NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/soc/women/21882

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-23 | 14.1 KB

Xref: sparky soc.women:21882 soc.men:21764 alt.feminism:6503 talk.abortion:52855
Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.men,alt.feminism,talk.abortion
Path: sparky!uunet!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!nigel.msen.com!heifetz!rotag!kevin
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Muffy becomes anti-choice (absolutely false)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Who, me???
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 19:55:53 GMT
Lines: 257

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Adrienne Regard) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Daniel B. Holzman) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]>,
>>[e-mail] (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
>>> Nope.  I consider abortion to be *one way* of "dealing with the
>>> consequences."
>
>>If aborting the fetus is a perfectly fine way for a woman to "deal with the
>>consequences," why is a parallell for men not a perfectly fine way for men to
>>"deal with the consequences?"
>
>Uh,
>
>but,
>
>
>Daniel,
>
>We haven't seen 'a parallell' yet.
>
>We have seen many things, but we haven't seen a parallell yet.
>
>Got one to show us?

When a woman obtains an abortion, not only does her voluntary act of will
sever a _biological_ dependency, she also negates a financial dependency
existing in parallel with it. She does this whether or not her partner wishes
to become a parent.

Although there is no _biological_ dependency on the man, there is the same
parallel financial dependency, and the laws _could_ be reformed in such a way
as to allow him the same option of negating that dependency, regardless of
whether her partner wishes to become a parent or not.

I have not yet heard a compelling reason to disallow this. So far, most of
the arguments have boiled down to either

    o  "Tradition!"

       As if the "tradition" in this area were clearly defined, and as if
       "tradition", in any event, was the ultimate, or even a better-than-
       average, arbiter of justice.

    o  "The child deserves support!"

       True, but it's an open question whether the current system
       maximizes the average amount of support that children receive. By
       encouraging the production of illegitimate children, I think a
       compelling case can be made that it REDUCES the average. One might
       also point out that by demanding support specifically from the
       biological parents of an illegitimate child, one of which is likely
       to be unwilling, the state is interfering in the delicate relation
       between fathers and their children. The end result may be a child
       which is well-fed, well-housed, well-clothed, etc. but because
       his or her father has been embittered and destroyed, perhaps the
       child is no better off overall than if they suffered a slightly
       lower material standard of living, but a much healthier emotional
       relationship with BOTH natural parents. How sure are we that the
       legislation is serving the _holistic_ needs of children?

    o  "The taxpayers would end up footing the bill otherwise."

       In many cases, i.e. where the mother can afford to support the
       child on her own, this is obviously not true. For other cases, it
       depends on the implementation of the reforms. For the relatively-
       minimalist "pre-sex contract" approach, it needn't cost taxpayers a
       dime, for example. I would also point out that, one way or another,
       child support comes out of our GNP. As a social policy decision,
       then, our inquiry does not stop at WHO is paying the child support,
       but whether the incentives and disincentives achieve maximum
       economic efficiency. See above bulleted item on that point. To
       state things simply in terms of "reducing taxpayer liability"
       therefore smacks of hollowness and myopia.

    o  "The father is 'guilty' and should be 'punished' because he had
       sex instead of abstaining, and/or failed to use a condom (or it
       broke) and/or failed to get a vasectomy."

       Essentially self-refuting. Up until the point of conception, the
       man's and the woman's options to avoid parenthood are roughly equal
       (if not tilted slightly in the woman's favor). After conception,
       for several months, the woman has the unilateral option, and, in
       legal terms, the Last Clear Chance, to avoid the birth of the
       child. After birth, she has an option of declining to take custody.
       Obviously her actions, overall, are more liability-attracting than
       his, given a normal unbiased legal analysis. Followers of the
       abortion issue will also note that a similar argument -- "she made
       her choice when she spread her legs" -- is perennially used by pro-
       lifers in support of abortion restrictions. Pro-choicers who mouth
       essentially the same words in the paternity child support issue
       would do well to reflect on where that "logic" is borrowed from,
       and where it eventually leads.

    o  "The reforms proposed would obligate a woman to abort, which may be
       against her personal beliefs."

       First, I'll note that there are many kinds and intensities of legal
       "obligation". If I buy a loaf of bread, I am "obligated" to pay for
       it. Most do not consider this an onerous "obligation". A law which
       mandated abortions, on the other hand, would be onerous to many. In
       between the extremes, there is a whole range of onerousness for
       obligations, i.e. mixtures of voluntariness, such as with the loaf
       of bread, and mandates, such as the forced abortion example. To
       focus on one particular implementation of paternity child support
       reform -- the so-called "pre-sex contract" -- the signing of the
       contract is completely VOLUNTARY. If a potential party to the
       contract has qualms about signing it, whether they be moral,
       religious, legal, economic qualms, they don't have to sign it. This
       means that the contract is no more onerous than, say, a mortgage,
       or a auto loan agreement. The only time there is a mandatory
       factor, is where one party refuses to live up to the terms of the
       contract. Again, this is no more onerous than a mortgage or an
       auto loan agreement. No contract can FORCE a woman to abort, nor
       can any state law do so; the consequences of a woman's failure to
       abort are purely pecuniary. I therefore do not find this approach
       any more onerous than an ordinary business dealing. As for
       abortion being against the woman's personal beliefs,

        a) if that's the case, then, as noted, she shouldn't sign
           any "pre-sex" contract in the first place

        b) for implementations other than the contract implementation,
             if a woman has a specific personal problem with aborting,
           I think she should be obligated to COMMUNICATE that fact
            to her partner before the fact, if she expects to enjoy
           the benefit of her convictions later

        c) I know of no widely-adopted belief system which denounces
              abortion, yet condones pre-marital or extra-marital sex. It
              seems rather incongruous to me for someone to flagrantly
             violate their teachings before they can receive a benefit
            from them, and then be allowed to hide behind them later

        d) any moral convictions against abortion which are based on
           religion need to tread lightly around the First Amendment
           when the matter is adjudicated in a court of law

        e) why is the woman's "moral conviction" against abortion to
           be given absolute priority against a man's "moral
           conviction" to not pay for a child he did not want, and
           tried his best to avoid?

    o  "You're just an irresponsible jerk who wants to screw around
       without fear of consequences!" or "You just hate children!" or
       "You're just trying to get out of paying your child support!"
       etc. etc. ad nauseam.

       Contentless ad hominems, but very popular ones, in their various
       forms. Decorative.

    o  "Why look for legislative solutions? The couple should just
       COMMUNICATE before having sex, and that would solve everything."

       This would help a certain class of cases, i.e. where the
       principals simply "didn't think" about the consequences, and
       were surprised later. But, for the remainder, everyone knows that
       lovers often say things they don't really mean. Unless this
       "communication" has some binding power, it doesn't help to resolve
       this issue. And if the communication DOES have binding power, it's
       really no different than a verbal contract, and therefore largely
       indistinguishable from a reform implementation.

       As for seeking legislative solutions generally, remember always
       that paternity child support statutes ARE THEMSELVES an attempt to
       "fix" the problem of unsupported or under-supported children. In a
       State of Nature, involuntary child support does not exist. So, short
       of total repeal, it is not a question of legislation vs. non-
       legislation, it's a question of trying to optimize the alleged
       "solution" that's ALREADY IN PLACE. The current "solution" is quite
       expedient, but is inconsistent with the body of law, unjust and
       most likely would fail an objective economic analysis. The
       unjustness, in addition to being simply morally repugnant, may also
       underlie why the states are having such enforcement problems in
       this area, although I'm wary of overstating the connection there.

    o  "This is not a problem with the _design_ of the law, it's a
       problem with the _implementation_ of the law. If judges would
       assign custody to men and woman fairly, then not only would
       men be able to control their destiny more, but there would be
       reduction in the current incentive for women to have
       illegitimate children."

       That may help SOME men, true, but offering a man who has no
       interest whatsoever in being a father a choice between i) taking
       custody of a child, or ii) being "on the hook" for child support as
       "non-custodial parent" is like offering a choice between death
       by drowning or death by fire. More options, sure, but the premises
       of the choice are still unjust. There is no equity until men stop
       becoming personally liable, in whatever form, for the unilateral
       choices of women.

    o  "Pre-sex contracts are so... so... unromantic. Blech. I'd never
       sign such a thing."

       Getting shafted by 18+ years of involuntary child support isn't
       particularly "romantic", either, as I'm sure many victims would be
       willing to attest. Like it or not, men and women enter into an
       implicit "contract" whenever they have sex. The terms and
       conditions of the contract, as the law stands right now, are
       pretty much rigid and inflexible, and were written by legislators
       trying to appease their respective constituencies, sometimes more
       than a generation ago, and almost universally BEFORE abortion
       become safe and legal (Michigan's Act dates back to 1956, for
       example). Is that who you want to be conducting your financial
       affairs -- a bunch of legislators with vested political interests?
       Is that romantic? Haven't the assumptions about society and
       morality, and even the vested interests, changed a little since
       those laws were passed? These so-called "pre-sex contracts" that
       have been proposed may lack some romanticism, sure, but at least
       they allow the principals to agree to a financial arrangment related
       to child support ON THEIR OWN MUTUALLY-AGREEABLE TERMS, instead of
       on the terms of an obsolete, legislation-created contract. That
       makes it a more practical choice for the times. Ultimately, there
       has to be a balance between romanticism and practicality. It's very
       easy to throw practicality out the window and praise "romanticism"
       to the heavens, when one is the empowered class of citizenry. It's
       not so easy for the non-empowered citizens, on the other hand, to
       be so nonchalant, when their financial futures are hanging off the
       edge of the cliff. Make the laws equitable FIRST, and THEN we can
       talk about being "romantic". Until then, though, I decline to
       apologize for MY need (which _you_ collectively created) to mix a
       large does of practicality with my romanticism.

    o  "Sex is by nature a risky enterprise. Why are some men so unwilling
       to accept the responsibility of having gambled and lost?"

       This is largely just a restatement of the "punishment for sex"
       point, but raising an alleged "gambling" aspect of this
       reproductive issue. There is, of course, essentially NO gamble here.
       The probability of an abortion failing, i.e. producing a live
       child, are fairly negligible, and, in any case, controllable by the
       woman, who decides when, in her term, she will abort. No 12-week
       fetus, for example, has ever been know to survive. That's a fairly
       safe "bet", then. The only "gamble" occurs BEFORE conception, but
       the stakes there are at most the cost of an abortion, which is a
       drop in the bucket compared to 18+ years of child support, and a
       "gambling debt" that the vast majority of men are perfectly WILLING
       to accept. So, where's the "gamble"? If someone is presenting the
       post-conception phase of the causal chain as being subject to
       probability, I'd have to characterize that as a "fixed game",
       stacked against men, and the purveyors as "flim-flammers" and
       "shills". How can we, as a society, tolerate a sleazy SEXIST fixed
       game in our midst?

    o  "The laws are needed, because women don't make as much as men"

       Hardly needs a refutation. Two wrongs don't make a right. Besides,
       how does encouraging women to have illegitimate children and get
       support for same subsidized by unwilling fathers, help women in
       general to achieve pay parity with men? Seems to me that these laws
       treat women like helpless little girls who can't get along and make
       decisions and support the consequences of those decisions without
       lots of help from the Patriarchy. This is empowerment?!? Ptui.

Heard any good NEW arguments against reform, Adrienne?

                                - Kevin