From: evansmp@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mark Evans)
Subject: Re: A Modest Proposal: Illegitimate-conception Tax
Followup-To: talk.abortion,misc.legal,alt.abortion.inequity,alt.child-support,soc.men,soc.women
Organization: Aston University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL241235]
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 13:42:02 GMT

Kevin Darcy (kevin@rotag.mi.org) wrote:
: In article <1993Jan17.163155.20964@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
: >
: >And who registers conceptions?  Do men and women register their sex acts
: >to the government when they occur?  
: 
: Every abortion, birth or miscarriage implies a conception; medical 
: professionals would be required to report these. There are certain to be
: some "tax cheaters", sure, i.e. folks whose conceptions go unreported somehow.
: There are tax cheaters now. But would tax cheating be a unmanageable problem?
: Probably not.

Just a well you don't try to register conceptions because a high proportion
of blastaspheres fail to implant or do not produce the right balance of
hormones to halt the menstral cycle.

I think you would need a vary large number of inspectors.

: 
: >Who determines the paternity of a fetus?
: 
: There is no need to determine paternity while the fetus is still in the
: process of gestation. It can be determined later, i.e. after abortion, 
: miscarriage or birth, and then tax payments can be retroactively applied.

I can see civil libetys organisations objecting to this are you going to
have genetic data stored on all your citizens. (remember the mother
may well refuse to co-operate, unless saying who the father is has some
benefit to her, even if it does it is possible that she may be mistaken
or lying)
: 
: >What happens when rich women have secret abortions outside the country,
: >figuring the cost of a plane ticket to Canada is cheaper than paying
: >a graduated income tax?
: >
: >For that matter, I easily see a black market of doctors in this country
: >willing to give secret abortions.
: 
: I.e. yet more forms of "tax cheating". I'm not saying that cheating won't 
: occur, just that the possibility of cheating, in and of itself, is not 
: sufficient reason to defeat a tax-based approach, unless the cheating is
: absolutely trivial to do, which I don't think is the case here (requires an 
: overseas trip, or the necessity to find and induce an unethical doctor, 

depends if a doctors first loyalty is to their patient or to the state?
Do they still take a hypocratic oath?
: 
: Hmmm? The Tax is premised on marital status AT THE TIME OF CONCEPTION, Ted.
: No economic incentive is given to marry _after_ conception occurs, which is
: how I've always understand the term "shotgun marriage".

But you have to prove what time conception occured, you could have marriages
occuring on the posibility of conception. (or even people manipulating their
lover into getting married on a claim of pregnancy)

IMHO a very bad thing.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Evans                                   |evansmp@uhura.aston.ac.uk
+(44) 21 429 9199  (Home)                    |evansmp@cs.aston.ac.uk
+(44) 21 359 6531 x4039 (Office)             |
Newsgroups: talk.abortion