From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Biological Reasons fo
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 02:41:32 GMT

In article <1992Nov15.171529.5616@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>In article <1992Nov15.182630.21953@rotag.mi.org>, kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>> In article <1992Nov13.194915.5587@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>>>>  
>>>> [deadbeat dad sob story]
>>>>  
>>>
>>>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. 
>
>So, there was no prior consent to sex?  The man was raped?  The law looks
>upon consenual sex as being the consent to being a parent.  

The abortion laws do NOT look upon things this way. Why should the paternity
child support laws differ?

>Sigh, we've talked about this before in this group.  

In talk.abortion?

>I'm the mother (and foster mother)
>of a housefull of boys.  I tell my boys that if they get a girl pregnant
>then they are responsible for the child that ensues.  They are told that the
>only safe sex is no sex.  There's always a chance of error in the contrecetives
>and they must take this risk into consideration.  If they don't realize that
>pregnancy happens then they are being stupid.  

Have you also told them that if they are lied to or misled or defrauded about
birth control and/or fertility, that they are STILL "on the hook" legally
speaking? Have you told them that, in theory at least, they're still on the
hook, even -if- they are raped? Have you told them about the "free ride" effect
aka the illegitimate child incentive for women?

>>>In article <1992Nov12.230113.26849@nsc.nsc.com>, jrr@nsc.nsc.com (Jerry Roe) writes:
>>>> 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.
>> 
>
>That was NOT what you said.  You said that' the feminist movement was never
>about equality'.  If that wasn't what you meant then you shouldn't have said
>it! 

*I* most certainly did *NOT* say anything of the sort, Sue. Watch your 
attributions.

>>>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.

No response?

								- Kevin
Xref: sparky talk.abortion:49302 alt.abortion.inequity:5288 soc.men:19841