From: misdeva@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu (Devjani Mishra)
Subject: Re: Child Support
Followup-To: alt.feminism
Organization: Yale University
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:18:12 GMT

In article <BxJ8rF.J63@cs.psu.edu>, beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver)
wrote:
> 
> In article <misdeva-091192070158@morse-college-kstar-node.net.yale.edu> misdeva@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu (Devjani Mishra) writes:
> >In article <1djsrrINNreg@gap.caltech.edu>, peri@cco.caltech.edu (Michal
> >Leah Peri) wrote:
> >> 
> >> The point is *someone* has to pay to raise the children.  It either has
> >> to be the parents (how many single parents can afford to raise children
> >> without help from the other parent?)  or the taxpayers.
> 
> >Too true.  I had a lot of trouble with the DeMoss Foundation commercials
> >("Life.  What a Beautiful Choice.") commercials that were shown on CNN this
> >summer.  For  many women, child rearing is not automatically
> >sunshine-filled and blue-ribboned and Catholic-schooled.  Someone has to
> >pay for it, all of it. 
> > 
> 
> Are you willing to enact a law that says when a woman has a baby
> "without the father's help," that we'll flip a coin to select who
> will be the custodial parent?  (I assume, of course, that you have 
> no sexist prejudice against the ability of men to parent.)

Is this a serious question?  I think custody needs to be decided on a
case-by-case basis.  Formulas fail.  (And no, I have no "sexist prejudice
against the ability of men to parent", as I said in an earlier post).  

> 
> Are the taxpayers still going to pay?  Are you going to pay?
> Are the single mothers going to go to work and pay the single fathers?
> 
> I'll ask before jumping to conclusions: do you have any trouble
> extending "protections"'s iron fist into custody decisions (ie.
> providing custody to women who don't want "the father's help")?

Define "the father's help".  If you mean, do I think women who don't want
child support should be able to have custody, then yes.  

> 
> Do you have any trouble extending "protections"'s iron fist
> into the public treasury to "protect" the womb rather than
> what's in it -- ie., to pay for abortions?

Abortion is a medical procedure.  If I have to pay for appendectomies, I
should have to pay for abortions.   I didn't get to keep my tax dollars
from being used to kill Iraqis, did I?

> >Until we (people, parents, taxpayers, all) have done our best to ensure the
> >safe and healthy upbringing of children *already born*, I will have real
> >trouble with extending "protection"'s iron fist into the womb.   
> 
> You have no trouble extending "protection"'s iron fist into my wallet.

> I'd be happier with your socialism if it meant I, a man,
> could retire to raise my children if I felt like it -- and
> you'd foot the bill for my "freedom to choose."

Look carefully.  I didn't say "let's socialize child care".  What I'm
criticizing is what I believe is an excessive worry on the part of the
anti-choicers on protecting fetuses from abortion-happy women, only to
leave the children they think they're saving to a fate that is usually much
uglier than the DeMoss Foundation commercials.  Unless we have safe homes,
safe schools and safe streets, we are not ensuring the _already born_ safe
childhoods.

> >If a woman wants to have a baby without the father's help, I believe
> >society needs to be equally - not more, not less - supportive of that
> >choice as of the choice to abort.  We need to stop demonizing "welfare
> >queens", and stop looking for quick fixes (forced abortion, Norplant,
> >sterilization - it happens).
> 
> Speak for yourself.

It may be a lot easier, practically speaking, to sterilize women or put
them on Norplant or urge them to abort so that we don't have to reach into
your sacrosanct wallet to deal with the problems of the cities.  The
problems don't go away.  It is inconsistent to focus on the fetus in utero
and go to extravagant lengths to protect it if we only forget about it once
it's born. 

       /-                   Devjani Mishra, Yale University
      /   /                 misdeva@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu
  ___/  _  _   _  ___       diva@minerva.cs.yale.edu    
 /  /   /   | /  /  /
/__/_  /_   |/  /__/_       "What's right is what's left when everything
                            else is wrong." - Robin Williams