child.
“Are you telling me that he is a cheap, stupid prick for making this adult decision and should have no rights in this regard????”
– I’m absolutely saying that he does not have any rights to deprive his child of basic necessities. A grown man or woman can find a night or weekend job, can borrow, can do many different things. A small child can do none of them. A government protects the rights of the helpless person here.
Are you also bothered that your taxes go to pay for disabled, sick, unemployed, and indigent people? I mean, I’m sure your consent was not asked when they were born. Do you begrudge the money you share with them as a tax-payer? I know I don’t. So how could I begrudge money to a person who is half me?
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And herein lies the reason why its useless to discuss this with you. Your mind is made up. So is mine, youre wrong.
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It would be great to hear the answer to the question about taxes: Are you also bothered that your taxes go to pay for disabled, sick, unemployed, and indigent people? I mean, I’m sure your consent was not asked when they were born. Do you begrudge the money you share with them as a tax-payer?
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Sometimes with certain ones, definately. Are you ok with all unemployed people who get your taxes?
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“Sometimes with certain ones, definately. Are you ok with all unemployed people who get your taxes?”
– We can argue about conditions and specific amounts but I am absolutely in favor of the institution of unemployment benefits and disability benefits. Aren’t you?
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No, I believe I should have the choice to opt in for my benefits or opt out if I do not wish to collect. I do not believe it should be mandatory for me to have to pay if I choose to opt out.
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I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Collect what? Opt out of what?
My question is whether you consider it right that people pay taxes which then go to unemployment and disability benefit? Say, a super rich person like Mitt Romney, are you saying he should be able to opt out of paying his taxes because he doesn’t like the idea of them going to disabled people?
If that’s your position, then at least it’s consistent, which is always good. But I have to say that I find it not a little barbaric. We can’t be a society that lets sick, disabled, elderly people just die on the sidewalks.
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We do that already.
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“We do that already.”
– But are you in favor of that? Look, if you have an “everybody for himself” worldview and you maintain it consistently in every aspect of life, then I respect that. I don’t share it but I recognize that it’s your right to have that worldview. It’s the lack of logic and consistency that angers me, but alternative worldviews definitely do not. For example, a transphobic pro-choicer makes me livid because that position is not logical. But a straight-out dog-eat-dog Libertarian does not anger me at all because s/he is logical and consistent.
God, I’m so autistic. 🙂
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Im in favour of aspects of that, I guess that makes me a slightly conservative, left leaning liberal who likes sex when he doesnt have to pay for it. 😉
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I knew you and I would always end up finding common ground. 🙂 🙂
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Since the term stupid prick is an acceptable phrase I would like to use the equally descriptive term stupid cunt. Since the sensibilities are so egalitarian and respectful of equality I deem it equally respectful.
That said, I do accept that circumstances may exist to support or justify financial abortion, and I see a wholly morbid reason for it. There are a great number of stupid cunts that will flex the muscles of the law to curtail and end a relationship between a father and child. In such a circumstance a father may only have emotional access to mourning the loss of that relationship much like mourning a death. The morbid part is he may need to separate himself emotionally from the existence of that child to avoid a cascade of negative emotions, hostility, remorse, grief, loneliness, loss, rage. I’m sure that intelligent empathetic people may be able to hallucinate how damaging such emotions can be to an individual and potentially to the people around him. This is the stuff that restraining orders are made of.
Strategically he may feel that to achieve this would require wiping the child from his mind, letting go, destroying all pictures that exist, removing all reminders of the child, never using the child’s name and ultimately avoiding children generally. Its morbid but it works. For an individual who may experience this, why should they be reminded of their loss with monthly payments or any connection at all. Because some stupid cunt says so.
Why should an individual be emotionally immolated by the state or a child’s other parent and pay for the fuel. Personally I believe that in most cases support is a joke, anyone with two brain cells to rub together will realize that a support payment is less than what you would spend on a child if they were with you day to day. I don’t believe that the issue is money in many cases. I believe that it is an issue of self image and the loss of a relationship with your child is painful and I see no reason or justification for exacting that kind of pain on anyone, parent or child.
Equally curious is that parents who have their children removed from them by the state for reasons of neglect or abuse have no requirement to pay support for that child. Why?
Of course the argument and the exercise in morbid emotion would disappear if the state and the other parent would simply change custody orders to automatic shared custody. But unfortunately their is just to many stupid cunts ready to do harm rather than help.
Conflating this issue to some ethical bullshit over money and describing someone as a stupid prick or a stupid cunt for that matter smacks of feminist hypocrisy with patriarchal training wheels, unintelligent, myopic and insulting.
Finally regarding abortion the single issue that is never raised is the emotional grief that a man may experience as a result of an abortion. This is not to suggest that the experience of a man should govern the outcome but I have never in my life met a woman that considered the emotional impact on a man. Absolutely fight for your rights and have them. But those rights do not erase the experience of a man or partner or whatever. Many men experience grief, guilt and loss from an abortion and those feelings unaddressed can certainly destroy a relationship. In fact when they are not addressed there is no relationship. Love does not require anyone to submit to emotional pain and then silence them, it listens.
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“Since the term stupid prick is an acceptable phrase I would like to use the equally descriptive term stupid cunt.”
– Of course, a woman who refuses to support her own child financially is that and worse.
“Strategically he may feel that to achieve this would require wiping the child from his mind, letting go, destroying all pictures that exist, removing all reminders of the child, never using the child’s name and ultimately avoiding children generally. Its morbid but it works. For an individual who may experience this, why should they be reminded of their loss with monthly payments or any connection at all. Because some stupid cunt says so.”
– Because adults do not resolve their emotional issues at the expense of small children. Didn’t you know that? A man who wants to be treated like a man should stop being a whiny little baby with emmmmmotional bagggggage and work on addressing his traumas. The idea that a child should go without medical care or clothing because an adult man (or womn, of course) can’t get his emotions under control is very strange.
“Of course the argument and the exercise in morbid emotion would disappear if the state and the other parent would simply change custody orders to automatic shared custody.”
– Who’s arguing?
“But unfortunately their is just to many stupid cunts ready to do harm rather than help.”
– Help whom?
“Conflating this issue to some ethical bullshit over money and describing someone as a stupid prick or a stupid cunt for that matter smacks of feminist hypocrisy with patriarchal training wheels, unintelligent, myopic and insulting.”
– What is it that you find hypocritical in this post? Please consult the meaning of the word hypocrisy before you respond.
“Finally regarding abortion the single issue that is never raised is the emotional grief that a man may experience as a result of an abortion. ”
– Why do you infantilize men so much? In your entire comment men come out like small kids that their sex partners should mother at any cost.
“This is not to suggest that the experience of a man should govern the outcome but I have never in my life met a woman that considered the emotional impact on a man.”
– Because she sees him as an adult, not as a child.
“In fact when they are not addressed there is no relationship. Love does not require anyone to submit to emotional pain and then silence them, it listens.”
– Who’s disagreeing? Often, however, people have sex without feeling any love for each other.
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Great comments, Clarissa.
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Because adults do not resolve their emotional issues at the expense of small children.
Not true Clarissa, this is the engine of the family courts, it’s done all the time and is completely acceptable legally and politically. Ethically I agree with you, realistically I don’t.
A man who wants to be treated like a man should stop being a whiny little baby with emmmmmotional bagggggage and work on addressing his traumas.
Rather than defaulting to a binary I’m quite happy to be treated as a human, although the strategy mentioned is an extension of the male binary to compartmentalize and simply ignore any feelings at all. But hey maybe that’s the best that a male binary has to offer.
Of course this would also address the issue of hypocrisy or it could just be hand flapping with a keyboard.
The idea that a child should go without medical care or clothing because an adult man (or womn, of course) can’t get his emotions under control is very strange.
Hence the terms stupid pricks and stupid cunts. But the belief that a child would go without medical care or clothing as a dramatization is also strange. But not in Honduras she retorts.
Why do you infantilize men so much? In your entire comment men come out like small kids that their sex partners should mother at any cost.
I think it’s more representative of the extent to which women are infantilized by their inability to deal with or respect emotions that do not occur inside them as their own. Isn’t it just easier to default to attempts at humiliation and shame than to consider another persons experience.
I had never considered defining a partner as simply a sex partner but it does streamline the relationship and remove any uncomfortable intimacy. (for her) Maybe it would help to bring a woman out of her mother cloud and be more human. But I doubt it, most peddle their motherhood like they peddle their cosmetics, they think its attractive as long as they’re looking in their own mirror.
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“Because adults do not resolve their emotional issues at the expense of small children.
Not true Clarissa, this is the engine of the family courts, it’s done all the time and is completely acceptable legally and politically.”
– So your position is that if the system is flawed, let’s add to those flaws?
“Rather than defaulting to a binary I’m quite happy to be treated as a human, although the strategy mentioned is an extension of the male binary to compartmentalize and simply ignore any feelings at all.”
– Mentioned by whom? The strategy I suggested is resolving emotional issues in an adult way. If you translate that as ignoring feelings, then that’s really sad.
“Of course this would also address the issue of hypocrisy or it could just be hand flapping with a keyboard.”
– I have no idea what you are trying to say.
“Hence the terms stupid pricks and stupid cunts. But the belief that a child would go without medical care or clothing as a dramatization is also strange. But not in Honduras she retorts.”
– I have a feeling you are talking to yourself.
“I think it’s more representative of the extent to which women are infantilized by their inability to deal with or respect emotions that do not occur inside them as their own.”
– No healthy person sees the emotions of others as their own. You are wishing for a very unhealthy symbiosis. That’s your right, of course, but you condemn all healthy women for being emotionally healthy.
” Isn’t it just easier to default to attempts at humiliation and shame than to consider another persons experience.”
– That’s everybody’s personal choice. If I have no wish to consider another persons experience, then that’s my right. Their emotions are their problem and any attempt to make them my problem against my will is an emotional manipulation I will not stand for even for 2 seconds.
“Maybe it would help to bring a woman out of her mother cloud and be more human. But I doubt it, most peddle their motherhood like they peddle their cosmetics, they think its attractive as long as they’re looking in their own mirror.”
– Again, I have no idea what this is about. I thought we were talking about women who expressly do not want to be mothers and choose abortion.
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“The idea that a child should go without medical care or clothing because an adult man (or womn, of course) can’t get his emotions under control is very strange.”
Sometimes one parent is capable of adequately providing all of that to a child by themselves.
Anyway, in cases where one parent isn’t capable of doing this, have you ever considered the option of child support insurance? As in, if someone who doesn’t want children gets irreversibly sterilized and then purchases insurance in order to pay all of their child support in their place for 18+ years in the event that they will nevertheless ever end up causing an unplanned pregnancy (due to their sterilization ever failing) and a child will be born afterwards? This seems like a very decent compromise were such an option actually available; it would protect unwilling parents’ wallets (tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars is a lot of money) while also ensuring that children would be adequately taken care of. Too bad that no insurance company, even specialty insurance marketplaces such as Lloyd’s, are actually willing to offer any insurance like this, but if such insurance actually existed, then it would be great to have. Men would primarily benefit from this because they don’t have a guaranteed option of abortion (a woman can lie or change her mind in regards to this later on), though women who consider abortion to be immoral and don’t want to utilize adoption would also be able to benefit from such insurance.
If such insurance will ever be created, though, then one would want to ensure that idiot judges will not strike it down on public policy grounds. In wrongful conception and wrongful birth cases, for instance, judges have sometimes or even often refused to award full childcare costs to parent plaintiffs on the extreme stupid and dubious theory that awarding such costs to parents would make their children feel unwanted and traumatized. Seriously. Look at the case Wilbur v. Kerr, for instance.
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I did the research, and child support isn’t a big deal. 43% of custodial single women receive no child support at all. Of those who receive child support, the median amount is $3,600 (out of a median income of $42,000). So men have a 57% chance of having to pay 8.5% of their income for 18 years. It’s not a like woman’s going to be able to turn a profit on that.
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http://singleparents.about.com/od/statebystateresources/p/child_support_statistics.htm
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Thank you, Gudenuf.
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Do you acknowledge that if those 43% of children can survive without any child support, then maybe some of those 57% can as well?
You think that child support isn’t a big deal? OK, how about you promise in writing to pay all of my child support for me for 18+ years in the event that my bilateral epididymectomy plus radical scrotal vasectomy will ever fail. I’ll even be willing to give you a one-time payment of $100 in exchange for this promise of yours. The risk of failure for such an extremely extensive male sterilization surgery is near-zero, much lower than for a regular vasectomy, most likely. If child support is just chump change according to you, surely you would have no problem agreeing to my offer, right?
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Sorry to dig up this post again, but I was wondering your thoughts…
Do you think the donating sperm/eggs is unethical? Most people who donate reproductive cells never give anything to the children their cells create. But they are rarely criticized for this. Indeed, most pro-choice people approve of egg/sperm donors because they allow women to have more reproductive options.
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I have to confess that I find egg / sperm donators to be completely incomprehensible. I don’t understand how it’s possible for anybody not to care that they might have children walking around somewhere. Such people really scare me with their carelessness and grievous immaturity.
I also don’t understand this obsession with giving birth at all costs. If one really wants to raise a child for the sake of that child and not for the sake of proving to society that one can give birth, there are crowds of unwanted, miserable children in the foster system. Why not just foster one of such kids?
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white is it that makes someone your child? What are adopted children, are you somehow less of a mother and/or father if you adopt them?
What people recognize as legitimacy in their children; has nothing to do with genes and everything to do with the legal system. (Of course genes obviously have a great deal to do with child support, but as far as I can tell nothing else.)
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“What are adopted children, are you somehow less of a mother and/or father if you adopt them?”
– I have no idea how anybody could have deduced anything like this from the text of my post.
“What people recognize as legitimacy in their children; has nothing to do with genes and everything to do with the legal system”
– This sentence makes no sense at any level.
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I think I may have replied to the wrong comment, if I remember right there was a post in which you said something to the effect that you thought that sperm and egg donors share a paternal relationship with their; for lack of better term will call them donations.
My question to you is what is the relationship between an adopted child and a Foster parent?, the person who in my opinion is fulfilling the modern definition of parenthood.
–I hope I was able to clarify myself better this time.
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“My question to you is what is the relationship between an adopted child and a Foster parent?, the person who in my opinion is fulfilling the modern definition of parenthood.”
– An adoptive or a foster parent are just that, adoptive and foster parent. Their importance to a child’s life can be huge and extremely positive. It does not, however, in any way cancel the fact that every child has a biological mother and a biological father. It is absolutely crucial that a child knows who they are and can pursue a relationship with them if that’s what the child chooses.
People who adopt children and conceal the information on their biological parents from them are horrible, vile people who don;t give a rat’s ass about the child’s well-being.
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I seem to be under the wrong impression, maybe I’ve placed the wrong statement with the wrong poster.
At any rate I want to apologize for any frustration.
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“I seem to be under the wrong impression, maybe I’ve placed the wrong statement with the wrong poster.
At any rate I want to apologize for any frustration.”
– It’s OK, there is no frustration. 🙂
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I’m not Clarissa, but I’ll answer anyway:
It seems like if one really cared about children having two legal parents, then one should support prohibiting single people from accessing donor sperm/eggs unless they already have a second person who is willing to sign up to be the second legal parent of any resulting children. At least that way, any children conceived through sperm/egg donation will have two legal parents. This would be for sperm/eggs acquired through sperm/egg banks. In non-sperm bank/non-egg bank cases, the sperm/egg donor should simply be directly held responsible for child support if one truly values the best interests of the children.
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Clarissa, do you believe that all custodial parents (except perhaps those in abusive relationships) should be legally required to seek child support from the non-custodial parents of their children? After all, as Cathy Young pointed out in at least one of her articles, there are plenty of custodial parents who voluntarily refuse to seek child support even though this might make their children worse off than they would have otherwise been.
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Yes, many parents are blethering idiots. There’s no legal remedy for that.
I only wish I knew who Cathy Young is and how she relates to butt plugs. Or maybe I don’t.
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Cathy Young (birth name Yekaterina Yung) is a prominent Russian-born American journalist who labels herself a libertarian and has been publishing articles for years in libertarian journals like “Reason Magazine.”
She infuriates American feminists by aggressively supporting MRA (Men’s Rights Advocacy) viewpoints, sometimes to a ridiculous degree like in your post above.
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How exactly have Cathy Young’s positions been unreasonable? In this article, for instance:
https://www.salon.com/2000/10/19/mens_choice/
She points out that the “best interests of the child” standard is ignored when custodial parents are allowed to refuse to seek child support and when single people reproduce with the help of sperm/egg donors and thus their children only end up having one legal parent.
This strikes me as being perfectly sensible.
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Cathy Young is a libertarian Russian-Jewish American journalist. She writes about child support and other topics, such as here:
https://www.salon.com/2000/10/19/mens_choice/
“Yes, many parents are blethering idiots. There’s no legal remedy for that.”
Sure there is. You could legally require custodial parents who aren’t in abusive relationships to seek child support. You could also legally allow their children to sue them in adulthood if they will refuse to do this (on the grounds that as a result of them refusing to do this, their children didn’t have as good of a childhood as they would have otherwise had).
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“A reasonable government most definitely cannot protect the right of a grown individual to be a cheap stupid prick who begrudges a few dimes to his own flesh and blood at the expense of a small person who does not yet have a voice and cannot even hire a lawyer.”
It’s not a few dimes. Cumulatively, child support adds up to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars over an 18+ year time period. My own dad goes ballistic if even several dozen or hundred dollars is spend on the wrong thing. And here we’re talking about an amount massively larger than that.
If you think that child support is chump change, you are very welcome to pay all of my child support for me in my place for 18+ years in the hypothetical event of a bilateral epididymectomy failure plus radical scrotal vasectomy failure. The risk of such a failure after three successful/negative semen analyses is nearly zero (much lower than the failure rate for a regular vasectomy), and child support is just a few dimes according to you, so why not? I’ll even give you a one-time payment of $100 in exchange for you agreeing to do this, in writing. I do know your real name, after all.
Anyway, I personally see no problem with financial abortion for so long as one parent is capable of adequately supporting their child by themselves. Plenty of custodial parents refuse to ever seek child support, so clearly plenty of children get by just fine without it. If a child genuinely needs the extra money, though, then they should be entitled to it. Though having a sufficiently large UBI for every person, including for every child, could perhaps eventually make this question moot. But Yeah, so long as it’s fair game for custodial parents who aren’t on welfare to refuse to ever seek child support, and so long as it’s fair game for sperm/egg donor-conceived children to only have one legal parent, I don’t see anything wrong with financial abortion so long as one income is enough to ensure that the child is properly cared for. Heck, it’s not like even some married couples are incapable of surviving on a single income.
Interestingly enough, it’s entirely possible that financial abortion could reduce the number of children who are beaten, abused, et cetera because unwilling parents could simply abandon them without ever having to worry about their finances.
As for biology, sure biology is unfair, but this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t aim to make the law fairer. We make accommodations for disabled people even though biology is unfair to them, for instance. And I support giving a financial abortion to women as well for so long as a male parent is capable of adequately taking care of their child on a single income.
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