From: repnomar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Janet M. Lafler)
Subject: Re: Right To Not Support
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 06:41:08 GMT

In article <1992Aug11.192947.16193@sni.ca> dave@silver.sni.ca (Dave Till) writes:

[of a previous post]

>As a thought exercise, I changed "support a child" to "support a victim
>of an auto accident", and "create a child" to "drive a car", etc.
>Using this approach, I modified Ms. Watters' above paragraphs, and got the
>following:
>
>"There have been a number of people who are clearly hurting from having
>to pay accident benefits.  My reaction was not very sympathetic:  if you
>don't want to support an accident victim, don't drive a car.
>
>[...]
>
>"So, basically:
>(1)  you know or should have known how accidents happen.
>(2)  you know or should have known that *NO* accident prevention technique
>	is 100% effective.
>(3)  you know or should have known that auto insurance is not a
>	form of accident prevention."
>
>I don't know whether my analogy is accurate or not, but I toss it in
>as food for thought, and ask a general question:  to what extent should
>a mature adult be responsible for the consequences of his or her misfortunes?
>We all know that life is not fair, but how much of life's unfairness should
>be mitigated by society?

I don't think that the analogy is accurate, mainly because getting pregnant 
is something that people sometimes want to do, whereas having an accident 
is almost never something anybody wants to do.  Biologically speaking, sex 
is for procreation, while having accidents is not the original raison d'etre 
for driving a car.

>[Important Disclaimer:  I am *not* advocating sex without responsibility.
>Given the current structure of society, I, personally, would take
>responsibility for any child I accidentally fathered as a result of
>birth control failure.  If any reader wishes to fire off a "if you
>don't want a baby, for God's sake keep it zipped up" post as a response
>to my article, please keep this in mind.]

Noted.

I guess what I'm wondering is this:  I've heard a number of men here on 
this newsgroup (though not recently, I admit) argue that women ought to 
take full responsibility for practicing birth control.  Their position
was that, since a woman has "all the choices," then she should have "all
the responsibilities."

I've observed that many men behave as though they believed that women 
should take care of buying and using contraceptives.

I've also heard a lot of men on this newsgroup say that they want more
control over whether or not they become fathers.

I have had something like the following conversation with women friends
more times than I can count:

A:  You know, I really hate [the Pill/the diaphragm/the IUD], and 
    It's really irritating that I'm the one that has to [pay for supplies
    /put the damn thing in beforehand/take all the health risks].  I wish 
    that there was a contraceptive pill for men; then he could be the one 
    to take all the responsiblity and risk.

B:  Yeah, I know what you mean.  The problem is, I wouldn't want to leave 
    the whole thing up to him.  I'd feel like I always had to check up on him,     remind him about it.  I'd worry.

A:  Yeah.  It's not that I don't trust him, it's just that I wouldn't feel 
    comfortable not having any direct control over whether we were using
    contraception or not.


What I don't understand is why more men don't feel like this.  

I do know a few men (either via my own knowledge or according to their girl-
friends/wives) who are very concerned about using contraception, want to be 
actively involved in using it, and are willing to share the expense.  However, 
judging by the men I've been with, and by what I've heard from female friends, 
a lot of men are perfectly willing to leave contraception up to women.  The
only women I know of who are willing to do the reverse are the few I know who
have persuaded their husbands to have vasectomies, but since that's a form
of contraception that doesn't need constant vigilance (once it's done, it's
done), it's a little different.  I know that there are women out there who
believe men when they say, "Oh, I'll pull out in time," but my suspicion is
that they're rarer than men who rely on women when they say, "Don't worry,
I'm on the Pill."

I'm curious about what the men who post here think of this issue, and, more
importantly, what they do about it.  Note, I'm not talking about using con-
traception as something you do to protect your partner, but as something you
do to protect yourself.

/Janet

-- 
Internet: repnomar@leland.stanford.edu // GEnie: J.LAFLER
"Turnips care deeply about many things," remarked Rush, appearing suddenly. 
"Turnips are strongly emotional vegetables...."
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