Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women
Subject: Re: pro-choice == pro-(womens' only) choice?
From: rivero@mdcbbs.com
Date: 10 Apr 92 13:08:12 GMT
Organization: M&E (Division of EDS), Cypress CA
Nntp-Posting-User: rivero

In article <1992Apr8.170456.10782@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu>, bev@opusc.csd.scarolina.edu (Beverly Huntsberger) writes:
> In <1992Apr7.100327.1@mdcbbs.com> rivero@mdcbbs.com writes:
> 
> 
>>men. On one hand, women want total control over the decision making process
>>because it is their body, but want men to be financially obligated to 
>>support whatever decision they, the females, make. Men shouldn't mind
>>such enforcements, as walets are not as important as bodies, but wallets are
>>impritant ENOUGH for manadatory support laws to be needed. 

> 
> 	I DON'T WANT YOUR WALLET. I have a nice Liz
> 	Claiborne that I am quite happy with. I also
> 	have real estate, stocks, and other investments.

	My ex has the real estate, stocks, and other investments.  
	My wallet is NOT Liz Claiborne, so I got to keep it (and the dog).  :)


> 	I don't _have_ any children. I don't think we
> 	"own" them, anyway, but I'm not a parent either.

	You have my deepest sympathies. 
> 
> 	And yet, I pay a percentage of my revenues to
> 	support children who I don't know and will 
> 	never meet and I don't have a clue about
> 	whether their mothers have a decent income or
> 	not or whether their fathers are in hiding.
> 	I  care about society, the future,  etc. so
> 	I pay. I also pay because we all  do.

  I think that's a bit of a seperate issue. I also pay that money and do not
begrudge it, for ultimately, the children are what matter the most.
But look at it this way. Had the man some say in whether an unwanted
pregnancy was to be continued, there would be fewer women continuing a
pregnancy "knowing" the man will be forced to pay support. Then, there would 
be far fewer men feeling "forced" into paying child support, which means 
fewer neglected chldren, which means you would pay less.

  You are independant and childless. Therefore, you may have some trouble
identifying with a woman who is unexpectedly pregnant, and how she
may view her links to the father's wallet.


  We are, admittedly, dealing with a subset. In all the noise, one looses sight
of the fact that there are happy couples who are childless by mutual consent,
and happy families WITH children, also by mutual consent, and they still
constitute the majority of human existance here in the U.S.

  This discussion focuses on couples for whom the decision is NOT mutual.



  A child is conceived (a priori as an accident, as one of the two partners,
by definition, did not intend ut to happen). One of two cases applies.

  1. She wants it, he does not. She will have the child. He will be forced to
pay, and has nothing to say about it.

  2. He wants it, she does not. She will obtain an abortion, and in some
states, he can be sued for the cost of it. He still has nothing to say about
it, even within the context of marriage and the desire for a family.

  The crux of the problem is that women have all the choice and men have
nothing but coerced financial obligation and subjegation to the woman's
procreational will. She uses his children (or the promise of them) as hostage
over him. Hardly surprising that some men see this as a less than fair
assignment of rights.


> 
> 	The fact is that "WE ALL" (oh my god, a generalization)
> 	uh, sorry, about that ;) ... 
> 	Most of here bear a distributed responsibility,
> 	financially, for 100's of millions of other
> 	people all over the world. We do  this when
> 	we pay taxes.

  Yeah, those thousands of weapons makers would starve without us!  :)

> 
> 	Personally, I pay as little taxes as I can get
> 	away with, but then I give a lot to specific 
> 	charities of my own choosing. 

	Me too! Local food bank in my case. Holidays I do balloon animals
	at the childrens hospitals.

>	Nevertheless,
> 	I don't get a gender-based tax credit. ;)
> 	-------------------------------------

  As a divorced mother, you would. The father gets NO deduction
for the child support he pays, but the mother gets the tax deduction for
the child in her custody!



> 
> 	NONE of this should be used to water-down women's	
> 	legal rights. 

  Don't want to water down women's rights, just have men's rights
watered UP a bit.

>	If you got the laws you want about
> 	men's equity in family court, AND you've tied
> 	these rights to abortion rights; THEN would you
> 	agree to give up your new, hard-won legal rights
> 	when abortion rights laws take a dive?
> 	Would that kind of connection make sense to you?

  It's not making sense now, but that's cause the coffee hasn't
kicked in. Let me see if I have this correct.

  If I get the equal laws I want? I assume you mean that I, as a husband,
have some say over my wife's decision to abort our child. Okay.
Then, I tie it to abortion laws. Yeah, okay. So, would I surrender
that law when abortion laws decline? Sure! Since she can't get an abortion
anymore anyway, I still have the family I married for.

  You sold me. Where do I sign?



> 	
> 	ps: Are you more angry at your ex-wife or your child ?

	My ex. I have to actually meet someone to be angry at
	them.



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|  Michael Rivero rivero@mdcbbs.com Homo Cyberneticus-Computational Man  |
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