From: root@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick)
Newsgroups: alt.child-support
Subject: Re: Abandoment is not same as Adoption
Summary: shared liability and shared negligence
Date: 21 Aug 92 18:10:54 GMT
Followup-To: poster
Distribution: usa
Organization: Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA

In article <3m_nxql@lynx.unm.edu> bevans@carina.unm.edu (Mathemagician) writes:
>
>Mike, I don't think you'll find any one of us who advocate choice for
>men saying that a child that is born shouldn't be taken care of.
>
>However, you are assuming that that child has been born.  We are
>talking about giving the man the choice of whether or not he will
>support the child *before* it is born while the woman still has the
>option of abortion.

Brian, I just don't understand something, I guess. Let me see if I can
express it.

I'm not going to go into major statistics or anything, but it's my
understanding that most accidental pregnancies are the result of 
unprotected sex. Yes, it happens that some women have trapped men
by deceit regarding _their_ use of contraception, and there have
certainly been contraceptive failures. 

Instead of focusing on the minority of cases at the moment, let's
just look at the pregnancies which occur because the man failed to
make a *personal* attempt at contraception. Which means whether he
used a condom and a spermacidal gel and actively encouraged the use
of a diaphragm and foam for the woman. IF that was the case, and a
pregnancy occurred, then we're talking about an exception to the
usual, and those should be treated differently. But, for the usual
case, I guess that I'm confused.

I see the argument as saying that men should be allowed to have sex
pretty much indiscriminantly --to virtually have no responsibility
for an act which they voluntarily participated in. Is this what's
being advocated here? Almost all proponents say they aren't saying
this, but I don't see it.

I have to ask, because I keep getting back a sidestep that says that
"hey, SHE gets to choose what happens when a conception occurs." Well,
I don't see any argument to that. She does, and IMO as long as it's
going on in her body, I figure that to be right. I certainly wouldn't
want someone telling me what I should do with my body. To do so seems
to be a negation of individuality. Yes, that happens a lot in our
society, but I don't personally see a need to find a new place for it.

So, again speaking for the 'usual' case, if a man doesn't want to have
kids, is aware that sex can result in kids, and is aware that he has
a number of options he may use singularly or in concert with his part-
ner, shouldn't he be using and encouraging those options? 

>Yes, it means that her choice depends on his, but it isn't so
>far-reaching a decision as what exists today.  It is quite possible
>that she wants the baby, but can't deal with it on her own.  Thus, if
>he decides to opt out, she has to choose something against her own
>desires...but she still has options.  Nobody is forcing her to have an
>abortion.

Yeah, but that's a what-if. More than that, it makes assumptions about
someones circumstances when they aren't known. So if you're going to
make suppositions, then opposite suppositions have to be just as accep-
table. eg: it's quite possible that she wants the baby and CAN deal
with it on her own. But the question there is, is that fair? For a man
who doesn't want the child resulting from his mutual actions, it isn't
fair to make him responsible. For a woman, it isn't fair to make her
go it alone --sure, SHE decided to go to term. But that choice would
NOT have been given to her (in the usual case) if the guy had tried to
keep it from her. So we have a matter of perspectives, and I'm having
a real hard time trying to figure why one should have more weight than
the other.

>As it exists right now, he has no options.  What happens to him is
>completely dependent upon her...and can have far-reaching
>consequences.  She can easily force him into financially support the
>child (yes, I realize that enforcement can be quite difficult, but
>that isn't the point.)

Well, actually, he does have options. But they have to be exerted
before a conception happens. It's kind of like lighting a match in
a hayfield. Do you drop the lighted match and hope for the best, or
do you take precautions to see that the match is as extinguished as
it can be before it gets dropped. (Maybe even put the match in your
pocket?) If you drop the match, and a fire takes off, aren't you
bound to try to deal with the fire? Or do you say that it's the 
field owner's problem, and they should have used fireproof grass?
Sure, it's a metaphor, and it probably will gain me a buch of woofs
from the kennel, but a metaphor is only a scenario to show a like
view of a perspective.

If you want to be safe with a match in a hayfield, you can:

1) be in the field when it's green, and;
2) has just rained, and;
3) blow the match out, and;
4) test the match with your finger for heat, and;
5) put the extinguished match in your pocket.

This would be a person who used all reasonable precautions to keep
a fire from happening. If their pants burst into flame and they
started the field on fire, I think that I'd be all for saying there
was little or no liability there, that the field owner must have 
had gasoline grass and he should call his insurance agent.

Now, if someone goes into that field when it's dead dry, and goes
so far as to literally light some grass on fire, and it gets out of
control, then I recon that dude is pretty responsible. He's going to
have to cough up for replanting, and the field owner is in for some
work and lost time dealing with what the other guy did. There's a
shared set of actions between the match-man and the field owner.

Now, I admit that this has been the long route, but is it really your
contention that a man who takes no precautions should not be held
liable for his actions if a pregnancy occurs? This is where I'm
confused. I see posts which seem to say that. Maybe you can clear it
up.

If you're talking about the unusual cases, rather than the usual ones,
then I expect I'm in your corner. If your condom breaks and a lucky
wiggler gets past the gel, then it would seem to me that the liability
should be reduced (not eliminated). I'll go so far as to say that the
liability should be significantly reduced. But there is still the
shared liability for engaging in sex.

The only big problem I'd have there would be victimizing --how does
one go about proving that they used protection... word against word
doesn't seem to work very well. If there was a way (barring contract
or the other things which reduce to word against word) could be dev-
eloped, I'm pretty sure I would support it.

-- 
root@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick)
Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA
Newsgroups: alt.child-support