From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Genetics and Birth parents
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 16:53:32 GMT

In article <Bz8EK7.67H@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l) writes:
>peri@cco.caltech.edu (Michal Leah Peri) writes:
>
>>x73rl@ll.mit.edu ( Rick LaFave) writes:
>
>>>Does that mean I approve of anybody abandoning responsibility?      No.
>>>Does that mean I judge my 'birth mother' by the same standards I hold men to.
>>>                                                                    Yes.
>
>>What about your genetic father?  Is he "chopped liver"?
>
>What is all this about "genetic father" anyway?
>IN the case of identical twins, is one the "genetic father/mother/parent"
>of the other?  I think not.  The cleavage which created them occurs well
>after conception, yet they have no responsibility to support each other. 
>
>A sperm donor is a genetic father, yet is specifically denied
>the right to ever be considered a parent in any legal sense whatsoever.
>
>Does the fact that the donated heart of your identical twin beats in
>the chest of a heart recipient give him the right to tap you for support?
>
>An egg donor is not considered a parent, the birth mother is.  What the
>hell does genetics have to do with that?
>
>If a man gets a woman pregnant and dies before the birth, does the woman
>have the right to tap his genetic twin for support?  I *really* doubt it.
>
>IN short, the use of genetics to compel support out of someone who has 
>nothing more to do with the existence of a child than a steel manufacturer
>has to do with the existence of an Oldsmobile is an archaic manifestation
>of a patriarchal society.  
>
>When a woman chooses to abort, she does it for personal social, economic,
>and emotional reasons.  If she chooses to have a child, she does it for 
>personal social, economic, and emotional reasons.  If the man has no right
>to be involved in her decisions about *her* life, then she has no right
>to complain about how he stays completely out of her decisions about *her* 
>life.  If she chooses to have a child, she did so because she
>thought it was in her best social, economic, and emotional interest.  If 
>she turns out to be wrong, it's not like the man was the one who made the
>decision, now is it?  Why should he pay for her failure to choose well?
>He merely supplied raw material.  She was the one who decided to create
>a child, she was the one who contributed all the labor, and 99% of
>the material.  That child is no more his than Picasso's paintings are
>the property or the responsibility of the man who sold him paint.  

Kellmeyer, you are an idiot. Property exists for the BENEFIT of the owner.
By developing your argument that a man has no "property rights" in the
child because he only contributed "raw material", and it was the woman
who actually did the "manufacturing", the most you can hope to prove is
that only the woman can enjoy the BENEFITS of "owning" the child, e.g.
she could conceivably be given absolute power over whether visitation is
allowed or not. None of this addresses LIABILITY, which operates on a very
different set of principles. So it's all irrelevant crap.

								- Kevin
Xref: sparky talk.abortion:51975 talk.religion.misc:23814 alt.atheism:23625