From: trif@bike.rad.washington.edu (To Run In Fear)
Subject: Re: Right To Not Support
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle WA
	<BsL96r.4t6@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
	<TRIF.92Aug16061554@bike.rad.washington.edu>
	<Bt3p7r.I2L@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 04:57:33 GMT

In article <Bt3p7r.I2L@news.cso.uiuc.edu> slkg9733@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steven L. Kellmeyer) writes:
   I write:
   >Not that anybody cares at all, I'm sure, but I view the issues of abortion
   >and child support as completely separate issues.

   All that you say is true, the problem is that the mother's basis for 
   enjoining the man is that he somehow bears resoponsibility for the 
   existence of the child.  

No, the mother's (and the state's) basis is the legal right of a child to
support from both its parents.  If a vasectomy fails due to an incompetent
doctor performing the operation, then the doctor, not the man is responsible
for the pregnancy.  This does not change the child's rights at all.  Maybe
you don't agree with this.

   The only one who is in any way responsible for the existence of a child
   in a state that permits legal abortion using the rationale current in the
   U.S is the mother.  

Leaving aside, of course, that abortion is not de facto available in a 
significant part of the country because of harrassment.

   The father is, de facto, only a supplier of raw 
   material.  If this were not true, the father could legally compel some 
   sort of recognition during pregnancy - if only a mandated formal voicing
   of approval or disapproval of the abortion/term-carrying.  No such route
   exists for the man.

This is because a man has absolutely no say in what a woman may do with her
body *and* because the fetus cannot live without its host.  If it were the
case that the fetus could live after being expelled from its host, I would
absolutely support notification of the father, who could then assume custody
of the fetus, enjoining the state to sue the mother for child support.  I
tend to have a *very* long view with respect to the law and technology, and
someday we will have fetal transplantation, and perhaps even in vitro 
gestation.  If you look at the short term reality of abortion meaning death
of the fetus, and choose to enact law based on the expectation that it will
always be so, nasty things develop when technology changes.

   Yet the decision on whether or not that child DOES
   become a child is wholly out of his control and entirely in someone else's
   control.  He cannot cancel the work halfway through, nor can he refuse to
   pay for the results of the work.  Only the woman can cancel the work.
   This despite the fact that the man may not have knowingly commissioned the
   work.

Again, because of the current state of technology, this is true.  It has 
nothing to do with the law.  The law does not state that a woman has the
right to kill the fetus, just that she has the right to terminate the
pregnancy.

   Why does the man create an implied contract simply by having sex when the
   woman does not?  

The woman does.  She does not, however, contract her *body*.  The government
*cannot* force *anybody*, man or woman to be host to another organism, not
even another person.  The government cannot compel a father to donate bone
marrow, a kidney, whatever, even if the child would die without it.  This is
the legal principle operating in the right to have an abortion.  In this
respect, men have the same rights as women.  It is biology that creates the
inequity, not the law.

   How does an anonymous sperm donor differ from any of the
   above?  What about a surrogate mother?  What about a surrogate mother who
   does not contribute any gametes, but merely serves as the person carrying
   to term?  Who can be enjoined for child support and why?

Again, the legal principle is that a child has the right to support from both
its parents, those being who the law regards as parents.  Who does the law
regard as the parents in the sperm donor situation?  I believe that currently
the mother is, but IMHO, the mother should *still* not be able to abrogate
the child's rights by signing her consent that the sperm donor not be liable
for support.  In a surrogate mother situation, the woman in the contracting
couple adopts the child.  Until she does so, the surrogate is a parent and
can be enjoined for support.


   >Consider what would happen if parents were able to simply disavow their
   >obligation to the child.  The father exercises his "Right to Not Support",
   >and the mother exercises hers.  Now what?  Usually, this is called "giving
   >up the child for adoption".  But what happens if there are no people who
   >wish to adopt the child?  Does the child receive no support at all?

   The only person who clearly creates a child is the woman who carries to
   term.  She is the only one who can decide whether or not a child will
   come into legal existence.  Thus, Mr. Darcy et. al. do not think the woman
   can avoid child support.  They merely assert that the man must be able to,
   given the current legal logic.  They are correct, as near as I can tell.
   The courts are moving in this direction - slowly - but the logic of legal
   abortion necessitates precisely what Darcy and others advocate.

If technology changes, this will no longer be true.  You will have created
an entire body of unjust law based on a temporary situation.  Because the
right of bodily self-determination is entirely separate from a child's right
to support, what rights you give to the man you must also give to the woman,
else be a hypocrite.  I fully realize that abortion is often used to kill the
fetus to avoid becoming a parent, and this is an unfortunate consequence of
biology.  It will not always be so.
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