From: bev@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Beverly Huntsberger)
Newsgroups: soc.men
Subject: Re: pro-choice == pro-(womens' only) choice?
Date: 7 Apr 92 20:32:53 GMT
Organization: Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia

In <702436086@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:

>I'm for choice for men and choice for women, as part of the same package.
>She should have the right for abortion regardless of his opinion, he
>should have the right to say, in the early stages of the pregnancy, "I
>don't want any rights and responsibilities toward the future child."

>People like Beverly argue against that because they don't give
>a damn about men.  They're pretty sure that men's responsibilities
>should start five minutes *before* conception happened.

	I'm laughing about the "People like Beverly" comment.
	Not only is the implication beneath you, Hillel,
	but it reminds me of my mother trying to let
	me know she's serious by using my full name.

	Honestly, I believe every unwanted pregnancy
	(unwanted by EITHER partner) is an indication
	of a very broken society. Mainly repressed and
	materialistic and lacking the fundamentals.

	I happen to care a great deal about men and women.
	I have never "argued against men's rights to choose".
	I argue for women's rights to choose and I have
	simply never "actively rallied" for men's rights.
	(That I know of off hand. At least not here.)

	I don't "actively rally" for many causes I believe
	in. I'm only one person. What I was arguing against
	was the act of chaining one right to another.
	I hope men succeed in aquiring certain of their
	previously denied rights.

	However, I believe it will be almost as long
	and difficult a battle as the fight to secure
	a woman's right to own her body. I will not
	accept that everytime another issue is raised,
	that women must give back what we've won as some
	kind of trick in a deal. It simply isn't up for
	grabs. If you don't show more respect for the
	rights that women have won, then how secure
	do you expect your rights to be when you've won
	them?

	Some validating personal experience:

	I care deeply about a particular young man
	who has a child "out there somewhere",
	but no other clue about the person, because
	that's the "solution" his catholic parents
	and the mother's catholic parents worked out.
	He can't talk about it because of the pain.	
	It happened nine years ago.

	I am also very close to a man who doesn't know
	whether or not he has a child because many years
	ago a love affair ended when she simply dissapeared.
	They were both very young and "innocent". Now, it's
	possible that a 24 year old man or woman could walk
	into his life at any moment and declare him "daddy".
	
	I care. And to claim otherwise was simply
	a bait-and-switch. It's the kind of logic which is
	used to justify AN ATTEMPT TO UNDERMINE THE RIGHTS
	OF ONE PERSON, IN THE FIGHT TO SECURE ANOTHER'S.
	
>>	I happen to think it is important to examine
>>	both the personal and political aspects to these
>>	questions and how they do or don't overlap.

>Here is my examination:

	<Stuff about both sides stinking. ...>
	
	Really, were you just in a bad mood that day?

>>	Bev	bev@grover.csd.scarolina.edu

>Hillel                                            gazit@cs.duke.edu

>"When I do it to you it's sexism,
>when you do it to me it's feminism."
	
	If it's sexism you do, and you
	admit it, who am I to argue?

	BUT, I never do feminism TO anyone but me. ;)

Bev
-- 
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Just read his lips:
Now, he wants us to believe in the "tooth fairy".
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Newsgroups: soc.men