Abortion(do guys have a say?)

[Tahar Joblis]

They do not have the right to some particular person's support

The born child actually has a right to some particular person's support. That the right may be xferred to another willing party is immaterial.

If the born child actually had a right to some particular person's support, it would be criminal to destroy the earnings capabilities of a prospective parent, e.g., by throwing them in jail. Safe haven laws would be all thrown out. It would be a crime to conceal or misrepresent paternity; paternity testing would be mandatory for all born children, as biological paternity is misattributed at a statistically significant rate. All these would be necessary to support a right possessed by a child to have some particular person's support.

Furthermore, transferring that right would require consent of the child, not consent of the parental party, if it were a right held by the child. Adoption of newborns would be impossible under a system which assigned such a right to the child. No; instead, what actually exists is a system which partially couples parental rights and parental obligations. Instead of such a right of the child to support from a particular parent is actually respected by the status quo, what is instead present is the "right" of mothers to assign parental obligation to fathers, willing or not.

I say "right" in scare-quotes because having the "right" to extort money out of someone is generally considered a wrong, and we generally think of "rights" in terms of personal liberties, not personal oppression.

[Tekania]

The born child actually has a right to some particular person's support. That the right may be xferred to another willing party is immaterial.

If the born child actually had a right to some particular person's support, it would be criminal to destroy the earnings capabilities of a prospective parent, e.g., by throwing them in jail. Safe haven laws would be all thrown out. It would be a crime to conceal or misrepresent paternity; paternity testing would be mandatory for all born children, as biological paternity is misattributed at a statistically significant rate. All these would be necessary to support a right possessed by a child to have some particular person's support.

Furthermore, transferring that right would require consent of the child, not consent of the parental party, if it were a right held by the child. Adoption of newborns would be impossible under a system which assigned such a right to the child. No; instead, what actually exists is a system which partially couples parental rights and parental obligations. Instead of such a right of the child to support from a particular parent is actually respected by the status quo, what is instead present is the "right" of mothers to assign parental obligation to fathers, willing or not.

I say "right" in scare-quotes because having the "right" to extort money out of someone is generally considered a wrong, and we generally think of "rights" in terms of personal liberties, not personal oppression.

Paternity tests are mandated constantly. It is in fact illegal to misrepresent (intentionally) paternity. Children cannot provide legal consent. And I am really unconcerned with a criminal's "potential income". They had potential income just fine before it led to jail time, and they'll have potential income after they get out to start making it up. Child support is NOT extortion. PERIOD, end of fucking discussion. Once you've joined reality, send me word.

[Tahar Joblis]

If the born child actually had a right to some particular person's support, it would be criminal to destroy the earnings capabilities of a prospective parent, e.g., by throwing them in jail. Safe haven laws would be all thrown out. It would be a crime to conceal or misrepresent paternity; paternity testing would be mandatory for all born children, as biological paternity is misattributed at a statistically significant rate. All these would be necessary to support a right possessed by a child to have some particular person's support.

Furthermore, transferring that right would require consent of the child, not consent of the parental party, if it were a right held by the child. Adoption of newborns would be impossible under a system which assigned such a right to the child. No; instead, what actually exists is a system which partially couples parental rights and parental obligations. Instead of such a right of the child to support from a particular parent is actually respected by the status quo, what is instead present is the "right" of mothers to assign parental obligation to fathers, willing or not.

I say "right" in scare-quotes because having the "right" to extort money out of someone is generally considered a wrong, and we generally think of "rights" in terms of personal liberties, not personal oppression.

Paternity tests are mandated constantly.

Primarily as the consequence of a woman claiming Man X is the father and Man X saying he is not, from what I can tell; and occasionally the other way around. A small fraction of births, in other words.

If there was truly a right to have your real father, paternity tests would be mandated for all births.

It is in fact illegal to misrepresent (intentionally) paternity.

But not illegal to fail to present paternity.

Children cannot provide legal consent. And I am really unconcerned with a criminal's "potential income". They had potential income just fine before it led to jail time, and they'll have potential income after they get out to start making it up.

Ah, but that's not their right to income, it's the child's! Or are you going to dispense with the nonsensical idea that a child has a right to a certain income from a certain individual?

Child support is NOT extortion.

Under some circumstances, it could meet the literal common-sense definition thereof.

PERIOD, end of fucking discussion.

This discussion is far from over.

Once you've joined reality, send me word.

When you have constructed something resembling a logical argument, get back to me.

In the mean time, I am in reality and addressing reality. The "right" you describe is not one actually respected by the existing legal system, and implementing respect for it within the legal system has wide unintended consequences which you had not considered.

The real right of the child is to food, shelter, etc. Not to have person X contribute to their upbringing.

[Knask]

And until the father can find someone who's willing to take over that responsibility, the duty remains his. Sounds fair to me.

He never opted in.

He did, potentially just as much as the woman did before the child was born.

The mother does not have to find someone willing to take over that responsibility in order to opt out, although it is an option (de facto a unilateral option in many cases);

She does. And until she does, if the father is left as the primary caretaker, she will have to pay child support to him.

she also has the option of legally abandoning the child with no liability after birth,

She doesn't necessarily have that option, just because the options exist in the US.

or getting an abortion during the gestational period.

Not an option if she was unaware that she was pregnant. Not a real option if it's medically inadvisable to do so.

The only thing the father did was have sex with somebody. Forced paternal obligations amount to nothing more and nothing less than institutionalized stochastic post-facto prostitution, with the state playing the role of pimp.

*Yawn*

The father took part in the reproductive process. It has resulted in a child. That child has the right to be supported by its parents. So until one parent can transfer his or her duties to another, he or she will have to meet the duties towards the child. It's called "taking responsibility for ones actions", and is nothing like prostitution.

We stopped forcing this obligation on women because we realized it was absolutely ridiculous.

"We" did no such thing.

It's immoral and impractical to force parenthood on unwilling mothers.

Yet it happens.

It's also immoral to force parenthood on unwilling fathers; and, IMO, does at best negligible net social good, once we pay attention to the full accounting of effects.

I see more than a "negligible" net social good coming from avoiding having a child raised in poverty.

[GeneralHaNor]

Not an option if she was unaware that she was pregnant.

I stopped reading here
This doesn't happen
You cannot be unaware of pregnancy, I've heard of people going months before they started wondering if that was fat or something else, but mostly the puking, the lack of period, the bulging stomach are all dead giveaways.

[Ceannairceach]

Not an option if she was unaware that she was pregnant.

I stopped reading here
This doesn't happen
You cannot be unaware of pregnancy, I've heard of people going months before they started wondering if that was fat or something else, but mostly the puking, the lack of period, the bulging stomach are all dead giveaways.

People can, indeed, not be aware of their pregnancy. Hell, there's a whole series about it on TLC or some such thing.

[Dyakovo]

It is already the case that only one party "is held liable" if the pregnancy is not aborted.

That party being "putative fathers." Mothers have the option of walking away from the whole thing at or after birth as well, an option which is largely only theoretically available to fathers, in practice available to fathers only with a measure of the mothers' cooperation.

It is only putative fathers who are in the unique position of being unable to choose whether or not to be legally bound to the obligations of parenthood; thus, only they are held liable. Mothers enter into liability only after several opportunities to choose to avoid it, and thus cannot be said to be held liable by an external force as fathers are.

Of course, if that's not what you meant by a single party being held liable, then you were flatly, baldly, and plainly wrong, as the only possible interpretation of your statement that is not counterfactual has been described above.

Wrong. During the pregnancy only the woman is "held responsible".

Only the woman suffers any risk during pregnancy.
If the pregnancy is carried to term, both parties are held financially accountable.

Only if paternity is established and the child is not abandoned at a safe haven or adopted in such a manner as to duck the issue of paternity.

You do realize that the examples you just gave are examples of neither biological parent being held financially responsible, yes? If none of those happen both of them are held financially responsible.

[Ookawauso]

That party being "putative fathers." Mothers have the option of walking away from the whole thing at or after birth as well, an option which is largely only theoretically available to fathers, in practice available to fathers only with a measure of the mothers' cooperation.

It is only putative fathers who are in the unique position of being unable to choose whether or not to be legally bound to the obligations of parenthood; thus, only they are held liable. Mothers enter into liability only after several opportunities to choose to avoid it, and thus cannot be said to be held liable by an external force as fathers are.

Of course, if that's not what you meant by a single party being held liable, then you were flatly, baldly, and plainly wrong, as the only possible interpretation of your statement that is not counterfactual has been described above.

Wrong. During the pregnancy only the woman is "held responsible".

Only if paternity is established and the child is not abandoned at a safe haven or adopted in such a manner as to duck the issue of paternity.

You do realize that the examples you just gave are examples of neither biological parent being held financially responsible, yes? If none of those happen both of them are held financially responsible.

I don't care what the law says, it's just immoral to get someone pregnant and then provide no care at all for the child (if it's not given up for adoption or something similar).

And this is off topic, so I'm gonna say that men do have a say, in that ideally abortion should only be done if both parents agree on it. (Although I'm personally against abortion unless it's ethically justifiable)

[Zairoon]

Legally speaking, the man should have no say as it is the woman's body- however, the woman will probably be influenced by what the man says anyway, even slightly.

[GeneralHaNor]

I stopped reading here
This doesn't happen
You cannot be unaware of pregnancy, I've heard of people going months before they started wondering if that was fat or something else, but mostly the puking, the lack of period, the bulging stomach are all dead giveaways.

People can, indeed, not be aware of their pregnancy. Hell, there's a whole series about it on TLC or some such thing.

It's my contention that "TLC" should not be a source for medical facts
At which point I demand that you provide "Sources"

[Dyakovo]

Wrong. During the pregnancy only the woman is "held responsible".

You do realize that the examples you just gave are examples of neither biological parent being held financially responsible, yes? If none of those happen both of them are held financially responsible.

I don't care what the law says, it's just immoral to get someone pregnant and then provide no care at all for the child (if it's not given up for adoption or something similar).

And this is off topic, so I'm gonna say that men do have a say, in that ideally abortion should only be done if both parents agree on it. (Although I'm personally against abortion unless it's ethically justifiable)

Abortion is always ethically justifiable.

[Zanarkenisia]

I don't care what the law says, it's just immoral to get someone pregnant and then provide no care at all for the child (if it's not given up for adoption or something similar).

And this is off topic, so I'm gonna say that men do have a say, in that ideally abortion should only be done if both parents agree on it. (Although I'm personally against abortion unless it's ethically justifiable)

Abortion is always ethically justifiable.

How is it always ethically justifiable?

[Dyakovo]

Abortion is always ethically justifiable.

How is it always ethically justifiable?

No-one ever has a right to use your body against your will.

[GeneralHaNor]

Abortion is always ethically justifiable.

How is it always ethically justifiable?

Eat what you kill?

[Ookawauso]

I don't care what the law says, it's just immoral to get someone pregnant and then provide no care at all for the child (if it's not given up for adoption or something similar).

And this is off topic, so I'm gonna say that men do have a say, in that ideally abortion should only be done if both parents agree on it. (Although I'm personally against abortion unless it's ethically justifiable)

Abortion is always ethically justifiable.

What? Do you understand what I'm saying?
Because it sounds like you beleive it is unethical to not kill someone as soon as possible. In other words it sounds like you beleive your birth was wrong because you should have been murdered before hand.

Abortion is ethically justifiable only in certain circumstances, e.g. if a pregnant woman caught some disease and the treatment could not be given to a pregnant woman beacuse it would either harm the woman or baby, then it would be ethically justifiable to have an abortion.

[Ookawauso]

How is it always ethically justifiable?

No-one ever has a right to use your body against your will.

What do you mean "No-one ever has a right to use your body against your will?" I don't understand how this statemeant supports your argument.
And I don't even understand the statemeant, how does someone use someone else's body?

[Dyakovo]

Abortion is always ethically justifiable.

What? Do you understand what I'm saying?
Because it sounds like you beleive it is unethical to not kill someone as soon as possible. In other words it sounds like you beleive your birth was wrong because you should have been murdered before hand.

Abortion is ethically justifiable only in certain circumstances, e.g. if a pregnant woman caught some disease and the treatment could not be given to a pregnant woman beacuse it would either harm the woman or baby, then it would be ethically justifiable to have an abortion.

Abortion is always ethically justifiable. No-one has the right to use another's body against their will.

[Dyakovo]

No-one ever has a right to use your body against your will.

What do you mean "No-one ever has a right to use your body against your will?" I don't understand how this statemeant supports your argument.
And I don't even understand the statemeant, how does someone use someone else's body?

I mean exactly what I said. If I need a kidney transplant, do I have the right to just take one of yours? No, of course not.

[Tekania]

Abortion is always ethically justifiable.

What? Do you understand what I'm saying?
Because it sounds like you beleive it is unethical to not kill someone as soon as possible. In other words it sounds like you beleive your birth was wrong because you should have been murdered before hand.

Abortion is ethically justifiable only in certain circumstances, e.g. if a pregnant woman caught some disease and the treatment could not be given to a pregnant woman beacuse it would either harm the woman or baby, then it would be ethically justifiable to have an abortion.

That's not what he said, actually. He said that abortion is "always ethically justifiable" as in, it can always be justified ethically speaking... Because something may be ethically justified, does not mean it's inverse is ethically required. That's a leap of logic between two different claims. I'd have to question the process of anyone who would leap from the former immediately to it also meaning the later... Merely because abortion is always ethically justifiable, does not mean that abortion is ethically required (that is, it's unethical to not abort).

[Ookawauso]

What do you mean "No-one ever has a right to use your body against your will?" I don't understand how this statemeant supports your argument.
And I don't even understand the statemeant, how does someone use someone else's body?

I mean exactly what I said. If I need a kidney transplant, do I have the right to just take one of yours? No, of course not.

Yes, you are right, but how do you connect that to abortions is what I am failing to understand.

[Ookawauso]

What? Do you understand what I'm saying?
Because it sounds like you beleive it is unethical to not kill someone as soon as possible. In other words it sounds like you beleive your birth was wrong because you should have been murdered before hand.

Abortion is ethically justifiable only in certain circumstances, e.g. if a pregnant woman caught some disease and the treatment could not be given to a pregnant woman beacuse it would either harm the woman or baby, then it would be ethically justifiable to have an abortion.

That's not what he said, actually. He said that abortion is "always ethically justifiable" as in, it can always be justified ethically speaking... Because something may be ethically justified, does not mean it's inverse is ethically required. That's a leap of logic between two different claims. I'd have to question the process of anyone who would leap from the former immediately to it also meaning the later... Merely because abortion is always ethically justifiable, does not mean that abortion is ethically required (that is, it's unethical to abort).

If all abortions can be justified in an ethical manner, then therefor all abortions are ethical, which is why I said it is like saying it is unethical to not have an abortion. I am just pointing out the extreme side his point leads to.

And I can't tell from what you said if you agree with him but I think so. So I will say not all abortions can be ethically justified, many happen because the mother just doesn't want a baby at that time, which is in no way ethically justifiable.

[Dyakovo]

I mean exactly what I said. If I need a kidney transplant, do I have the right to just take one of yours? No, of course not.

Yes, you are right, but how do you connect that to abortions is what I am failing to understand.

So... A woman is not a person?

[Erinkita]

Yes, you are right, but how do you connect that to abortions is what I am failing to understand.

So... A woman is not a person?

Come on, man. It's clear he doesn't get what you're saying. Throw the guy a bone already.

[Dyakovo]

That's not what he said, actually. He said that abortion is "always ethically justifiable" as in, it can always be justified ethically speaking... Because something may be ethically justified, does not mean it's inverse is ethically required. That's a leap of logic between two different claims. I'd have to question the process of anyone who would leap from the former immediately to it also meaning the later... Merely because abortion is always ethically justifiable, does not mean that abortion is ethically required (that is, it's unethical to abort).

If all abortions can be justified in an ethical manner, then therefor all abortions are ethical, which is why I said it is like saying it is unethical to not have an abortion.

No, it's not like saying that at all. Just because option "A" is ethical does not mean option "B" is unethical.

I am just pointing out the extreme side his point leads to.

No, you're building a strawman.

And I can't tell from what you said if you agree with him but I think so. So I will say not all abortions can be ethically justified, many happen because the mother just doesn't want a baby at that time, which is in no way ethically justifiable.

They're still ethical then. A woman is not an incubator for you to use as you wish.

[Ookawauso]

Yes, you are right, but how do you connect that to abortions is what I am failing to understand.

So... A woman is not a person?

What? You are seriously confusing me, how did you get that?
I'm asking how does stealing someones kidney being wrong connect to abortions being ok.

Also, you said "If I need a kidney transplant, do I have the right to just take one of yours? No, of course not."
So how would you reply if I gave the hypothetical situation:
If I am a very poor pregnant woman who cannot afford to raise a child, do I have the right to just deny that child life?
I would say not, how would you respond? Is a foetus not a person?