Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.men
Subject: Re: Father Notification Reconsidered
From: <RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: Saturday, 5 Sep 1992 08:41:16 EDT
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center


-From:  Will   Steeves  <goid@zooid.guild.org>

-                                               because it is bad enough that
-the man feels totally powerless in a situation where he is expected to be
-responsible, but to tell him *afterwards* seems only like throwing salt in
-the wounds.

         The problem here is, are  you willing to penalise ALL  men because
    some men are violent and irresponsible?  What the currently fashionable
    position seems to hold is  that since some men are  irresponsible, then
    no man has the RIGHT to know.   If the woman wishes, she can tell  him.
    However,  the  decision  whether  he  IS  entitled to know, is entirely
    hers. And if she is unreasonable about it, that it just his tough
    luck. I personally think that this "part of the woman's body" stuff
    is just plain nonsense.  It over-stretches  the notion "part of one's
    body" just as calling a foetus a person overstretches the notion of a
    person.  The main thing here is that the father is likely to have
    (though many do not) a GENUINE interest in the foetus which goes
    BEYOND the issue of financial responsibilty.  Certainly a "wham, bang,
    thank you ma'am" man may think that that is all there is to it but I
    believe many of us have somewhat deeper values.

----
-Will Steeves, goid@zooid.guild.org                      "Neil Hull is GOiD"
-=========================================================================
-From: cj@eno.wpd.sgi.com (C.J. Silverio)
-Subject: Re: Father Notification Reconsidered
-
-|And with God or Allah (whomever) as my witness, I will say
-|that in my own situation, if the woman had *not* been so
-|respecting as to tell me before, but in fact had not only told
-|me right afterwards, but had waited a year (!) or more, I
-|probably would have snapped right there and killed her where she
-|stood.
-
-This is utterly and fantastically despicable.  Let this be
-engraved in stone as the very very best argument AGAINST
-spousal/paternal notification I have ever seen.
-
    But would you then also argue that since black violence may be a
    response to white racism, and violence is bad, so our duty to suppress
    violence implies that we must then go further and neglect black
    protests against racism?

    The point is that men do have rights and some men may react violently
    when these rights are invaded.  But that is not then a legitimate
    reason to DENY rights to men.  We do not want people to take the law
    into their own hands.  But that is all the more reason that there
    SHOULD be a law where they can plead for justice.  To deny justice is
    to sow the seeds of violence.

----
-cj@eno.wpd.sgi.com          C J Silverio/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
-=========================================================================
-From: linda@wendy.uucp (Linda Hill)
-Subject: Re: Father Notification Reconsidered
-
-I responded to this and another post by Will via email and he kindly asked
-me if I would post, since my comments may be of general interest.
-
    I thought this was an extremely sensible posting by a person who seems
    not to have forgotten that we are human beings!!

-linda@net.com

    Rohit Parikh
Newsgroups: soc.women,alt.abortion.inequity,talk.abortion,soc.men