From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Choice for men
Date: 9 Sep 92 00:36:40 GMT
	<715956367@lear.cs.duke.edu>
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu's message of 8 Sep 92 12:46:08 GMT

In article <715956367@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:
>#In a case of pregnancy the woman would (if she wants) notify the man
>#about it.  Then he will have a week to decide if he wants rights
>#and responsibilities (as one package) toward the future child.  
>#If he answers yes, then the situation is similar to the situation 
>#today; if he answer no then he would have no rights or 
>#responsibilities toward the future child.

>In article <MUFFY.92Sep7225413@remarque.berkeley.edu> 
>muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:

>>the man should *always* be told and make this choice).  The interesting
>>thing about this is that I have never seen this proposal before, 

>I posted it in soc.men, soc.women, soc.singles and even soc.feminism
>before the moderators decided that it had nothing to do with feminism...

Well, I'm sure that's true, but that does not mean that I have seen it.
I often do not read your posts.  It is still also true that I had never
seen this proposal before you posted it here.

>>Anyway, I think it's a little simplistic and probably would require a
>>lot of adjustments to really work.  A lot of education on birth control
>>would be quite important, as an auxiliary to this.  
>I'm for education, but I'm against forced education.

Well, we already have *lots* of forced education (12 years of it here in
the US).  In the course of that, I was forced to take a class called
"Driver Education" which was intended to make me a more responsible
driver.  Why not a class which is intended to make me a more responsible
sexually active person?  I also had a class which was called "Child
Care" which was really sex education.  Interesting choice of names, eh?

>E.g. I don't
>like the idea of women using abortion as a birth control method, but 
>I'm against any restriction on abortion rights, even if she has never 
>used birth control and she had 15 abortions before.

Who would you like to pay for this?  Seems to me it would be cheaper
(and much better for her health, particularly given the risk of AIDS, as
well as the risks of abortions) to teach people to *prevent* pregnancies
than to pay to end them.

>>As I said in what Hillel quoted earlier,
>>I think that *both* parties have to act responsibly, 

>Are you for any restriction on abortion rights?  (I assume not.)

Well, it wouldn't really make sense to give men choice but not women, so
I would think that if you are in favor of letting men abdicate their
"rights and responsibilities" to an embryo/child, then you would
certainly have to let the woman do the same, including, of course, the
responsibility to nourish the fetus until birth.

>Will you use the state's power to force education on women?
>Will you use the state's power to force education on men?

As I said above, since it is *already* forcing education on both, it
might as well force something useful.  However, I would be perfectly
happy if parents would educate their own children.  Doesn't seem to be
too likely, though.

>"Or do you think that children should just starve, rather than 
>impinging on the man's right to have a good time?" -- Muffy Barkocy 

Well, do you?  If so, then being the terribly fair person that you are,
I'm sure that you think that, simiarly, the woman can just abandon the
child, since she just wanted to "have a good time."  Then what happens
to the children?  What if *your* parents had felt this way?

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy | muffy@mica.berkeley.edu | wi.4636@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn