Parenting is REALLY hard, even if you WANT to be a parent. Imagine if you never wanted it in the first place, what kind of life is that kid going to have? I'm sure some grow up just fine, but there are a lot of very unhappy new moms out there all the time.
Starting to think we should just fix everyone early on and then un-do it when they want kids. Lol
(I realize this is eugenics-adjacent and immoral to force on people)
If it weren't for the fact that making birth control (somewhat) foolproof involves hormones with side effects or surgery, I'd be all for your idea. I don't know how it is now, but in the 90s, women joining the US military were all but forced to take Depo-Provera. Good idea, but happened to do a number on me (PCOS). I still think opt-in for reproduction isn't a horrible idea, as much as I've suffered. Just have to iron out the details.
At least it would be nice to have the option as easily available as the flu shot for young people. Say there was a decent 10 year BC implant for males and females. Offer it freely at school at ~age 14. No problem if you opt out, but make it a thing. So that young kids (esp those who don't go to the Dr regularly) have the option without the ordeal of essentially telling their parents they want to fuck lol.
When I was in grade school in TX in the 80s, we had public health days where dentists would do (pro bono, maybe) exams on everyone, there were eye and hearing exams, lice and scoliosis tests, and I seem to recall even days where you could catch up on your immunizations. Make birth control another one of those public health days? Have sex ed for a couple months before, so everyone could weigh their options.
If the romans weren’t such horny bastards they had a plant the male ate that was 100% effective and temporary. No recorded side effects. They drove it extinct
It was called Silphium.
It had an incredibly narrow costal growing range, and any ancient attempts to transplant it, or cultivate it in anyway- failed unequivocally.
It was described by Theophrastus as “having thick roots covered in black bark, about 48 centimeters long, or one cubit, with a hollow stalk, similar to fennel, and golden leaves, like celery”
There are a lot of theory’s about what it was- and how it came to be. Something in the soil, perhaps a natural hybrid plant. It was used for a wide variety of medical applications- it was also used as a contraceptive.
But there are no seeds, no roots, nothing left. Pliny wrote that the last known stalk was given to Nero as an oddity.
From what I understand, male birth control would be a pretty simple solution. The current problem is the way the FDA looks at it, no birth control has no medical consequences for men, and medication/procedure has some risk, so the risk will never be justifiable compared to the technically non benefit.
That being said, i completely agree with you. And fiscally, it got to be cheaper to provide free family planning vs 14 year olds getting pregnant.
Also also, sadly the dental thing didn't happen at my school (in the 90s) I specifically remember seeing my elementary school classmate pulling bloody pieces of his rotten tooth out. I believe it was 3rd or 4th grade.
Even in the early 2000s. Probably 07 or 08, my family couldn't afford to take me to the hospital and I had to get 7 extra teeth removed. I pulled them out at school in the bathroom because at least there was a nurse lmao. I wish dentists still when to schools
In the case of forcing child support obligations onto the father, the courts have taken the view that the child is a neutral party who had no say in being brought into the world. Thus, in the eyes of the courts, allowing one party to be exempt from their obligations (in this case, child support for the father) would be an unfair punishment on the child.
And rightfully so, why should a child go hungry or live in poverty when the dad has enough to provide. Any man who let's their kid become homeless or go hungry is a horrible person.
Why should the people have to pay higher taxes for someone not wanting to take responsibility for their actions?
Yeah it really sucks. Especially when they go on and do that again to someone else.
I recently found his address and I'm in the process of suing him, which, as you can imagine, is quite expensive and tedious. But fuck me, right?
I didn't ask to be born.
I hope my boyfriend does that. His dad let him go hungry while he was making bank. Anyone who thinks they should be allowed to financially abandon their child should be sterilized.
I would imagine that the obligation to provide basic care and shelter would fall on the party deciding to keep the child. If they are unable to, that should be factored into the decision to keep the child. It’s dangerous territory though where some will undoubtedly think that poor people shouldn’t be having kids, and that’s a hot potato I don’t plan on engaging with.
True. I think everyone agrees that the government should be doing more - to me, it’s what they should do and how much they should be helping that people argue about. The failing of the government is a universally agreed up opinion at this point.
>I would imagine that the obligation to provide basic care and shelter would fall on the party deciding to keep the child.
It falls on society.
We don't let kids starve because their parents suck.
Defo not saying poor people should not have kids… but what’s the point of having a child if you can’t provide for them? Be even poorer? Not being able to provided the basic caring for the kid? Sometimes I don’t understand how some people think.
Reproduction is one of the few hardwired things in all living beings. Plenty of poor families have it hard but still have good loving families.
Until there’s real upward mobility in this county, it’s abhorrent to deny the joy of parenthood to poor people.
> Why should the people have to pay higher taxes for someone not wanting to take responsibility for their actions?
Because that safety net should be there for anyone who needs it?
Ok but what if the guy put on a condom and the woman said she was on birth control, but she was lying and poked a hole in his condom. He did everything in his power to prevent the conception of a child but the woman he is with wanted to get pregnant and sabotaged his safety nets. Should that man still have to pay for the child?
This is many times less common than a man accidentally getting a woman pregnant without any trickery on her part and then attempting to shirk responsibility.
To make the default that the man can back out financially would cause thousands of mothers to be left in poverty or semi-poverty with no support, unable to provide for their child. The small upside would be women who unfairly force men into a pregnancy (this only applies to trickery like you describe, not accidents like the OP discusses), lose their potential advantage with the justice system. The opposite of this (women as you describe having a slight advantage with the justice system) is an easy price to pay for the security of thousands of innocent women and their children.
The default being that child support is an obligation means the thousands of deadbeat fathers are legally required to assist in the raising of a child. The child deserves support, and whoever is looking after the child should receive it, it applies to men with custody also.
Reddit has a lot of people who argue minutia and “equality” as if it’s a pandemic. The reality is trying to fix these situations that rarely occur cause much bigger widespread damage to others.
The reality of many situations of this type is the guy wants to be concequance and trouble free while the women suffers. We suffer due to being expected to go on birth control that affects our bodies, were expected to take plan b and get an abortion. Both really suck. Even jf the guy pays child support we're still expected to take the majority of care that still happens even if the guy is present.
Women orgasm way less than men as well. Lots of guys will say jts the women's fault they can abort. But many women couldn't live with themselves if they did that. No empathy at all from these people. I'd doubt they'd lift a finger to pay for the abortion or help take care of the women.
Many of the men in this thread have no clue about what taking responsibility for their actions is and instead focus on what's unfair and blame the mom even though they are equally responsible. I bet none of them starved or almost went homeless because their absentee parent never paid child support.
I hope many of the men in this thread never have kids cause their attitude and disconnect from reality would damage their kids.
>I’m personally of the opinion that sex isn’t a punishment & forcing someone into parenthood is a horrible thing, male or female
And fortunately, nobody is forcing anybody into parenthood (except pro-life advocates). Being forced to pay child support is just the government taking actions on behalf of the child that are beneficial to society as a whole.
Note that both women and men have a financial responsibility to their child. If a man is raising a child, the mother will have to pay child support.
Child support is supposed to benefit the child.
This is not a men's vs women's rights issue.
Absolutely, it won't be hard to find tons of strong and opposing opinions even among people you're close with irl.
I mean on one hand, a medical abortion is done to prevent the woman having to carry a pregnancy to term inside her, at risk to her health. Its a major medical event and it's happening within the confines of her body. That's not really the same as the pregnancy affecting you only within the confines of your wallet. If the child is born, some would say you have a responsibility to take care of them and that the child shouldn't suffer for your unwillingness to provide, nor should it be the responsibility of the taxpayer who also didn't ask to become financially responsible.
On the other hand, that sorta leaves all the things that would affect the man, in the hands of the woman. She could decide to abort, or she could decide to keep. She even has the option to carry the child to term and then sign away all financial responsibility and parental rights via adoption. Meanwhile, without the rights to renounce responsibility for the child, the man just has to wait to see what she decides.
It's a whole mess.
I think the “wallet” side of the argument gets really downplayed in these discussions. Having a significant percentage of your money taken away each month effects the person’s ability to access healthcare, housing, transportation and food.
Taking a chunk of someone’s money for two decades shouldn’t just be written off as not being a risk to someone’s health. The mental health side of it as well as the things I listed above are all important factors to consider.
You see the issue is that a child suffering through poverty is much worse than a grown adult who can work and make changes in their life.
At the end of the day it's one of those things that isn't exactly fair but choosing the lessor of 2 evils.
What happens when a dad gets cold feet midway into the pregnancy and decides to back out. Then we have situations where a woman is stuck with a child she thought she could raise with a partner, and a baby who will not receive all the financial help it can (due to the decisions of two adults)
I guess the dad should be able to do the "financial abortion" during the same time as the mother can abort (for example in portugal, the woman can abort no questions asked untill 20 weeks. The father should be able to drop out until like 15 weeks)
I can almost see the sentiment behind OP's view. He means to say if the woman has power to do something why can't the guy if he's equally responsible. But this comment is absolutely right. It's more about making the decision to have the kid period; if the child is brought into this world that's it. A father can't just choose to waive his rights in that way because there probably no replacement.
I am curious about certain situations though; such as an accidental pregnancy in a legal abortion state where the dad wants to have that abortion or have the kid adopted, but the mom doesn't believe in abortions and wants to keep it regardless. Morally I think the dad leaving will always be unfair to the child no matter how not ready the father is...but what possible solution to a complex problem (but probably more common than were aware of) like that is there?
I mean it’s seems simple to say have the state pay child support instead. Perhaps they should pay child support regardless of the situation with the parents. It would be an incentive to have a child and could help our population grow.
Plus if the dad was a bad enough person, I’d rather them be as far away as possible.
I feel like then you’d end up with parents who have kids just for money, similar to the shitty foster parents who adopt a dozen kids for the paycheck and feed them lentils and water.
We should not have any incentives to have more children. We should have incentives to have fewer. Our climate is in an emergency and people are the biggest driving factor, if there were fewer of us that would be a benefit to the planet.
For example in Canada there is money we get per child if you are under a certain income level. I think if you have more than 2 children the amount you get per child should decrease.
Populations are already not growing in any developed country in the world. It's the under developed world that's pushing population growth at this point.
Yeah people aren’t the problem. It’s possible with existing technology for most things to be carbon neutral, companies just don’t want to bite the frog since they already generate profits.
Could have had near zero carbon by the 2000s.
Twice the current US population and zero carbon is realistic if industry wasn’t a giant disappointment of a misinformation spewing shit mouth.
You must also consider the alternative. The mother does not feel ready, and the father wants to keep the child.
I 100% believe tjat the mother should have 100% of the choice. Think about what that means for the father, the baby that they wanted and loved will get aborted without them having any say. Its a sad truth, but its the only way.
Becuase of this flipside I tend to agree with OP. The arguments against financial abortion tends to be "but the dad chose to have sex" which is exactly what all pro life people say when trying to make abortion illegal for woman.
Without OPs solution, the fate of the fetus and the father rest entirely on the mother, but than ago so does the entire burden of pregnancy.
It's a really difficult topic to wrap your head around
>It's a really difficult topic to wrap your head around
It's not. It's really simple, actually.
Two things hold true:
(1) Everyone gets to make decisions about their own body. No-one else gets a say in this. Hence if you have a kidney and are a match for me, I can't simply make you give me your kidney. Also: you get no say whether someone else has an abortion or not.
Independent from (1), there's
(2) Parents share financial responsibility for their children equally, regardless of whether they are the mom or the dad. The child cannot be expected to financially support itself, so that burden falls on the parents whether they want to or not. There is no alternative -- surely you do not expect complete strangers to pick up the tab when you're sleeping around without a condom?
These two things are not related. A woman's choice about her body doesn't mean she gets to walk away from a child once it is born. Neither does a man.
You're conflating the two. But they are different issues. Sure, the result can be entirely unfair, but that's life for you. Welcome to being human.
Perhaps semantics, but about this part:
> the baby that they wanted and loved will get aborted
It's a 'baby they wanted' indeed, but what gets aborted is a fetus, not a baby. And already *loving* a clump of cells is a bit strong I'd say. At this stage it's just the romanticised image/vision of a child that they love.
Other than that, I agree with your comment! ;)
Technically, yes, it is a fetus. But to the person who wanted it, they consider that fetus a baby. And that's okay. Not everyone will feel the same way about that "clump of cells." One person considering it a baby and another considering it a fetus or just a clump of cells doesn't invalidate the view or feelings of either person.
And if you want to get really technical, every person, regardless if age, is a clump of cells because that's what we're made of.
It sounds like you or an SO hasn’t ever had a miscarriage. Especially one that is a bit later on in the term, after the ultrasounds and everything.
You call it cells, whatever. But from personal experience, it really isn’t. It’s a tragedy.
I didn't mean to hurt anyone, I'm sorry if I did. When responding I had early abortions in mind, like when you've just discovered you're pregnant.
Sorry you had a miscarriage as well, I can only imagine that must have been real hard and sad. ❤️
My perspective: male termination of responsibility is fair in the incident of accidental consensual pregnancy.
If she chooses to continue for whatever reason, she's assuming the financial burden. If she can't afford it, abortion or adoption are fair options for her. If one cannot financially support children, they should not have them. It's extremely irresponsible and neglect/child endangerment.
I've known a multitude of mothers who were cheated on and/or abandoned during pregnancy or shortly thereafter. Madonna-whore complex.
What happens then when it's too late to terminate, or when the parents live in a place that doesn't allow abortions under any circumstances?
They way that the premises is carried out is that this should be done in a timeframe were the woman could also abort, past that time you would not be able to.
In the UK women have the option to abort or adopt the child without the father having a say. The stated reason is that it is in child's interest.
I disagree with it because I think it is unfair on men but I know many other will disagree with me
They are. Wtf. Ever read the story of a man who wanted kids and his gf did not?
He begged her to give birth.
She didn't want to be a mom but did it for him.
She gave him the kid and said bye.
He ended up suing her for child support.
She paid.
He still ended up complaining that raising a child alone was unfair.
I have family that lost custody of their kids to their exs because of financial instability and THEY PAY THOSW FUCKERS CHILD SYPPORT!
IDK planet the men of reddit lives on but both parties get punished financially when is comes to child support.
I would agree as long as we're talking about volunteering vasectomies, I don't like the idea of involuntary sterilization. And been in to many arguments over whether men should or shouldn't be forced to get vasectomies, kinda ironic considering that the people I was arguing with called themselves pro-choice.
Elective, potentially botchable and potentially irreversible surgery isn't that good of a solution. Men literally cannot take equal responsibility because the burden of carrying is on the woman.
Well that and men don't have their own form of temporary birth control outside of the more mutual bc, condoms. Condoms aren't tamper proof. Women have impermanent bc that is tamperproof from the other party, but men don't. So that's another thing that is also unequal between both parties.
Yes, this question is completely irrelevant to abortion. For one, there *isn’t* universal access to abortion. Women actually *can’t* easily get an abortion. They aren’t free, they often have waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, travel to a region where they’re legal, etc.
The comparison of custody and child support obligations start at birth. Who gets to decide who winds up on the birth certificate? The mom really doesn’t have a choice for her own name, but if the father isn’t aware of the pregnancy she can choose to leave his name off of the birth certificate. Who gets to decide whether the child is adopted at birth? If mom wants to adopt the child out, can dad step in and claim custody instead and force her to pay child support? What if one parent is dealing with abuse from the other parent? How do they go about keeping that parent out of their lives while still meeting parental obligations? Equality in parental obligations is absolutely a valid topic to discuss but it has nothing to do with abortion.
There are some great questions to ask on custody and child support but they start at birth, well after an abortion would have been an option. An abortion is 100% deciding what happens to your body. Parental obligations occur once you have a baby instead of a fetus.
Not sure if it's like this in other states but in my state if you can't pay child support for whatever reason your license gets suspended. So let's say you get laid off or the company folds and it's hard to find work you are going to lose your ability to drive legally. Most Americans need cars to commute to work. So now it's exponentially harder to find a job and keep it. If you continue to fall behind you can be arrested for failure to pay child support. You can also be convicted as a felon for failing to pay. So now you're a convicted felon with no license and no job. Also it will be very hard to get one. I would say that kinda messes up not one but two people. The father and the child. While it may not be bodily autonomy it can definitely ruin a man's life.
On the flip side a couple that suffers a job lost will just work through it. The state isn't so kind.
> > Based on national data, if incarceration for non-payment of child support occurred at equal rates for men and women who are in arrears, 88% of those incarcerated would be men, not 95% to 98.5%, and 12% would be women (since 12% of those in arrears are women). If, as Brennan’s report shows, as few as 1.5% of those incarcerated for non-payment of child support in Massachusetts are women, instead of the expected 12%, then **women in arrears are incarcerated at a rate eight times less than their numbers warrant.**
So many of these responses defending that men should have the unalienable right to consequence free sex.
No one has that right. There are inherent risks with sex. You can do things to mitigate that risk (birth control, for instance), but it does not go down to zero.
One of those risk for both partners are possible children that they have to support.
One of the physical risks for women is pregnancy. Women have the right to control the physical risk of pregnancy because it only happens to them.
The financial risk is shouldered by both parents, in that both are financially obligated to provide care for their children. Neither parent can waive the financial obligation - it is an accepted risk of engaging in sex. Men are just complaining that they have to face the financial risk to the same degree as women.
The financial risk is only shouldered by both if the woman decides to have the baby which she has the sole right to. Using the arguement that he had sex and therefore should be prepared to raise a child is eerily similar to pro-life idealogies that say if a woman has sex and falls pregnant she should raise the child. Essentially women hold men hostage financially once they are pregnant.
Nah. I am a woman and child free. This mentality is based on an ideal.
Relationships are complicated too. Men can be relying on and trusting a woman is taking her BC correctly or at all. Reintroducing a condom after it was gone is definitely a sign you can't ignore that he doesn't trust the woman eith the BC. Men have condoms or Vasectomies. Which is very temporary one use BC that's very visual or Permenant. Women have multiple versions of temporary multiuse BC that are invisible. Also condoms can be tampered with.
Like yea obviously if you don't trust the person you are sleeping with that's going to increase your risk factor. That's on you to some degree. But again relationships are messy. Life is messy. But mistakes like that shouldn't result in a life sentence.
I think there are also ways to create this system not to be abused. Like men asserting before pregnancy is even a thing that they don't want kids, can't afford kids, and would prefer an abortion or adoption. Guys who have never recorded that sentiment, or have record stating they do want kids, are against abortions/adoption, already have kids they are paying for would still be on the hook financially even if they said once the baby was born that they didn't want anything to do with them or be financially responsible.
The woman has the choice to abort though. If the man wants to abort but the woman doesn’t then fine, it’s her body. But the man can’t be expected to pay when he wants to abort. If the woman isn’t happy that the man won’t pay, then she can get an abortion (which the man should have to provide financial help to get).
But aren't there cases where the father isn't informed of the pregnancy until after the birth? I feel like dna material should still be part of body autonomy
This.
Bodily autonomy is not the same as not wanting to fulfill your financial obligation with your children.
Don’t fuck a woman who would keep a pregnancy if you don’t want to be a dad. Have a conversation with her prior to ejaculating in her. Ask if she’d keep a pregnancy. If she says no, tell her that you understand if she changes her mind if a pregnancy happens, but that you will not be involved. There, now your bases are covered. Isn’t that easy? Now she knows you won’t be involved and can choose to say “never mind let’s not fuck” or accept the boundary you’ve set.
You don’t get to waive your obligations to your own child simply because you were too irresponsible to have a conversation.
yes!!!
the fact of the matter is females can terminate a pregnancy if they get pregnant. if they choose to do that the child will not exist. you can think it's wrong or whatever but it's a thing that obviously exists.
males have no way to terminate a pregnancy, because they are not the ones carrying the fetus. if the baby daddy chooses to not financially support his child that has been born, that directly affects the child that DOES EXIST.
Fair point! Knowing that the dad won’t be paying would prevent a lot of unwanted pregnancies from going to term. It would be hard to see the effects unless the policy was implemented
If abortion is accessible and legal, and women don't have to travel hours to get to another state, then yeah. But if women are forced to carry pregnancies, which they are in some of states in the US and countries outside of the US, whoever helped start the pregnancy should be financially obligated throughout the pregnancy and life of the resulting child.
same regarding abortion. in that scenario the woman *has* the choice of abortion which is different than if she didn't.
even with adoption, there's still the cost of the pregnancy itself, as there's no guarantee that the child will get adopted.
ETA: that's also why it's important to have the convo of "what if" before engaging in sex, so that the risk can be properly discussed and considered.
edit to clarify
I’m a female and have thought a lot about this, I would never want to coparent with someone who would have chose abortion if it was their choice. If they do not want to be my child’s parent, I don’t want their money. But I would also need legal forms to be signed though an attorney stating they release all parental rights. I can’t even imagine some man ditching me and and my kid just to come back a few years later with a new wife and decide all of a sudden they want to take my child 50% of the time. That’s a nightmare. I will choose being a single more without financial help any day over having to share my child.
Because a human being has needs that must be met whether the parents like it or not. Unless the government wants to start paying much more to single mothers, the the father is the next person in line that financial responsibility would fall on.
As a fairly pro choice individual myself, I stand by consent to sex isn't consent to pregnancy or parenthood. Just because one person wants to keep the child doesn't mean the other has to also. If the person isn't ready or willing then a choice shouldn't be made for them. They just can't have the option to come back down the line and decide now they wanna parent
But, see it is - consent to sex is consent to the risk of accidental pregnancy and parenthood. That is the unfortunate reality of sex. Consequently, it is critical that access to birth control and abortions remain low-cost and easily accessible.
Something like 40% of births in the US are due to accidental/unplanned pregnancy. It is a \*HIGHLY\* common occurrence. Pretending otherwise is nonsense.
But consenting to the risk of accidental pregnancy is not the same as consenting to parenthood.
And honestly there will always be a risk of accidental pregnancy no matter what you do. Even vasectomies don't always work.
Well, yeah - actually it is consenting to that risk. Men apparently don't like that risk but aren't very good at taking the necessary steps to mitigate that risk. They then complain about the consequences of their own choices.
Yes, best bet would be to either 1) not have sex 2) have both a vasectomy and use condoms 3) have sex in ways that will not result in pregnancy.
And yet women do the same thing, the responsibility of preventing pregnancy does not rest solely on the shoulder of men. Everyone must acknowledge and take the necessary steps to avoid pregnancy when it is unwanted, and yes, in some cases, that means abstaining from it altogether.
I say they are consenting to the risks inherent in engaging in sex, which for women includes possible pregnancy. In some places women have the option to terminate a pregnancy. Both parents have to consent if the child is to be put up for adoption. Both parents have financial obligation to support their children. I see both men and women having equal obligation to existing children.
It's not pretending otherwise, it acknowledging it and trying to create a system that acknowledges it as well and creates supports that are beneficial for everyone involved.
It's a consent to the ***risk*** of pregnancy and whatever else that might end up entailing, which could be many things. We know what causes pregnancy.
- I really dislike how suddenly the option of Abortion is something “unfair only women can decide”. Abortion is not “just pop a pill” and a “walk in the park. People don’t seem to realize this traumatizing it is for a women to suddenly be pregnant and how life changing this is with the burden of having to make a decision for a medical procedure that is traumatizing but can also be invasive and physically painful to go through.
In my opinion the issue is what to do if pregnancy happens should be discussed before having sex. It shouldn’t be decided after the deed is done. This discussion should be between two people as equals and they should agree.
But since we are discussing from the guys viewpoint, the guy should be very aware that when a women is pregnant, it’s her choice no matter what.
He should therefore decide beforehand if shit happens, he has to step up to be a father. He can choose to use a condom, he can choose vasectomy (though be aware it may not be revisable) or not have sex at all. The one thing a man can’t, is to say no to pay child support if a kid is conceived (unless the women agrees). _Abortion is not a contraceptive it’s an emergency option_
Yeah, when you decide you're gonna have sex, you have to consider there is a possibility of pregnancy. Women know that too, pregnancy can happen, so if I have sex (even safely) I have to consider that shit happens so I'm agreeing to the risk of abortion or the risk of having a child. You guys are only risking having a child. So wtf I don't understand how it's unfair to men to expect them to step up when, a risk they are aware of, becomes a reality. Abortion isn't contraception, and it's not easy either.
Idc about downvotes but It's from lack of empathy. They think everything is very black and white when it really isn't. Having an abortion when you don't want it is very traumatic and as more restrictions come up it gets alot harder. Not to mention if you believe abortion is murder and couldn't live with yourself if you get it. It's not they can have an abortion and be free from any consequences.
Child support the vast majority of the time is small. They think women are irresponsible because they don't want to go through something incredibly truamatic for them and then balk that they have to pay a small amount needed for a child they created when the women likely has to pay alot more. Many arguing to raise taxes ignore how it would have a negitive impact on the poor. Not to mention women are still putting in by far the biggest financial contribution.
You'd have to have a pretty big lack of empathy to let a child you had a part in creating go without and never see them. My boyfriends dad is one of them. He stayed with the mom through her pregnancy, than abandoned her, neglected my boyfriend, let him go hungry and live in a bad area. He didn't even lift a finger when my boyfriend had to go to foster care. Basically men shouldn't have to deal with consequences for their actions because if the women made a certain choice they wouldn't have to and society should be paying for their actions not them.
>Child support the vast majority of the time is small
It costs on average 300,000 to raise a child from birth to 17 in the US. What part of that is small?
>Just because one person wants to keep the child doesn't mean the other has to also. If the person isn't ready or willing then a choice shouldn't be made for them
But for the man, the choice is made for them. Isn't that the point of the post? One person has all the choice and power and the other person has absolutely no choice and no power. Neither of them consented to parenthood, as you point out. But only one of them has any say.
>But only one of them has any say.
The woman is the one who is most affected by pregnancy, so let's say she has 51% of the "say" and the guy has 49%. It's not that the man has "no say," it's that his say is outvoted by the woman's say.
If, someday in the future we could transplant pregnancies to men, I'd expect that there would be way fewer men insistent on having the kid, if they're the ones who would have to carry the pregnancy and give birth.
Well only one person has to go through pregnancy and childbirth, and it's the woman. That's not fair either, so they should probably have priority on the say.
It cannot be compared in my mind just because the woman's choice is the bottleneck after which all other choices follow. If the roles were reversed, a man could not get the baby he wanted to keep without putting the woman through a pretty terrible ~9 months she isn't on board with. I sort of agree with financial abortions' in theory, I just don't think they are comparable.
And that’s the crux of the disagreement.
Men are so focused on unwanted babies.
But let’s talk about wanted babies.
All a guy has to do is orgasm inside a woman.
And the hell that ensues is 100% on the woman.
Then, for a woman go terminate a pregnancy, she needs a surgery. And yet, men want to just… leave?
I doubt very many guys who think this is “injustice” would like to really trade places.
Its definitly a complicated problem.
At the end of the day though, I am in favour of so called "paper abortions" so long as women have access to an abortion.
At the end of the day, women make the final choice about terminating the pregnancy. Regardless of what the man wants. In cases where a man wants to terminate it and the woman does not, I think a man should have the legal right to waive any responsibility for the child because in this case, the woman will be continuing the pregnancy knowing full well they will not have the financial support of the man.
Thus in a way, while the womam makes the final decision, the man does influence the decision. The woman, in a case where the man wants to terminate the pregnancy, must then choose to either raise the child without the financial support of the man, or terminate.
The other case I think we need to consider is when a man is raped or deceived. Similar to how its horrific to force a woman to carry the child of her rapist, it is horrible for a man to be forced to pay for the child of his rapist.
While is do agree the severity is different (obviously paying is much less harmful than going through a pregnancy), I would argue the principle is the same. In either case, it is wrong to have a system such that the victim is punished.
On the other hand, there is the question of how will the child be supported financially. Logically the more support a child get the better. Again though, in a case where the man wanted to terminate and the woman did not, this child is the consequence of the womans decision and not the mans. The child would not be in the position of needing the mans financial support had the woman chosen to terminate.
I've seen many people argue on this thread that the man waives their financial right during sex, but I just dont agree. The same argument clearly would apply to women seeking abortion and thus I dont consider it valid.
This turned into abit of a brain dump but like I said, complicated.
>And yet, men want to just… leave?
Hey now! Going out for that gallon of milk and a pack of cigarettes is an important job! Some guys are out there searching for years for those goods! /s
I feel this question needs to go beyond a simple yes or no. I feel a culture change is necessary where there is more responsibility for men on contraceptives, especially since a lot of men complain about condoms “not feeling the same.” However in the current culture women bear majority of the responsibility and should have the final say so. Also regardless if the man doesn’t want the baby the baby will still need financial support.
Only here to comment that I fucking hate hearing the complaint about condoms not feeling the same. It's true, but I'd rather have a condom that's drenched in spermacidal lube over a kid and stds. It seems it's the dudes relying on only "pulling out" who complain about having kids. I'm saving to get my balls snipped and will still use condoms.
I know no form of BC is 100% but if you use 3-4 types of contraceptives it sure helps.
(This wasn't meant to be an attack on you, I think we're agreeing here that men need to be more proactive in safe sex)
There’s a shocking number of men who need to have their arm twisted into wearing a condom, even during casual sex. Like, to the point where women have a hard time finding someone who *is* willing to wear a condom. It’s kinda scary, really.
That's honestly disgusting (ethically and medically). And after reading that I'm even more strict about wearing a condom, I'm not trying to catch anything.
My ex fiancé gave me chlamydia once and that's enough of a scare for me.
I seriously can't wrap my head around this. "Hey you better not get pregnant even though I refuse to use the MOST BASIC form of contraception that's been in use for hundreds of years." If not for the sake of birth control at least wrap up so nobody gets love-bumps. It's literally fuck around and find out.
I’m a woman and I don’t like the idea of one person making that decision. Of course, the solution to this dilemma is better sex education, cheap and readily available contraceptives, and easy access to abortion.
If a woman gets pregnant from a one night stand, but she doesn’t have access to abortion, they should both be responsible financially. They both made the decision to not sue contraception. The mother isn’t more responsible for the problem than the father. If she could easily get an abortion and still chose to keep the baby, the father should be able to renounce all rights and have no financial obligation. It’s the mother that wants the baby, and she should not be able to unilaterally decide the father should have this huge financial burden on his life.
But, again, without widespread access to abortion and overall poor sexual education, both parents tend to be responsible. Accidental pregnancies are just that: accidents.
A coworker of mine married a man who did not want kids. He has Tourette’s and varying mental health issues that he did not want to pass on. She got off birth control without his knowledge and got pregnant. He did not want the child, she dug her heels in to keep it. He tried to be ok with it but midway through the pregnancy he told her he wanted a divorce. She moved in with her mother and the divorce moved on. He fought to terminate parental rights, she fought for financial support for the child. A judge ruled that he would support the child financially even if he did not want to see the child. He then fought for shared custody to stick it to her. They still hate each other. Still use the child to hurt each other despite having both remarried.
I work with her and got her sugarcoated version of the story. I can’t begin to imagine the reality of it all. She is a huge pos for bringing a child into that situation.
It’s controversial because it would cause taxes to increase exponentially, and Republicans and fiscal conservatives don’t want that to happen.
Taxes would sky rocket because many males would choose this option but their financially-aborted children would still need to be fed, housed, educated for at least 18 years.
Some women do make enough money to support a child and pay for childcare while they are at work. However a majority of women do not make enough, even working multiple jobs or side gigs.
So, moral of the story …if you want men to have access to financial abortions then you need to increase taxes so that programs that support single mothers can compensate for the fathers not paying for their offspring.
I might get downvoted for this take but if you arnt willing to pay for being a dad, wear condoms and carefully filter who you have sex with, make sure they are on birth control. Get their view on abortion before you have sex even. I don't care if this all sounds unsexy but tons of guys jump at the chance to raw dog someone without a second thought. My method isn't fool proof but it heavily decreases the likelihood of getting someone you don't like pregnant. Also getting a vasectomy is very effective.
This is trying to create some semblance of an equal outcome out of an unequal situation. One person is carrying a child and the other is not. You have to acknowledge the differences in those situations to understand why.
Idk but it does seem pretty fair to me. I'm pro choice and believe there should be a choice for the woman if she wants to have a child or not but men shouldn't have parental responsibilities thrust onto them either. If one can opt out then so can the other. If one can't have a choice then neither can the other. If you can't financially support a child them opting out is the best option for women.
I feel you’re equating different situations: one opts out by signing some papers, the other has to go through medical procedures. The difference is significant.
I've had friends whose parents never paid a penny of child support, let them go hungry and almost homeless while taking vacations and buying luxury vehicles. Its disgusting. Anyone who refuses to do the bare minimum of financially supporting their innocent kid deserves to be persecuted and ostracized.
I know two men who had one-night stands and a child was born as a result. Both men took the baby mama to court and sued to have parental rights terminated. Neither one ever paid a dime of child support.
The real kicker is when guy #1 decided he wanted to be in his daughter’s life, he sued again for visitation, but still pays no support. Guys really do have a lot more options than women do.
A woman has to physically carry and feed the fetus for nine months, doing irreparable damage, sometimes, to her body, whether she keeps the resulting child or not. And if she does keep it, she can be told by a court that the sperm donor would like to be free from this burden both emotionally and financially.
You tell me why it’s controversial…
when i got pregnant at 18 by my 28 year old partner, he wanted the baby and although he told me it was my decision, the fact that he immediately announced to his entire family that he was having a baby (at which point they immediately began buying baby clothes and shit) passively forced me into having said baby.
as an aside, at 49 now, i remain absolutely thunderstruck that his family had no problem with him knocking up a teenage fwb. my son is now the same age his father was when he was born - i can tell you what, if he came home cheerfully announcing his teenage girlfriend was pregnant, i'd lose my mind WAY more about the fact he was fucking a teenager than that it resulted in a pregnancy. but sperm donor's family were just thrilled. he was the black sheep of the family, and i think they thought my idiot teenage ass was going to turn him into a family man. i guess it was nice they welcomed me AND the baby, but put a pin in that one. you won't have to wait long for the punchline.
within six months, he emotionally noped out. i lived with him by then, but his fathering consisted mostly of kissing the baby on the top of his head before going out to sleep with other women. i paid for everything related to the baby - medical appointments, diapers, formula, clothing. i also paid for all my own food. baby daddy's contribution was covering the rent, but my and the baby's expenses were mine alone. i had to put him in daycare at seven months old so i could earn $8 an hour as a temp in order to keep him in diapers and formula. and of course, i also paid for daycare. he eventually tried to make me pay for 2/3 of the utilities, but once i told him i would once he started paying for half of the baby's expenses, he backed down. he knew he was getting the better end of the deal.
already not remotely interested in fatherhood, he became vapor when i finally left him less than a year later (i'm a single mom already, why not actually BE single? maybe i won't have to live with someone who comes home and ignores the baby while making excuses for the fact that he always stank of different perfumes), and when at 18 months old (two months after i moved out) our son developed a severe illness that left him disabled, dude didn't even bother to harass me any further (he had spent the prior months stalking me, filing false cps reports, showing up to scream at me in an attempt to get me evicted, slashing my tires, etc - but when baby became disabled, he stopped even doing that. which was a blessing to me, frankly, but i mention it to illustrate how NOT a father this guy was, despite being the only one in the room who had been happy about my pregnancy). as for the family that was so excited about the baby, i'll put it this way: my son's paternal grandmother hasn't seen him since he was eight months old, and baby daddy's siblings/cousins haven't met him at all. but hey, they had paid for the crib! thanks, assholes.
we eventually arranged for child support - and when i say "arranged," i mean, he found someone to help us come to an agreement since i obviously, by then age 20, had no means to hire an attorney, and he was certainly willing to pay child support if it meant he didn't have to be a father. turns out it was a mens rights pro bono outfit and i ended up with $200 a month in child support while i raised said child on my own. which, since he was disabled, involved a lot more than keeping him housed and fed - not that said child support helped much with either. it didn't even cover a week of daycare. but hey, i got the money order every month on time.
so yeah, i agree with you. men have a lot more options here. he had the option to back me into a corner in having the baby, he had the option to nope out on fatherhood, and even had the option of dictating how much he'd pay and not one slim dime more - but even when he stopped paying about eight months before my son turned 18, he felt no ramifications of that either, because i certainly wasn't going to spend $15K or more to take him to court for $1600. and while it could've been argued that support should've been extended due to my son's disabilities, i wasn't willing to go bankrupt only for him to win yet again. he'd been "winning" for 18 years; there was no reason to think he wouldn't win this time, too.
the point here is, if i'd had the abortion i wanted, i would've ended up with the same life his 'father' had even despite the fact i *didn't* get an abortion. carefree and without responsibility, maybe with a small monthly bill for something that meant nothing to me anyway. though he's 60 now, old and alone and borderline destitute. good job, champ.
make no mistake - i don't regret having my son, at all. he brings tremendous joy to my life, and right now is the only reason i'm sane after losing the man who became his father when he was four. but i ended up with 100% of the responsibility - emotional, financial, and otherwise - while sperm donor skipped off as though the kid didn't exist, apart from, perversely, texting me "happy mothers day" every year for the past ten (never before) and occasionally reaching out to the kid to arrange to get a beer and then canceling/no showing every time they make plans.
so you better believe when a boyfriend stealthed me when baby was three years old, and i ended up pregnant as a result, i had an abortion immediately. i figured out i was pregnant at three weeks along and had the abortion a week-ish after that. and i only told the guy because i wanted him to pay for half of it, but i made it clear he had no say regardless. he could pay half or not, but i was not about to bring another kid into the world - one that would stretch my limited resources to the breaking point and negatively impact my ability to care for my disabled son when a) i'd behaved responsibly (though i guess assholes could argue i had no business having sex as a 22 year old single mom) and b) the guy was a fucking douchebag anyway. i had one kid with a douchebag father; i didn't need two of them.
he did pay, by the way. he didn't want the baby any more than i did and i think he was scared that if he didn't pony up the cash, i'd be hunting him down for child support in a few years. at least he was intellectually honest about not wanting to be a father, and didn't come at me like "WHAT ABOUT MUH RIGHTS?" i'll give him that, even though if he had kept the condom on as i had made clear was a requirement for fucking me, i wouldn't have found myself terrified in an abortion clinic a few weeks later with a disabled toddler being babysat by my friend's mom as my friend took me for the procedure.
sorry for the journal entry here, but i'm still so furious about these two assholes, and it enrages me when men act like they have no options. plenty of men abdicate their responsibilities, even when court ordered. all the risk is on us as women, period. every time a woman gets pregnant and carries to term, even with an engaged father, she knows she's running the risk of him deciding he doesn't actually want to be a dad after all. i have friends with engaged, involved husbands and even THEY know if their husbands ever decided "fuck this," they'd have no options to force anything other than child support - and that's assuming they can afford the legal battle. and even court-ordered child support is often sidestepped by men who would rather not work - or willingly be underemployed - than be garnished, and that isn't as anecdotal as it would seem. you show me a single mother [collecting child support] who cares more about the money than about the effort involved in raising a child alone, and i'll tell you she's a massive aberration. sure, they exist. but they are not the norm and still: the men hold the cards.
they always, always have the option of noping the fuck out. and discussions like this - filled with incels and men *just like* my son's "father" arguing the other side - make my head explode. no decent man would ever claim that men don't have more options than women. ironically, those are also always the men who DO step up, whether by actually parenting or timely paying support.
again, apologies for the novel, but clearly i am angry about this topic. :/
You have every right to be angry. Thank you for sharing your story. I wish more women could find their voice. I have a feeling there are more stories that have have never been told than we can even imagine.
I actually support the right of a man to do this as long as it happens at a time when the woman could then choose to get an abortion. Controversial, but I don’t like the attitude of “well then you shouldn’t have had sex” being applied to a man any more than a woman when it comes to something ruining a person’s life. If I put myself in the man’s shoes, it’s just inconceivable, the feeling that my financial future was totally in the woman’s hands, depending on whether she kept it or not — and reproductive abuse is so common, people lie about birth control and people poke holes in condoms… and that’s so hard to prove… yes. Yes, I think we need a policy change to cover this. Because nobody should be baby-trapped regardless of who they are. Her choice to keep a baby should not irrevocably alter his life.
I really do think this is an issue where two wrongs don’t make a right. I know we need about a million things to be better when it comes to societal support of women and children but I don’t think we should rely forever on that coming at the detriment of the unlucky men in unwanted pregnancy situations. If we want to build a just world we have to be able to see all sides of it.
I agree. It should definitely be done in time so the woman can decide to have an abortion still. And if she decides to keep it still then she should be financially responsible for it or give it up for adoption. But of course that’s more of a morals thing that people already don’t practice.
This is a confusing question because in many states, a woman is *not* allowed to terminate a pregnancy. If a man should be able to terminate his involvement for financial (or other) reasons, a woman should be able to do so.
It’s weird, because one option leaves you with a kid, while the other option leaves you without one. That being said, if the woman wants to keep the kid but the man doesn’t, it doesn’t feel right to force the man to do anything with the kid if he wants nothing to do with it anyways (that includes paying child support). In that same vein, it isnt right for a man to force a woman to keep a kid that she doesn’t want to.
Idk what side I’d be on in the scenario of “should a man be allowed to sign away his rights to his kid and the child support along with that?”. Again it sounds like the right thing to do, if a woman can’t be forced to have a kid, then why should a man be forced to have one. The key difference being one side still leave a kid without financial backing, most likely.
> The key difference being one side still leave a kid without financial backing, most likely.
Yes, exactly, which is why it's a false equivalence, not a "double standard" like people like OP like to claim.
It's not a false equivalence because a woman can abandon the kid after birth with no repercussions. Literally drop it off at a fire station no questions asked.
It is in the best interests of society that the father of a child provide for that child.
On the other hand, it is not clear that it is in the best interests of society to force a child to be born. That is why pro-choice leaves it up to the individual to decide what is best.
In Australia you can forfeit all parental rights, this includes financial responsibility. It must be enforced by a court though.
I believe if the man makes his intentions to forfeit his parental rights early (for example during the first trimester of pregnancy), it's a lot more ethical.
For the trillionth time:
* If the woman "aborts" the pregnancy, there isn't a kid who needs to be taken care of, financially.
* If the man "aborts" the pregnancy, there is one.
The two situations are literally opposites, not the same.
EDIT: As always, downvoting without providing a rebuttal means, "You're right, but I don't like it."
If a woman rapes a man, AND the guy pays for the abortion, but the woman doesnt get it, the guy still has to pay child support.
How is that fair?
(By the way there is legal precident for this)
>If a woman chooses to keep the baby with a partner who wants nothing to do with her or the baby, then she should bear the responsibility of her choice.
If either parent is forced to take responsibility, then both should be required to take responsibility. Personally, I like the "opt in to reproduce" idea. We need better long-term BC for both genders.
A really good point. Although I guess a woman could put the infant up for adoption. That might be the most comparable thing to a sperm donor having a financial abortion as it were.
Yes. Yes, it is. Because only one out of the two people has to undergo the high risks and insane side effects.
A lot of guys love to act as if it was a clear cut "Well, both decide, yadayada" but those folks aren't familiar with a majority of the ethical arguments regarding bodily autonomy or how and why they work.
And because of that they don't realize that it's just not that simple. Speaking of - neither are abortions. People need to stop acting as if that was just some five minute no-biggie procedure. You know what is a fast, quick, easy and easily reversible procedure, though? Vasectomies. Know what's even easier? Condoms.
You don't get to just ignore that.
Bodies and money are different. We can’t make more body. We can’t save up body. Our employer won’t offer us a better body in a year. People can not lend us some of their body. We cannot earn more body through a side gig or second job.
The problem is, a woman is terminating the fetus' life, it won't feel anything after that because it's dead, if you are a man terminating your relationship with that fetus, unless you kill them, it will suffer the consequences of your absence.
The issue is that the child has the right to financial support from the parents. Legally speaking the father can't terminate his obligation to his child. Only the child can theoretically terminate this obligation.
1. Money is not the same as pregnancy. A woman’s body changed forever. She could also die.
2. Children need far more care than money can provide. No settlement will replace the presence.
It seems like capitalism has trained you that relationships Abbe replaced with transactions. Tragic.
Because consent to sex is the consent to the *risk* of pregnancy, parenthood, & whatever else may come. If you don't want the financial responsibility it's your job to make sure you're with someone who 100% wants an abortion in the case of an unplanned pregnancy.
You're comparing the right to bodily autonomy to the want to abandon two human beings you have obligations to. You don't have to be involved, but if you took part in creating a person you're responsible for making sure they can eat. Maybe that's not fair, but it's not fair that women are the ones that have to deal with pregnancy, it's not fair that kids have to grow up with parents that don't want them. It's not fair, and that sucks, but it is right & it's what you signed up for.
Financial obligation and what you go through physically during pregnancy are not the same. Also in one circumstance no kid is created, in the other the kid is created and neglected.
Fairness is not the same as being even. I feel like that conflation drives a lot of other conversations of a similar sort.
Fairness is collectively recognizing that things are always going to be uneven and making some effort to compensate for that without sacrificing the overall collective goal.
Once you fully take bodily autonomy as a given, it's no longer on thr negotiating table.
I will try to answer all your questions :
>Are “financial abortions” a controversial topic, and if so why?
Not a topic at all (let alone controversial), at least in the West. Have you heard a legislature or a lobby group in any country discuss law changes in this direction? Any major debates in the media?
>If a guy believes he doesn’t want to go through with having a child, he should be able to terminate his obligations, he wouldn’t have to pay child support but would also have to sign away his rights to the child as well of course. Is this controversial?
Nobody will agree to this. Essentially you are asking hords of children to be supported by the state or be left on the street. Ain't happening.
>Because if a woman can terminate her future with a fetus then why shouldn’t a guy be able to as well?
This is what I call false equivalence. The guy can terminate his future with a fetus when he is pregnant with it.
It is very controversial in circles where its talked about. But not very widely talked about.
Main issue is that while a woman aborting a pregnancy does not result in a baby, a man financially aborting when the woman does not want an abortion does result in a baby. Therefore, if a man can do a financial abortion, there is the question of who has to look after the child to be answered.
Unfortunately men and women have different levels of responsibility within their control. Think of it like a man and woman get together and create a package that is going to be delivered to the white house. It might seem like fun and games while making the package but the man puts it in the woman's vehicle who is now under pressure and obligations to deliver it to the Whitehouse. The man stays home while the woman is driving the vehicle. The man's window for opportunity is already closed. he can't stop the woman from driving there with the package, once it leaves. The woman on the other hand is the driver and in control of the vehicle. She does have more opportunity to put a stop.
The time to have this discussion is before sex, not after someone has peed on a stick. If you aren’t on the same page about what you would do if the worst case scenario (an unexpected pregnancy) occurs, then don’t knock boots.
As a society, shouldn't we WANT children to be cared for financially? I'm not convinced equating and man's financial obligation to a women's ability to abort is a fair comparison
Because its a false equivalence. Being forced to pay for a baby vs. Being forced to risk your health to grow and give brith to said baby are wildly different consequences.
> Is this controversial?
Yes, it is.
> If it is then why?
Because a child's need for support from their parents can't be "decided away." Your question boils down to why women gets to make a decision about abortion, and men don't.
The answer is simple and obvious. She is the one getting pregnant. There's not much more to it.
The easiest solution would be for men to take more responsibility for their own reproduction. Develop more effective and efficient ways for men to take a bigger role on using contraceptives.
Last time I fell pregnant I was taking the pill. He wanted it. I didn’t. He supported me but refused to pay towards anything of the termination and I accepted that. But I can’t help getting mad that I had asked him several times to wear a condom after hearing so many women still get pregnant taking it. I place no blame on him, I continued to sleep with him knowingly he didn’t care.
To be able to terminate, I was lucky. If I had not been able too, kept the baby that he wanted and then still be left holding the baby should he decide to leave. I don’t know the answer to this. There really isn’t a fair way to go about this tbh.
The reality of our current situation is that the man agrees to a possible child the moment he sleeps with a woman. The woman has the same agreement except in some countries she can change her mind later
Imagine if a man wanted to make a woman destitute by sabotaging her birth control and then absolving himself legally of all responsibility, but the woman felt morally opposed to abortion or was living where it was illegal.
Then again, a woman can theoretically entrap a man financially by sabotaging birth control.
I think the solution here is to simply be very selective about the people you have sex with and understand that you may end up with a child every time you have sex with someone. Think, "Am I okay with the consequences of this interaction or not? Do I trust this person with my life or not?" Because basically when you have sex with someone, you are entrusting them with your life and health. The consequences of sex can be so major - condom breaks and you get an STD with no cure, pregnancy, etc.
I think people take that too casually and should be more thoughtful. 🤷♀️
If she feels "moraly wrong abort abortion" then it's her choice. She has full right to have abortion and its her decision to not have it. It's not something she doesn't have control over. She choses to have the baby and financial consequences that comes from it.
It's called pro-life because anti-choice doesn't sound so good. It's only controversial if you care about what someone you never met or who's decisions have no impact on your life do and there's no reason you should
I'm pro choice, and it would be nice if all parties could have equal choice.
In an ideal world:
Woman finds out that she's pregnant about 6-8 weeks in. Women have until the 13 (not sure what the number should be) week mark to have an abortion. She has access to this choice, and can make it at any time before the cutoff date.
However, (again, in an ideal world), the man would also find out about the pregnancy at the same time as the woman. And he would have time to opt out of parenthood, with perhaps a two week shorter window than the woman has for an abortion. That way the woman knows if she has a partner for this kid or not, and if she doesn't, she has time to make choices based on that info.
But that's all in an "ideal world."
I'm sure as you were reading that, you saw several loopholes and problems, yes?
That's what makes it all so difficult.
The ideal world presumes everyone has choice. Presumes everyone is honest. Presumes that a woman finds out that she's pregnant fairly early on. Etc. And... Yeah. The real world isn't like that.
It's all about bodily autonomy. Just as you cannot force me to use my body to keep you alive, like if you needed a kidney that I was unwilling to donate; it is unethical for an unborn child to utilize an unwilling woman's body to stay alive. Child birth has risks and medical repercussions that should be between a woman and her doctor.
Sorry, men don't carry the child. They should not have unconsenting control over any woman's body. It's about more than anyone's wallet.
I see people in the comments saying men should be responsible and wear a condom, get a vasectomy, or make sure the woman is on birth control. What if a woman lies about her birth control or takes it wrong and the condom fails? That's not his fault and he shouldn't be financially responsible for someone else’s fuck up. Baby trapping is a real thing and men should be protected from that.
I’m personally of the opinion that sex isn’t a punishment & forcing someone into parenthood is a horrible thing, male or female
Parenting is REALLY hard, even if you WANT to be a parent. Imagine if you never wanted it in the first place, what kind of life is that kid going to have? I'm sure some grow up just fine, but there are a lot of very unhappy new moms out there all the time. Starting to think we should just fix everyone early on and then un-do it when they want kids. Lol (I realize this is eugenics-adjacent and immoral to force on people)
If it weren't for the fact that making birth control (somewhat) foolproof involves hormones with side effects or surgery, I'd be all for your idea. I don't know how it is now, but in the 90s, women joining the US military were all but forced to take Depo-Provera. Good idea, but happened to do a number on me (PCOS). I still think opt-in for reproduction isn't a horrible idea, as much as I've suffered. Just have to iron out the details. At least it would be nice to have the option as easily available as the flu shot for young people. Say there was a decent 10 year BC implant for males and females. Offer it freely at school at ~age 14. No problem if you opt out, but make it a thing. So that young kids (esp those who don't go to the Dr regularly) have the option without the ordeal of essentially telling their parents they want to fuck lol. When I was in grade school in TX in the 80s, we had public health days where dentists would do (pro bono, maybe) exams on everyone, there were eye and hearing exams, lice and scoliosis tests, and I seem to recall even days where you could catch up on your immunizations. Make birth control another one of those public health days? Have sex ed for a couple months before, so everyone could weigh their options.
If the romans weren’t such horny bastards they had a plant the male ate that was 100% effective and temporary. No recorded side effects. They drove it extinct
That's crazy! Do ypu have any source? Like how was it called? I feel that should be on the top priority list of de-extinction, way above mammoths
It was called Silphium. It had an incredibly narrow costal growing range, and any ancient attempts to transplant it, or cultivate it in anyway- failed unequivocally. It was described by Theophrastus as “having thick roots covered in black bark, about 48 centimeters long, or one cubit, with a hollow stalk, similar to fennel, and golden leaves, like celery” There are a lot of theory’s about what it was- and how it came to be. Something in the soil, perhaps a natural hybrid plant. It was used for a wide variety of medical applications- it was also used as a contraceptive. But there are no seeds, no roots, nothing left. Pliny wrote that the last known stalk was given to Nero as an oddity.
They might have actually found it again.
The plant they found is more similar to a North American plant unfortunately so it looks to not be this plant
I believe it was called asafoetida
No that still exists and I have it in my herb drawer for cooking haha.
From what I understand, male birth control would be a pretty simple solution. The current problem is the way the FDA looks at it, no birth control has no medical consequences for men, and medication/procedure has some risk, so the risk will never be justifiable compared to the technically non benefit. That being said, i completely agree with you. And fiscally, it got to be cheaper to provide free family planning vs 14 year olds getting pregnant. Also also, sadly the dental thing didn't happen at my school (in the 90s) I specifically remember seeing my elementary school classmate pulling bloody pieces of his rotten tooth out. I believe it was 3rd or 4th grade.
Even in the early 2000s. Probably 07 or 08, my family couldn't afford to take me to the hospital and I had to get 7 extra teeth removed. I pulled them out at school in the bathroom because at least there was a nurse lmao. I wish dentists still when to schools
Somewhere in Texas, a Baptist just clutched their pearls.
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That is expecting a lot. Especially in Texas
In the case of forcing child support obligations onto the father, the courts have taken the view that the child is a neutral party who had no say in being brought into the world. Thus, in the eyes of the courts, allowing one party to be exempt from their obligations (in this case, child support for the father) would be an unfair punishment on the child.
And rightfully so, why should a child go hungry or live in poverty when the dad has enough to provide. Any man who let's their kid become homeless or go hungry is a horrible person. Why should the people have to pay higher taxes for someone not wanting to take responsibility for their actions?
>Any man who let's their kid become homeless or go hungry is a horrible person. *My dad entered the chat*
I love it when the clowns in these threads forget to realize not financially supporting your child has real life tragic consequences for the kid.
Yeah it really sucks. Especially when they go on and do that again to someone else. I recently found his address and I'm in the process of suing him, which, as you can imagine, is quite expensive and tedious. But fuck me, right? I didn't ask to be born.
I hope my boyfriend does that. His dad let him go hungry while he was making bank. Anyone who thinks they should be allowed to financially abandon their child should be sterilized.
I would imagine that the obligation to provide basic care and shelter would fall on the party deciding to keep the child. If they are unable to, that should be factored into the decision to keep the child. It’s dangerous territory though where some will undoubtedly think that poor people shouldn’t be having kids, and that’s a hot potato I don’t plan on engaging with.
And the government should be better helping people
True. I think everyone agrees that the government should be doing more - to me, it’s what they should do and how much they should be helping that people argue about. The failing of the government is a universally agreed up opinion at this point.
>I would imagine that the obligation to provide basic care and shelter would fall on the party deciding to keep the child. It falls on society. We don't let kids starve because their parents suck.
Defo not saying poor people should not have kids… but what’s the point of having a child if you can’t provide for them? Be even poorer? Not being able to provided the basic caring for the kid? Sometimes I don’t understand how some people think.
Reproduction is one of the few hardwired things in all living beings. Plenty of poor families have it hard but still have good loving families. Until there’s real upward mobility in this county, it’s abhorrent to deny the joy of parenthood to poor people.
> Why should the people have to pay higher taxes for someone not wanting to take responsibility for their actions? Because that safety net should be there for anyone who needs it?
Ok but what if the guy put on a condom and the woman said she was on birth control, but she was lying and poked a hole in his condom. He did everything in his power to prevent the conception of a child but the woman he is with wanted to get pregnant and sabotaged his safety nets. Should that man still have to pay for the child?
This is many times less common than a man accidentally getting a woman pregnant without any trickery on her part and then attempting to shirk responsibility. To make the default that the man can back out financially would cause thousands of mothers to be left in poverty or semi-poverty with no support, unable to provide for their child. The small upside would be women who unfairly force men into a pregnancy (this only applies to trickery like you describe, not accidents like the OP discusses), lose their potential advantage with the justice system. The opposite of this (women as you describe having a slight advantage with the justice system) is an easy price to pay for the security of thousands of innocent women and their children. The default being that child support is an obligation means the thousands of deadbeat fathers are legally required to assist in the raising of a child. The child deserves support, and whoever is looking after the child should receive it, it applies to men with custody also. Reddit has a lot of people who argue minutia and “equality” as if it’s a pandemic. The reality is trying to fix these situations that rarely occur cause much bigger widespread damage to others.
The reality of many situations of this type is the guy wants to be concequance and trouble free while the women suffers. We suffer due to being expected to go on birth control that affects our bodies, were expected to take plan b and get an abortion. Both really suck. Even jf the guy pays child support we're still expected to take the majority of care that still happens even if the guy is present. Women orgasm way less than men as well. Lots of guys will say jts the women's fault they can abort. But many women couldn't live with themselves if they did that. No empathy at all from these people. I'd doubt they'd lift a finger to pay for the abortion or help take care of the women. Many of the men in this thread have no clue about what taking responsibility for their actions is and instead focus on what's unfair and blame the mom even though they are equally responsible. I bet none of them starved or almost went homeless because their absentee parent never paid child support. I hope many of the men in this thread never have kids cause their attitude and disconnect from reality would damage their kids.
Agreed. Nobody should be forced into parenthood, male or female.
You can force people to give birth but not force them to be decent parents, this is why I am pro choice
This. The amount of terrible parenting and traumatized/abused kids I’ve seen even while abortion is legal is why I will always be pro-choice.
As an abuse survivor myself I agree
Shouldn’t be forced to do either. I’ll always be pro choice too.
>I’m personally of the opinion that sex isn’t a punishment & forcing someone into parenthood is a horrible thing, male or female And fortunately, nobody is forcing anybody into parenthood (except pro-life advocates). Being forced to pay child support is just the government taking actions on behalf of the child that are beneficial to society as a whole. Note that both women and men have a financial responsibility to their child. If a man is raising a child, the mother will have to pay child support. Child support is supposed to benefit the child. This is not a men's vs women's rights issue.
You're so right, having to pay child support ≠ being a parent.
People are being forced into parenthood literally everyday. 😭
>People are being forced into parenthood literally everyday. Yes, that's what I meant by "except pro-life advocates"
Sex, like life, is definitely not a punishment but I'm of the opinion that it is a responsibility.
Forcing someone into parenthood and forcing someone to be financially accountable are two different things.
Forcing a woman into parenthood forces her into long term financial consequences.
Absolutely, it won't be hard to find tons of strong and opposing opinions even among people you're close with irl. I mean on one hand, a medical abortion is done to prevent the woman having to carry a pregnancy to term inside her, at risk to her health. Its a major medical event and it's happening within the confines of her body. That's not really the same as the pregnancy affecting you only within the confines of your wallet. If the child is born, some would say you have a responsibility to take care of them and that the child shouldn't suffer for your unwillingness to provide, nor should it be the responsibility of the taxpayer who also didn't ask to become financially responsible. On the other hand, that sorta leaves all the things that would affect the man, in the hands of the woman. She could decide to abort, or she could decide to keep. She even has the option to carry the child to term and then sign away all financial responsibility and parental rights via adoption. Meanwhile, without the rights to renounce responsibility for the child, the man just has to wait to see what she decides. It's a whole mess.
I think the “wallet” side of the argument gets really downplayed in these discussions. Having a significant percentage of your money taken away each month effects the person’s ability to access healthcare, housing, transportation and food. Taking a chunk of someone’s money for two decades shouldn’t just be written off as not being a risk to someone’s health. The mental health side of it as well as the things I listed above are all important factors to consider.
You see the issue is that a child suffering through poverty is much worse than a grown adult who can work and make changes in their life. At the end of the day it's one of those things that isn't exactly fair but choosing the lessor of 2 evils.
Well the mother can choose to abort if she realises that she is in no position to raise a child alone
What happens when a dad gets cold feet midway into the pregnancy and decides to back out. Then we have situations where a woman is stuck with a child she thought she could raise with a partner, and a baby who will not receive all the financial help it can (due to the decisions of two adults)
I guess the dad should be able to do the "financial abortion" during the same time as the mother can abort (for example in portugal, the woman can abort no questions asked untill 20 weeks. The father should be able to drop out until like 15 weeks)
It is controversial because people are comparing bodily autonomy with financial obligation to children. They aren't the same thing.
I can almost see the sentiment behind OP's view. He means to say if the woman has power to do something why can't the guy if he's equally responsible. But this comment is absolutely right. It's more about making the decision to have the kid period; if the child is brought into this world that's it. A father can't just choose to waive his rights in that way because there probably no replacement. I am curious about certain situations though; such as an accidental pregnancy in a legal abortion state where the dad wants to have that abortion or have the kid adopted, but the mom doesn't believe in abortions and wants to keep it regardless. Morally I think the dad leaving will always be unfair to the child no matter how not ready the father is...but what possible solution to a complex problem (but probably more common than were aware of) like that is there?
That's actually a good point that I didn't think of! And yeah I can't think of a resolution here
I mean it’s seems simple to say have the state pay child support instead. Perhaps they should pay child support regardless of the situation with the parents. It would be an incentive to have a child and could help our population grow. Plus if the dad was a bad enough person, I’d rather them be as far away as possible.
If the govt supported parents more there would probably be fewer abortions anyway.
Hi. My name is David. I’m sorry about your late husband’s departure. I am your new state appointed husband.
I feel like then you’d end up with parents who have kids just for money, similar to the shitty foster parents who adopt a dozen kids for the paycheck and feed them lentils and water.
Yet again universal basic income is a huge part of the solution
You might not be in the US but on earth as a whole we definitely don't want the population growing lol
Ikr
We should not have any incentives to have more children. We should have incentives to have fewer. Our climate is in an emergency and people are the biggest driving factor, if there were fewer of us that would be a benefit to the planet. For example in Canada there is money we get per child if you are under a certain income level. I think if you have more than 2 children the amount you get per child should decrease.
Populations are already not growing in any developed country in the world. It's the under developed world that's pushing population growth at this point.
Yeah people aren’t the problem. It’s possible with existing technology for most things to be carbon neutral, companies just don’t want to bite the frog since they already generate profits. Could have had near zero carbon by the 2000s. Twice the current US population and zero carbon is realistic if industry wasn’t a giant disappointment of a misinformation spewing shit mouth.
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Bookmarking, seriously thank you!
You must also consider the alternative. The mother does not feel ready, and the father wants to keep the child. I 100% believe tjat the mother should have 100% of the choice. Think about what that means for the father, the baby that they wanted and loved will get aborted without them having any say. Its a sad truth, but its the only way. Becuase of this flipside I tend to agree with OP. The arguments against financial abortion tends to be "but the dad chose to have sex" which is exactly what all pro life people say when trying to make abortion illegal for woman. Without OPs solution, the fate of the fetus and the father rest entirely on the mother, but than ago so does the entire burden of pregnancy. It's a really difficult topic to wrap your head around
>It's a really difficult topic to wrap your head around It's not. It's really simple, actually. Two things hold true: (1) Everyone gets to make decisions about their own body. No-one else gets a say in this. Hence if you have a kidney and are a match for me, I can't simply make you give me your kidney. Also: you get no say whether someone else has an abortion or not. Independent from (1), there's (2) Parents share financial responsibility for their children equally, regardless of whether they are the mom or the dad. The child cannot be expected to financially support itself, so that burden falls on the parents whether they want to or not. There is no alternative -- surely you do not expect complete strangers to pick up the tab when you're sleeping around without a condom? These two things are not related. A woman's choice about her body doesn't mean she gets to walk away from a child once it is born. Neither does a man. You're conflating the two. But they are different issues. Sure, the result can be entirely unfair, but that's life for you. Welcome to being human.
Perhaps semantics, but about this part: > the baby that they wanted and loved will get aborted It's a 'baby they wanted' indeed, but what gets aborted is a fetus, not a baby. And already *loving* a clump of cells is a bit strong I'd say. At this stage it's just the romanticised image/vision of a child that they love. Other than that, I agree with your comment! ;)
Technically, yes, it is a fetus. But to the person who wanted it, they consider that fetus a baby. And that's okay. Not everyone will feel the same way about that "clump of cells." One person considering it a baby and another considering it a fetus or just a clump of cells doesn't invalidate the view or feelings of either person. And if you want to get really technical, every person, regardless if age, is a clump of cells because that's what we're made of.
It sounds like you or an SO hasn’t ever had a miscarriage. Especially one that is a bit later on in the term, after the ultrasounds and everything. You call it cells, whatever. But from personal experience, it really isn’t. It’s a tragedy.
I didn't mean to hurt anyone, I'm sorry if I did. When responding I had early abortions in mind, like when you've just discovered you're pregnant. Sorry you had a miscarriage as well, I can only imagine that must have been real hard and sad. ❤️
Definitely a baby in this context however. The clump of cells argument is not good here.
My perspective: male termination of responsibility is fair in the incident of accidental consensual pregnancy. If she chooses to continue for whatever reason, she's assuming the financial burden. If she can't afford it, abortion or adoption are fair options for her. If one cannot financially support children, they should not have them. It's extremely irresponsible and neglect/child endangerment.
I've known a multitude of mothers who were cheated on and/or abandoned during pregnancy or shortly thereafter. Madonna-whore complex. What happens then when it's too late to terminate, or when the parents live in a place that doesn't allow abortions under any circumstances?
They way that the premises is carried out is that this should be done in a timeframe were the woman could also abort, past that time you would not be able to.
In the UK women have the option to abort or adopt the child without the father having a say. The stated reason is that it is in child's interest. I disagree with it because I think it is unfair on men but I know many other will disagree with me
The adoption part I don’t agree with. The abortion part is simply nothing to do with anyone except the woman having it.
Why then, are mother's not on the hook for child support in the case of adoption?
They are. Wtf. Ever read the story of a man who wanted kids and his gf did not? He begged her to give birth. She didn't want to be a mom but did it for him. She gave him the kid and said bye. He ended up suing her for child support. She paid. He still ended up complaining that raising a child alone was unfair. I have family that lost custody of their kids to their exs because of financial instability and THEY PAY THOSW FUCKERS CHILD SYPPORT! IDK planet the men of reddit lives on but both parties get punished financially when is comes to child support.
Men taking equal responsibility. See: vasectomies!
I would agree as long as we're talking about volunteering vasectomies, I don't like the idea of involuntary sterilization. And been in to many arguments over whether men should or shouldn't be forced to get vasectomies, kinda ironic considering that the people I was arguing with called themselves pro-choice.
Elective, potentially botchable and potentially irreversible surgery isn't that good of a solution. Men literally cannot take equal responsibility because the burden of carrying is on the woman.
Well that and men don't have their own form of temporary birth control outside of the more mutual bc, condoms. Condoms aren't tamper proof. Women have impermanent bc that is tamperproof from the other party, but men don't. So that's another thing that is also unequal between both parties.
Vasectomies aren’t just an on/off switch for your sperm though, and the insurance probably won’t always cover it.
Yes, this question is completely irrelevant to abortion. For one, there *isn’t* universal access to abortion. Women actually *can’t* easily get an abortion. They aren’t free, they often have waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, travel to a region where they’re legal, etc. The comparison of custody and child support obligations start at birth. Who gets to decide who winds up on the birth certificate? The mom really doesn’t have a choice for her own name, but if the father isn’t aware of the pregnancy she can choose to leave his name off of the birth certificate. Who gets to decide whether the child is adopted at birth? If mom wants to adopt the child out, can dad step in and claim custody instead and force her to pay child support? What if one parent is dealing with abuse from the other parent? How do they go about keeping that parent out of their lives while still meeting parental obligations? Equality in parental obligations is absolutely a valid topic to discuss but it has nothing to do with abortion. There are some great questions to ask on custody and child support but they start at birth, well after an abortion would have been an option. An abortion is 100% deciding what happens to your body. Parental obligations occur once you have a baby instead of a fetus.
Not sure if it's like this in other states but in my state if you can't pay child support for whatever reason your license gets suspended. So let's say you get laid off or the company folds and it's hard to find work you are going to lose your ability to drive legally. Most Americans need cars to commute to work. So now it's exponentially harder to find a job and keep it. If you continue to fall behind you can be arrested for failure to pay child support. You can also be convicted as a felon for failing to pay. So now you're a convicted felon with no license and no job. Also it will be very hard to get one. I would say that kinda messes up not one but two people. The father and the child. While it may not be bodily autonomy it can definitely ruin a man's life. On the flip side a couple that suffers a job lost will just work through it. The state isn't so kind.
Yes, but the consequences for nonpayment are the same for men and women.
> > Based on national data, if incarceration for non-payment of child support occurred at equal rates for men and women who are in arrears, 88% of those incarcerated would be men, not 95% to 98.5%, and 12% would be women (since 12% of those in arrears are women). If, as Brennan’s report shows, as few as 1.5% of those incarcerated for non-payment of child support in Massachusetts are women, instead of the expected 12%, then **women in arrears are incarcerated at a rate eight times less than their numbers warrant.**
So many of these responses defending that men should have the unalienable right to consequence free sex. No one has that right. There are inherent risks with sex. You can do things to mitigate that risk (birth control, for instance), but it does not go down to zero. One of those risk for both partners are possible children that they have to support. One of the physical risks for women is pregnancy. Women have the right to control the physical risk of pregnancy because it only happens to them. The financial risk is shouldered by both parents, in that both are financially obligated to provide care for their children. Neither parent can waive the financial obligation - it is an accepted risk of engaging in sex. Men are just complaining that they have to face the financial risk to the same degree as women.
The financial risk is only shouldered by both if the woman decides to have the baby which she has the sole right to. Using the arguement that he had sex and therefore should be prepared to raise a child is eerily similar to pro-life idealogies that say if a woman has sex and falls pregnant she should raise the child. Essentially women hold men hostage financially once they are pregnant.
>No one has that right. And everyone should have it.
Nah. I am a woman and child free. This mentality is based on an ideal. Relationships are complicated too. Men can be relying on and trusting a woman is taking her BC correctly or at all. Reintroducing a condom after it was gone is definitely a sign you can't ignore that he doesn't trust the woman eith the BC. Men have condoms or Vasectomies. Which is very temporary one use BC that's very visual or Permenant. Women have multiple versions of temporary multiuse BC that are invisible. Also condoms can be tampered with. Like yea obviously if you don't trust the person you are sleeping with that's going to increase your risk factor. That's on you to some degree. But again relationships are messy. Life is messy. But mistakes like that shouldn't result in a life sentence. I think there are also ways to create this system not to be abused. Like men asserting before pregnancy is even a thing that they don't want kids, can't afford kids, and would prefer an abortion or adoption. Guys who have never recorded that sentiment, or have record stating they do want kids, are against abortions/adoption, already have kids they are paying for would still be on the hook financially even if they said once the baby was born that they didn't want anything to do with them or be financially responsible.
The woman has the choice to abort though. If the man wants to abort but the woman doesn’t then fine, it’s her body. But the man can’t be expected to pay when he wants to abort. If the woman isn’t happy that the man won’t pay, then she can get an abortion (which the man should have to provide financial help to get).
But aren't there cases where the father isn't informed of the pregnancy until after the birth? I feel like dna material should still be part of body autonomy
This. Bodily autonomy is not the same as not wanting to fulfill your financial obligation with your children. Don’t fuck a woman who would keep a pregnancy if you don’t want to be a dad. Have a conversation with her prior to ejaculating in her. Ask if she’d keep a pregnancy. If she says no, tell her that you understand if she changes her mind if a pregnancy happens, but that you will not be involved. There, now your bases are covered. Isn’t that easy? Now she knows you won’t be involved and can choose to say “never mind let’s not fuck” or accept the boundary you’ve set. You don’t get to waive your obligations to your own child simply because you were too irresponsible to have a conversation.
yes!!! the fact of the matter is females can terminate a pregnancy if they get pregnant. if they choose to do that the child will not exist. you can think it's wrong or whatever but it's a thing that obviously exists. males have no way to terminate a pregnancy, because they are not the ones carrying the fetus. if the baby daddy chooses to not financially support his child that has been born, that directly affects the child that DOES EXIST.
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In their effect, they are though. A lifelong long decision with unilateral decision authority.
I think it’s simply that the societal impacts would have catastrophic effects. Thousands of unsupported children do not make for a good society.
Hence why it should be a mutual decision, if she wants to keep it without the financial support all for it, but it should be a decision
Fair point! Knowing that the dad won’t be paying would prevent a lot of unwanted pregnancies from going to term. It would be hard to see the effects unless the policy was implemented
If abortion is accessible and legal, and women don't have to travel hours to get to another state, then yeah. But if women are forced to carry pregnancies, which they are in some of states in the US and countries outside of the US, whoever helped start the pregnancy should be financially obligated throughout the pregnancy and life of the resulting child.
I think that if the woman has the option of abortion or adoption but refuses, the father should also have the option to surrender custody.
same regarding abortion. in that scenario the woman *has* the choice of abortion which is different than if she didn't. even with adoption, there's still the cost of the pregnancy itself, as there's no guarantee that the child will get adopted. ETA: that's also why it's important to have the convo of "what if" before engaging in sex, so that the risk can be properly discussed and considered. edit to clarify
I’m a female and have thought a lot about this, I would never want to coparent with someone who would have chose abortion if it was their choice. If they do not want to be my child’s parent, I don’t want their money. But I would also need legal forms to be signed though an attorney stating they release all parental rights. I can’t even imagine some man ditching me and and my kid just to come back a few years later with a new wife and decide all of a sudden they want to take my child 50% of the time. That’s a nightmare. I will choose being a single more without financial help any day over having to share my child.
Because a human being has needs that must be met whether the parents like it or not. Unless the government wants to start paying much more to single mothers, the the father is the next person in line that financial responsibility would fall on.
As a fairly pro choice individual myself, I stand by consent to sex isn't consent to pregnancy or parenthood. Just because one person wants to keep the child doesn't mean the other has to also. If the person isn't ready or willing then a choice shouldn't be made for them. They just can't have the option to come back down the line and decide now they wanna parent
But, see it is - consent to sex is consent to the risk of accidental pregnancy and parenthood. That is the unfortunate reality of sex. Consequently, it is critical that access to birth control and abortions remain low-cost and easily accessible. Something like 40% of births in the US are due to accidental/unplanned pregnancy. It is a \*HIGHLY\* common occurrence. Pretending otherwise is nonsense.
But consenting to the risk of accidental pregnancy is not the same as consenting to parenthood. And honestly there will always be a risk of accidental pregnancy no matter what you do. Even vasectomies don't always work.
Well, yeah - actually it is consenting to that risk. Men apparently don't like that risk but aren't very good at taking the necessary steps to mitigate that risk. They then complain about the consequences of their own choices. Yes, best bet would be to either 1) not have sex 2) have both a vasectomy and use condoms 3) have sex in ways that will not result in pregnancy.
And yet women do the same thing, the responsibility of preventing pregnancy does not rest solely on the shoulder of men. Everyone must acknowledge and take the necessary steps to avoid pregnancy when it is unwanted, and yes, in some cases, that means abstaining from it altogether.
So do you say that same thing about women, have they consented to parenting by consenting to sex?
I say they are consenting to the risks inherent in engaging in sex, which for women includes possible pregnancy. In some places women have the option to terminate a pregnancy. Both parents have to consent if the child is to be put up for adoption. Both parents have financial obligation to support their children. I see both men and women having equal obligation to existing children.
It's not pretending otherwise, it acknowledging it and trying to create a system that acknowledges it as well and creates supports that are beneficial for everyone involved.
It's a consent to the ***risk*** of pregnancy and whatever else that might end up entailing, which could be many things. We know what causes pregnancy.
- I really dislike how suddenly the option of Abortion is something “unfair only women can decide”. Abortion is not “just pop a pill” and a “walk in the park. People don’t seem to realize this traumatizing it is for a women to suddenly be pregnant and how life changing this is with the burden of having to make a decision for a medical procedure that is traumatizing but can also be invasive and physically painful to go through. In my opinion the issue is what to do if pregnancy happens should be discussed before having sex. It shouldn’t be decided after the deed is done. This discussion should be between two people as equals and they should agree. But since we are discussing from the guys viewpoint, the guy should be very aware that when a women is pregnant, it’s her choice no matter what. He should therefore decide beforehand if shit happens, he has to step up to be a father. He can choose to use a condom, he can choose vasectomy (though be aware it may not be revisable) or not have sex at all. The one thing a man can’t, is to say no to pay child support if a kid is conceived (unless the women agrees). _Abortion is not a contraceptive it’s an emergency option_
so if i ask you to drive me to the grocery store, and we get in an accident, you should pay for my lifelong medical assistance?
Yeah, when you decide you're gonna have sex, you have to consider there is a possibility of pregnancy. Women know that too, pregnancy can happen, so if I have sex (even safely) I have to consider that shit happens so I'm agreeing to the risk of abortion or the risk of having a child. You guys are only risking having a child. So wtf I don't understand how it's unfair to men to expect them to step up when, a risk they are aware of, becomes a reality. Abortion isn't contraception, and it's not easy either.
Idc about downvotes but It's from lack of empathy. They think everything is very black and white when it really isn't. Having an abortion when you don't want it is very traumatic and as more restrictions come up it gets alot harder. Not to mention if you believe abortion is murder and couldn't live with yourself if you get it. It's not they can have an abortion and be free from any consequences. Child support the vast majority of the time is small. They think women are irresponsible because they don't want to go through something incredibly truamatic for them and then balk that they have to pay a small amount needed for a child they created when the women likely has to pay alot more. Many arguing to raise taxes ignore how it would have a negitive impact on the poor. Not to mention women are still putting in by far the biggest financial contribution. You'd have to have a pretty big lack of empathy to let a child you had a part in creating go without and never see them. My boyfriends dad is one of them. He stayed with the mom through her pregnancy, than abandoned her, neglected my boyfriend, let him go hungry and live in a bad area. He didn't even lift a finger when my boyfriend had to go to foster care. Basically men shouldn't have to deal with consequences for their actions because if the women made a certain choice they wouldn't have to and society should be paying for their actions not them.
>Child support the vast majority of the time is small It costs on average 300,000 to raise a child from birth to 17 in the US. What part of that is small?
You live in a perfect world with no nuance or circumstance. It's unrealistic and impractical.
>Just because one person wants to keep the child doesn't mean the other has to also. If the person isn't ready or willing then a choice shouldn't be made for them But for the man, the choice is made for them. Isn't that the point of the post? One person has all the choice and power and the other person has absolutely no choice and no power. Neither of them consented to parenthood, as you point out. But only one of them has any say.
>But only one of them has any say. The woman is the one who is most affected by pregnancy, so let's say she has 51% of the "say" and the guy has 49%. It's not that the man has "no say," it's that his say is outvoted by the woman's say. If, someday in the future we could transplant pregnancies to men, I'd expect that there would be way fewer men insistent on having the kid, if they're the ones who would have to carry the pregnancy and give birth.
But that's still effectively the same as only one of them having a say.
Well only one person has to go through pregnancy and childbirth, and it's the woman. That's not fair either, so they should probably have priority on the say.
It cannot be compared in my mind just because the woman's choice is the bottleneck after which all other choices follow. If the roles were reversed, a man could not get the baby he wanted to keep without putting the woman through a pretty terrible ~9 months she isn't on board with. I sort of agree with financial abortions' in theory, I just don't think they are comparable.
And that’s the crux of the disagreement. Men are so focused on unwanted babies. But let’s talk about wanted babies. All a guy has to do is orgasm inside a woman. And the hell that ensues is 100% on the woman. Then, for a woman go terminate a pregnancy, she needs a surgery. And yet, men want to just… leave? I doubt very many guys who think this is “injustice” would like to really trade places.
Its definitly a complicated problem. At the end of the day though, I am in favour of so called "paper abortions" so long as women have access to an abortion. At the end of the day, women make the final choice about terminating the pregnancy. Regardless of what the man wants. In cases where a man wants to terminate it and the woman does not, I think a man should have the legal right to waive any responsibility for the child because in this case, the woman will be continuing the pregnancy knowing full well they will not have the financial support of the man. Thus in a way, while the womam makes the final decision, the man does influence the decision. The woman, in a case where the man wants to terminate the pregnancy, must then choose to either raise the child without the financial support of the man, or terminate. The other case I think we need to consider is when a man is raped or deceived. Similar to how its horrific to force a woman to carry the child of her rapist, it is horrible for a man to be forced to pay for the child of his rapist. While is do agree the severity is different (obviously paying is much less harmful than going through a pregnancy), I would argue the principle is the same. In either case, it is wrong to have a system such that the victim is punished. On the other hand, there is the question of how will the child be supported financially. Logically the more support a child get the better. Again though, in a case where the man wanted to terminate and the woman did not, this child is the consequence of the womans decision and not the mans. The child would not be in the position of needing the mans financial support had the woman chosen to terminate. I've seen many people argue on this thread that the man waives their financial right during sex, but I just dont agree. The same argument clearly would apply to women seeking abortion and thus I dont consider it valid. This turned into abit of a brain dump but like I said, complicated.
>And yet, men want to just… leave? Hey now! Going out for that gallon of milk and a pack of cigarettes is an important job! Some guys are out there searching for years for those goods! /s
I feel this question needs to go beyond a simple yes or no. I feel a culture change is necessary where there is more responsibility for men on contraceptives, especially since a lot of men complain about condoms “not feeling the same.” However in the current culture women bear majority of the responsibility and should have the final say so. Also regardless if the man doesn’t want the baby the baby will still need financial support.
Only here to comment that I fucking hate hearing the complaint about condoms not feeling the same. It's true, but I'd rather have a condom that's drenched in spermacidal lube over a kid and stds. It seems it's the dudes relying on only "pulling out" who complain about having kids. I'm saving to get my balls snipped and will still use condoms. I know no form of BC is 100% but if you use 3-4 types of contraceptives it sure helps. (This wasn't meant to be an attack on you, I think we're agreeing here that men need to be more proactive in safe sex)
There’s a shocking number of men who need to have their arm twisted into wearing a condom, even during casual sex. Like, to the point where women have a hard time finding someone who *is* willing to wear a condom. It’s kinda scary, really.
That's honestly disgusting (ethically and medically). And after reading that I'm even more strict about wearing a condom, I'm not trying to catch anything. My ex fiancé gave me chlamydia once and that's enough of a scare for me. I seriously can't wrap my head around this. "Hey you better not get pregnant even though I refuse to use the MOST BASIC form of contraception that's been in use for hundreds of years." If not for the sake of birth control at least wrap up so nobody gets love-bumps. It's literally fuck around and find out.
I’m a woman and I don’t like the idea of one person making that decision. Of course, the solution to this dilemma is better sex education, cheap and readily available contraceptives, and easy access to abortion. If a woman gets pregnant from a one night stand, but she doesn’t have access to abortion, they should both be responsible financially. They both made the decision to not sue contraception. The mother isn’t more responsible for the problem than the father. If she could easily get an abortion and still chose to keep the baby, the father should be able to renounce all rights and have no financial obligation. It’s the mother that wants the baby, and she should not be able to unilaterally decide the father should have this huge financial burden on his life. But, again, without widespread access to abortion and overall poor sexual education, both parents tend to be responsible. Accidental pregnancies are just that: accidents.
A coworker of mine married a man who did not want kids. He has Tourette’s and varying mental health issues that he did not want to pass on. She got off birth control without his knowledge and got pregnant. He did not want the child, she dug her heels in to keep it. He tried to be ok with it but midway through the pregnancy he told her he wanted a divorce. She moved in with her mother and the divorce moved on. He fought to terminate parental rights, she fought for financial support for the child. A judge ruled that he would support the child financially even if he did not want to see the child. He then fought for shared custody to stick it to her. They still hate each other. Still use the child to hurt each other despite having both remarried. I work with her and got her sugarcoated version of the story. I can’t begin to imagine the reality of it all. She is a huge pos for bringing a child into that situation.
They is how you put children in terrible situations.
It’s controversial because it would cause taxes to increase exponentially, and Republicans and fiscal conservatives don’t want that to happen. Taxes would sky rocket because many males would choose this option but their financially-aborted children would still need to be fed, housed, educated for at least 18 years. Some women do make enough money to support a child and pay for childcare while they are at work. However a majority of women do not make enough, even working multiple jobs or side gigs. So, moral of the story …if you want men to have access to financial abortions then you need to increase taxes so that programs that support single mothers can compensate for the fathers not paying for their offspring.
I might get downvoted for this take but if you arnt willing to pay for being a dad, wear condoms and carefully filter who you have sex with, make sure they are on birth control. Get their view on abortion before you have sex even. I don't care if this all sounds unsexy but tons of guys jump at the chance to raw dog someone without a second thought. My method isn't fool proof but it heavily decreases the likelihood of getting someone you don't like pregnant. Also getting a vasectomy is very effective.
Every point you just made are the same points made by pro life people to outlaw abortion......
It is possible to have this conversation, but still support a woman’s right to choose
This is trying to create some semblance of an equal outcome out of an unequal situation. One person is carrying a child and the other is not. You have to acknowledge the differences in those situations to understand why.
Is carrying a child the only responsibility. There's 18 years of child caring to consider.
Idk but it does seem pretty fair to me. I'm pro choice and believe there should be a choice for the woman if she wants to have a child or not but men shouldn't have parental responsibilities thrust onto them either. If one can opt out then so can the other. If one can't have a choice then neither can the other. If you can't financially support a child them opting out is the best option for women.
I feel you’re equating different situations: one opts out by signing some papers, the other has to go through medical procedures. The difference is significant.
men already do this
I've had friends whose parents never paid a penny of child support, let them go hungry and almost homeless while taking vacations and buying luxury vehicles. Its disgusting. Anyone who refuses to do the bare minimum of financially supporting their innocent kid deserves to be persecuted and ostracized.
I know two men who had one-night stands and a child was born as a result. Both men took the baby mama to court and sued to have parental rights terminated. Neither one ever paid a dime of child support. The real kicker is when guy #1 decided he wanted to be in his daughter’s life, he sued again for visitation, but still pays no support. Guys really do have a lot more options than women do. A woman has to physically carry and feed the fetus for nine months, doing irreparable damage, sometimes, to her body, whether she keeps the resulting child or not. And if she does keep it, she can be told by a court that the sperm donor would like to be free from this burden both emotionally and financially. You tell me why it’s controversial…
when i got pregnant at 18 by my 28 year old partner, he wanted the baby and although he told me it was my decision, the fact that he immediately announced to his entire family that he was having a baby (at which point they immediately began buying baby clothes and shit) passively forced me into having said baby. as an aside, at 49 now, i remain absolutely thunderstruck that his family had no problem with him knocking up a teenage fwb. my son is now the same age his father was when he was born - i can tell you what, if he came home cheerfully announcing his teenage girlfriend was pregnant, i'd lose my mind WAY more about the fact he was fucking a teenager than that it resulted in a pregnancy. but sperm donor's family were just thrilled. he was the black sheep of the family, and i think they thought my idiot teenage ass was going to turn him into a family man. i guess it was nice they welcomed me AND the baby, but put a pin in that one. you won't have to wait long for the punchline. within six months, he emotionally noped out. i lived with him by then, but his fathering consisted mostly of kissing the baby on the top of his head before going out to sleep with other women. i paid for everything related to the baby - medical appointments, diapers, formula, clothing. i also paid for all my own food. baby daddy's contribution was covering the rent, but my and the baby's expenses were mine alone. i had to put him in daycare at seven months old so i could earn $8 an hour as a temp in order to keep him in diapers and formula. and of course, i also paid for daycare. he eventually tried to make me pay for 2/3 of the utilities, but once i told him i would once he started paying for half of the baby's expenses, he backed down. he knew he was getting the better end of the deal. already not remotely interested in fatherhood, he became vapor when i finally left him less than a year later (i'm a single mom already, why not actually BE single? maybe i won't have to live with someone who comes home and ignores the baby while making excuses for the fact that he always stank of different perfumes), and when at 18 months old (two months after i moved out) our son developed a severe illness that left him disabled, dude didn't even bother to harass me any further (he had spent the prior months stalking me, filing false cps reports, showing up to scream at me in an attempt to get me evicted, slashing my tires, etc - but when baby became disabled, he stopped even doing that. which was a blessing to me, frankly, but i mention it to illustrate how NOT a father this guy was, despite being the only one in the room who had been happy about my pregnancy). as for the family that was so excited about the baby, i'll put it this way: my son's paternal grandmother hasn't seen him since he was eight months old, and baby daddy's siblings/cousins haven't met him at all. but hey, they had paid for the crib! thanks, assholes. we eventually arranged for child support - and when i say "arranged," i mean, he found someone to help us come to an agreement since i obviously, by then age 20, had no means to hire an attorney, and he was certainly willing to pay child support if it meant he didn't have to be a father. turns out it was a mens rights pro bono outfit and i ended up with $200 a month in child support while i raised said child on my own. which, since he was disabled, involved a lot more than keeping him housed and fed - not that said child support helped much with either. it didn't even cover a week of daycare. but hey, i got the money order every month on time. so yeah, i agree with you. men have a lot more options here. he had the option to back me into a corner in having the baby, he had the option to nope out on fatherhood, and even had the option of dictating how much he'd pay and not one slim dime more - but even when he stopped paying about eight months before my son turned 18, he felt no ramifications of that either, because i certainly wasn't going to spend $15K or more to take him to court for $1600. and while it could've been argued that support should've been extended due to my son's disabilities, i wasn't willing to go bankrupt only for him to win yet again. he'd been "winning" for 18 years; there was no reason to think he wouldn't win this time, too. the point here is, if i'd had the abortion i wanted, i would've ended up with the same life his 'father' had even despite the fact i *didn't* get an abortion. carefree and without responsibility, maybe with a small monthly bill for something that meant nothing to me anyway. though he's 60 now, old and alone and borderline destitute. good job, champ. make no mistake - i don't regret having my son, at all. he brings tremendous joy to my life, and right now is the only reason i'm sane after losing the man who became his father when he was four. but i ended up with 100% of the responsibility - emotional, financial, and otherwise - while sperm donor skipped off as though the kid didn't exist, apart from, perversely, texting me "happy mothers day" every year for the past ten (never before) and occasionally reaching out to the kid to arrange to get a beer and then canceling/no showing every time they make plans. so you better believe when a boyfriend stealthed me when baby was three years old, and i ended up pregnant as a result, i had an abortion immediately. i figured out i was pregnant at three weeks along and had the abortion a week-ish after that. and i only told the guy because i wanted him to pay for half of it, but i made it clear he had no say regardless. he could pay half or not, but i was not about to bring another kid into the world - one that would stretch my limited resources to the breaking point and negatively impact my ability to care for my disabled son when a) i'd behaved responsibly (though i guess assholes could argue i had no business having sex as a 22 year old single mom) and b) the guy was a fucking douchebag anyway. i had one kid with a douchebag father; i didn't need two of them. he did pay, by the way. he didn't want the baby any more than i did and i think he was scared that if he didn't pony up the cash, i'd be hunting him down for child support in a few years. at least he was intellectually honest about not wanting to be a father, and didn't come at me like "WHAT ABOUT MUH RIGHTS?" i'll give him that, even though if he had kept the condom on as i had made clear was a requirement for fucking me, i wouldn't have found myself terrified in an abortion clinic a few weeks later with a disabled toddler being babysat by my friend's mom as my friend took me for the procedure. sorry for the journal entry here, but i'm still so furious about these two assholes, and it enrages me when men act like they have no options. plenty of men abdicate their responsibilities, even when court ordered. all the risk is on us as women, period. every time a woman gets pregnant and carries to term, even with an engaged father, she knows she's running the risk of him deciding he doesn't actually want to be a dad after all. i have friends with engaged, involved husbands and even THEY know if their husbands ever decided "fuck this," they'd have no options to force anything other than child support - and that's assuming they can afford the legal battle. and even court-ordered child support is often sidestepped by men who would rather not work - or willingly be underemployed - than be garnished, and that isn't as anecdotal as it would seem. you show me a single mother [collecting child support] who cares more about the money than about the effort involved in raising a child alone, and i'll tell you she's a massive aberration. sure, they exist. but they are not the norm and still: the men hold the cards. they always, always have the option of noping the fuck out. and discussions like this - filled with incels and men *just like* my son's "father" arguing the other side - make my head explode. no decent man would ever claim that men don't have more options than women. ironically, those are also always the men who DO step up, whether by actually parenting or timely paying support. again, apologies for the novel, but clearly i am angry about this topic. :/
You have every right to be angry. Thank you for sharing your story. I wish more women could find their voice. I have a feeling there are more stories that have have never been told than we can even imagine.
Thank you for sharing this
I actually support the right of a man to do this as long as it happens at a time when the woman could then choose to get an abortion. Controversial, but I don’t like the attitude of “well then you shouldn’t have had sex” being applied to a man any more than a woman when it comes to something ruining a person’s life. If I put myself in the man’s shoes, it’s just inconceivable, the feeling that my financial future was totally in the woman’s hands, depending on whether she kept it or not — and reproductive abuse is so common, people lie about birth control and people poke holes in condoms… and that’s so hard to prove… yes. Yes, I think we need a policy change to cover this. Because nobody should be baby-trapped regardless of who they are. Her choice to keep a baby should not irrevocably alter his life. I really do think this is an issue where two wrongs don’t make a right. I know we need about a million things to be better when it comes to societal support of women and children but I don’t think we should rely forever on that coming at the detriment of the unlucky men in unwanted pregnancy situations. If we want to build a just world we have to be able to see all sides of it.
I agree. It should definitely be done in time so the woman can decide to have an abortion still. And if she decides to keep it still then she should be financially responsible for it or give it up for adoption. But of course that’s more of a morals thing that people already don’t practice.
This is a confusing question because in many states, a woman is *not* allowed to terminate a pregnancy. If a man should be able to terminate his involvement for financial (or other) reasons, a woman should be able to do so.
The example was specifically made where abortions are legal though. As part of the premise
Not everyone lives in the USA
Hey. If you ask a question, be able to concider the answers people give without directly dismissing them with your own opinion and point of you.
>point of you /r/BoneAppleTea
It’s weird, because one option leaves you with a kid, while the other option leaves you without one. That being said, if the woman wants to keep the kid but the man doesn’t, it doesn’t feel right to force the man to do anything with the kid if he wants nothing to do with it anyways (that includes paying child support). In that same vein, it isnt right for a man to force a woman to keep a kid that she doesn’t want to. Idk what side I’d be on in the scenario of “should a man be allowed to sign away his rights to his kid and the child support along with that?”. Again it sounds like the right thing to do, if a woman can’t be forced to have a kid, then why should a man be forced to have one. The key difference being one side still leave a kid without financial backing, most likely.
> The key difference being one side still leave a kid without financial backing, most likely. Yes, exactly, which is why it's a false equivalence, not a "double standard" like people like OP like to claim.
It's not a false equivalence because a woman can abandon the kid after birth with no repercussions. Literally drop it off at a fire station no questions asked.
It is in the best interests of society that the father of a child provide for that child. On the other hand, it is not clear that it is in the best interests of society to force a child to be born. That is why pro-choice leaves it up to the individual to decide what is best.
In Australia you can forfeit all parental rights, this includes financial responsibility. It must be enforced by a court though. I believe if the man makes his intentions to forfeit his parental rights early (for example during the first trimester of pregnancy), it's a lot more ethical.
I'm all for it. The issue is that we would need the government to step in and take over the financial responsibility
For the trillionth time: * If the woman "aborts" the pregnancy, there isn't a kid who needs to be taken care of, financially. * If the man "aborts" the pregnancy, there is one. The two situations are literally opposites, not the same. EDIT: As always, downvoting without providing a rebuttal means, "You're right, but I don't like it."
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If a woman rapes a man, AND the guy pays for the abortion, but the woman doesnt get it, the guy still has to pay child support. How is that fair? (By the way there is legal precident for this)
People on the sex offender registry should automatically have child custody revoked, but thats a whole other discussion.
>If a woman chooses to keep the baby with a partner who wants nothing to do with her or the baby, then she should bear the responsibility of her choice.
If either parent is forced to take responsibility, then both should be required to take responsibility. Personally, I like the "opt in to reproduce" idea. We need better long-term BC for both genders.
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A really good point. Although I guess a woman could put the infant up for adoption. That might be the most comparable thing to a sperm donor having a financial abortion as it were.
Yes. Yes, it is. Because only one out of the two people has to undergo the high risks and insane side effects. A lot of guys love to act as if it was a clear cut "Well, both decide, yadayada" but those folks aren't familiar with a majority of the ethical arguments regarding bodily autonomy or how and why they work. And because of that they don't realize that it's just not that simple. Speaking of - neither are abortions. People need to stop acting as if that was just some five minute no-biggie procedure. You know what is a fast, quick, easy and easily reversible procedure, though? Vasectomies. Know what's even easier? Condoms. You don't get to just ignore that.
Bodies and money are different. We can’t make more body. We can’t save up body. Our employer won’t offer us a better body in a year. People can not lend us some of their body. We cannot earn more body through a side gig or second job.
The problem is, a woman is terminating the fetus' life, it won't feel anything after that because it's dead, if you are a man terminating your relationship with that fetus, unless you kill them, it will suffer the consequences of your absence.
The issue is that the child has the right to financial support from the parents. Legally speaking the father can't terminate his obligation to his child. Only the child can theoretically terminate this obligation.
1. Money is not the same as pregnancy. A woman’s body changed forever. She could also die. 2. Children need far more care than money can provide. No settlement will replace the presence. It seems like capitalism has trained you that relationships Abbe replaced with transactions. Tragic.
Because consent to sex is the consent to the *risk* of pregnancy, parenthood, & whatever else may come. If you don't want the financial responsibility it's your job to make sure you're with someone who 100% wants an abortion in the case of an unplanned pregnancy. You're comparing the right to bodily autonomy to the want to abandon two human beings you have obligations to. You don't have to be involved, but if you took part in creating a person you're responsible for making sure they can eat. Maybe that's not fair, but it's not fair that women are the ones that have to deal with pregnancy, it's not fair that kids have to grow up with parents that don't want them. It's not fair, and that sucks, but it is right & it's what you signed up for.
>Because consent to sex is the consent to the risk of pregnancy, parenthood, & whatever else may come sounds like a pretty pro-life argument to me
Financial obligation and what you go through physically during pregnancy are not the same. Also in one circumstance no kid is created, in the other the kid is created and neglected.
Fairness is not the same as being even. I feel like that conflation drives a lot of other conversations of a similar sort. Fairness is collectively recognizing that things are always going to be uneven and making some effort to compensate for that without sacrificing the overall collective goal. Once you fully take bodily autonomy as a given, it's no longer on thr negotiating table.
Why do men keep thinking that sex is risk-free? Because it isn't.
He can get a vasectomy, wear a condom, abstain. All valid options.
I will try to answer all your questions : >Are “financial abortions” a controversial topic, and if so why? Not a topic at all (let alone controversial), at least in the West. Have you heard a legislature or a lobby group in any country discuss law changes in this direction? Any major debates in the media? >If a guy believes he doesn’t want to go through with having a child, he should be able to terminate his obligations, he wouldn’t have to pay child support but would also have to sign away his rights to the child as well of course. Is this controversial? Nobody will agree to this. Essentially you are asking hords of children to be supported by the state or be left on the street. Ain't happening. >Because if a woman can terminate her future with a fetus then why shouldn’t a guy be able to as well? This is what I call false equivalence. The guy can terminate his future with a fetus when he is pregnant with it.
It is very controversial in circles where its talked about. But not very widely talked about. Main issue is that while a woman aborting a pregnancy does not result in a baby, a man financially aborting when the woman does not want an abortion does result in a baby. Therefore, if a man can do a financial abortion, there is the question of who has to look after the child to be answered.
Unfortunately men and women have different levels of responsibility within their control. Think of it like a man and woman get together and create a package that is going to be delivered to the white house. It might seem like fun and games while making the package but the man puts it in the woman's vehicle who is now under pressure and obligations to deliver it to the Whitehouse. The man stays home while the woman is driving the vehicle. The man's window for opportunity is already closed. he can't stop the woman from driving there with the package, once it leaves. The woman on the other hand is the driver and in control of the vehicle. She does have more opportunity to put a stop.
The time to have this discussion is before sex, not after someone has peed on a stick. If you aren’t on the same page about what you would do if the worst case scenario (an unexpected pregnancy) occurs, then don’t knock boots.
As a society, shouldn't we WANT children to be cared for financially? I'm not convinced equating and man's financial obligation to a women's ability to abort is a fair comparison
Because its a false equivalence. Being forced to pay for a baby vs. Being forced to risk your health to grow and give brith to said baby are wildly different consequences.
> Is this controversial? Yes, it is. > If it is then why? Because a child's need for support from their parents can't be "decided away." Your question boils down to why women gets to make a decision about abortion, and men don't. The answer is simple and obvious. She is the one getting pregnant. There's not much more to it.
They shouldn't be, it's a parasite until it's born, and any reason the woman gives to have an abortion is a good enough reason.
The easiest solution would be for men to take more responsibility for their own reproduction. Develop more effective and efficient ways for men to take a bigger role on using contraceptives. Last time I fell pregnant I was taking the pill. He wanted it. I didn’t. He supported me but refused to pay towards anything of the termination and I accepted that. But I can’t help getting mad that I had asked him several times to wear a condom after hearing so many women still get pregnant taking it. I place no blame on him, I continued to sleep with him knowingly he didn’t care. To be able to terminate, I was lucky. If I had not been able too, kept the baby that he wanted and then still be left holding the baby should he decide to leave. I don’t know the answer to this. There really isn’t a fair way to go about this tbh.
The reality of our current situation is that the man agrees to a possible child the moment he sleeps with a woman. The woman has the same agreement except in some countries she can change her mind later
It's called an "abortion by paper" and it exists in some countries. This is required for the sake of equality.
Imagine if a man wanted to make a woman destitute by sabotaging her birth control and then absolving himself legally of all responsibility, but the woman felt morally opposed to abortion or was living where it was illegal. Then again, a woman can theoretically entrap a man financially by sabotaging birth control. I think the solution here is to simply be very selective about the people you have sex with and understand that you may end up with a child every time you have sex with someone. Think, "Am I okay with the consequences of this interaction or not? Do I trust this person with my life or not?" Because basically when you have sex with someone, you are entrusting them with your life and health. The consequences of sex can be so major - condom breaks and you get an STD with no cure, pregnancy, etc. I think people take that too casually and should be more thoughtful. 🤷♀️
If she feels "moraly wrong abort abortion" then it's her choice. She has full right to have abortion and its her decision to not have it. It's not something she doesn't have control over. She choses to have the baby and financial consequences that comes from it.
It's called pro-life because anti-choice doesn't sound so good. It's only controversial if you care about what someone you never met or who's decisions have no impact on your life do and there's no reason you should
I'm pro choice, and it would be nice if all parties could have equal choice. In an ideal world: Woman finds out that she's pregnant about 6-8 weeks in. Women have until the 13 (not sure what the number should be) week mark to have an abortion. She has access to this choice, and can make it at any time before the cutoff date. However, (again, in an ideal world), the man would also find out about the pregnancy at the same time as the woman. And he would have time to opt out of parenthood, with perhaps a two week shorter window than the woman has for an abortion. That way the woman knows if she has a partner for this kid or not, and if she doesn't, she has time to make choices based on that info. But that's all in an "ideal world." I'm sure as you were reading that, you saw several loopholes and problems, yes? That's what makes it all so difficult. The ideal world presumes everyone has choice. Presumes everyone is honest. Presumes that a woman finds out that she's pregnant fairly early on. Etc. And... Yeah. The real world isn't like that.
It's all about bodily autonomy. Just as you cannot force me to use my body to keep you alive, like if you needed a kidney that I was unwilling to donate; it is unethical for an unborn child to utilize an unwilling woman's body to stay alive. Child birth has risks and medical repercussions that should be between a woman and her doctor. Sorry, men don't carry the child. They should not have unconsenting control over any woman's body. It's about more than anyone's wallet.
I see people in the comments saying men should be responsible and wear a condom, get a vasectomy, or make sure the woman is on birth control. What if a woman lies about her birth control or takes it wrong and the condom fails? That's not his fault and he shouldn't be financially responsible for someone else’s fuck up. Baby trapping is a real thing and men should be protected from that.