From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Right To Not Support
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 00:23:20 GMT

In article <VIXIE.92Aug17203658@cognition.pa.dec.com> vixie@pa.dec.com (Paul A Vixie) writes:
>[Charles Perez demands...]
>>> Tell me, what happens if that choice is obliterated? When a woman gets
>>> pregnant, she can abort over the man's objections or allow the pregnancy
>>> to progress to term, again over the man's objections. This removes all
>>> of the man's options whether to have a child or not once a pregnancy
>>> has commenced. When all of a man's options are taken away, there can
>>> be no choice left, so how can a man make it.
>>>
>>> Don't duck the issue by saying that the man "made his choice when he
>>> dropped his pants". I have just argued that a woman's unilateral
>>> right to an abortion severs completely the choice to drop his pants
>>> from the choice to have a child. Refute that argument. Don't just
>>> assert that a woman's unilateral right to an abortion has no effect.
>>> Argue the case.
>
>I am going to interpret your imperative writing style as a style issue
>rather than as intentional rudeness on your part.  But it's taking some
>effort, and if it continues, you may find that you've alienated me.

Similarly, I'll interpret your smug, patronizing "you should consider 
yourself lucky to even lick my boots" writing style as a style issue, Paul.

To do anything less would be, well, uncivil, wouldn't it?

>*Did* he have a choice, or didn't he?  I assert that he had at least one:
>had he not "dropped his pants", the woman would not be making the abortion
>decision.  Assuming that a given man in a given situation has the choice
>of whether to "drop his pants" or not, then he definitely has a say in
>whether there can be a child.  If he doesn't want one, he can prevent one
>from being possible.  His choice precedes the woman's abortion choice.

So does her choice to abstain. Those earlier choices cancel each other out.
The only UNILATERAL choice is hers to make. That is the point where, 
according to the regular principles of civil law, his liability would be
released, and her unilateral liability would be incurred, if she so chose.

Of course, paternity child-support doesn't follow normal principles of civil
liability, now does it? It makes this huge exception, based on some confused,
muddled, 19th-century, pre-Roe_vs_Wade notion of what "the best interests of 
the children" are universally.

>However, I feel a little bit uncomfortable arguing it at that level since the
>real issue in my opinion is that any choice the man *could* potentially make
>(use your imagination -- anything goes, for this purpose) that would override
>the woman's abortion choice *would* infringe on her rights of privacy and of
>self-determination.  Since I automatically discount any so-called "right"
>which would infringe on someone else's rights, my response to any claim of
>unfairness made by anyone who is unhappy with a woman's abortion choice is:
>"it's none of your damned business."

Why is it any of the state's business what support arrangements are made
between the partners, as long as the child's basic needs are met?

Why is it any of the state's business who the absent genetic father of a
child is, when the mother declares she can't support the child, and the
decision must be made whether to extend welfare to her, or to take the
child into state custody, or to track the father down like a dog and enslave
him economically?

Seems your fashionable libertarianism is awfully convenient, Paul: you turn
it on and off as it suits your agenda. I say: either get the legislature
TOTALLY out of this issue (thus leaving it to be decided by normal contract
or tort principles), or get it TOTALLY into it, e.g. forcing unwed parents
to give up their children for adoption, moving to a centrally-administered,
needs-based child-support pool, or whatever. This half-assed approach we have
now creates more problems than it solves, IMO...

								- Kevin