From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: soc.singles,soc.women,soc.men,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Pre-Sex Contract
Date: 20 Dec 92 18:35:48 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department

In article <1992Dec20.173155.27492@leland.Stanford.EDU> kpscarr@leland.Stanford.EDU (Karen Pelton Scarr) writes:
>In article <BzKDCM.HAB@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:

>>be the legalities, the decisions MUST be the same.  It is only because
>>of religion-based "morality" that this is close to the case.  I have
>>proposed, in this group (misc. legal), that bringing a child to term
>>without, at a reasonable prior time at which abortion is possible, some
>>financially responsible individual or group directly accepting the
>>obligations, and agreeing to the rights, of the subsequent upbringing
>>and support, should be at least a major case of grand theft, and that
>>the consequences should include whatever is necessary to remove the
>>burden from society, or to compensate society for the burden.  Prison
>>should not be used, as nobody benefits from that.

>>Nobody should be able to produce a burden on someone else as stated above.
>>Both parties at conception acquire rights thereby, and the rights of both,
>>to bear or not to bear, should be respected.  In the event of a dispute 
>>over the subsequent action, it should be considered a non-trivial matter
>>of civil law.  Separating the biological and the financial choices, and
>>ignoring the interests of either to have, or not to have, the child, is
>>a perversion of equity.



>Au contraire--your view is terribly perverse.  The world you describe--with
>perfect information, infallible birth control, and dispassionate views about
>pregnancy and childbirth, in which a woman treats an abortion as lightly as
>a trip to the dentist--does not exist.  And indeed, by treating a child--
>regardless of its parentage or financial situation--as a burden on society,
>rather than a valued future participant, you reduce her to the status of a 
>commodity (taking the woman's body with it).  So the woman has to scramble
>and pin down some "financial arrangement" to ensure that society does not
>share in her burden before 21 weeks is up--or else do the "responsible" thing
>and abort the child.

>As long as women are the ones who bear children, and the ones who bear primary--often *sole*--responsibility for raising them, the choice to have or have not
>is theirs.  And as long as men father children, and are financially better off
>than women, they should contribute money for the child's upbringing (at the 
>very least).  Men should not be able to escape their responsibility for 
>"externalities" like children simply by claiming that the mother was a willing
>participant in the sexual act, and that she knew he didn't want children.
>Accidents happen--and children are not as easily cleaned up (i.e., aborted) as
>car wrecks.  

>Under your vision, what's next?  Court-ordered abortions?  Court-ordered
>pregnancies?  Can't you see that giving the father an equal say is not such an
>easy imposition of equity--or equality?

You jump to many conclusions.  I suspect that in the not too distant future,
women will not necessarily bear the children they conceive, even if it is
necessary to have a woman physically carry them to term.  This is a somewhat
dangerous and time consuming occupation, and deserves compensation.  These
alternative methods of bearing one's children should not be rejected by the
legal system as enforceable contracts, as they now are.

Nor is it necessary that the physical parents raise the children; if they
can make suitable arrangements, there is no reason why others cannot be
hired for some of the work.  But any arrangements should be a matter of
equity, and I see no reason why the mother has any more rights here than
the father.  The act of bearing the child is compensable, but the genetic
makeup is roughly equal, and what we know about raising children is zilch.

But I WOULD make a person born without at some time having someone 
with reasonable presumption of doing so deliberately accept financial 
responsibility a non-person.  And since I consider heredity to be of 
much greater importance, I believe that a man can have an interest in
fathering a child by a woman acceptable to him, and that this interest
must be considered in any decisions.

You are using your ideas of morality to cloud the issues.  I do see the
future of man as a viable species in grave danger by those who do not
recognize these issues, and who condone placing burdens on society, and
forcing those who do not wish to accept the decisions of others as binding
on them to pay for those decisions at every turn.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Newsgroups: soc.singles