From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Muffy becomes anti-choice (absolutely false)
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 19:55:53 GMT

In article <1h8aufINNbs3@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com> regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) writes:
>In article <1992Dec22.172028.1@d0gslb.fnal.gov> holzman@d0gslb.fnal.gov (Daniel B. Holzman) writes:
>>In article <MUFFY.92Dec21182007@remarque.berkeley.edu>, 
>>muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
>>> Nope.  I consider abortion to be *one way* of "dealing with the
>>> consequences."
>
>>If aborting the fetus is a perfectly fine way for a woman to "deal with the
>>consequences," why is a parallell for men not a perfectly fine way for men to
>>"deal with the consequences?"
>
>Uh, 
>
>but,
>
>
>Daniel,
>
>We haven't seen 'a parallell' yet.
>
>We have seen many things, but we haven't seen a parallell yet.
>
>Got one to show us?

When a woman obtains an abortion, not only does her voluntary act of will
sever a _biological_ dependency, she also negates a financial dependency
existing in parallel with it. She does this whether or not her partner wishes 
to become a parent. 

Although there is no _biological_ dependency on the man, there is the same
parallel financial dependency, and the laws _could_ be reformed in such a way 
as to allow him the same option of negating that dependency, regardless of 
whether her partner wishes to become a parent or not. 

I have not yet heard a compelling reason to disallow this. So far, most of
the arguments have boiled down to either

	o  "Tradition!"

	   As if the "tradition" in this area were clearly defined, and as if 
	   "tradition", in any event, was the ultimate, or even a better-than-
	   average, arbiter of justice. 
	
	o  "The child deserves support!"

	   True, but it's an open question whether the current system 
	   maximizes the average amount of support that children receive. By 
	   encouraging the production of illegitimate children, I think a 
	   compelling case can be made that it REDUCES the average. One might
	   also point out that by demanding support specifically from the
	   biological parents of an illegitimate child, one of which is likely 
	   to be unwilling, the state is interfering in the delicate relation
	   between fathers and their children. The end result may be a child
	   which is well-fed, well-housed, well-clothed, etc. but because
	   his or her father has been embittered and destroyed, perhaps the
	   child is no better off overall than if they suffered a slightly
	   lower material standard of living, but a much healthier emotional
	   relationship with BOTH natural parents. How sure are we that the
	   legislation is serving the _holistic_ needs of children? 

	o  "The taxpayers would end up footing the bill otherwise."

	   In many cases, i.e. where the mother can afford to support the 
	   child on her own, this is obviously not true. For other cases, it 
	   depends on the implementation of the reforms. For the relatively-
	   minimalist "pre-sex contract" approach, it needn't cost taxpayers a 
	   dime, for example. I would also point out that, one way or another, 
	   child support comes out of our GNP. As a social policy decision,
	   then, our inquiry does not stop at WHO is paying the child support, 
	   but whether the incentives and disincentives achieve maximum 
	   economic efficiency. See above bulleted item on that point. To 
	   state things simply in terms of "reducing taxpayer liability" 
	   therefore smacks of hollowness and myopia. 

	o  "The father is 'guilty' and should be 'punished' because he had
	   sex instead of abstaining, and/or failed to use a condom (or it 
	   broke) and/or failed to get a vasectomy."

	   Essentially self-refuting. Up until the point of conception, the 
	   man's and the woman's options to avoid parenthood are roughly equal 
	   (if not tilted slightly in the woman's favor). After conception, 
	   for several months, the woman has the unilateral option, and, in 
	   legal terms, the Last Clear Chance, to avoid the birth of the 
	   child. After birth, she has an option of declining to take custody. 
	   Obviously her actions, overall, are more liability-attracting than 
	   his, given a normal unbiased legal analysis. Followers of the 
	   abortion issue will also note that a similar argument -- "she made 
	   her choice when she spread her legs" -- is perennially used by pro-
	   lifers in support of abortion restrictions. Pro-choicers who mouth 
	   essentially the same words in the paternity child support issue 
	   would do well to reflect on where that "logic" is borrowed from, 
	   and where it eventually leads.

	o  "The reforms proposed would obligate a woman to abort, which may be
	   against her personal beliefs." 

	   First, I'll note that there are many kinds and intensities of legal
	   "obligation". If I buy a loaf of bread, I am "obligated" to pay for 
	   it. Most do not consider this an onerous "obligation". A law which 
	   mandated abortions, on the other hand, would be onerous to many. In 
	   between the extremes, there is a whole range of onerousness for 
	   obligations, i.e. mixtures of voluntariness, such as with the loaf 
	   of bread, and mandates, such as the forced abortion example. To 
	   focus on one particular implementation of paternity child support 
	   reform -- the so-called "pre-sex contract" -- the signing of the 
	   contract is completely VOLUNTARY. If a potential party to the 
	   contract has qualms about signing it, whether they be moral, 
	   religious, legal, economic qualms, they don't have to sign it. This 
	   means that the contract is no more onerous than, say, a mortgage, 
	   or a auto loan agreement. The only time there is a mandatory 
	   factor, is where one party refuses to live up to the terms of the 
	   contract. Again, this is no more onerous than a mortgage or an 
	   auto loan agreement. No contract can FORCE a woman to abort, nor
	   can any state law do so; the consequences of a woman's failure to
	   abort are purely pecuniary. I therefore do not find this approach 
	   any more onerous than an ordinary business dealing. As for 
	   abortion being against the woman's personal beliefs, 

		a) if that's the case, then, as noted, she shouldn't sign
		   any "pre-sex" contract in the first place

		b) for implementations other than the contract implementation,
	  	   if a woman has a specific personal problem with aborting,
		   I think she should be obligated to COMMUNICATE that fact
	 	   to her partner before the fact, if she expects to enjoy
		   the benefit of her convictions later

		c) I know of no widely-adopted belief system which denounces 
	   	   abortion, yet condones pre-marital or extra-marital sex. It 
	   	   seems rather incongruous to me for someone to flagrantly 
	  	   violate their teachings before they can receive a benefit 
	 	   from them, and then be allowed to hide behind them later

		d) any moral convictions against abortion which are based on 
		   religion need to tread lightly around the First Amendment
		   when the matter is adjudicated in a court of law

		e) why is the woman's "moral conviction" against abortion to
		   be given absolute priority against a man's "moral 
		   conviction" to not pay for a child he did not want, and
		   tried his best to avoid?

	o  "You're just an irresponsible jerk who wants to screw around
	   without fear of consequences!" or "You just hate children!" or
	   "You're just trying to get out of paying your child support!"
	   etc. etc. ad nauseam.

	   Contentless ad hominems, but very popular ones, in their various 
	   forms. Decorative.

	o  "Why look for legislative solutions? The couple should just
	   COMMUNICATE before having sex, and that would solve everything."

	   This would help a certain class of cases, i.e. where the 
	   principals simply "didn't think" about the consequences, and
	   were surprised later. But, for the remainder, everyone knows that
	   lovers often say things they don't really mean. Unless this
	   "communication" has some binding power, it doesn't help to resolve
	   this issue. And if the communication DOES have binding power, it's
	   really no different than a verbal contract, and therefore largely
	   indistinguishable from a reform implementation.

	   As for seeking legislative solutions generally, remember always
	   that paternity child support statutes ARE THEMSELVES an attempt to 
	   "fix" the problem of unsupported or under-supported children. In a
	   State of Nature, involuntary child support does not exist. So, short
	   of total repeal, it is not a question of legislation vs. non-
	   legislation, it's a question of trying to optimize the alleged 
	   "solution" that's ALREADY IN PLACE. The current "solution" is quite
	   expedient, but is inconsistent with the body of law, unjust and 
	   most likely would fail an objective economic analysis. The 
	   unjustness, in addition to being simply morally repugnant, may also 
	   underlie why the states are having such enforcement problems in
	   this area, although I'm wary of overstating the connection there.

	o  "This is not a problem with the _design_ of the law, it's a
	   problem with the _implementation_ of the law. If judges would
	   assign custody to men and woman fairly, then not only would
	   men be able to control their destiny more, but there would be
	   reduction in the current incentive for women to have
	   illegitimate children."

	   That may help SOME men, true, but offering a man who has no
	   interest whatsoever in being a father a choice between i) taking 
	   custody of a child, or ii) being "on the hook" for child support as
	   "non-custodial parent" is like offering a choice between death
	   by drowning or death by fire. More options, sure, but the premises
	   of the choice are still unjust. There is no equity until men stop
	   becoming personally liable, in whatever form, for the unilateral 
	   choices of women. 

	o  "Pre-sex contracts are so... so... unromantic. Blech. I'd never
	   sign such a thing."

	   Getting shafted by 18+ years of involuntary child support isn't
	   particularly "romantic", either, as I'm sure many victims would be
	   willing to attest. Like it or not, men and women enter into an 
	   implicit "contract" whenever they have sex. The terms and 
	   conditions of the contract, as the law stands right now, are 
	   pretty much rigid and inflexible, and were written by legislators
	   trying to appease their respective constituencies, sometimes more
	   than a generation ago, and almost universally BEFORE abortion 
	   become safe and legal (Michigan's Act dates back to 1956, for 
	   example). Is that who you want to be conducting your financial 
	   affairs -- a bunch of legislators with vested political interests? 
	   Is that romantic? Haven't the assumptions about society and 
	   morality, and even the vested interests, changed a little since 
	   those laws were passed? These so-called "pre-sex contracts" that 
	   have been proposed may lack some romanticism, sure, but at least 
	   they allow the principals to agree to a financial arrangment related
	   to child support ON THEIR OWN MUTUALLY-AGREEABLE TERMS, instead of
	   on the terms of an obsolete, legislation-created contract. That 
	   makes it a more practical choice for the times. Ultimately, there 
	   has to be a balance between romanticism and practicality. It's very 
	   easy to throw practicality out the window and praise "romanticism"
	   to the heavens, when one is the empowered class of citizenry. It's 
	   not so easy for the non-empowered citizens, on the other hand, to 
	   be so nonchalant, when their financial futures are hanging off the 
	   edge of the cliff. Make the laws equitable FIRST, and THEN we can 
	   talk about being "romantic". Until then, though, I decline to 
	   apologize for MY need (which _you_ collectively created) to mix a 
	   large does of practicality with my romanticism.
	   
	o  "Sex is by nature a risky enterprise. Why are some men so unwilling
	   to accept the responsibility of having gambled and lost?"

	   This is largely just a restatement of the "punishment for sex"
	   point, but raising an alleged "gambling" aspect of this 
	   reproductive issue. There is, of course, essentially NO gamble here.
	   The probability of an abortion failing, i.e. producing a live 
	   child, are fairly negligible, and, in any case, controllable by the 
	   woman, who decides when, in her term, she will abort. No 12-week 
	   fetus, for example, has ever been know to survive. That's a fairly 
	   safe "bet", then. The only "gamble" occurs BEFORE conception, but 
	   the stakes there are at most the cost of an abortion, which is a 
	   drop in the bucket compared to 18+ years of child support, and a 
	   "gambling debt" that the vast majority of men are perfectly WILLING 
	   to accept. So, where's the "gamble"? If someone is presenting the
	   post-conception phase of the causal chain as being subject to
	   probability, I'd have to characterize that as a "fixed game",
	   stacked against men, and the purveyors as "flim-flammers" and 
	   "shills". How can we, as a society, tolerate a sleazy SEXIST fixed 
	   game in our midst?
	  
	o  "The laws are needed, because women don't make as much as men"

	   Hardly needs a refutation. Two wrongs don't make a right. Besides,
	   how does encouraging women to have illegitimate children and get
	   support for same subsidized by unwilling fathers, help women in
	   general to achieve pay parity with men? Seems to me that these laws 
	   treat women like helpless little girls who can't get along and make 
	   decisions and support the consequences of those decisions without 
	   lots of help from the Patriarchy. This is empowerment?!? Ptui.

Heard any good NEW arguments against reform, Adrienne?

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.men,alt.feminism,talk.abortion