From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Pre-Sex Contract
Summary: Reality check:  Paternity support laws are alive and thriving.
Keywords: Studs; Sluts; Fornication; Baby-killing; Child neglect
Date: 11 Jan 93 15:27:06 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

In article <1993Jan9.002501.7493@cfctech.cfc.com> kevin@cfctech.cfc.com 
(Kevin Darcy) writes:

>In article <19531@smoke.brl.mil> matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt) 
>writes:

>>In article <6669@pdxgate.UUCP> a0cb@rigel.cs.pdx.edu (Chris Bertholf) 
>>writes:

>>>The funny thing is that, on the one hand you seem to support a
>>>womans right to choose, but on the other, you do not support a
>>>mans right to choose.  [Chris Bertholf]

>>I suppport an equal right to choose for both men and women.  That 
>>means that a woman should have the same right to choose not to be 
>>a parent that a man presently has.  A man has the right to refrain
>>from sexual intercourse; refraining from sexual intercourse will
>>keep him from becoming a parent.  If he engages in sexual intercourse,
>>he has the right to employ the most effective means of birth control
>>he is willing to use.  And if he fails to use birth control, or if
>>the birth control he uses fails and he conceives a child, he has no
>>more right to choose.  That's all the "right to choose" a man deserves,
>>and it ought to be enough "right to choose" for a woman, too.
>>[Matt Rosenblatt]

>Between conception and (potential) childbirth, a woman currently has the 
>legal choices to both a) remove her physical connection to the fetus, . . .
>[Kevin Darcy]

A euphemism if I ever saw one!  Tens of thousands of "physical connections'
were "removed" in a few seconds at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, too.  Net.readers 
interested in what this currently legal choice *really* entails ought to 
read talk.abortion.

>. . . and 
>b) in one and the same act, avert all financial obligations to the child 
>that that fetus would otherwise have become. Now, obviously, the biological
>choice, i.e. choice (a), does not apply to the man, but why would you, who 
>profess to support "an equal right to choose for both men and women" [sic] 
>deny the man the same ECONOMIC choice as the woman, i.e. choice (b), which 
>is perfectly within the state's power to allow him?   [Kevin Darcy]

Well, it's "perfectly within the state's power" to allow a man to 
exercise "choice (a)," too, using RU-486 to terminate an unwanted
pregnancy.  Not every government in history has been so solicitous
about women's "right to bodily integrity" as Mr. Darcy seems to be.
But my article didn't talk about changing men's rights to make them 
conform to the rights women presently have.  My article set forth 
the "right to choose" that men currently have, and then stated that 
that right "ought to be enough 'right to choose' for a woman, too.

>Is it that some choices are more "equal" than others?   [Kevin Darcy]

Well, yeah: choices that protect children, whether before or after birth,
deserve more consideration than choices that harm children, whether
before or after birth.  That's why pregnancy termination by RU-486 is
a bad idea.  That's why the paternal support requirement is a good idea.

Choices that encourage illicit, immoral sex -- "one-night stands" of
fornication between satyric, lust-crazed Studs and their round-heeled, 
doxy Sluts --  deserve less consideration than choices that encourage 
men and women to commit themselves to a stable, lasting relationship,
viz., marriage, before they go about performing acts that might lead 
to the creation of a new, helpless individual in need of protection 
and support.  

Keeping one's zipper up means never having to pay child support.

>It's not the least bit unusual for sweeping Constitutional precedents to
>have ripple effects on other statutes. What IS unusual, though, is that the
>paternity child support statutes have continued to stand, shakily, even after
>their linchpins were removed...  [Kevin Darcy]            ^^^^^^^

The paternity child support statutes have not only "continued to stand,"
they are being strengthened every year at both Federal and State levels.
"Shakily" is a spectacularly inappropriate adverb to apply here.  The 
reasoning, that because his mother has the right to terminate him,
his father should have the right not to support him, has gained 
no support either in Congress or in the State Legislatures.  Either 
that's because legislators don't believe that two wrongs make a right, 
or it's because they don't see gender equality as a _summum bonum_.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

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