From: kevin@cfctech.cfc.com (Kevin Darcy)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Roe v. Wade for Men!
Date: 8 Oct 92 01:26:12 GMT
Organization: Chrysler Financial Corp., Southfield, MI

In article <1992Oct07.095858.43892@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk> uctlxpd@ucl.ac.uk (Peter Bartlett) writes:
>kellmeye@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (kellmeyer steven l) writes: (in response to my
>comment, following; his alterations of gender, etc, between lines of my
>original comment):
>
>
>>>I'm sorry-- he was FORCED to have sex with her?  If not, he knew what
>>            she                             him?          she
>>>he was getting into, and the risks involved.  He DID know, didn't he?
>>she                                           She                 she?
>>>If not, the fact that his parents never explained the birds and the bees
>>                       her
>>>to him hardly justifies an alteration of the law.
>>    her                                       ^abortion
>> 
>>>peter bartlett.
>
>>I told you this was going to happen months ago.  It doesn't take a rocket
>>scientist to read the logic of society and make a very simple linear 
>>prediction.  This HAD to happen.  It may not succeed now, but unless this
>>society's attitude towards reproduction changes radically, it *must*
>>eventually succeed.  Eventually, if you'll recall, was less than 20 years,
>>according to my earlier predictions.  Anyone care to make wagers on that
>>guesstimate?
>
>This response seems to me totally illogical, but since a couple of people
>have raised it, I shall respond briefly.
>
>It seems to me that the fundamental question about the *availability* of
>abortion involves when life is taken to commence.  If you adopt the "every
>sperm is sacred" approach, then masturbation is murder; if you adopt the
>"when it has left the mother" approach, you have abortion on demand right
>up until the birth is complete.  Various ethical positions and legal 
>positions support various intermediate stages.  That seems to be the real
>issue, an issue quite different from the argument about the need to take
>economic responsibility for ones actions.
>
>If one accepts abortion as a legal option (as I do), the question becomes
>who has control over the decision as to whether to carry the child to term.
>It seems to me that can only be the woman: it is her body, not the father's
>which is directly affected by the choice.
>
>That is a completely different question than dealing with the economic
>consequences of a birth.  Civil law is about holding people to financial
>account for their actions, and I do not see that this branch of civil law
>is particularly distinguishable from others in this regard.  

It is extremely distinguishable from other branches of civil law in that the 
man's liability is based on neither

	a) his negligence 

		or

	b) any COHERENT theory of strict liability

>It strikes me as completely 
>bizarre that men talk about being taken advantage of in this regard.  As
>we have (statistically) larger disposable incomes than women, we can
>afford these payments with much less pain than women.  

You obviously don't understand our child support system -- it is scaled
according to income, much in the same way as income taxes are, so even if a man
might have a large disposable income before being victimized by the system, 
he's not very likely to have much (or ANY) disposable income afterwards. Not 
only that, but this method perpetuates the feudalistic notion that the 
offspring of a wealthy father _deserve_ more financial support than those of a 
poor one, because (presumably) they're from better "breeding stock".

>To suggest that
>the woman somehow gets off totally free in this scenario strikes me as
>out of touch to the point of offensive.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the woman "gets off totally free".
We're just asserting that the penalties levied against men are often
disproportionate to their degree of negligence/carelessness/ignorance/guilt.
In short, that the current laws are unjust. 

								- Kevin
Xref: sparky misc.legal:18708 talk.politics.misc:52001 talk.politics.theory:4540