From: regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity,soc.men
Subject: Re: Male Choice Revi (1)
Date: 16 Nov 1992 12:04:09 -0800
Organization: Hewlett Packard, San Diego Division
NNTP-Posting-Host: hpsdde.sdd.hp.com

In article <1992Nov14.183247.11298@zooid.guild.org> Will Steeves <goid@zooid.guild.org> writes:
>regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) writes...
>AR>>>>>(don and me)  (AR>>> = Adrienne    AR>> = Don)
>
>AR>>>Uh huh.  And 'male choice' will exacerbate this problem rather than
>AR>>>helping it.  Those men who ARE single parents will be even less accomodated
>AR>>>by our social systems, because they "chose" their single parenthood.
>AR>>>And they would, through the same argument of choice you mention, NOT
>AR>>>be entitled to any support from the absent mother.
>
>AR>>Please explain.  In particular, please address whether our social systems
>AR>>accomodate single fathers as they do single mothers, and why the
>AR>>"argument of choice" implies that a mother would not have to pay.
>
>AR>First, you have male parents NOW who are unfairly treated by the courts
>AR>who do not recognise their equity in parenthood.  And then you are going
>AR>to determine that some portion of male parents (and ONLY male parents) can
>AR>say, "See ya!" unilaterally.                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>
>This is extremely disingenuous, Adrienne.  You make it seem as though people
>who are Pro-Male Choice, are against women's rights, or at least only in favour

I don't see it that way.  Maybe you can make it clearer for me.  What *I* see
is that young-men-who-are-concerned-about-being-'caught'-by-some-unscrupulous-
woman-who-lied-about-birth-control-(but-who-didn't-bother-to-use-birth-
control-methods-themselves) want a legislated "out" of their predicament.
The predicament at hand doesn't (supposedly) address any other cases but
when a man had casual sex and doesn't want to be hit for $$ later.  It would
*NOT* affect men who intended to have children (and later changed their
minds), men who intended to have children (and are fighting with their ex)
or anybody else.  But, since the premise of the predicament itself looks
kind of nasty and self serving, it gets cloaked in all kinds of feel-good
language that seems to me to have MAJOR ramifications upon males everywhere,
and the highly vaunted 'family values' the republicans so admire.

(Of course, it is also true that most of the folks who have argued in favor
of pro-male choice have had less than positive things to say about
women's struggle to gain economic equality in this country, but, hey,
*I* wouldn't want to be disingenuous, now, would I?)


>Believe me, the reason why men are asking for the right to
>abdicate parenthood during pregnancy (and only during pregnancy), is because
>*women already have this right*!

Yah know, Will, you may believe this, but I don't.  We've just seen Steve
Kellmeyer and Don Beaver come out of the closet on this issue:  they don't
want women to have the right to abort.  THAT's what they are after, and too
hell with the reason you mention, above.

Now, I wouldn't want to tar you with their brush.  Maybe you are sincere in
your efforts and they are just dishonest folk, whatdoIknow?  How 'bout you
present an argument for male choice that makes sense, is inforceable, addresses
a legitimate problem, and does so in a manner that functions with our 
society, and the net can evaluate your proposal on it's own merits?

>Try asking LeVar Burton, Frank Serpico, and others who are first hand proof of
>what kind of a problem forced fatherhood really is.

Try asking all the men who have lost their parental access to children if
they are interested in proposal that would FURTHER WEAKEN it, and see what
they have to say.  You'd rip the rights away from one group to satisfy another
group.  That doesn't look like a good solution to me.

>WHAT!  You might "respect" (Oh No!  YOU SAID IT!) his right to have an opinion,
>yet you just called him "dim"?  (among other things)

Hey, I can respect his right to have an opinion, and to express an opinion. 
It doesn't necessarily follow that I think his opinion is well considered,
accurate, useful, or anything else.  Don has said things on this net that 
I think are pretty dim.  And he's not the only one.  So?

And, no, I don't get upset about 'anything a pro-male-choicer' has to say,
because, as I've noted, I have a certain amount of sympathy for folks in
that position.  I also happen to have a certain amount of sympathy for folks
who have, through inequality within the court system, LOST access to the
children they WANT to retain their access to.  So, sympathies asside, I   
happen to see the 'cures' proposed by some folks as being worse than the
disease, and I say so.  

You don't like plain talk, talk to someone else.

Adrienne Regard


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