From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Biological Reasons fo
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 18:26:30 GMT

In article <1992Nov13.194915.5587@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>In article <1992Nov12.230113.26849@nsc.nsc.com>, jrr@nsc.nsc.com (Jerry Roe) writes:
>>>
>>>Stephen, you are being totally unreasonable.  Exactly how would you explain
>>>the situation that my co-worker, Leona, is in?  She and her ex ADOPTED two
>>>children, then when they were babies, he decided to leave her for another 
>>>woman.  She was granted custody, he didn't want it, but he was granted liberal
>>>visitation, which he has been somewhat spotty at taking.  He makes more
>>>money than she does, and in SEVEN YEARS has not paid child support.  Every
>>>time she gets his wages attached for the support payments, he changes jobs,
>>>then she has to go through the whole thing all over again.  
>>>How can you say that 'she alone decided to produce a child?'  They BOTH
>>>adopted these kids!
>> 
>> Sue, you are being logically inconsistent here.  The discussion was about
>> when a woman *gets pregnant* and has total control over the outcome, i.e.
>> whether to abort or not.  You introduced a totally different situation,
>> where two people voluntarily adopted two children and had equal choice
>> in the say-so, then got divorced.  These are two different circumstances,
>> and comparing one to the other is muddying the issue.
>>  
>
>But the issue under discussion is whether a father has to support his 
>children.  It seems to me that the father I describe is not.

Sheesh. Can't you see the difference between voluntary acceptance of
responsibility, and imposed obligations not grounded in any fair accounting
of liability? Prior consent of the one liable makes all the difference. 

>> Stephen's point is correct, as far as I'm concerned, in that women have
>> total control over birth/abortion decisions, and men have virtually none.
>> Therefore it is inconsistent and inequitable to force a man to pay
>> support to a woman who, for example, decides to have a child after she
>> told him she would have an abortion if she got pregnant,
>> 
>> It's the old saw:  "I'm a woman and I want equal treatment, but I'm a
>> woman so I want special treatment."  I would think feminists would be
>> embarrassed out of this kind of thinking, but I guess the draw of the
>> almighty dollar proves too strong.  The whole point of the feminist
>> movement was originally that treatment under the law should be blind
>> as to one's gender, that men should not be favored in business or else-
>> where just because of their gender.  I don't see feminists screaming
>> for equal treatment for men in family court now that they've largely
>> gotten what they want, which leads me to the conclusion that the feminist
>> movement was never about equality, it was about the acquisition and
>> imposition of power.
>> 
>
>Well, as a woman and a feminist and a wife who has been happily married
>to one man for over twenty years now, I consider this remark very insulting.

I don't see why. The point is mainly about _paternity_, i.e. unmarried parent,
child support. Post-separation or post-divorce child support is a whole 
different ball game.

>I've worked jobs for many years where I was not paid as much as the man
>who had the job before me, even though I had more experience and more
>education.  I never considered my fight for equality to have anything
>to do with 'stiffing some man for money', but rather a fight for the
>recognition that I was equally intitled to equal pay.

What does this have to do with paternity child support?

>BUT, I also see too many of the men in this group talking about going
>in to court and it's evident they are going in with an 'attitude'.  As
>a veteran mother of teens, (with the grey hairs to prove it), and as
>a volunteer advocate for troubled teens, it is obvious that some men
>haven't gotten it through their heads that displaying an attitude to
>a person in authority just compounds your problems.

So you recommend that men should quietly go like sheep to the slaughter,
instead of trying to assert their rights as equal?

This is not an "attitude" problem -- this is a systemic injustice/inequity
problem. Fix the system, and the attitudes will follow, magically.

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: talk.abortion